Food Fairy Lord

Chapter 623 Chiseling Ice to Find Light (Part )

Despite Meng'er's sad gaze, Pei Ye did not give up his principles and insisted with a heart of stone to tell His Highness Jinyang her true intentions.

The maid had no choice but to limp out of the courtyard wall with all her might, hoping that if she walked faster, His Highness Jinyang would not be able to catch up with her and would not bother to care.

Pei Ye smiled and watched her disappear. He stood up and looked back and forth in the palace. The red dress was hidden in the tattered curtains. I don't know what she was looking at quietly. Pei Ye retracted his gaze and looked down at the black ball left in front of the steps: "Come on, kitten."

The black cat seemed to sigh softly, took a step and jumped lightly onto the snow.

Thin blue lines extended from under its claws, crawled under the snow along the ground, then grew and branched, gradually forming an interwoven, dense web.

Until it covered the entire courtyard, the entire Mingyue Palace seemed to have produced countless magnificent patterns.

Then Pei Ye gently stretched out his hand and clenched his fist.

Nothing happened.

“……” He lowered his head.

The black cat glanced at him calmly with its green eyes, then pressed its little paw, and suddenly orange-red flames rose from the ground of the entire Mingyue Palace, like a pond of red lotus blooming.

All the remaining snow melted away within three breaths. Finally, the flames flew to the top of the eaves, sweeping away the remaining snow and dust in the cracks on the top.

"It's been so long, and we still don't have any tacit understanding." Pei Ye grumbled, and then began to search. He had already checked it carefully last time, and this palace was not very complicated. Soon he walked through every corner of the courtyard again with his sword in hand. However, to his surprise, this coincidental snow did not cover up any traces of the previous year. He carefully looked at the exposed ground and courtyard walls, not to mention fighting, in fact, even human damage was rarely seen.

The palace was abandoned four years after it was built, but beneath the dust and decay it was much newer than it looked.

Pei Ye tilted his head to glance at the black cat squatting on the lamppost. The black cat was also looking at him, and both the man and the cat were frowning.

When he walked back to the starting point, he saw Li Xizhou had already walked out of the hall and stood in front of the steps waiting for him: "What were you doing just now that caused the hall to turn red?"

"Your Highness, the thick snow covered the area last time and prevented us from conducting a thorough inspection. So this time we are going to conduct an inspection after all the snow has melted away."

"Have you found it?"

"No."

Li Xizhou retracted his gaze and glanced at the clean courtyard: "It's good. Let's go back and clean the Zhujing Hall as well."

"..."

"On the ninth day of the third month of the fourth year of the Suo Lin Dynasty, the disaster of Kirin Blood, ignited by the Thorn of the Moon, set off the biggest political whirlpool in the reign of the current Saint in the capital. In the following month, the Queen's residence in the deep palace became a real forbidden area, and all entries and exits were controlled... or in other words, there was no record of any entry and exit in this palace during that period of time." Li Xizhou gathered his sleeves, "A month later, the Queen died in this palace. No one knew the cause of her death, and even the funeral was hasty and sloppy, and could not be seen in public. Several old eunuchs and palace maids burned some yellow paper... What glory in life, what sorrow after death."

Pei Ye listened in silence.

"How do you think your mother died?" Li Xizhou asked.

Pei Ye was silent for a moment. "I've actually been thinking about this these days. I heard that the late queen's cultivation was at the pinnacle. Although there are few records of her actions now, her power that is not yet unleashed can be seen in many aspects... For example, when she was another power center, she was not cautious when traveling, and she didn't have a truly powerful guard by her side."

"Yes...Mother is very strong."

"Then, the case file says that she was assassinated because she was weak after giving birth... I wonder if her body after the twisting body really became so weak after giving birth." Pei Ye said, "The hidden truth has never been touched by the Immortal Platform. However, if Her Highness the Queen's strength was really only one tenth of what it was back then, then there are many ways for her to die."

