Records of Mysterious Things in the Southern Dynasties

Chapter 229 The Useless Truth

After being promoted to deputy team leader, Ren Yuan's job did not change much. He still worked like a slave for the Gou Chen Si, on duty one day, patrolling one day, and resting every ten days. This cycle repeated over and over again, and time passed quickly.

Of course, he had to deal with some cases from time to time, but they were all small cases such as the resurrection of the dead and the evil spirits. They were not difficult at all, and naturally it was difficult to get merit. This made him a little anxious, not for the promotion to captain, but because the next time he was promoted, he would be able to get the much-needed Five Apertures External Pill...

In the blink of an eye, it was April. One evening, Ren Yuangang had just returned from patrolling with his team when he was called aside by the Fifth Dimension.

"A bit bored lately, right?" the Fifth Dimension asked with a smile.

"Yes, a little bit." Ren Yuan nodded.

"I'll take you to do something exciting tonight." The Fifth Dimension whispered, "Do you dare?"

"Going to that kind of place?" Ren Yuan asked with wide eyes, "Just the two of us?"

"Well, you can't take Nangong or A Yao with you to that kind of place." The Fifth Dimension nodded.

"Aren't you going to bring Deputy Captain Zu with you?" Ren Yuan asked.

"That big mouth, we definitely can't take him with us." said the Fifth Dimension.

"Isn't this inappropriate?" Ren Yuan whispered.

"I'm just taking you there to broaden your horizons. It's nothing special," the Fifth Dimension said with a smile, "What's inappropriate about that?"

"Okay." After a fierce ideological struggle, Ren Yuan finally nodded in agreement.

~~
Diwuwei left as soon as he said he would. He and Ren Yuan changed into casual clothes, rode out of the yamen on horseback, and headed straight out of the city.

As Ren Yuan watched the Qinhuai River pass, he felt vaguely that he might have been thinking in the wrong direction. It was not until he followed the Fifth Dimension out of the city that he was sure that he had been thinking in the wrong direction.

The Fifth Dimension looked at him mischievously and asked, "Are you thinking about something else?"

"..." Ren Yuan rolled his eyes at him and didn't answer. He thought to himself what a bad taste this was, causing him to struggle mentally for such a long time.

"Haha, I don't dare to really take you to that kind of place. If A Yao finds out, I won't forgive him." The Fifth Dimension laughed and patted his shoulder, saying, "But I guarantee that this trip tonight will be worthwhile."

"Where are we going?" Ren Yuan asked.

"Go see the emperor's eldest grandson." The Fifth Dimension stopped keeping the topic in suspense.

"The eldest grandson of the emperor?" Ren Yuan was stunned for a moment and said, "Wasn't he just buried at the beginning of the month?"

"Yes." The Fifth Dimension said with a smile, "If he is not buried, we have no right to see him."

"The owner of the building thinks there is something fishy about his death?" Ren Yuan looked at the fifth dimension and wondered how big the doubt must be to make the owner of the building unable to forget it.

"Yeah." The Fifth Dimension said, "The child's death was too coincidental. It's hard not to have too many thoughts."

"I have a guess. Let's verify it today." He said in a deep voice: "Examine the child's body."

"Okay." Ren Yuan nodded. He roughly understood the fifth dimension's idea.

The two men rode their horses to Niu Shou Mountain, twenty miles south of the city.

Because children who died young could not be buried in the ancestral tomb, the crown prince was buried in Niu Shou Mountain.

Niu Shou Mountain was named because its shape resembles a pair of ox horns. The mausoleum where the emperor's eldest grandson was buried was naturally located in the center of the mountain with the best Feng Shui. However, the mausoleum of the emperor's grandson who died young was very ordinary in design. There was no seal or tree, and there were no mounds or steles. Therefore, it took only two months from the start of construction to the burial.

Moreover, these tombs are all simple burials, without any gold, silver or jade burial objects, so as not to suppress the soul of the child and prevent it from being reborn.

