Zhu Muchen was also astonished upon hearing this and turned to look at Elder Lu. “Elder Lu, did someone die in the villa?”
Elder Lu quickly smiled and said, “Young Master Chen, don’t listen to this—your senior brother is joking. This is a proper villa—how could anyone die here?”
Zhu Muchen glanced at Elder Lu, then at Mo Hua.
Elder Lu probably wouldn’t lie to him, but his little senior brother would never be wrong.
Back in the Taixu Sect, everything his little senior brother said and arranged, no matter how absurd it sounded, had never been wrong.
Zhu Muchen said, “Elder Lu, could it be—something happened that you don’t know about yet?”
Elder Lu sighed. “Young Master Chen, don’t worry. Yunyi Villa is only this big—how could something happen without my knowledge?”
Seeing that Elder Lu didn’t seem to be lying, Zhu Muchen was uncertain and turned to look at his little senior brother’s expression.
Mo Hua said firmly, “Someone definitely died.”
Otherwise, underworld emissaries would not appear at Yunyi Villa.
“And—” Mo Hua’s gaze sharpened. “Maybe quite a few people died.”
One or two lonely ghosts wouldn’t mobilize four underworld emissaries.
Moreover, these four underworld emissaries had heavy yin energy, and one even had ox horns, indicating they had some cultivation.
Though they couldn’t do anything to him, they could easily take the souls of ordinary cultivators, even Golden Core cultivators.
Four underworld emissaries acting together meant there had been many deaths nearby, mostly unnatural rather than natural.
Elder Lu, under the pressure of Mo Hua’s gaze, remained calm and said, “Master Mo, you are joking. No one died. I manage this Yunyi Villa; such a fatal incident could not happen.”
Mo Hua pondered for a moment, knowing Elder Lu was an old hand, and shook his head. “Elder Lu, human life is a grave matter. If not investigated, when the Dao Court Department looks into it—”
Elder Lu said coldly, “Coincidentally, my Zhu family has several judicial officers in the Dao Court Department. Why don’t I have them come and investigate?”
Mo Hua raised an eyebrow and said gently, “It would invite criticism to have your own family’s judicial officers investigate such a matter. Coincidentally, I also know some judicial officers sent by the Dao Court. How about I invite them to look into it?”
Mo Hua emphasized the words “Dao Court.”
Hearing “Dao Court,” Elder Lu broke out in a cold sweat. Then he looked at Mo Hua and sneered, “Master Mo, you are Young Master Chen’s senior brother and a guest of our Zhu family. Doing this—probably isn’t appropriate—”
Mo Hua was taken aback and hesitated, thinking of his little junior brother Zhu Muchen.
Unexpectedly, Zhu Muchen didn’t care and said seriously, “Elder Lu, my little senior brother is right. If someone really died, it should be investigated.”
His little senior brother couldn’t tolerate any sand in his eyes.
Hearing this, Elder Lu inwardly groaned. Was this surnamed Mo so skilled at bewitching people?
The young master of the Zhu family was almost brainwashed into a little fool by him.
Could this Master Mo be some kind of demon in human skin?
And why was he so concerned about this matter?
Elder Lu frowned deeply.
Mo Hua, observing his expression and reading his thoughts, softened his tone. “Paper can’t wrap fire. The more you cover things up, the bigger the problem becomes.”
Zhu Muchen nodded in agreement. “Elder Lu, just tell us the truth.”
Elder Lu was troubled. But with a scheming Master Mo and an innocent Young Master Chen, he had no choice. After thinking for a moment, he sighed and said, “Some people did die.”
Mo Hua’s eyes moved. “Who died?”
Elder Lu shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“I don’t know their identities. They were just some refugees.”
“Refugees?” Mo Hua’s gaze condensed.
Zhu Muchen was also surprised. “There are refugees nearby?”
As a young master of a noble family, he had been well protected and had never encountered so-called “refugees” in his life.
He had never thought refugees could be right beside him, possibly dying near him not long ago.
Elder Lu said, “They weren’t local refugees. They probably drifted over from a few hundred li away.”
Zhu Muchen asked, “Why did they become refugees?”
This question was too naive, but since it was their young master asking, Elder Lu replied patiently, “Farmers live off the land, but harvests depend on the heavens.”
“Droughts, floods, locust plagues, famines—and also gambling, debt, and other man-made disasters. When they can’t make ends meet and can’t survive, they sell their fields.”
“Once they lose their land and can’t make a living locally, they have no choice but to become refugees.”
