37: Chapter 37 Don't believe everything in conspiracy theories

After all, the two of them were not in a rush. They bought some things to eat, went back to rest, and planned to investigate the next day.

Early the next morning, Tu Ziguan did not scale the wall.

Xie Feng sat in the side courtyard, hearing his footsteps coming from the direction of the main entrance, accompanied by the footsteps of another person.

The slow and steady shuffling steps sounded like Old Zhou.

"Young Master," Old Zhou's voice came from across the courtyard wall, "Young Master Tu is here."

"Let him in."

When Tu Ziguan stepped into the side courtyard, Old Zhou's footsteps lingered outside for a moment before fading away.

Xie Feng tilted his head. "You took the door today?"

"Old Zhou's Face turned pale when he saw me standing at the entrance." Tu Ziguan sat down on the other side of the threshold. "He was probably afraid I would scale the wall again, so he brought me in himself."

"Did he see you scaling the wall yesterday?"

"Your gatekeeper has very sharp eyes; he just didn't dare to say anything yesterday."

Xie Feng let out a chuckle, spinning his blind cane in his hand. "Interrogating Zhang Kui?"

"Interrogating Zhang Kui." Tu Ziguan took out the Inner Sect token from his bosom and weighed it in his hand. "You saw his reaction yesterday. When Zheng Youtian was mentioned, his Adam's apple bobbed like a beating drum. There must still be more secrets hidden in this fellow's belly."

"How do you plan to question him?"

"Need you ask? Take him to the side hall of the county office, close the door, and place the token on the table to scare him to death. The fiercer you are with such people, the more they shrink back; it's better to let him panic on his own." Tu Ziguan stood up and patted his backside. "What about you?"

"I'm going to check the genealogy records," Xie Feng said. "For Xie Yuan's thread, we first need to figure out where he lived and who he usually associated with. The Penal Hall's dispatch only wrote the location, not the specific household; it should be in the genealogy records."

"Can you even get into your Family's genealogy room?"

"I am the direct descendant, what do you think?"

Tu Ziguan nodded and turned to walk out. Reaching the doorway, he stopped again. "Meet up at your place at noon?"

"Let's go to your Family's restaurant instead. Your Family's fish dishes are genuinely good."

Tu Ziguan's footsteps left the side courtyard, heading towards the main entrance along the covered corridor.

Xie Feng sat for a while longer before standing up. He crossed the western subsidiary courtyard to go to the genealogy room. Located behind the ancestral hall, it was a standalone two-story small building. The first floor stored archives, while the second floor enshrined the spirit tablets of past ancestors.

In the original owner's memories, this place was only opened once a year during ancestor worship, and the doors were usually locked.

Xie Feng infused his hands with Spiritual Qi and directly ripped the lock open.

Truly a dutiful son and virtuous grandson.

In the entire Xie Residence, Xie Feng only needed to worry about Xie Tianxiong. Although he didn't know if he could withstand him or not, even if he couldn't beat him, Xie Feng could make a phone call to summon backup, so he wasn't afraid at all.

Xie Feng stood at the entrance of the genealogy room. The building was not large, and three of its walls were lined with wooden shelves stacked with cyan-covered booklets, arranged by branch lineages. The direct line was in the center, and collateral branches were on both sides.

Xie Yuan was from a collateral branch, so his genealogy record should be on the shelf to the left. Thinking this, Xie Feng walked over to search.

Tapping the ground with his blind cane as he walked over, his fingers brushed across the spines one by one. When he reached the third row, his fingertips touched the edge of a booklet. That particular volume had been pulled out, and when pushed back, it wasn't aligned, sticking out half an inch further than the other booklets.

Xie Yuan's booklet.

Xie Feng pulled out the booklet and opened it to look.

The records in the genealogy were very brief: Xie Yuan, third in order of birth, father Xie Anhua (deceased), mother Liu. Lived in Pinghe Lane in the west of the city. No landed property under his name, no official position, and a monthly Family allowance of two taels of silver.

Xie Feng closed the booklet and was about to push it back when his fingertips suddenly touched a small uneven patch on the inside of the spine. He reopened the booklet, slid his fingers along the spine, and felt something wedged between the pages and the cover.

