A thousand enlightenments in one night, starting from being a menial apprentice.

Chapter 459 Lurking
The group entered the ice cellar of the Dali Temple.

A faint white mist began to emerge from their mouths and noses.

It was already autumn, and the temperature in the ice cellar was frighteningly low. However, these people all had cultivation skills, so the surrounding cold air could hardly penetrate into their bodies. It was just that the water vapor from their breath would turn into mist when it encountered the cold.

This ice cellar was originally used by the Dali Temple to store corpses. In the closed space, the stench of corpses lingered for a long time and was so thick that it seemed impossible to dissolve.

Ge Hengtai personally led the strange old man surnamed Guo to a corner of the ice cellar.

He took out the tinder he carried with him and lit a candle on the stone wall. In the cold air, the candlelight shrank like a flickering eye.

I saw a rectangular wooden box placed on the ground not far away, illuminated by the candlelight.

The wooden box was slightly longer than a human body, but it did not look like a coffin at all because it was flatter and less than one-third of the height of a coffin.

Ge Hengtai pointed at the wooden box and said to the old man surnamed Guo, "It's right there!"

The old man's eyes moved, and he walked over with the black iron box on his back.

Jiang Zhe, Lu Geng, Yang Yi and others were standing not far away, all staring at the flat wooden box on the ground.

The old man walked to the box, put down his black iron box, opened the lid of the wooden box, and then his old and turbid eyes jumped. There was nothing but a pile of rotten meat in the wooden box, and one could barely distinguish the upper body, lower body and head.

After opening the lid, a strong stench came out, choking the old man and making him cough a few times.

But after three coughs of "cough, cough, cough", the old man calmed down completely. He took out the key, opened the black iron box at his feet, and took out a small pair of tweezers.

Jiang Zhe, Lu Geng, Yang Yi and others were standing not far away. The flat wooden box was put down on the ground again. From where they were standing, they could see the contents of the wooden box quite clearly.

In the dim candlelight, it was clearly a pile of rotten meat...

Soon after the wooden box was opened, the stench of corpses around seemed to be stronger. Yang Yi was fine, but Jiang Zhe and Lu Geng both felt a little nauseous and had already used their internal energy to enter a breath-holding state.

The old man half-knelt there, fiddling back and forth between the wooden box and his black iron box...

He used tweezers to pick up some rotten meat from the wooden box, put it into a bowl of amber liquid, and observed the changes in the rotten meat.

After a few breaths, a hint of doubt flashed in the old man's eyes.

He took out a brown porcelain bottle from the black iron box, sprinkled some medicine powder into the bowl containing the rotten meat, observed again, and found that there was still no reaction.

The old man used tweezers to pick up some pieces of meat from all over the pile of rotten meat in the wooden box and threw them into the bowl...

In the blink of an eye, about an incense stick of time had passed, and the old man was still squatting there busy, but sweat had begun to seep out of his forehead, which had several wrinkles on it.

Jiang Zhe's expression changed from calm at the beginning to anxious.

He remembered the old man saying that if things went as planned, the results would be out in a short while.

Jiang Zhe hesitated for a moment, but still walked over, leaned forward and asked softly, "Pharmacist Guo, what's going on? Have you found anything?"

The old man was holding a green porcelain bottle. When he saw Jiang Zhe talking, he turned his head, glared at him, and said coldly, "Why don't you come?"

The muscles on Jiang Zhe's face twitched and he stepped back awkwardly.

After Jiang Zhe left, the disgust in the old man's eyes disappeared and he regained his calm. He slowly unscrewed the stopper of the green porcelain bottle in his hand and poured a blue-black liquid into the bowl in front of him.

The liquid entered the bowl, and a faint green smoke rose from the mouth of the bowl and dissipated...

Jiang Zhe and Lu Geng were holding their breath and did not smell anything, but Yang Yi smelled a strong aroma, and his nose twitched. The aroma was a strange aroma of rich flowers mixed with meat.

"This scent is not very toxic, but it has a certain hallucinogenic effect. Don't smell it too much!"

