Chapter 848: Love What You Do

Meng Qi took a deep look at him, then turned his eyes back and continued to read the dossier as if nothing had happened, “The Plain Girl Sect was directly inherited from the Fairy of Ninth and has the heavenly fragment. Its deep philosophical connotation was far beyond us outsiders as well as you people who were not core to the Exterior Realm’s imagination.”

“Chief, you can say that again,” Liu Shengming smiled hurriedly.

“When the emperor suddenly died, before the Shen Du formation was activated, was there anything that happened on the way straight from here to the palace? Were there any strangers that appeared?” Meng Qi asked Liu Shengming while reading the dossier.

Liu Shengming shook his head and said, “At that time, it was under normal conditions so the Shen Du formation was only working in the lowest level and did not sense any abnormality. What’s more, that night coincides with the spring thunder. With rain pouring down, few pedestrians were on the road and half the sky was covered by dark clouds. All the nearby residents did not find any clues and no one saw anything abnormal in the sky. Now the detectives should be visiting nearby areas in a hurry.”

Under such an emergency, Sima Shi was sure to fly to the palace. If there had been an ambush, it must be in the sky. Thus Liu Mingsheng mentioned there was nothing abnormal in the sky.

“What a pity…” Meng Qi sighed in a low voice. If there were satellites in orbit and all kinds of monitors here, the monitoring video could be saved without the need to fully activate Shen Du formation. Then things would be much simpler by directly checking the video of the corresponding period in the corresponding region.

But he quickly gave up this idea. The power of the Exterior Realm level could fool satellites and monitors, unless the devices were set especially to prevent such things from happening. However, that means the person controlling this was of high level and needed excessive consumption to keep them working. This has not much different from a fully activated Shen Du formation and only one of them was needed.

You can only gradually explore, blend in similar ideas, reduce consumption as much as possible, and improve slowly. This was a long-term work that cannot be done in a short time.

The spark of inspiration under the conflict of the two systems flashed had passed. Meng Qi kept asking questions while he read. He finally finished reading the dossier at dusk without missing any details.

By this moment, the government hall had already passed the decision of appointing him as the temporary chief of detectives of the Sect of Six-Fans. Zhao Heng issued the imperial edict as the emperor’s brother. But because he was only the temporary chief, he was not assigned as the Deputy Prime Minister nor conferred a dukedom.

Closing the dossier, Meng Qi looked aside at Liu Shengming and said insipidly, “Today the time is already late. Tomorrow you shall accompany me to the palace to talk to Concubine Mei.”

“We need to talk to Concubine Mei?” Liu Shengming gave a look of surprise.

Meng Qi looked at him with half a smile, “You are the experienced Condor and had solved numerous cases already. How could you not see the key to chief Sima’s disappearance was the sudden death of the emperor and this needed to be investigated again?”

Liu Shengming’s surprised expression quickly changed into an obsequious smile, “I am not as farsighted and wise as you, chief. Could you please explain this to me?”

“If Chief Sima left by himself, then why did he do it at the exact time of the emperor’s death?” Meng Qi got up and started pacing, “If he did not leave voluntarily and was sacked by someone, this someone must have set the ambush at the exact timing. If it was too late and the Shen Du formation had been activated, then there would have been no chance to set up the trap. If they planned this too early, then things might have changed and exposed their existence. Only someone who knew when Chief Sima would leave Zhu Yi Pavilion for the palace could have done this without being noticed by anyone.”

“So either they knew the emperor would die that night, or they covered up the death and acknowledged Chief Sima after they set everything up.”

“Whatever the truth was, whether Chief Sima left voluntarily or passively, the emperor’s seemingly normal death was sure to be relevant in this case. This was the key point to start with while investigating.”

Despite the Two-form Division Handkerchief, precious weapons like the Map of Mountains and Rivers needed to absorb the power of the user in advance in order to merge into the void and heaven and earth so that it would not be found. Even a mortal fairy with Dharmakaya could not keep this status for more than half of a day.

“Key point…” Liu Shengming seemed lost in thought, and then he put up a smile, “How brilliantly chief had thought! We would surely find out some clues tomorrow at the palace.”

