New Year’s Day, Noon.
Su Yan and the Crown Prince rode together in a carriage, escorted by the Imperial Guards, on their way to the Court of Diplomatic Rites.
The Northern Surveillance Bureau’s guards had arrived earlier on imperial orders and were now examining the scene.
As soon as Su Yan entered through the moon gate, he saw Shen Qi standing beside the snow-covered carp pond, dressed in a brilliant crimson robe embroidered with golden flying fish.
Shen Qi typically wore muted colors—blue, gray, and ash—to avoid bloodstains showing and because of his reserved temperament. Even the bed drapes in his room were a dull crow-blue. Today, in honor of the festival, he wore bright red, which made him look especially spirited and even softened his usual stern expression.
Su Yan stared at him appreciatively without blinking. The Crown Prince, seeing this, was instantly irritated. He yanked Su Yan’s sleeve hard. “What are you looking at? Eyes glued to him like that—what’s so great about him!”
“Don’t rip my official robes,” Su Yan protested quietly.
The Crown Prince let go of his sleeve—only to slip his hand inside to hold Su Yan’s hand.
“Look over here. At me.” Zhu Helin puffed out his chest to show off his brand-new ceremonial uniform: a brilliant red robe with a golden crown, crimson tassels, and a deep red sash. The jade belt at his waist cinched tightly, hinting at a slender waist and broad shoulders—clearly developing into a commanding physique. “Aren’t I handsome?”
Su Yan chuckled. “Very handsome. Red suits you best.”
At the same time, he tried awkwardly to pull his hand away. He didn’t know where this brat had picked up this clingy habit of interlocking fingers—if anyone saw, what would they think?
The Crown Prince refused to let go and even whispered a threat: “Don’t pull away. We’re going to walk over there hand in hand so he can see!”
Su Yan didn’t have the strength to break free, so he reluctantly agreed, “Fine, fine. I won’t look at him. I’ll go look at the four corpses. That’s the real priority.”
Only then did the Crown Prince reluctantly release his hand, shooting Su Yan a warning glance: “I’m watching you—no flirting with wild men.”
Amused and exasperated, Su Yan brushed back his sleeves and walked toward the crime scene, where they had pulled the bodies from the pond. Zhu Helin immediately followed.
The Northern Surveillance Bureau guards bowed upon seeing the Crown Prince and greeted him formally. Zhu Helin waved them off impatiently. “Keep doing your job. Don’t mind me.”
As Su Yan passed Shen Qi, they exchanged a brief glance. Shen Qi nodded slightly but said nothing.
The four bodies of the Oirat envoys had been stripped completely bare. Previously frozen in the ice-covered pond, they now lay pale and bluish on the stone-paved ground—an eerie sight.
The Northern Surveillance Bureau had its own coroner, who was now conducting an autopsy. The preliminary finding was that all four had entered the water alive and died from cold and drowning. Aside from that, there were no visible injuries on their bodies.
Their clothes—both inner garments and outer robes—were scattered by the pond. Su Yan examined them and found the arrangement resembled someone removing their clothing and dropping them at their feet: undergarments at the bottom, outer robes on top. Nearby were footprints matching the shape of cowhide boots.
“In this kind of freezing weather, no one would undress and enter the pond unless they were forced,” an Embroidered Uniform Guard said.
Another Embroidered Uniform Guard added, “But people of the northern desert are known for their fierce temperaments. If someone forced them to commit suicide, they would’ve fought back in fury. Yet there’s not a single mark of struggle on their bodies or in the area. It’s just too strange.”
Shen Qi silently inspected the bodies, then looked around rooftops and walls nearby, apparently searching for footprints or traces left by the killer—but found nothing. A light snow had fallen during the fourth watch of the night, erasing any signs that might’ve been left.
Su Yan also found the situation bizarre. How could the killer make these four willingly enter the water without resistance? He racked his brain, recalling all the crime shows, mystery novels, even that forever-case-solving grade-schooler Conan from his past life…
Drugs? Hypnosis?
While this era wasn’t technologically advanced, the level of martial prowess here had exceeded Su Yan’s expectations. He used to think inner energy and qi blasts were just fictional tropes from wuxia novels—until he saw Jinghong Zhui in action, who could release sword qi and even cast illusion techniques. Was this truly history, or just a parallel world with its own bizarre settings?
He couldn’t be sure, but a thought struck him: could these four have encountered a killer skilled in some kind of mind-control technique? Whether through drugs or martial arts?
The coroner, after getting approval from superiors, moved one of the bodies indoors for a more thorough examination, particularly of the stomach contents. When they removed and analyzed it, they found only frozen chunks of meat and cloudy wine. They mixed it into meat and fed it to a dog, but the dog remained lively, showing no ill effects.
As the sun dipped toward the west and night approached, there had been no progress investigating the scene, the pool, the room, or even the bodies. The Embroidered Uniform Guards were growing increasingly agitated.
A palace eunuch advised the Crown Prince to return to the palace to rest, but the crown prince pointed at Su Yan and said, “Even this frail scholar hasn’t complained of exhaustion. Why should I rest?”
Su Yan, wrapped in a fox-fur cloak, paced under the eaves. The Crown Prince held a red lacquered hand warmer with gold dragon and phoenix patterns and shoved it into Su Yan’s hands. “It’s too cold, and you’re already delicate. Hold this to warm up.”