The boy tried to keep his voice low, but his words were still cruel: "She could have been poisoned or hanged, that's what the book says. She could also have committed suicide out of despair, or anyone could have walked in with a dagger and killed her."

Li Xizhou looked at him with a golden face, his voice unchanged: "Yes, but I don't think so."

"Ok?"

"I always felt that my mother must have ended her life herself, but it wasn't necessarily because she was disheartened." Li Xizhou looked up and said, "I discovered a long time ago that my mother was much smarter and knew much more than I thought. Maybe she saw clearly at the time that she had to die, so she chose to die... but that doesn't mean she has lost her passion for this world."

"In the month before she died, she sent letters to many people. You didn't find it in Xu Ji's study because he burned it on himself before being executed. In that letter, she asked him to exercise more, and it would be best if he ran to court every day. She also listed several tips for dealing with back injuries in old age..." Li Xizhou smiled faintly.

"..."

"... I talked about something off topic." Li Xizhou turned around, "Anyway, now we know that a battle must have taken place here before she died."

"..."

"One of them is Ziliang's [Mercury Hua Fucha], who came to protect her, and the other one is..."

"Come and kill her."

"Yes, or at least it poses a threat to her life." Li Xizhou said, "So in this battle, are Ziliang and his men the attackers or defenders?"

Pei Ye raised his head slightly and understood.

He immediately clasped his fists and said, "Your Highness is wise. This has enlightened me."

Li Xizhou smiled faintly: "You understand too quickly, which makes you seem too smart. I haven't finished talking yet."

She continued, "Back then, this palace was strictly sealed off, and the people guarding it must not have been Guo You and Zi Liang. They were the ones who were on alert. If you assume that they were here to guard the late queen, but were defeated and broken into by the murderer, you are wrong. So naturally, there are no traces of the old battle in Mingyue Palace."

"Then may I ask, Your Highness, where should I go to find it?"

Li Xizhou nodded with satisfaction: "What Ziliang and Guo You faced at the time was not that an unknown person would come to assassinate the queen, but that the queen had been sealed in the palace. No news was passed on, and no one knew whether she was alive or dead. So they had to desperately activate the extremely dangerous [Mercury Hua Fu Raft]... So the route they took to get up was actually the same as ours."

"May I ask, Your Highness, which one is it?"

"From the Commandery to the back wall of Mingyue Palace, if there is a battle, it must have happened on this road."

Pei Ye frowned: "I didn't see the road when I came up." Li Xizhou turned his head indifferently: "I told you not to appear so smart in front of me, but I didn't tell you to become a fool."

"Yes."

Pei Ye picked up the sword and jumped outside the courtyard wall. He looked up and saw tall snow-covered forests and cold pines. He lowered his head and saw that the stone path that had been unused for a long time had indeed been buried.

"These trees must be more than twenty-three years old," he said, looking up.

"Perhaps as long as two hundred and thirty years." said the Black Cat.

Pei Ye said no more. He walked down the road, carefully looking at the trees around him. This time, he stopped after walking for a while and looked at a dead tree in front of him.

Moving my eyes to the side, I saw two old trees growing at an angle, still pointing high up toward the sky.

In such an unattended forest, it is common to see trees tilted, twisted, and broken. Some trees are even entangled with each other, with branches poking each other but the main trunks tightly fitting together... But if you look for them with a purpose, you can still see some differences.

Those that were blown down by a strong wind and those that were broken by a punch still have different representations even after twenty-three years.

Pei Ye raised his hand and stroked the trunk. There was a thick scar running across the entire trunk, about the position of his chest. The raised tree tumors on it were like seven or eight giant fists punching out from the inside. The trunk from here was leaning to the south and resting on another tree. It was obviously not dead, and it would probably produce tender buds in another month.

"Cut it off from here." Pei Ye took two steps back and said.

The scarlet line of fire flashed and disappeared, and as the winter wind blew, the big tree began to groan slightly. Pei Ye lowered his head and swept along the stone path he had found. He solidified the scarlet lotus fire into a shovel shape on the sword, and the fallen leaves and dead branches buried in the snow and soil exposed the stone path that had been buried for twenty years.