The old man's hoarse voice suddenly sounded in the dimly lit and cold ice cellar. Yang Yi couldn't help but tremble in his heart, and immediately entered a state of holding his breath.

Time passed by bit by bit, and Jiang Zhe was becoming more and more impatient, but he did not go to ask the old man again. However, he could not help pacing in this silent space.

His anxious footsteps echoed in this strange environment like the sound of ghosts from hell.

Jiang Zhe suddenly stopped and looked at Liu Shushan who was standing behind the crowd, and asked, "Shushan, how long has it been?"

Liu Shushan was stunned for a moment, glanced at the old man who was still squatting in front of the wooden box, and said, "Brother, I estimate that it has been about an hour..."

At this moment, the old man suddenly stood up, let out a long sigh, and wiped the sweat from his forehead with a worn towel.

When Jiang Zhe saw the old man stand up, he immediately leaned over and asked tentatively, "Master Guo, is there any result?"

"Well, there is a result." The old man put down the towel and replied.

"How is it?" Jiang Zhe asked the old man and subconsciously glanced at Lu Geng not far away.

The old man replied hoarsely: "He is not poisoned!"

"What?!" Jiang Zhe thought he had heard it wrong.

The old man said again in a clear voice: "Li Shensi is not poisoned!"

A faint smile appeared on Lu Geng's face. At that time, Duan Rong's determined eyes flashed through his mind. He thought to himself: This kid really has some skills.

"You must be making a mistake, right?" Jiang Zhe's voice became noticeably louder due to shock.

His mission was to kill Duan Rong and to link it to Zhu He, but the premise of all this was that Li Shensi died of poisoning! When discussing this at Qingling Peak, Ge Rushong and the others were very sure of this.

Jiang Zhe was influenced by this and almost believed that this was the fact, but now he was slapped in the face in public and he was indeed unable to react for a while.

The old man snorted coldly, glanced at Jiang Zhe with contempt, and said, "My work is done, so goodbye!"

After the old man finished speaking, he mounted his black iron box and strode away.

"You..." Jiang Zhe looked at the old man's back and felt angry.

But he quickly calmed down. This Pharmacist Guo was personally selected by the elder of the Medicine Pavilion, Sun Fujia, so there was absolutely no mistake. This meant that the corpse was indeed not poisoned.

Jiang Zhe looked at the wooden box not far away, his eyes flickered, and suddenly he turned his head to look at Ge Hengtai and asked in a deep voice: "Master Ge, are you sure this body is Li Shensi's body?"

Ge Hengtai had also heard what the pharmacist surnamed Guo said just now. His face was not looking good at this moment. When he heard Jiang Zhe asking him, he immediately clasped his fists and replied: "Your Excellency, I have sent my trusted followers to guard here day and night. This is indeed the body of Li Shensi!"

"This..." Jiang Zhe turned his head and looked at the pile of rotten meat in the wooden box again, and was immediately caught in a mess...

"Since it was Li Shensi's body, why was it checked to be non-toxic?"

At this moment, Jiang Zhe was really at a loss.

If Li Shensi had not been poisoned, not only would it be hard to know how to judge his case, but even the actions of Ge Rushong and others in the Council of Elders would now seem like a joke.

Could it be that they were wrong from the very beginning? !

Duan Rong was sitting by the window on the second floor of a teahouse.

From here he could see the gates of the Privy Council.

While sipping his tea, Duan Rong glanced at the gate of the Privy Council diagonally opposite from time to time.

After a while, a tall figure walked out of the gate of the Privy Council, stretched himself beside a tall stone lion, and then slowly walked down the stone steps.

This person was none other than Zhu Peng, the Privy Councilor of the Privy Council.

Duan Rong looked at Zhu Peng coming out, smiled slightly, slapped a piece of silver on the table, then stood up and went downstairs.

He came here specifically to wait for Zhu Peng.

He was sure that this boy would never work properly in the yamen and would run away as soon as he reported for duty.

When Zhu Peng walked down the stone steps, a clerk from the Privy Council had already brought his horse over from the corner gate. Zhu Peng mounted the horse, waved to the clerk, then sat on the horse with half-closed eyes and leisurely rode away along the street.

