THE YILING MATRIARCH

Chapter 26 : Haunted House of Yueyang Chang

Before either Meifeng or Wangji went on to further discover the truth about the severed body parts, they inspected each of the bodies that had been left behind to see whether or not a corpse had been fake body parts to quell any angry spirits; sure enough, two legs were found after partially stripping the bodies.

Huiasang looked as if the whole ordeal would cause him to faint in embarrassment, having heard Meifeng offer to take off the dead men's clothing before Wangji himself stopped her to do it himself. The Nie clansman, of course, was left to explain a few details concerning the bodies. "When my brother p-passed away at such a young age, he didn't have e-enough Qi, so I helped choose what corpses would be buried with him. Usually the past sect leaders chose them when they are still alive, but I only kept whichever corpses were complete with their limbs. I have no idea how they got here."

During this long investigation, tracking down the severed body, it was very likely they would only know the whole truth once they pieced the body parts together with the soul; aside from the fact they knew the limbs belonged to a man with a tall physique and an equally muscular body, there was nothing else that could point them to the identity of the corpse.

Thankfully, due to the left arm pointing their way due Southwest, they were able to follow the hands direction towards an average sized town called Yueyang.

Entrance into the city was easy enough, portraying themselves to the men at the front gate as wandering Cultivation partners. Meifeng had, since they began walking the main path through town, had been speaking of where they would start their search for what had happened to their poor 'friend' when Wangji interrupted her long conversation. "Meifeng, how is the curse mark?" His narrowed gaze landed on her left leg, where the previously agitated curse had previously climbed up to her upper thigh. The amount it had claimed in such a short while had honestly panicked him a lot, and Meifeng's dismissive attitude about it 'fading a bit' did not help. "How much is 'a bit'?"

Meifeng often felt comforted by how protective and caring Wangji was of her, having the man constantly hover over her as if she were made of glass and break at the slightest touch, but it did get annoying at times. Wei Meifeng might've come back incarnated into another's body, but she was still the same woman she had been alive the first time who wouldn't think twice in punching someone in the face because she could.

So, thanks to his drama, she would put him through living hell and tease him until all the Lan clan's teachings left Lan Wangji due to the strain. Putting on her best 'innocent-maiden' expression, Meifeng batted her eyes at him while teasingly pulling at her shirt. "Should I take my clothes off and show you, Hanguang-Jun?"

This did not have the effect she expected, with Wangji actually agreeing she did so once they could return to their room in the inn, causing Meifeng's whole face to burn in embarrassment. This must've been another way Lan Zhan had changed; before she had to try as hard as she could to disgust the honorable Lan Wangji to get away with things, but now all her efforts were actually being accepted with open arms.

Their travel through town was quiet once again, only speaking up as they spoke about who could be behind this mess, and so far they both came up with two groups. The first, their identity unknown, were the people responsible for the arm that had attacked Mo Village and killed all those people. The second, also unknown, was responsible for sewing the limbs they had found thus far to fake bodies to perhaps throw off anyone who pursued the issue; the trouble both had gone through to prevent themselves from being found out was too high for the culprit being someone who didn't know what they were doing, as well as seemed to know more than they should.

Their mission now would be, according to Wangji, to find the Cultivational sect of the area and ask them if anything suspicious had happened recently.