When I looked up, I heard a loud bang and the big tree behind me fell down.

Pei Ye was not in a hurry to check. With this as the radius, he cleared the snow and soil within a radius of ten feet, cut down three large trees that looked injured, and cleaned up the entire area.

Then, there was no need for eagle eyes, as the tragic traces of the past were simply buried by dust and trees instead of disappearing with time.

Pei Ye put away the Zhulian Fire, squatted down on the spot, and reached out to touch it.

Stone will not heal its own wounds, and buried trauma remains unchanged for hundreds of years.

After peeling off the soil, half of the sharp and neat crack was imprinted there, which was obviously the result of the impact of the tip of the sharp weapon being swung that year.

He stood up and looked around. One, two, ten... all the stone slabs that formed the path were covered with dense black scars. The observable part was bounded by the edge of the stone slab, and everything else disappeared. They either became scars on the trees or fell on the ground, leaving no trace.

Black Cat stared for a while: "...Is it a sword mark?"

"No." Pei Ye touched it gently, "It's a bullet mark."

He stood up and turned around, coming to the trees that were cut down again after twenty years. This time their cuts were flat and smooth, and the messy annual rings told of the trees' ill-fated life.

As long as all the cover-ups brought by time are erased, the fierce fight of that year will be completely exposed. Even if only the lingering echoes remain, it is enough to be shocking.

Her Royal Highness is indeed wise, and the place she pointed out was exactly right.

A powerful warrior with unparalleled spear skills and a newly-forged [Mercury Raft]. The two sides of the fight on the battlefield are very clear.

but……

"Can I defeat this iron body with just a gun?" Pei Ye frowned and murmured.

If Yu Sicheng was already so powerful twenty years ago, he should not have survived the first two times.

Of course, there are still many things that can be analyzed here. For example, the strength of the [Mercury Hua Fu Raft] controlled by Ziliang can actually be inferred from the traces left behind. Then, we can guess at what level the gunman is at and whether he has other means... But it is actually not that troublesome.

Because there were more things left on this battlefield than Pei Ye had imagined.

When he came to the second fallen tree, the wounded stump showed him a natural wonder he had never seen before.

From the outside to the inside, there are first dense, wavy annual rings, and then a circle of transparent amber rings, which are resin that has long solidified. The inner circle blocked by this circle of resin is carbonized strips as thick as fingers, with a crisp texture and a dark color, which are like two different worlds compared to the healthy wood on the outside.

Not only this one, Pei Ye continued to search for trees that had been affected, cutting them off one by one like slicing slices. Even if they were not as standard as this one, one could still always see pieces of charred skin from many years ago.

He stood still for a while, then quickly walked back to the stone path and cleaned several slabs of stone thoroughly without saying a word, wiping off all the dust. There was nothing unusual with the other slabs, but there was also a large area of ​​black smoke on one of them.

"……fire."

"Fire." Black Cat confirmed.

Pei Ye kept digging on the land, and from time to time he saw new buried broken stones and deep gunshot marks, and kept seeing traces of smoke and fire. It was not until he once again chopped down an old tree that had been dead for many years that Pei Ye stood in front of it in silence.

The heart of the tree is completely carbonized, and the wood is divided into charcoal strips along the grain. It has a shiny black color and if you tap it gently, it might make a crisp sound like gold and jade.

But none of this matters anymore. In the heart of such a tree, there is actually a finger-long purple-gold fragment embedded... But it is no longer indestructible, like a divine material. Its body is covered with honeycomb-like holes, and the edges of each hole are covered with glass-like crystals, like tiles that have been burned at high temperatures.

Pei Ye was silent for a while, then he raised his hand to pick it up. The thickness was about the same as his finger. He held it in the sunlight and examined it carefully for a while. The shriveled residue in one of the holes attracted his attention.

Dark brown, like rust.

But purple gold obviously will not rust.

"This is……"

"Blood." Black Cat said with certainty.

(End of this chapter)