He went out, leaving Meng Qi standing alone in the Zhu Yi Pavilion. The evening wind went through the window, bringing slight coldness to the quiet room.

The new chief of detective Su Meng paced back and forth with his hands behind his back. Suddenly he muttered, “What on earth am I doing? Why am I thinking about the case so intently? Why the emperor died suddenly and where Sima Shi disappeared to have nothing to do with me!”

“But I couldn’t help it. I wanted to find out the truth, destroy the conspiracy and slap the face of the mastermind behind this… It seems that I love what I do. I have just become chief of detectives and I am already about to solve a major case?”

After joking to himself for a while, Meng Qi drew his attention back to the case. This had to have some relation to him. The disappearance of the chief of detectives of the Sect of Six-Fans was likely to involve many and may lead to a great conspiracy. If it was taken seriously, maybe it would dissipate the situation in Shen Du. Thus the Su Family would be influenced and Su Ziyue and Zhao Laowu cannot be exempted from this disaster. If the gainer was the evil families among his enemy, letting them expand would also be a great threat to him.

After all, I was the invincible opponent of all evils!

Meng Qi walked to the window and looked outside at the garden. It was night now, the hustle and bustle during daytime disappeared and detectives patrolled around in groups.

Compared with the afternoon, people are much more relieved. The news of a new chief of detectives being appointed made them let out a long sigh of relief. The Sect of Six-Fans was really a monstrous powerhouse. This world-famous organization had incredibly strong power.

But the disappearance of Sima Shi lingering in their hearts had made them worry about their own safety. Even a guru like the chief of detectives was not able to avoid this catastrophe, let alone themselves.

After looking outside for a while, Meng Qi left the window and lit up the copper candle lamp. He then pulled the screen to the side, changed its angle and adjusted its position again and again with great care.

A few moments later, a group of patrolling detectives approached this area under the lead of their captain. They were depressed and afraid of sudden attacks.

At this moment, they saw yellow candlelight leaking from a room on the second floor of the Zhu Yi Pavilion and a black figure was reflected on the window paper. He was kneeling and sitting upright, holding a scroll in his hand, reading casually as if he did not worry a thing about the enemy lurking somewhere and overwhelming mutations that may happen.

He was so cool and collected as if everything was under control and not worth worrying about.

This image imperceptibly influenced the patrolling detectives and appeased their frightened hearts.

“Look, the chief of detectives is staying up and reading so calmly. It must be that nothing serious will happen,” someone muttered.

“Yeah, the chief knows better than we do. If he is not worried, what else are we to worry about?” another detective agreed.

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As groups of detectives passed by, calmness spread to every corner of the headquarters of the Sect of Six-Fans. Morale gradually returned and the patrols became more and more meticulous.

As the model of calmness, Meng Qi roughly went through the pile of dossiers he had finished reading which contains the conversation between Chief Sima Shi of detectives and other detectives half a month before the incident happened. All the information was recollections of people. But there was nothing worthy of attention and he could not find the reason of his disappearance.

Meng Qi then grabbed another pile of dossiers. The first was the report of the secret agents at Northern Zhou and border of Jin, it had only two thin pages,

“The invasion of the southern grassland caused many sects and families to hide into the states and cities for the time being, resulting in the chaos of small and medium-sized cities and the countryside. Many lower-level warriors and common people sought peace of mind from religions. Three new religious sects emerged in this area, one is the virgin of the infinite, one is the white lotus maitreya and another one is the lady red sun savior. Their doctrines are respectively…”

As he read, Meng Qi’s attention was attracted to this part of the dossier. They were reports from local detectives and secret agents in various places and described the current situation of the middle and lower classes.

“The local government took in refugees and set up righteous scholars to help the government maintain stability…”

“…there was a revival of rural worship and wild temples. Every 20 or 30 families had an altar and respectively worshipped the lady golden mother, honorable mother of the king, Wuji holy ancestor and Taishang mother queen…”

“What I saw in the countryside was very disconcerting. They worshipped wild gods and they called them in coarse, familiar terms like mother Taishang, old father Wusheng, and old grandma…”

Mother Taishang, old father Wusheng, and old grandma… Meng Qi’s mouth twitched and nearly laughed out loud. The people’s appellation was so homely!