Zhu Peng walked to the shade of the tree at the corner of the street, and suddenly a man flashed out from behind the big tree, which scared Zhu Peng. But when he looked closely, he found that it was Duan Rong. Zhu Peng pulled the reins on the horse and said with a smile: "Don't you live in my seventh uncle's villa? How come you suddenly appeared here?"

Ever since Duan Rong moved into Zhu Zhengfu's villa, Zhu Peng had never visited him once. It was not that he didn't want to see Duan Rong. To be honest, he had enjoyed the several times he had spent with Duan Rong.

He just didn't want to visit Zhu Zhengfu again!

Duan Rong stood under the tree, hands behind his back, and said with a faint smile: "Of course I am waiting for you here."

"wait for me?"

"Yes. It's boring to live in that villa. I miss your summer house. Can you treat me to a meal in the summer house?"

Zhu Peng glanced at the clouds in the sky. As the saying goes, every time the autumn rain comes, the weather gets colder. In this late autumn weather, the air was getting colder. In such cold weather, he had already stopped the waterwheel in front of the house.

If someone else had asked him this, he would have thought that the other person was crazy. However, because it was Duan Rong who said it, no matter how unreasonable it was, he didn't dare to fight back. The titles of Star Picker and Duan Leishen were real.

Zhu Peng asked, "In this kind of weather, you want to eat in the cool room?"

"Yes!" Duan Rong said with certainty, "It's quiet in the cool room."

The summer house is adjacent to the pond, with a broad view and an unobstructed view of the surroundings. Duan Rong was attracted by the environment of the summer house.

"Okay!" Zhu Peng saw that Duan Rong was not joking, so he immediately agreed.

Zhu Peng jumped off his horse, led the horse to Duan Rong, and said, "Come on, the horse is for you to sit on."

Duan Rong didn't hesitate and directly mounted Zhu Peng's mount.

Duan Rong sat on the horse, and Zhu Peng personally led the horse for Duan Rong. The two of them walked along the street, turned into the alley, and went to Zhu Peng's mansion.

After returning to the mansion, Zhu Peng ordered the kitchen to prepare a meal. He personally heated a pot of rice wine, brought a plate of boiled beef and peanuts, and went to the cool room.

The waterwheel was not turning, and there was no sound of water splashing around the summer house. It was even quieter. In the pond, the lotus leaves were half dead...

The two drank rice wine while looking at the autumn scenery in the garden.

The hot dishes were served soon. Duan Rong picked up a piece of steamed fish with chopsticks. The meat was very tender. He sipped a cup of rice wine and suddenly looked at Zhu Peng and said, "Go get someone to call Zhu Cheng."

Zhu Peng was startled and asked, "What?"

Duan Rong asked, "Why? You called him, but he didn't come?"

Zhu Peng said: "That's not the case. But the boy must be very busy recently. If you ask him to drink, he will definitely not come."

Duan Rong said: "Just tell him you have something to ask and ask him to come."

Zhu Peng glanced at Duan Rong, and suddenly felt that Duan Rong was really in trouble, because he knew that Duan Rong never joked, and would never ask them to drink together for no reason.

Zhu Peng immediately called his confidant and asked him to go to the Dali Temple to ask Zhu Cheng to come over.

After about an incense stick of time had passed, Duan Rong and Zhu Peng had already finished their meal and the whole place was in disarray, and Zhu Cheng finally came in.

Zhu Cheng looked a little unhappy. Before he even stepped into the summer house, he looked at Zhu Peng inside the summer house from the steps and shouted, "What's the matter? You're so eager to call me over..."

When Zhu Cheng walked to the door of the cool room, he saw a person sitting opposite Zhu Peng. He looked closely and found that it was Duan Rong.

Zhu Cheng immediately stepped forward and knelt down, shouting, "I pay my respects to you, sir!"

Zhu Peng was stunned for a moment. He didn't know why he always forgot to bow every time he saw Duan Rong. When Zhu Peng saw Zhu Cheng prostrating himself, he was about to slide off the stool and kneel down.

