After transmigrating into the book, I helped my mother reconcile with her divorced husband.

The granary is on fire, and thick smoke is billowing up from underground.

Gu An ordered his subordinates to go and check. The subordinates crawled into the tunnel and emerged in a short while. They poked their heads out like groundhogs, their faces covered in dust.

Gu An frowned and asked if anyone was still in the tunnel. His subordinate shook his head, saying he hadn't heard any cries for help.

They were all probably looking for Madam Lu to see a doctor. Just then, a woman dressed as a man ran over carrying a child.

"General, please, please save my husband."

"you are?"

Gu An frowned, wondering where this woman had come from. However, his subordinate noticed that the mole on the woman's lip looked somewhat familiar.

“He Sheng, aren’t you He Sheng, the son of He Laonian? How come you’ve become a woman? And where did this child come from? Let me tell you, we have a rule here: you can only pick up children, you can’t buy children, and you certainly can’t kidnap children. Where’s He Laonian? Why isn’t he with you? Oh right, He Laonian is the one who manages the granary.”

The subordinate turned his head and looked toward the billowing smoke.

"Could that old man He still be inside?"

The woman nodded: "General, I beg you, save my husband, save my old man."

Without asking further questions, he quickly sent men to rescue the people from the tunnel. His subordinate had barely crawled in when he crawled out again, exclaiming, "No, it's full of smoke inside, we can't see anything, and it's incredibly choking!"

Upon hearing this, the woman grew even more desperate and, clutching her child, tried to crawl into the tunnel. She wanted to die with He Laonian'er, taking her child with her.

When Lu Zhiyuan brought Lu Yun over, Gu An and his subordinates were struggling to stop the mother and son who wanted to commit suicide.

"what happened?"

"It seems the grain warehouse downstairs is on fire."

"A granary? There's a granary beneath this Taoist temple?"

"It's not that there's a granary under the Taoist temple; we moved the granary underground," someone explained. "We're all people who don't live in the light of day, and we rarely move around on the surface. Except when we're on missions, we spend most of our time underground. We hid the grain down there for safety, but we never expected it to catch fire down there."

"No, it wasn't a fire, it was Old Nian who started it," the woman named He Sheng explained. "Old Nian heard you were leaving and was afraid you wouldn't need him anymore, so he drank a few cups of rice wine..."

He overturned the candlesticks and burned the grain. He chased me and the child out and locked himself in the granary. I tried to save him, but he wouldn't open the door. The smoke made the child cry loudly, so I had to take the child out first.

"How long has it been burning?" Lu Zhiyuan gestured to Lu Yun to stop those who wanted to go down into the tunnel.

“One…one hour.” He Sheng sobbed.

I originally intended to put the child down and go back to save Old Man Nian, but for some reason, the child cried as soon as I put him down. I tried to find someone to help, but I couldn't find anyone. Left with no other choice, I came to the general's place.

“With such thick smoke, it’s hopeless in an hour,” Lu Zhiyuan said. “Do you know the exact location of the granary? Find shovels, find hoes, and bring all the tools you can handle.”

He Sheng panicked, rushed to Lu Zhiyuan with the child in his arms, and said in a trembling voice, "What do you want to do? Do you want to bury our old man alive?"

“Let me correct you, it wasn’t burying him alive.” Lu Zhiyuan rubbed her hands together. “With so much smoke, unless he’s already escaped, he’s definitely dead. I told them to get some tools. First, to block up the tunnels around the granary to prevent the fire from spreading. Second, to lift up the soil above the granary to turn the smoldering fire into an open flame. If we’re lucky, we might find a whole body.”

Upon hearing the words "complete corpse," He Sheng went mad. Ignoring the wailing child in his arms, he lunged at Lu Zhiyuan. Lu Yun and Gu An rushed to block him. Lu Yun was knocked aside by Gu An, while Gu An's face was scratched and bleeding profusely by He Sheng. With the hideous scars on his face, he looked even more like a demon crawling out of the underworld.

Without Gu An having to say a word, those who had received treatment spontaneously took care of He Sheng.

Gu An's dozens of men worked together for over an hour to extinguish the fire underground. The fire had been rather strange. According to He Sheng, the drunken He Laonian had started it himself, and that He Laonian had pushed her and the child out of the granary. She had tried to rescue them, but He Laonian ignored her.

The so-called granary was actually a tomb chamber, about ten square meters in size. Grain was piled up around the perimeter, and there was a table in the center with an oil lamp on it. The floor of the tomb chamber was earth, and compacted earth at that; even if there had been spilled yellow wine, it would have been impossible for such a large fire to have started.

Gu An: "Perhaps the candle set the table on fire?"

Lu Zhiyuan did not argue, but had someone bring over a table exactly the same as the one in the granary. First, she poured yellow wine on the table legs, and then deliberately knocked over the candles near the table legs.

The fire is out.

Lu Yun: "That's grain! The grain was packed in burlap sacks, and burlap sacks are flammable. The candles lit the burlap sacks, and the burlap sacks lit the grain inside. Once the grain caught fire, the fire started."

Gu An shook his head: "The grain was set on fire, but not all of it."

The grain in the granary had all been moved out, sacks and baskets placed side by side not far from them. Some of the grain had been burned in the fire; most was blackened by the smoke. As the locals said, it could still be eaten after washing and drying.

"The fire was one thing, the burning of the grain was another. The strangest thing was the body of He Laonian. According to He Sheng, he was determined to die and wanted to perish with the grain in the granary. His body was most likely to be in two places: one was behind the door, where he sat quietly waiting to die after seeing He Sheng and the child off; the other was near the grain, because he wanted to perish with it. But where did he die? He died near the table, and along with his body, besides the wine pot, there were bowls, plates, and two pairs of chopsticks that hadn't been completely burned."

"Was Old He having dinner with someone before he died?"

"To be more precise, He Laonian was having dinner with He Sheng before he died."

"Farewell meal?" Gu An spat twice. "Look at my mouth, I meant a farewell meal."

"What kind of food it is doesn't matter, what matters is what you ate?" Lu Zhiyuan rolled up her sleeves: "Let's find a place, I need to perform an autopsy."

He Laonian was not burned to death, nor was he choked to death by smoke. Any normal person would instinctively struggle in such an environment, whether to avoid the scorching flames or to shield themselves from the choking smoke, and would have made corresponding gestures and movements.

He Laonian's body was too calm, too calm to be someone who had died in the fire.

He Sheng is undoubtedly the prime suspect in He Laonian's death by burning, but accusation requires evidence, and the evidence lies with He Laonian himself.

"Madam means that He Sheng killed He Laonian? Isn't she He Laonian's wife? She and He Laonian had an infant child, how could she..." Gu An stammered, "How can He Sheng be He Laonian's wife? She's He Laonian's son! This is all messed up, completely messed up!"