After reading through such reports, Meng Qi found that the local detective officers turned a blind eye to this kind of thing. They did not prevent such things from happening and even covered them up, making it difficult for many secret agents to carry out in-depth investigations.

“The problem is a bit serious…” Meng Qi became more and more enthralled as he read these and soon came to the penultimate page. It was a detailed report that recorded what a secret agent saw and heard after he joined a new sect called the Premier Mother Sect,

“…Today was the first day I joined the sect. I was not yet allowed to get in touch with the upper level organization. I was assigned to listen to a savior mentor explain the scriptures and have more communication with the other members…”

“One of the members said he was caught up in a serious disease and suffered from a perennial ache. He took medicine ceaselessly and could no longer afford the treatment. But then he met the savior mentor and joined the Premier Mother Sect. After reciting the scriptures and praying devotedly after a month, his disease was cured. Since then, he devoted himself wholeheartedly to serving Premier Mother… similar cases were of a great number. I didn’t know if it was true of not but the followers all seemed extremely devout…”

“The Savior mentor often said it is hard to avoid death just like heaven and earth is hard to avoid destruction. Only the pious belief in the Premier Mother can enable one to return to the holy land of bliss after death and achieve transcendence so that one would no longer suffer…”

“Today I was allowed to recite the scriptures and pray. I don’t know what would happen next…”

“…My body felt warm and very comfortable. My old wounds seemed to be a lot better…”

This report was pieced together by several feedback. No follow-ups were found.

One can be saved by only reciting the scriptures and praying? Meng Qi frowned. Who among the gods can do that nowadays?

The gods’ power was limited and could only manifest divine power by granting power to people such as shaman and priests, thus letting them graze believers for themselves. But this god could directly answer the prayers and cure people. That was truly unbelievable.

Meng Qi turned through the pages and saw the last piece of paper. The contents were written in red ink that looked very striking. It seemed to be a conclusion of this dossier,

“I analyzed the doctrines and found most of them similar in some ways. They all claimed to be premiers and called themselves the supreme god. They all said they were the origination and incidence of everything. They said they were the savior of all those suffering people.”

“Their gods usually appear as females. They worshipped the image of a mother. The male figures were rather ambiguous and they used the well-known salvation Buddha in Buddhism and Taoism as a cover.”

…

“In conclusion, most of these sects were Death Mother in disguised names. The Luo Sect used these branches to deceive good people. They did missionary work on a large-scale and went deep into the lower and middle class people and warriors. They might cause a disaster.”

“Detective Zu Cunshen.”

Death Mother… Meng Qi repeated this name silently. He had made similar assumptions as he read. If it was true, this god was possible to do so as long as… well, this detective was quite good at extracting the core content from complex information and make summary and inference. This must be a very capable person!

What’s more, in similar dossiers, a summary of the content was usually put on the top so that Sima Shi can be clear about the content and importance at one glance, so as to choose which one to read first.

Now the summary was at the bottom. This means that Sima Shi had just read this dossier and did not have the time to reverse it, so that the order of the dossier was still overturned!

“Only the Sect of Six-Fans truly noticed changes of details in the lower and middle class. Other sects and families stood a bit too high…” Meng Qi sighed and immediately ordered the Golden-Stamped Detective who was guarding outside to summon Zu Cunshen.”

A few moments later, the tall but elegant Zu Cunshen was called into the Zhu Yi Pavillion.

“It is my honor to see you, chief,” Zu Cunshen seemed to know what Meng Qi was going to ask him and glanced at the dossier.

“Have a seat,” Meng Qi pointed to a nearby chair.

Zu Cunshen sat down with only a small part of his buttocks on the chair and his back straight, waiting respectfully for the chief of detectives to ask him questions.

“When was this dossier sent to chief Sima?” Meng Qi gestured to the dossier in his hands.

Zu Cunshen did not hesitate to think and answered right away,

“On the day chief Sima disappeared.”