Grudge Breaker

Chapter 300 Crime Scene
Ruan Mianmian's room is not small, with a hall, study, elegant room and bedroom. Connected to the hall and elegant room are two open-air terraces with eaves, which are filled with fine guqins, tea sets and collectibles. They are quite interesting under the shade of magnolia and osmanthus trees.

It is not difficult to see that she is truly a favored girl who was raised in the palm of someone's hand. Perhaps the greatest hardship she has experienced in life is the wedding candy from the person she loves.

Song Weichen and Mo Tingfeng searched Ruan Mianmian's room carefully. The latter used a spell to verify and confirmed that she was indeed not in the room or in Ruan's mansion - she was indeed missing.

But apart from the black footprints on the ground and the red silk hanging on the beams, everything in the room was normal. There were no signs of struggle or looting, and no gold or silver was missing. No one in the mansion saw Du Juan or Ruan Mianmian leave. They just disappeared like that.

Zhuang Yuheng's face turned pale, he thought of the previous white robe who disappeared out of thin air in Si Chen Mansion and whose whereabouts are still unknown. He didn't dare to think that his cousin might end up like him.

"Lao Zhuang, calm down. I have asked someone to take the blood handkerchief to trace its source. We will find her as soon as possible!"

Mo Tingfeng patted Zhuang Yuheng's shoulder to comfort him.
"I have tested her blood repeatedly. Her spirit is still there. She must be alive. As long as she is alive, she can be saved."
.
Song Weichen hadn't spoken to the two of them the whole time. From the moment he entered the room, he pursed his lips and looked carefully at Ruan Mianmian's room again and again with a very serious expression - it was precisely because she didn't like Lao Longjing that she didn't get confused out of concern, but instead acted rationally and efficiently.

After confirming a few more details, she walked over to the two of them and stated her findings in a very confident tone.

"Brother Yuheng, Lord Sichen, I will try to reconstruct the scene."

"Let's talk about the suspect first. Although there are witnesses in the mansion who claim to have seen Du Juan, there is a possibility that they saw a fake stand-in, right?"

"But I have just checked carefully, and I think the person who came must be Du Juan, or should I say the blood puppet of the necromancer who still has the consciousness of Du Juan when he was alive."

"Du Juan's footprints disappeared in front of the round table because she sat there, and Ruan Mianmian - she should have been kneeling about ten feet away from the table at that time."

As Song Weichen spoke, he walked to a position about ten feet in front of the table and knelt down.

"right here."

She sniffed.

"There is a distinct scent of Ruan Mianmian's perfumed powder at this location, and the closer it is to the ground, the stronger it is, indicating that she has been squatting or kneeling here for a long time. Thanks to the fact that she has always used only this strong four-in-one incense, I can be so sure."

……

Women are good at smelling and are naturally sensitive to "women's scents" such as perfumes and powders. Song Weichen was so sure because he had been suffocated by the strong scent of Lao Longjing before and had even gossiped with Guyu about her powder.

This is what Guyu told her. The Sihe incense used by Ruan Mianmian is also called "Da Sihe", which is made from the best of the four precious spices of "chen tan long musk" - thousand-year-old agarwood from the Limu Mountain in the South China Sea, old mountain sandalwood from the foreign country of Sindhu, natural right-handed borneol from the foreign country of Brunei, and natural musk produced by musk deer in the Pamir region. Each one is a treasure.

The incense powder made from these four spices has a rich, long-lasting fragrance, and is deeply appreciated by immortals and nobles.

Unfortunately, this perfume powder is priceless. In the sleeping world, only a few people can get the "big four". Even if a noble person gets it, it is very economical to use. Just take a little bit and apply it on the body, and you can have a long-lasting aftertaste.

But Ruan Mianmian deliberately praised many teachers in order to show off her status and position, so her talent was "scented with osmanthus but smelled like orchid", which was too much for her.
.
"Also, Ruan Mianmian was wet when she knelt here."

Song Weichen stood up and asked Zhuang Yuheng and Mo Tingfeng to look at the hem of her robe. She had only been kneeling there for two cups of tea, but the robe at her knees was already slightly damp, obviously because the ground was damp.

"The floor of this room is made of the finest nanmu wood, and underneath is a three-in-one floor made of lime, clay, and sandstone that has excellent water absorption. Even if there is water accumulation, it can quickly seep away - the only drawback is that it requires a long period of ventilation to truly restore dryness."