It was a thin piece of paper, folded into a small square.

He pinched the edge of the paper, pulled it out, and unfolded it. Sweeping his spiritual power across it, there was only a single line of words on the paper. It was not the printed genealogy font, but handwritten. The ink was very fresh, no more than three months old.

"Xie Yuan, Xin-Three."

There had never been any numbering like "Xin" on the Xie Family genealogy; this was not something belonging to the Xie Family.

"Xin-Three? With a 'Xin', there must be 'Jia', 'Yi', 'Bing', and 'Ding'. Is this the numbering of their Black Goat cult in Cangyun City? If so, this scale is quite large. If all else fails, I'll call the Sect over to cleanse the area."

Xie Feng did not stay long in the genealogy room. He shoved the booklet back to its original place and turned to go out.

Pinghe Lane was on the western edge of the city, right against the base of the city wall. Though called a lane, it was actually a narrow alleyway where only two people could walk abreast. On both sides were low brick houses with peeling wall plaster, exposing the blackened brick cores inside.

There was no help for it; Xie Yuan, being from a collateral branch, could only live here. Xie Yuan's house was at the very depths of the alley, with "Xin-Three" written on the houseplate.

"No way, does your cult write secret codes on the door? Could this just be a house number? Doesn't that make my reasoning from just now look like a total clown?" Xie Feng rubbed his nose, feeling a bit awkward. He had truly become an investigator in the cthulhu mythos now, finding everything suspicious.

Xie Feng removed the lock and pushed open the door. His blind cane poked inside first to tap the ground before he stepped into the courtyard.

As soon as the door opened a crack, that aura gushed out. Three chilly auras were distributed in three corners of the room, like three crouching living creatures that simultaneously turned their "heads" toward him the moment the door opened.

"Anomalous spawn?"

Xie Feng did not hesitate.

"Show your Faces, little darlings!"

He yanked off his veil, and the light of The Guide surged out from his eye sockets like boiling water poured into an ice cellar.

The closest chilly aura was illuminated by the light, not even having time to emit a screech, its edges bubbling with fine foam. The other two auras moved simultaneously, fleeing directly in opposite directions. One darted toward the roof, while the other shrank toward the corner. Their speed was unlike anomalous spawns; instead, they looked like two tail-docked geckos driven mad by fright.

Xie Feng was not afraid of them running at all. Just kidding, if you fellows could actually run away, he would tattoo all three of you onto his chest later.

The guiding light seeped between the brick gaps, and a muffled sound came from within the wall crack. Then, a layer of black water stains oozed out from the brick surface in the corner, slowly seeping out from the brick gaps, trickling down the wall, and accumulating into a small puddle at the base of the wall.

The room fell silent.

"Suddenly feeling so good about holding a box of weapons in my hand."

Xie Feng lowered his veil and walked into the house, his blind cane tapping the ground. Three puddles of black mucus were distributed in three locations: the ground beneath the roof beam, the surface of the north wall, and the base of the wall corner.

They were semi-solidified, with a wrinkled membrane on the surface, and something was slowly wriggling underneath.

"Are these anomalous spawns? There shouldn't be any residue left, right?"

Xie Feng squatted down to check.

The black substance suddenly moved, pushing upwards as if attracted by something, and the semi-solidified mucus surged toward Xie Feng on its own.

Xie Feng abruptly withdrew his hand, and at that very moment, the puddle of mucus on the ground lost its activity. The membrane on the surface stopped throbbing, the wriggling things underneath slowly came to a halt, and finally, it turned into a pool of dead matter.

Xie Feng used the tip of his blind cane to poke the puddle of mucus on the ground. The moment the cane tip touched the surface, the membrane broke, and the contents inside flowed out, spreading into a patch on the square brick floor.

A fishy stench surged up, mixed with a chill and a hint of frozen sweetness. Xie Feng withdrew the cane tip, wiped it clean on the sole of his shoe, and stared for a long time at the puddle of mucus losing its activity on the ground—of course, Xie Feng couldn't see anything at all, but his Spiritual Qi perception traced every single detail of it clearly.

There's more than one, making it so hard to judge. The mucus of Shoggoth, Formless Spawn, or even Dark Young—black, gelatinous, and active—there are simply too many such things in the cthulhu mythos.

