Becoming a martial arts god starting from the mortician.

Qi Mansion.

Two tall stone lions guard the entrance.

Master Qi Huaili of the Qi family was waiting at the bottom of the steps early in the morning. He was wearing an expensive white fox fur coat, with his hands tucked into his sleeves, and four stewards standing behind him with their hands at their sides.

Seeing Shen Qi ride in with two armored soldiers, Qi Huaili's gaze first fell on the weapons at the waists of the two soldiers, and then returned to Shen Qi.

A hint of awe flashed in his eyes. He immediately stepped down the stairs and greeted him with clasped hands.

"I'm sorry to trouble you to make this trip in person, sir. May I ask your name?" Qi Huaili asked, his posture humble and his tone respectful.

"Suppressor of Evil, Shen Qi." Shen Qi didn't stop walking, but nodded slightly: "Where is he?"

Qi Huaili hurriedly said, "So it's Lord Shen. Such an unlucky thing has happened in the manor. We wouldn't dare to disturb the Imperial Observatory, but the corpse is really strange. We dare not move it without permission, so we can only trouble you, sir."

Qi Huaili personally led the way. Two armored soldiers from the Astronomical Bureau followed behind Shen Qi, their hands on their swords.

After passing through several hanging flower gates, Qi Huaili lowered his voice and explained the situation in detail.

"The deceased was a member of a collateral branch of the family, named Qi Huaiyi. He was thirty-seven years old. He had his martial vein tested in his early years and it was Ding Shang. In terms of aptitude, he was not considered good, but he had been obsessed with martial arts since childhood and always felt that he should not have only reached this level. He was eccentric and had a strange temper, and he disliked interacting with people. He usually lived in this back courtyard, and it was common for him to not be seen for ten days or half a month. Everyone in the mansion was used to it."

At this point, Qi Huaili's face became somewhat unnatural.

"There are many things going on in the mansion around the end of the year, and the servants are busy, so no one dares to provoke him. Until two days ago, when it was cold, the well rim in the courtyard froze and cracked. This morning, I sent a servant to check if the old well in his courtyard needed repair. When the servant went to the side room, he smelled a faint stench. He pushed open the door and saw that the man had already collapsed in the corner."

Shen Qi asked, "What was the condition of the doors and windows when the body was discovered?"

Qi Huaili hurriedly replied, "The door was bolted from the inside, and the windows were also closed. Later, the servants broke the door open from the outside."

Are there any signs of a struggle inside the house?

"this……"

Qi Huaili hesitated for a moment.

"I only glanced at it from outside the door and didn't dare go in to take a closer look. I only saw that the person was lying rather strangely, but I didn't know anything else."

As they spoke, the group passed through the last moon gate and arrived at the side courtyard.

The courtyard was indeed desolate, with a dead old elm tree in the center, its branches covered with icicles. To the north was a wing room, its doors and windows tightly shut, a layer of white frost hanging from the cracks in the door.

Shen Qi stepped forward and placed his hand on the wooden door.

Push hard.

"Squeak—"

A faint stench of decay mixed with a cold, fishy smell wafted out, and the thin layer of old frost on the edge of the door frame turned even whiter after being stimulated by this cold air.

Qi Huaili and the others stood by the courtyard gate and subconsciously took a half step back.

Shen Qi stood at the threshold, his black robe unmoved.

The internal energy flowed naturally, while the external energy blocked the chilling aura from being more than three inches away.

The two armored soldiers also turned serious.

Their cultivation was not weak, so they could naturally sense that the chill in the room was unusual. It was not the usual winter chill, but a bone-chilling cold emanating from a malevolent aura.

Shen Qi stepped across the threshold and entered the house.

An old bed stood against the wall, with several books, two empty medicine bottles, and an overturned bronze stove scattered around it.

The body lay between the bed and the corner of the wall.

Because the room was extremely cold, like an ice cellar, the body was not in a high degree of decomposition. Only large areas of the skin were bluish, exuding an aura of death.

Shen Qi stopped three feet in front of the corpse, his gaze lowered.

There is no lifeline.