Zhu Muchen’s eyes dimmed. “How pitiful.”
Elder Lu sneered softly. “Young Master Chen, you are young and naive and don’t know the dangers of the world.”
“These refugees are not pitiful at all—some are even detestable.”
“After losing their fields, they want to reap without sowing. They drift around like locusts, stealing, robbing, and even attacking farms. Murder and robbery often happen. They are hardly better than a mob of ‘evil people.’”
“So,” Mo Hua said coldly, “you killed them all?”
Elder Lu was startled and quickly said, “How could that be? To put it bluntly, these evil people are like rats to me—killing them would dirty my hands and stain the villa’s threshold.”
“Then what did you do?” Mo Hua asked.
Elder Lu said helplessly, “I only ordered the guards to drive them away.”
He spoke truthfully. “Since Young Master Chen was coming to Yunyi Villa, I naturally couldn’t let these refugees defile his eyes or endanger his safety.”
“These refugees, when starving, would do anything—I had to be on guard.”
Although Elder Lu was acting for his sake, Zhu Muchen still frowned and felt an inexplicable discomfort.
Mo Hua said, “Then these refugees—didn’t die?”
Elder Lu said, “They died.”
Mo Hua’s gaze sharpened.
Elder Lu said, “The day before you and Young Master Chen arrived at the villa, these refugees, about thirty or forty of them, all died.”
Mo Hua’s pupils contracted. “How did they die?”
Elder Lu frowned and shook his head. “I really don’t know.”
“A few days ago, this group of refugees came to harass the estate. They were starving and stealing and robbing. I subdued them and then ordered the guards to drive them more than twenty li away to a barren wasteland.”
“But I was worried they would cause trouble, so I sent someone to check on them the next day.”
“But when they looked, they found all the refugees dead in that wasteland.”
Mo Hua’s expression darkened.
Even Zhu Muchen was stunned. “All—died overnight?”
Elder Lu nodded. “There was no one alive in the wasteland. And the deaths were strange—there were almost no flesh wounds on the bodies, but every face showed terror, as if they had seen something frightening before death.”
Zhu Muchen asked, “And then?”
Elder Lu sighed. “I found it unlucky and didn’t want these corpses to disturb your enjoyment, Young Master Chen, so I ordered them to be buried in another wasteland twenty li away.”
Zhu Muchen sighed, sympathetic but unsure what to say.
Mo Hua thought for a moment and then said, “Where are they buried? Take me to see.”
Elder Lu was taken aback. “Now? At night?”
Mo Hua nodded. “Now. There’s no time to lose.”
Death scenes usually leave traces. If we delay too long, changes might occur and all clues could be lost.
Elder Lu hesitated, clearly unwilling to go.
Zhu Muchen also said, “Elder Lu, let’s go take a look.”
Elder Lu’s expression changed, and he quickly said, “No, Young Master Chen cannot go.”
How could he let Young Master Chen come into contact with such base people and filthy places?
Besides, it was deep night and a rural area—danger was likely.
If anything happened to Young Master Chen, his position as elder would be unstable.
“No, absolutely not,” Elder Lu insisted.
Zhu Muchen put on a stern face. “I must go see. If you won’t go, Elder Lu, then I’ll go with my little senior brother.”
Elder Lu looked troubled.
Mo Hua said, “Take advantage of the night. Bring some men, and we’ll go and come back quickly to see what happened.”
Seeing Elder Lu still hesitating, Mo Hua added, “Killing thirty or forty people in one go—even if they were refugees—is no small matter. If they kill refugees today, they might attack Yunyi Villa tomorrow. Don’t you want to find out who did it?”
Elder Lu frowned, obviously sharing this concern.
“Unless,” Mo Hua said, looking at Elder Lu, “these refugees were killed by you and your men. That’s why you’re trying every way to stop us from going.”
Elder Lu was startled. He looked up and saw Young Master Chen’s gaze toward him was now suspicious. He inwardly cursed:
This Master Mo was a master of sowing discord, with honey on his lips and a sword in his heart.
Elder Lu sighed. “Fine, I’ll take you. But we’ll only take a quick look and not stay long.”
Mo Hua hummed in agreement.
Zhu Muchen also nodded.
Then Elder Lu, in the dead of night, selected about a dozen guards, took the best and fastest carriage, and left Yunyi Villa.
Among these guards, four were Golden Core cultivators. With Elder Lu, it was a relatively strong guard force.
In a small place like Yunyi Villa, Golden Cores were not that common.