"I have just checked carefully in the private room and bedroom, and there is no dampness on the floor. It is only around the round table in the living room that it is damp."

"May I ask, my Lords, is this scene familiar to you?"

Song Weichen looked at the two of them with a determined expression, and he was increasingly showing the demeanor of a white-robed venerable.

"Kneeling as punishment every day, and using ice water as corporal punishment at any time, this is almost exactly the same as how Ruan Mianmian tortured Du Juan in Si Chen Mansion."

After she finished speaking, she turned around and took an embroidery needle from the chest of drawers next to the dressing table.

"And this, look at it."

Song Weichen took off the top two needles and saw faint traces of fresh blood on the needle tips and the needle holes.

She took out a few more needles from other places. There was no blood on the needle tips, but there were dark bloodstains on the needle holes. "Please ask Lord Si Chen to take this thing back to the Evidence Department to trace its origin. If I am correct, the fresh bloodstains came from Ruan Mianmian, and the old bloodstains came from someone else, and Du Juan must be one of them."

"Guyu once went to visit Dujuan and came back to tell me that she had many old needle wounds on her arms. I heard that this was one of Ruan Mianmian's ways of torturing her servants. She made them prick themselves with needles and every needle had to draw blood. She called it 'plum blossom rain', which was extremely cruel."

"So I have reason to suspect that the runes on the bloody handkerchief were drawn with the blood that flowed out when Du Juan, who had become a blood puppet, forced Ruan Mianmian to prick herself with a needle."

"Based on the above two details, let's talk about the motive for the crime - I think Du Juan came here just for revenge."

"She used her life as collateral to make a contract with the devil for only one purpose: to give Ruan Mianmian a taste of the pain she had inflicted on her."

"Since she can't live well, she doesn't want Ruan Mianmian to live well."

……

"Ugh……"

Zhuang Yuheng let out a long sigh. Although he knew that Ruan Mianmian was willful and naughty, he didn't know what she did in private.

After listening to Song Weichen's analysis, he felt shocked. Even though he was mentally prepared, it was hard for him to imagine that his cousin, who was famous all over the world and was quiet and graceful, was actually so unbearable.
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"Weiwei, don't worry too much. I'll take care of everything. Drink some water."

Mo Tingfeng considerately fed Song Weichen a cup of hot tea, but she dodged back as if she had been electrocuted.
"Thank you, Lord Si Chen, for your kindness. Don't worry about me. Saving people is the most important thing."

He always addressed him as "Lord Si Chen", which showed how distant he was and it was obvious that he was deliberately distancing himself from him.

Mo Tingfeng stood there holding the teacup, feeling sad but helpless. Zhuang Yuheng saw it all, and he patted Mo Tingfeng's shoulder to comfort him.

"Give her some time, it will be fine in a few days."

Hearing this, Song Weichen neither admitted nor denied it. He just took the teacup from Mo Tingfeng's hand with a calm expression and put it aside.
"Master Si Chen, my abilities are limited, and I can only see these clues at the scene. I'll have to rely on you to solve the rest of the problems."

"it is good."

Mo Tingfeng did not refuse.
"Weiwei's deductions are all correct. I agree with them. The person who came is indeed Du Juan, and his motive is revenge."

"I went on to tell her what she wanted to achieve."

Mo Tingfeng looked up at the red silk hanging on the beam.
"The red silk hanging in the air is not just for warning purposes, and the black footprints on the ground were not left unintentionally when Du Juan left the burned-down Ice Cellar Charity Cemetery. All of this was done intentionally."

"Black represents Kan, which means water, and red represents Li, which means fire. Li is on top and Kan is on the bottom. Using the Book of Changes as an analogy, we get the hexagram 'Fire and Water Are Not Yet Completed'."

"Originally, in the Five Elements, 'water overcomes fire', but this hexagram is the opposite. Fire overwhelms water. If the fire cannot be put out, water will come to the rescue."

……

"Sir, what you said is too complicated. Can you take care of this poor student subordinate?"

Song Weichen didn't want to pay attention to Mo Tingfeng, but he really didn't want to miss the core information of the case, so he had to speak.

"Ah, sorry, Weiwei, I...I'll say it again."

"What I mean is that Du Juan acquired the power of a necromancer, but his purpose was not to kill Mian Mian."

"This red silk is hanging in the air, with a handkerchief imbued with Ruan Mianmian's blood on it, in order to eventually replace her."

"If I'm not mistaken, this is an evil formation from another world, called—"

"Don't enter the Five Elements Formation."