Chronicles of Celestial Origins

Seeing Tangning disappear from sight, Guan Yu paused for a while, his eyes narrowed slightly, wondering what he was thinking.

Not long after returning to the main room, Yang Shoucheng went to visit again.

"Disciple pays homage to Master Guan."

"Senior Brother Wei, do you have any explanation?"

"This is a letter written by Uncle Wei. He asked me to give it to you alone. Senior Tang was here before, so I avoided it." Yang Shoucheng pulled out a piece of letter.

Guan Yu took the paper, unfolded it, took a look, and then nodded and said: "Tell Senior Brother Wei, I understand."

"The disciple took his leave."

"etc."

"Uncle, do you have any other instructions?"

"Did Tangning take the initiative to find Senior Brother Wei about this matter, or did Senior Brother Wei find him?"

"Uncle Wei sent someone to Hedong County to summon Senior Tang."

"Go ahead!"

"Yes." Yang Shoucheng responded and left.

…

After resting at the hotel overnight, the next day, Tang Ning was invited to the Liangwu Camp Meeting Hall. Inside, Guan Yu sat high in the main seat, and below him there was a thin old man with gray hair on his temples and a late-stage cultivation of the body.

"Fellow Taoist Tang, this is the disciple Zhang Quan who is mainly responsible for investigating the murder case of Shi Qingzhi." Guan Yu introduced.

"Junior has met Senior Tang." Zhang Quan bowed his head.

"You're welcome." Tangning walked over to sit down and said straight to the point, "Fellow Daoist Zhang, I'm here to assist your department in the investigation of Zhang Shilin, the murderer of one of your disciples. Do you have any news from your investigators?"

"Senior, we haven't found out where Zhang Shilin has settled yet."

"I know this. If you knew where he was hiding, you would definitely not wait until now. I am referring to specific clues, such as how Zhang Shilin came to Liangzhou, what was his purpose of killing Shi Qing, and who did he come into contact with?"

Zhang Quan said: "We have not found any clues about how Zhang Shilin came to Liangzhou. What is known now is that Zhang Shilin lost track after entering a space crack when he was serving in the Qingzhou Coalition Army. There is no doubt that he was in The body was taken away by a mysterious person in that space crack, and then he quietly left Qingzhou. "

"It is not easy for a monk of his level to hide. If he appears frequently and wanders around various practice settlements, we will definitely find clues. But so far, nothing has been found. Then there is only one possibility. Over the years, , he has been hiding in a very secretive place and rarely goes out to contact others. "

"We have issued arrest warrants to all sects and families in Liangzhou, but there are no clues. Therefore, we can conclude that after killing Junior Brother Shi, he hid in that secret hiding place again."

"As for why he killed Junior Brother Shi, it was probably to rob Junior Brother Shi of the elixir for attacking Mahayana. Starting from this point, we investigated many people and found the source of the leak, and finally locked it in a secret market."

"It is located in Fufeng County. This secret city is very small. The people who go there are some high-level monks who must at least practice cultivation to participate. This kind of secret gathering will be held regularly. Except for a few organizers, others The personnel are not fixed, and many monks in Liangzhou have participated."

"Senior Tang knows that when one's cultivation has reached the stage of Void Refining and Combination, the needed items are rarely available on the market, and many cultivation items are found on one's own."

"This secret market is a place specifically for high-level monks to trade, including but not limited to the exchange of practice materials, magic weapons, elixirs, and intelligence information."

"This kind of market is not an auction. There is no person who presides over the auction items. All participants trade on their own, and most people will hide their identities. The monks in need will make demands in the inner room and hand them over to the organizer, who will then Put everyone’s demands on the panel.”

"We have found the organizer behind this, who is a senior monk of the Human Chamber of Commerce in Liangzhou. Through them, we learned that one year before Junior Brother Shi Qingzhi was killed, someone in Fang City offered to buy breakthrough Mahayana elixirs or elixirs. Demands for drug-specific information.”

"According to the organizer of the Human Chamber of Commerce, the person who proposed this transaction information was an unknown late-stage integration monk."

"During the three days held in Fangshi, only one participant went to the secret room where he was located for negotiation."

"As for whether the final matter was negotiated, the people of the Human Chamber of Commerce don't know. They are only responsible for organizing gatherings and providing trading venues. Specific transaction matters are negotiated by the participants in secret rooms."

"There are not many people in Liangzhou who have reached the late stage of integration. They are all monks from major sects and aristocratic families. We have investigated everyone one by one, including the late stage monks in the Liangzhou coalition. The suspect must have two sufficient time to commit the crime. First, , he was out at the secret trading place in Fufeng County, and secondly, he was out at the time when he killed Junior Brother Shi Qingzhi.”

"No one met these two requirements, so we identified the person who bought and sold this information in Fufeng County as Zhang Shilin."

Tangning nodded: "What are your plans for the next step?"

"We have already said hello to various sects, aristocratic families, and chambers of commerce in Liangzhou. Once their intelligence agencies find out where strange late-stage integration monks appear, they will contact us. In addition, we are also in various spiritual energy-rich mountain ranges in Liangzhou. The spy has been deployed, and since it is determined that Zhang Shilin intercepted and killed Junior Brother Shi in order to attack the Mahayana elixir, now that he has obtained it, the next step must be to attack the Mahayana realm, which requires a place with abundant spiritual energy. "

"Show me all the files you have on this case."