It was completely clean, with nothing above the corpse.

Shen Qi's gaze sharpened slightly.

Having been dead for too long, the threads of life have long since dissipated.

This was the first time he had faced a martial artist's corpse, yet there was nothing to be gained from it, nothing to be read about it.

A hint of disappointment flashed through Shen Qi's mind, but he quickly suppressed it.

Even without the life-sustaining thread, he remains the most skilled mortician in Chengping County.

He stepped forward, squatted down, and carefully examined the posture of the corpse.

Qi Huaiyi's legs were stiff. He seemed to be sitting cross-legged on the edge of the bed, but then his upper body tilted to the left and his head was against the corner of the wall.

His right hand's five fingers dug deeply into the cracks of the blue bricks, his nails broke off, his fingertips were worn raw, and the dark red bloodstains had frozen solid.

He suffered an extremely violent struggle and pain before his death.

Shen Qi took out a thin cloth, placed it between his fingers, and pried open the dead man's stiff jaw to examine his mouth and nose.

There were dark bloodstains around the lips.

A few bits of meat remained between the teeth.

Further examine the neck bone, rib cage, and crown of the head.

The bones were intact, with no dents from blunt force trauma or wounds from weapons. The clothes were neat and showed no signs of tearing.

There were no external injuries.

Shen Qi raised his right hand, placed his palm on the corpse's chest, activated his internal energy, and slowly probed into the deceased's body.

Hot and cold come into contact.

Shen Qi's brows twitched slightly. Qi Huaiyi's meridians were shattered, and his internal organs bore the marks of being torn apart by the cold energy. Especially near his heart meridian, a cluster of chilling, malevolent energy lingered.

The chill has dissipated considerably.

Even so, it can still hurt people.

The servant who vomited blood earlier was struck by this chilling aura.

Shen Qi withdrew his hand and scanned the room with his gaze.

On the inside of the bed, half a page of a book was visible under the pillow.

He reached out and pulled it out. The pages were yellowed; it was a third-rate, fragmented manual of internal martial arts techniques circulating in the market, titled "Minor Cold Technique."

Shen Qi flipped through a few pages.

The pages showed signs of being turned over, and several key points in the flow of the text had been circled with a vermilion brush.

However, the dots look a bit deliberate.

Shen Qi stood up, took the remaining scroll, and walked out of the room.

Upon seeing him emerge, Qi Huaili hurriedly took a few steps forward, but dared not get too close. From a distance of five or six steps, he cupped his hands and asked, "Lord Shen, have you found out exactly how Huaiyi died?"

Shen Qi handed over the book "Minor Cold Skill".

Shen Qi said calmly, "From what I can see, it looks like he was practicing internal energy forcibly, causing the cold energy to flow backward, his meridians to break, and he went into qi deviation, dying from excruciating pain."

Qi Huaili took the tattered scroll, glanced at the title, and his tense shoulders instantly relaxed as he let out a long sigh of relief.

If it's not a revenge killing, then it won't involve the rest of the Qi family. Dying in his own room due to qi deviation is at most a family scandal, as long as it's not a family feud.

"Huaiyi has been obsessed with martial arts since he was a child, but unfortunately his aptitude is only at the Ding-Shang level." Qi Huaili shook his head repeatedly, his tone filled with regret, but even more so with a sense of relief. "I advised him not to force it, but he wouldn't listen and went to practice these low-grade scraps. Alas, it's fate."

He turned and beckoned to the steward, instructing him, "Go, prepare a fine nanmu coffin, and invite a few daring craftsmen to make the body look presentable."

The foreman looked troubled and stammered, "Sir, I'm afraid the craftsmen outside wouldn't dare take this job."

Qi Huaili was taken aback and subconsciously looked at Shen Qi.

Shen Qi ignored him and turned to look inside the house.

The chill in the side room had not yet dissipated.

A half-finished book lay beside my bed.

He went mad from practicing qi cultivation, and his meridians were severed.

On the surface, everything seems reasonable.

But Qi Huaiyi is only a first-class martial artist, so how could he cultivate such a domineering and cold aura within his body?

The killer is someone else.