Mysterious Lotus Casebook

Chapter 10: The Third Body

That night, Li Lianhua, Fang Duobing, and Ge Pan stayed in Xiling.

Zhang Qingmao was a mid-rank commander in the Hundred-Man Army, and that night he hosted the three men.

They were staying in the two rooms beside him Zhang Qingmao, with Fang Duobing and Li Lianhua staying in the room to his right, and Ge Pan staying to his left.

Opposite Zhang Qingmao’s room was the room of the Zhang brothers, opposite Fang Duobing and Li Lianhua was Yang Qiuyue, and opposite Ge Pan was Gu Fengxin.

For a large mausoleum like Xiling, there was a Main Tower and something called Baocheng, which was basically a small town that was built above the underground tomb. Both the Main Tower and Baocheng traditionally weren’t places for people to live, so during the former dynasty, if the government sent troops to be guards, they would live outside the walls of the mausoleum.

But this time, the one hundred men who guarded it were allowed to live in the small town for convenience.

The weather was cold and the ground was frozen, so they weren’t on patrol at the time. They feasted and played games in Xiling all day long, and the losers of those games would go out to buy meat. They were all very carefree.

That night, Snow filled the town, and the stars and the moon were dim.

Fang Duobing couldn’t sleep at all.

Besides Zhang Qingmao’s snoring, it was surprisingly quiet. The light reflecting off the snow outside the window of the room beside them passed through the thin paper walls and shone into their room, making Fang Duobing feel uncomfortable. 

It was so strangely bright that it felt as if every hair on his head could be counted clearly. But of course, Li Lianhua was sleeping peacefully. He didn’t stir even a little bit. 

Fang Duobing couldn’t pinpoint why, but he felt a vague uneasiness in his heart that night. This feeling arose when he first saw Zhang Qingshi. But he didn’t know the man at all, so why did he feel uneasy?

After a sleepless night, when it was almost dawn, he suddenly heard someone rush into Zhang Qingmao’s room. 

The person said in a panicked tone, “Commander Zhang, it’s Zhang Qingshi… He’s been killed and his head has disappeared. Nobody can find it…”

It seemed to be Yang Qiuyue speaking.

Fang Duobing jumped up from the bed. Li Lianhua also sat up, and the two locked eyes. Zhang Qingshi was dead?

°°°

Zhang Qingshi died very strangely.

When Zhang Qingmao put on his clothes and entered the Zhang brothers’ room, he saw Zhang Qingshi sitting at the head of the bed in plain clothes. His head was missing and the fabric of his clothing was half soaked in blood.

The weather was cold, so the blood had frozen into ice, clinging to Zhang Qingshi’s pale body.

The truly shocking thing was that the wall behind the headless corpse was completely clean.

They learned that Zhang Qinghu had been talking and playing games in Yang Qiuyue’s room last night, and when he came back early in the morning, he found his brother dead.

Fang Duobing and Li Lianhua had been investigating the scene in Zhang Qingshi’s room for a long time. Except for his head being chopped off, Zhang Qingshi had no injuries on his body at all.

Bewildered, Li Lianhua was staring at Zhang Qingshi’s corpse in a daze, while Fang Duobing was full of irritability.

This matter was beyond reason—why would someone kill Zhang Qingshi? Was there a connection between his murder and the deaths of Murong Wuyan and Wu Guang?