Thinking this, Xie Feng repeatedly compared them, but could never match them up.

If he couldn't recognize them, he wouldn't bother for now; the samples had already been collected, and he could compare them later if given the chance. What was more important right now was: why were there three spawn crouching in Xie Yuan's house? Xie Yuan had already died in the Black Pine Forest.

Searching the north room once, the living traces inside the room were very simple:

A bed, a table, a wardrobe. On the table sat an oil lamp with the lamp oil completely burned dry, and a charred wick flower formed on the wick. Inside the drawer were a few pieces of broken silver, a handful of copper coins, and a stack of blank talisman papers.

Pulling out the talisman paper and turning it to the back, there was an extremely faint imprint at the bottom right corner of the paper's back, bearing traces of residual spiritual power. The outline of the imprint was a circle, inside which were three curved lines twisted together, resembling three snakes intertwined or the roots and stems of some plant.

"Whose phone number is this?"

Xie Feng did not recognize this symbol; it was not a cthulhu mythos symbol.

He could draw common symbols from the cthulhu mythos with his eyes closed. The one before him was none of those; it looked more like a mark invented by the Cultivators of this world themselves, forcefully cobbled together after mixing with Cthulhu knowledge.

Xie Feng folded the talisman paper and tucked it into his sleeve cuff, about to turn and leave to rendezvous with Tu Ziguan at the restaurant, when a fluttering sound suddenly came from overhead.

A spirit magpie landed from the willow branches outside the house, folding its wings and perching on the threshold of the north room. Tied to the magpie's leg was a short section of bamboo tube, the sealing end of which was stamped with a square red-wax seal.

"Whoa, quite a bit of flair, huh?"

Xie Feng squatted down, untied the bamboo tube, and unscrewed the seal. Inside was a piece of letter paper folded into a neat square, made of fine qingtan rice paper with a ring of dark golden cloud patterns hot-stamped along the edges. He unfolded the paper, sweeping his spiritual power across the surface:

"To Young Friend Xie:"

"I have heard that Xie Feng, Inner Sect Disciple of the Qingyun Sect, has returned home to visit relatives and is temporarily staying in Cangyun. This old man, City Defense Cultivator Meng Yi, has unworthily served as an honorary patron in Cangyun for forty years, and has long-standing ties of friendship with Young Friend's father, Lord Tianxiong. This evening at the hour of You, this old man has prepared a humble cup of tea at the City Defense Mansion, inviting Young Friend to visit the mansion for a chat and to discuss recent affairs between the Qingyun Sect and Cangyun City."

"Additionally: This old man has heard a little about Young Friend investigating matters in the west of the city, and may be able to offer assistance."

"Bowing respectfully, Meng Yi"

"Named Meng Yi? His Family members were quite casual when giving names. By the way, what time is the hour of You?" Xie Feng refolded the letter paper and shoved it back into the bamboo tube. He was not an ancient person, so he could only squat on the ground and start counting.

City Defense Cultivator Meng Yi, Fifth Realm Nine Heavens Peak.

The materials of the Qingyun Sect recorded this person. Meng Yi originated from the Tianque Sect and was dispatched to Cangyun City forty years ago to serve as an honorary patron for city defense. Nominally subordinate to the imperial court, he was actually under the jurisdiction of the Tianque Sect, having no direct subordinate relationship with the Qingyun Sect. However, within the territory of Cangyun City, Disciples of both Sects had to give him a bit of Face when encountering matters.

In reality, he was just a nail planted here by another Sect, responsible for monitoring the Qingyun Sect.

It had only been a few days since the news of Xie Yuan's death reached Cangyun City. Xie Yuan's house door was locked, three anomalous spawns were crouching inside, yet no one from the county office had come, no one from the Xie Family had come, and no one from the City Defense Mansion had come to paste a sealing strip.

"So you've heard a little about it, huh?"

Xie Feng shoved the bamboo tube into his sleeve cuff, placing it together with those few talisman papers.

"Let's see what medicine you're selling in your gourd."

When Xie Feng walked to the entrance of the alley, the Ghatanothoa imprint on his chest twitched slightly.