Chapter 176: Make a Move?

The servant followed Mei Yanyu's gaze, and at that moment, Li Musheng raised his eyebrows slightly, glancing sideways in Mei Yanyu's direction.

Seeing this, Mei Yanyu and the servant behind him immediately shifted their gazes away without a trace.

Li Musheng narrowed his eyes slightly; fine, so someone was jealous of his appearance again.

"It's not just that; there is something very wrong with Hu Rui'an and his group. Hasn't Elder Mu noticed that, up until now, the ghosts from the Tianjin Guard branch office have never made a move?"

Mei Yanyu appeared to be investigating casually in all directions, while secretly continuing to transmit his voice.

Hearing this, the servant frowned tightly, pondered for a moment, and replied:

"This matter is indeed abnormal. These past days, this old man has been keeping watch over the Tianjin Guard branch office, yet I have never uncovered any clues. The three of them clearly provoked those ghosts, yet they have survived until now; there must be a reason unknown to us behind this."

"However, we can temporarily observe for a while and see whether anything will actually happen to them today."

Mei Yanyu pondered briefly, swept his gaze over Hu Rui'an and the others, and then nodded.

Hu Rui'an and the other two knew less about the details of the ghostly occurrences at the Tianjin Guard branch office than Mei Yanyu did.

Consequently, they were unaware that the pattern for those ghosts killing people was generally to strike before noon.

At this moment, their hearts were filled with unease, but the tedious work of investigating the case diverted most of their attention, so they were not overly worried and instead appeared quite calm.

Time passed quickly; because the four great martial arts families were besieging the Lady Murong family, there were basically no people on the streets of the prefectural city today.

Li Musheng and his group had remained almost entirely within the prefectural yamen; it was not until dusk, as the sun set, that the coroners and members of the Six Six Shanmen finished examining and recording over one hundred corpses, which were then transported to the mortuary for temporary storage.

Furthermore, the traces throughout the entire yamen had basically been surveyed, and the prime suspect ultimately confirmed for this yamen murder case was undoubtedly the Lady Murong family.

However, due to the Lady Murong Fu's current special situation, Yao Lingyuan, the Gold-Plated Chief Constable of the Six Six Shanmen, temporarily had no intention of seeking them out for questioning.

"Your Highness has worked hard supervising us officials today; why not accompany this humble servant to the Six Six Shanmen for some tea and snacks?"

After finishing the work, Yao Lingyuan approached Li Musheng and eagerly offered the suggestion.

Hearing this, Li Musheng snapped out of his thoughts regarding modifying the Azure Dragon Nether Scripture.

During this period, although he outwardly bore the responsibility of supervising the three parties as an Imperial Prince, in reality, he did not care much about this matter and basically left it to Hu Rui'an to handle.

Li Musheng had been silently perfecting the Azure Dragon Nether Scripture; as he continued to deduce, he had discovered earlier that if the Azure Dragon Nether Scripture were altered according to a certain line of thought of his, it seemed possible to achieve the absorption of the special power within the Fire Qilin blood.

Li Musheng had devoured Fire Qilin blood and knew clearly that the substance was indeed somewhat domineering; ordinary people simply could not withstand it.

He had relied on overwhelming force to forcibly absorb the power within the Fire Qilin blood, but if the Azure Dragon Nether Scripture were improved, allowing him to simultaneously and easily absorb both the Azure Dragon true qi and the Fire Qilin blood, that seemed like a good choice.

Therefore, in recent days, Li Musheng had been working in this direction; and since the Azure Dragon Nether Scripture was originally an extremely rare divine art, its contents were all exceedingly exquisite and profound, with relatively few flaws.

It was much easier for Li Musheng to improve it than to create a martial art from scratch, and in just these few days, he had already made significant progress.

"No need."

Li Musheng waved his hand, rejecting Yao Lingyuan's suggestion, while a hint of regret clearly flashed across the other man's face.

This Gold-Plated Chief Constable's ability to solve cases was not poor, but his connections and relationships were somewhat lacking, which was why he had never had the opportunity to be transferred to the imperial capital.

Now that he finally had a rare chance to connect with the Eighth Imperial Prince of Great Li, he naturally wanted to seize it; however, Li Musheng clearly gave him little opportunity.

At the same time, seeing that the affairs at the yamen had reached a pause and that the hour had arrived at dusk, Shen Anran and Lady Murong Xiaoya also prepared to depart.

Today, Shen Anran had been pondering the Slaying Deer Blade Art that Li Musheng had pointed out to her last night; although Li Musheng had taught only a few moves, it was enough for her to comprehend for quite some time.

And although Lady Murong Xiaoya said verbally that she was not worried about the Lady Murong family, in her heart she was clearly still somewhat apprehensive, especially since the Six Six Shanmen and the Tianjin Guard had now labeled the Lady Murong family as the prime suspects in the murder case of over one hundred people at the yamen.

Her inner worry became increasingly obvious; several times she could barely sit still and wanted to return to the Lady Murong Fu, but remembering Lady Murong Hong's instructions, she ultimately stayed behind to accompany Li Musheng.

"Let's go."

At this moment, Li Musheng swept his gaze over Hu Rui'an and the others, called out, and signaled.

Hearing this, Shen Anran hurriedly followed, while Lady Murong Xiaoya's heart clearly showed some eagerness.

Hu Rui'an, Wu Shang, and Cheng Zhong exchanged glances; after finishing all the work regarding the yamen case, the three of them seemed to finally remember again the fear of being dominated by those ghosts.

However, the confusion in their hearts was now even greater.

Because they discovered that the rumors of ghosts haunting the Tianjin Guard seemed to be mistaken; throughout the entire day today, they had not seen any ghosts make a move.

Moreover, they were still alive and well; not only did the three of them show not the slightest sign of being strangled, but after being busy all day, they had not even seen a single ghostly shadow.

Although nothing had happened, Hu Rui'an frowned, his expression shifting uncertainly.

He hurriedly instructed Wu Shang and the other to fetch the carriage, while he himself scanned the area once more and finally walked in the direction where Mei Yanyu was located.

Seeing Hu Rui'an approaching him, the expression on Mei Yanyu's face appeared extremely unusual.

Had he stayed almost the entire day in this prefectural yamen today for the sake of the yamen case?

Naturally not; or rather, that was only a very small part of his reason, after all, the death of Prefect Zhu Ziming had nothing to do with him.

Even if there had been some entanglement between the other party and the Mei family, all evidence and traces had been completely destroyed before Hu Rui'an and the others arrived; even if they investigated to the bottom, it would be impossible to find anything.

Although Mei Yanyu was also somewhat puzzled as to why Zhu Ziming had been killed, he naturally would not pay excessive attention to someone who was already dead and no longer held any value.

The reason he had stayed at the yamen, from morning until dusk, was actually primarily for the sake of Hu Rui'an and the other two.

He merely wanted to see those ghosts reveal themselves and make a move against Hu Rui'an and the three others in front of so many people within the yamen, whereby they might seize the opportunity to gather more information about the ghosts.

But what Mei Yanyu truly did not expect was that after accompanying them and standing there for so long, he had not seen even half a ghostly shadow, let alone any attack.

Earlier, when he saw that the ghosts had not appeared even after noon, although this broke their long-standing pattern of killing, he still felt that the other party would inevitably make a move in the afternoon.

However, he had clearly overthought it.

(End of Chapter)