At the same time, he shot a hostile glance down the steps at Shen Qi, thinking: That guy looks sinister and unpleasant. Disgusting. Su Yan took care of him day and night when he was recovering from torture—don’t tell me that ‘care’ extended to the bed? Probably not… back then he was half-dead, how could he have done anything? But later on… who knows? Su Yan did keep meeting with him a lot before leaving the capital. And just a few days ago, didn’t Chu Yuan say someone broke into the Plum Immortal Springs and fought with Su Yan’s personal guard? That intruder—could it have been Shen Qi?
“Ha!” Su Yan suddenly exclaimed, startling Zhu Helin.
“Did you think of something, Qinghe?” Zhu Helin asked.
Su Yan nodded and walked over to Shen Qi, whispering a few instructions. Although Zhu Helin wasn’t happy about it, he didn’t interrupt since it was clearly about the case.
After listening, Shen Qi ordered the other three bodies brought into the autopsy room. The doors and windows were sealed tightly, several large charcoal braziers were brought in and lit to raise the temperature significantly.
The coroner hesitated. “Corpses keep best in the cold. If we heat the room too much, decomposition could begin in a day or two.”
Su Yan replied, “We don’t need that long. Just warm them for half an hour to soften the bodies. Have a few people stand watch and observe carefully.”
Not even half an hour later, something unusual happened. A small amount of thawed blood began to leak from the ear canals of all four corpses—very little, easy to miss if not looking closely.
“Could there be injuries inside the ears? I remember a case where the killer used a long nail through the ear canal to pierce the brain—it was nearly overlooked because the nail was buried so deep,” the coroner said, using a lamp to inspect the ears but finding nothing lodged inside.
Su Yan said, “It wasn’t a nail. I suspect it was high-frequency sound waves that ruptured their eardrums and caused internal bleeding. But the bleeding was minor and frozen—only heat could make it flow.”
“High-frequency… sound waves?” the coroner asked blankly.
Su Yan didn’t answer and instead continued pondering: High-frequency waves damage hearing, but can’t control behavior. More likely, it was infrasound. Its frequency is close to the brain’s natural rhythm, and when it causes resonance, it can overstimulate the brain—leading to madness. That would explain why they undressed and jumped into freezing water. The principle is simple—just lower the frequency below 20 Hz—but does this era even have the technology to make an infrasound generator?
Or was this another one of those bizarre martial arts techniques?
He carefully chose his words and asked Shen Qi, “Are there any martial arts in the jianghu that use sound to attack? Like, say, the Lion’s Roar, Ocean Tide Melody, or Soul-Seizing Voice Transmission Technique—things like that.”
Shen Qi gave a half-smile. “The techniques you mentioned, Lord Su, I’ve never heard of.”
Su Yan looked slightly embarrassed and disappointed.
But Shen Qi continued, “However, sound-based martial arts do exist. In the previous dynasty, there was a zither master who called herself ‘The Maiden of Fifty Strings’. They said her music could injure enemies from afar. And during the early years of our current dynasty, there was the Tianyin Sect, which used flutes, xiao, and xun as their weapons.”
“And what’s become of this Tianyin Sect now?”
“They no longer exist. About twenty years ago, they were wiped out during jianghu strife.”
Su Yan asked, “So, you’re saying that right now, there’s almost no one in the martial world who can use music as a form of attack?”
Shen Qi thought for a moment. “There may still be surviving members of the Tianyin Sect, or maybe the sect has perished, but the techniques were passed down. Hard to say. The Northern Surveillance Bureau isn’t as meticulous with intelligence on the martial world as it is with political affairs.”
Su Yan thought to himself, Don’t I have a martial world expert at home? I should just ask him.
“You think the death of the envoy from Oirat is connected to sound attacks?”
“I can’t say for sure. But it’s definitely a suspicious angle worth investigating.”
Shen Qi frowned. “If this is connected to a martial sect, then the mastermind behind it is even more alarming. They would not only have influence over martial forces but also understand the political landscape inside and out. Otherwise, how could they strike down the Oirat envoy at such a critical moment—right when tensions between our court and Oirat were rising? It was too precise to be coincidence.”
Su Yan nodded. “That’s what worries me too. I have a hunch that someone is playing a much larger game. Oirat, the Great Ming court, the martial world… they’re all just stars on his chessboard. Heiduo Shaman, the missing Oirat prince, the young lord who was nearly assassinated, the crazed Blood-Eyed Assassin… maybe even more players we don’t yet know about—they’re all his pieces.”
Zhu Helin, who had been listening with great interest from the side, finally couldn’t help but speak. “Using the entire nation as a board and factions as pieces—whoever’s behind this has bold ambition. And that’s terrifying.”
Su Yan said, “Do you know what’s scariest in a game of chess? When you follow every move thinking you’re blocking all his options—only to realize at the endgame that each of his steps formed a web, and you’re trapped right in the center, with your fate sealed in an instant.”
Zhu Helin imagined it and shuddered slightly, but it only ignited his fighting spirit. He smiled and said, “Then let’s play. Let’s see who comes out on top in the end.”
Seeing that the sky was darkening and the wind was picking up, signaling snow again, Shen Qi said to Su Yan, “Let’s call it a day. Go home, eat, and rest. We’ll resume tomorrow.”
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