Mysterious Lotus Casebook

Book Two - Yipin Tomb

Wind, frost, winter snow, towering fir trees.

This was the tomb of Emperor Xicheng of the previous dynasty.

A mountain with a radius of 50 miles had been transformed into a circular treasure top for the emperor, with perfect fir trees planted on it. beneath the treasure top, there was a grand palace built, known in history as the Xiling Mausoleum, though the local people often referred to it as the Yipin Tomb.

Emperor Xicheng was an average emperor, with no great achievements during his reign during the previous dynasty, but he also had never made any major mistakes. Xiling had been quiet for hundreds of years since his death, and even scholars and poets rarely thought of it as a place of nostalgia and tragedy.

The emperor of that dynasty left one hundred soldiers to guard his tomb in Xiling. These soldiers were famous for being insincere in their efforts, as they were mostly known for causing trouble. After all, guarding a person who wasn’t even living was very boring.

A man named Zhang Qingmao staggered through the snow as he walked out of the Xiling Mausoleum, carrying two bottles. It was very cold in the winter, and he lost at a Huaquan match, so decided to go get a drink. He also bought a few pounds of braised beef to warm his stomach. Although it was windy and snowy outside, when he thought of the fact that he was able to eat and drink comfortably for the first time in a while, he cheered up. With a full stomach, he set off for Pingshan Town, which was about twenty miles outside Xiling. (1)

This day was the first day of the twelfth lunar month, and it had been snowing for four days straight. The snow had accumulated to his knees, and after walking for a while, he yelped as he suddenly stumbled over a stone, falling down.

He couldn’t help but be jealous of his Soldier colleagues who were comfortable and sheltered from the cold back in Xiling Mausoleum as if they were the ones who forced him out in the snow. When he had scolded them thoroughly in his heart, he got up.

Suddenly, he saw a foot exposed in the snow.

This was a foot that looked a bit like a carrot and also a bit like a small tree trunk. The only way Zhang Qingmao recognized it as a foot was because it was still wearing pants and a shoe.

The foot that Zhang Qingmao had dug out of the snow was dressed in high-quality black brocade, which was particularly noticeable in the snow. The shoe on that foot had a thin sole and soft surface, with a faceless head embroidered on it, only hair and a neck, which was really strange. Zhang Qingmao had spent a few years in the martial arts world earlier in his life. Upon seeing the shoe, he stood there and stared for a moment before suddenly shouting, “The Faceless Assassin!”

The owner of that radish-like foot that emerged from the snow, named Murong Wuyan, ranked 28th on the list of most extraordinary people in Jianghu.

The assassin, of unknown age, was a barbarian, and one of the most famous things he had done was assassinating the Head of Shaolin Temple and getting away without anyone seeing his true face.

He was the Faceless Assassin.