"Junior has sent someone to sort out the case files and will send them to your accommodation shortly."

"Fellow Taoist Tang, when will the treasure you mentioned arrive?" At this time, Guan Yu asked.

"I have sent someone to pick it up, but it will take a lot of time to go back and forth. Fellow Daoist Wei, I want to visit and investigate the places Zhang Shilin has been."

"No problem. If you need anything, just ask Zhang Quan."

The few of them chatted in detail about the details of the case for a while, and then Tang Ning left the meeting hall and returned to her dormitory.

Guan Yu and Daodezong didn't know who took away Zhang Shilin's body, but he knew very well that this was a strong man who had returned from the abandoned land, and there was more than one person. Such a group of people had not fully exposed their existence for so long after returning to Tianyuan World. , there is only one possibility, they hid in some independent space with abundant spiritual energy to practice, just like those who returned from the abandoned land in the world of the dead.

But they always have to face a problem, and that is the breakthrough in the Mahayana stage. This is no better than the middle and late stages of integration. No matter how powerful their souls are, they must rely on external forces to break through the Mahayana stage from the integration of Dzogchen.

Therefore, they have to look for elixirs outside, unless the person they seize is a Mahayana monk.

Now that Zhang Shilin's people have taken action, I think those who have returned from other abandoned places will also take action, but they haven't been exposed yet, or other people's actions are more secretive and have not attracted attention.

Tang Ning speculated that Zhang Shilin might have acted alone. The reason was simple. If people were looking for the Mahayana breakthrough elixir in small groups, the target would be too big and would easily arouse attention and suspicion.

The strong men who returned from the abandoned land were looking for a passage to the fairy world, and they absolutely did not want to be discovered until their cultivation was restored.

The key was that she didn't know where they were hiding. Tang Ning took out the topographic atlas of Liangzhou, found the location of Fufeng County, and compared them one by one to look for suspicious hiding spots.

Since it is an independent space, it must not be a busy city. It must be an extremely lonely place where few people come and go. Otherwise, the movement of opening the space channel between Tianyuan World and the independent space would have been noticed by people long ago.

…

At night, a disciple brought stacks of files and stacked them three feet high on the desk.

For the next two days, Tang Ning immersed himself in the case files, carefully searching for every tiny detail. Thanks to the extensive and meticulous investigations conducted by Daode Sect disciples, he quickly found a suspicious point.

One of the investigation reports recorded an incident. Before Shi Qingzi was killed, a monk from the Human Chamber of Commerce in the early stage of integration in Liangzhou disappeared and was later confirmed to be dead. The Human Chamber of Commerce investigated this, but did not investigate. to any result.

The missing monk's surname was Lu Mingtao in the early stages of integration. According to the investigation, he had no interaction with Shi Ziqing. Therefore, the investigators did not know much about it. They only asked him during the investigation of his chamber of commerce and recorded this sentence in the file.

The time of his death was two years before Shi Qingzi was murdered.

After a search, the Human Chamber of Commerce found no clues, so they shelved the matter and it has now been settled.

A large power generally would not devote a lot of energy to the death of a mid-level and high-level person for a long time. In fact, if Shi Qingzi was not Wei Wentong's disciple and Wei Wentong was not putting pressure on him, Liang Wuying would not be able to deal with such a murder case now. It also maintains such a high-level investigation team.

Obviously, the missing and murdered Lu Tao did not have a strong backing in the Human Chamber of Commerce. Therefore, after the Human Chamber of Commerce sent personnel to investigate to no avail, they shelved the case and it became an unresolved matter.

It is understandable that this matter did not attract enough attention from the Daodezong investigation team. They did not know the origin of Zhang Shilin. Even the fact that Zhang Shilin had been taken away by a mysterious person was only made after receiving news from Qingzhou recently.

And this investigation report found out the situation just after Shi Qingzi's death.

The disappearance of a disciple from the Chamber of Commerce who had nothing to do with Shi Qingzi would naturally not attract much attention from the Daode Sect's investigating disciples, but Tang Ning had a vague feeling that the two incidents might be related.

It's not that he is more professional and thorough than the investigators, but that the information he knows far exceeds that of Tao Te Sect disciples.

Different perspectives will inevitably lead to differences in the direction of looking at problems.

The Daodezong investigation team believes that Zhang Shilin has been dormant in Liangzhou since he disappeared from Qingzhou and should have a better understanding of the situation in Liangzhou.

Tang Ning felt that this was not necessarily the case. After Zhang Shilin was taken away from his body, he must have gone to an independent space to practice. It was not until recently that his cultivation reached the state of Dzogchen and he needed to break through the Mahayana elixir before he started to have contact with outsiders.

According to known clues, it can be known that Zhang Shilin obtained information from the secret market in Fufeng County about Shi Qingzhi possessing the elixir for breaking through the Mahayana realm, so he ambushed Shi Qingzhi.

There is a question here. Who sold this information to Zhang Shilin in the first place? Secondly, where did Zhang Shilin learn about this secret city in Fufeng County.

Daodezong spent a lot of time, energy and manpower focusing on investigating who betrayed the information, but ignored the second point.