Therefore, tomb robbers would not visit such tombs at all, and there was no need for a garrison to guard them. Only a dozen households of grave keepers were arranged at the foot of the mountain to clean and worship the graves regularly. When Ren Yuan and the others entered the mausoleum, it was already the middle of the night. It was pitch black all around, and only the howling of wolves could be heard from the forest...

The fifth dimension took out colored sand from the deerskin bag and found the specific location where the emperor's eldest grandson was buried by recreating the burial scene.

The two men walked to the top of the tomb, and the Fifth Dimension grabbed Ren Yuan's arm and disappeared into the ground out of thin air.

The next moment, the two appeared in the tomb...

When Ren Yuanyun opened his third eye, the situation in the tomb became clear at a glance. He saw a small coffin placed on the stone platform in the middle.

"Please don't blame me, Your Majesty's grandson. We are doing this for your own good." Diwu Wei walked to the coffin and muttered a few words, then waved his sleeves and lifted the two layers of the coffin lid.

The remains of a baby wrapped in a yellow bundle appeared before the two men.

Ren Yuan took one look and said in a deep voice: "This child did not die of natural causes."

"How do you mean?" asked the Fifth Dimension.

"After a normal person dies, the three souls return to heaven, but the seven spirits do not leave the remains. It usually takes three years to gradually dissipate, but it's been less than three months." Ren Yuan said in a deep voice.

"The soul is completely destroyed." The Fifth Dimension asked, "What kind of disease could be so severe?"

"No disease has this effect. It requires the soul to be slashed and the spirit to be destroyed." Ren Yuan sighed, "Who has such a big grudge against a child?"

"We'll know after an autopsy." The Fifth Dimension reached out and began to feel the bones.

Soon he made a discovery and said to Ren Yuan, "Come and see his ribs."

Ren Yuan leaned closer to take a closer look and saw that the right chest of the corpse had normal twelve ribs, but the left chest had only eleven.

"The same happened to Donghun Hou..." Then the Fifth Dimension said in a deep voice: "After capturing Donghun Hou, we carefully examined him and found that he was missing a rib, which had just been broken."

"This child's ribs were also broken by someone." Ren Yuan whispered.

"Yes." Diwu Wei took out a handkerchief and wiped his hands carefully, then asked, "What was the purpose of Prince Yuzhang sending people to rob the tomb of Marquis Donghun?"

"He wants a bone of Donghun Hou." Ren Yuan replied.

"Now it all connects." Diwu Wei said in a deep voice: "Prince Yuzhang wanted a bone from Marquis Donghun, and as a result, Marquis Donghun was left with one bone missing. And now Prince Yuzhang's son is also missing a bone, and this child died an abnormal death."

After a pause, he said in a cold voice: "So, it can almost be concluded that the child's bones are also in the hands of Prince Yuzhang."

"What does he need so many bones for? To make soup?" Ren Yuan said speechlessly.

"It's too stuffy here, let's go outside and talk." Diwuwei stopped talking, closed the coffin lid again, and left the tomb with Ren Yuan.

~~
On the way back, the Fifth Dimension told Ren Yuan a story:

"During the Three Kingdoms period, there was a man named Chen Ye. His brother was a merchant who traveled across the oceans by ship. One summer, a plague broke out on the ship, and all the people on the ship died of the disease."

"The ship drifted on the sea for many days. When it reached the shore, all the bodies had already rotted and were difficult to identify." The Fifth Dimension continued:
"Just when the government and the family were at a loss, Chen Ye said, 'I heard that relatives are connected by blood,' and he cut his wrist and dripped blood onto the bones. The blood seeped into one of the bones, and Chen Ye hugged the bone and cried, 'This is my brother.'"

"Other family members followed suit and found the remains of their loved ones." The Fifth Dimension sighed and said, "From then on, 'identifying relatives by dropping bones' became a common method for finding relatives' remains in wartime."

"What does the owner of the building mean?" Ren Yuan asked, "Xiao Zong is trying to recognize his kinship with Donghun Hou by dripping bones?"

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(End of this chapter)