Even in a large family, Golden Cores were considered mid-to-high tier, a considerable combat strength.
Moreover, this group included an outlier like Mo Hua.
Zhu Muchen himself was also a Golden Core, so generally, their safety was assured.
Though Elder Lu was worried, he couldn’t overcome Young Master Chen’s stubbornness, especially fearing Mo Hua’s slander, so he had to compromise.
In the night, the guards drove the carriage.
Elder Lu, Mo Hua, and Zhu Muchen sat inside the carriage.
As they traveled, Elder Lu suddenly recalled something and looked at Mo Hua, puzzled. “Master Mo—how did you know someone had died near Yunyi Villa?”
Mo Hua thought for a moment, feeling that honesty was best, and said, “Last night, an ox-headed underworld emissary from the underworld came to see me. I heard it from them.”
Elder Lu was stunned, then gave an awkward smile, thinking this Master Mo was a master bullshitter who couldn’t be trusted at all.
He must have been out of his mind to ask for the truth from him.
Zhu Muchen was also momentarily dazed, his thoughts wavering between “My little senior brother is amazing, he can talk to underworld emissaries” and “Is my little senior brother pulling my leg?”
Mo Hua remained calm. He was used to people not believing him when he told the truth.
But from Elder Lu’s expression, it seemed he truly didn’t know much about the underworld affairs in Kun Prefecture.
Perhaps the refugees’ deaths and the underworld emissaries’ incursion really had nothing to do with him?
Mo Hua’s eyes flickered, and he said no more.
The carriage traveled along the path in the night and soon reached the destination.
Mo Hua got out and saw that the night was as dark as ink, the crescent moon cold overhead, and the surroundings were a gloomy wasteland.
In the middle of the wasteland lay a large patch of freshly turned earth, heaped up like a mass grave.
Mo Hua turned to Elder Lu and asked, “You buried them like this?”
Elder Lu said helplessly, “It was rushed.”
It was already good enough that he had buried them. If it weren’t for fear of the corpses defiling Young Master Chen’s eyes, he wouldn’t have bothered even if they rotted in the open.
Mo Hua scanned the surroundings with his divine sense, perceived something, and looked a bit surprised. He said to Elder Lu, “Dig them out.”
Elder Lu frowned. “Do we really have to dig?”
Mo Hua nodded. “Dig. How can we examine the bodies without digging them up?”
Zhu Muchen also nodded. “Dig.”
Elder Lu sighed and turned to instruct, “Men, open the grave and dig out the bodies.”
“Yes, Elder Lu.”
The guards left two to guard Zhu Muchen while the others used iron knives and shovels to start digging the grave.
In the pitch-black night, a group of cultivators dug up corpses in the wasteland. The moonlight was cold, and occasional mountain winds blew, carrying unknown low sounds. The atmosphere was eerie.
Before they had dug long, a sudden change occurred.
Something shot out from the mass grave—it looked like a person, or a corpse—and lunged at Zhu Muchen.
This “thing” had been buried in the soil.
But strangely, neither Zhu Muchen and his guards nor even Elder Lu had sensed it before.
Caught off guard, Zhu Muchen panicked.
His cultivation wasn’t weak, but he disliked fighting and rarely went out, so he seldom encountered such sudden dangers.
Elder Lu was also taken by surprise.
But before he could react, Mo Hua lightly tapped, and a water prison descended out of thin air, binding that thing in the darkness tightly to the ground.
Elder Lu looked at Mo Hua with surprise, then at the black shadow. Enraged, he reached out to slap it to death.
But Mo Hua said, “Stop.”
Elder Lu stopped and looked at Mo Hua.
“Let’s first see what it is,” Mo Hua said.
Elder Lu, with a grim face, withdrew his hand.
Mo Hua slowly walked up. In the moonlight, he looked at the thing that had sprung out of the darkness. It turned out to be a young man, his face covered in mud, deathly pale in the moonlight, not looking human.
Not only Mo Hua but even Elder Lu was taken aback and frowned deeply.
Zhu Muchen was stunned. “Is he—a person?”
As soon as Zhu Muchen spoke, the deathly pale young man’s eyes blazed with immense hatred. His voice hoarse, he said, “You beasts! You all deserve to die! You killed my parents, killed my little sister—beasts! You all deserve to die!”
His voice was wretched and desperate, chilling in the darkness.
Elder Lu frowned. “This kid—is he also a refugee? He’s alive? How did we not find him when we buried them?”
Mo Hua looked at the young man’s pale face, feeling an indescribable strangeness, and slowly fell into thought.