Duan Rong kicked him from under the table, then stared at Zhu Cheng at the door and said, "Zhu Cheng, please get up. Today, we are only talking about our personal relationship, not about who is superior or inferior."

"Yes, sir!" Zhu Cheng stood up upon hearing that.

Duan Rong said with a smile: "Come, Zhu Cheng, sit here! However, you are a little late. We have almost finished cooking the hard dishes."

Zhu Cheng sat in front of the desk and said, "I don't know if it was the master who called me. I came here after I dealt with some things in the government office."

Duan Rong picked up the wine pot and poured a glass of wine for Zhu Cheng, saying, "I know you are busy. If there was nothing, I wouldn't have called you."

Zhu Cheng took the wine and drank it all in one gulp. Then he sat there with his head lowered, waiting for Duan Rong to speak.

Duan Rong said, "Put aside the work you two are doing and follow me for the next few days."

Zhu Peng asked, "What are you doing?"

Duan Rong said: "Catch the spies in Shenyun Mansion."

Zhu Peng asked in bewilderment, "What spy? Whose spy?"

Duan Rong glanced at the silent Zhu Cheng and said, "Do you still remember the Zhu Shizhong case half a year ago? Those craftsmen were poisoned to death by your temple supervisor Zhou Wei in the Dali Temple prison."

Zhu Cheng poured himself a glass of wine, poured it down his throat, and said, "And Zhou Wei was also killed."

"The clue was cut off right there." Duan Rong said, "In fact, I know who killed Zhou Wei."

When Duan Rong said this, Zhu Cheng suddenly looked up and looked at him in shock.

He had been secretly investigating the matter for the past six months, but had no clues. Moreover, Duan Rong's words "actually" meant that he knew it at the time.

Zhu Cheng stared and asked, "Who killed him?"

Duan Rong did not answer him, but looked at him and asked: "Zhu Cheng, can you trust the people under you?"

Zhu Cheng said, "Because of Zhou Wei's incident, I checked all my subordinates and transferred all the suspicious ones. The remaining ones should be trustworthy."

"Really?" Duan Rong chuckled and looked noncommittal.

Zhu Peng seemed to hesitate for a moment, and said with some difficulty: "Our dean has assigned me other tasks..."

Duan Rong said, "I have already asked someone to inform Chen Shanmeng and your Lin Zhiyuan that you two will be recruited in the next few days. You don't have to worry about your work."

Zhu Peng then smiled and said, "That's good!"

At the entrance of the Dali Temple, there were many outer disciples who came to make appointments today. The pockmarked man was busy at the entrance until the afternoon before he slowly got up. He looked through the documents in his hand and found that everyone on the list had been there. He then tidied up the documents on the simple table, held them in his arms, and turned to enter the Dali Temple.

He walked along the corridor and soon came to his small room. He put away his documents, prepared to rest for a while and drink some tea.

Just then, there was a knock on the door.

The pockmarked face showed a change of expression, and he walked over and opened the door. He saw Zhu Cheng, the chief of the Dali Temple, standing at the door with an expressionless face. When he saw him open the door, he said, "Officer Hu, I have something to talk to you about. Is it convenient?"

The pockmarked man was startled for a moment, then he understood and said, "Please come in, sir!"

Zhu Cheng stepped through the door and looked around.

The pockmarked man pulled out a round stool and said, "It's a small place, please sit down, sir!"

Zhu Cheng glanced at the round stool, but stood there motionless, and asked coldly: "Hu Liyuan, how many years have you been in the Dali Temple?"

The pockmarked man smiled and said, "I forgot the details. It must have been five or six years."

"Really?" Zhu Cheng said, "Then you are really hiding deep!"

Zhu Cheng suddenly turned around and stared at the pockmarked man. The pockmarked man's smile froze on his face and said, "Sir, I don't understand a word you said."

Zhu Cheng leapt up and slapped the pockmarked man's dantian with his palm.

He used all his strength when he attacked, because Duan Rong had already told him that although this pockmarked man looked weak, he was actually at the third level of the True Qi Realm, which made him one of the top masters in the secular world.

(End of this chapter)