Lu Zhenghai held his breath.
He was greatly shocked.
It was mainly due to the second piece of intelligence.
A heaven grade, high rank Martial Skill? "Six Paths Reincarnation Fist"?
Holy crap!
What kind of concept was a Martial Skill of this level? Within the entire Great Yu Dynasty, the strongest Martial Skills available publicly were heaven grade, high rank, and their quantity was extremely rare.
How rare were they?
The Imperial Family likely possessed only two or three manuals.
The Daoist Sects, Confucian Sects, and Buddhist Sects each had one or two.
"Leiming Temple? One of the six major Buddhist temples."
Throughout the Great Yu Dynasty, there were over a thousand Buddhist temples, but these six were the strongest among them.
These six major Buddhist temples were: Jinyun Temple, Lingchan Temple, Wanya Temple, Foguang Temple, Leiming Temple, and Puti Temple.
"A temple like Leiming Temple, which has a Legacy spanning ten thousand years, definitely has experts like clouds. Heavenly Human Realm practitioners are certainly present, and perhaps even terrifying Human Immortal Realm existences are hidden within..."
Therefore, if he wanted to obtain the "Six Paths Reincarnation Fist" from the temple, it would likely not be easy.
"Could it be like the 'Yi Jin Jing' in Wuxia novels, where the Martial Skill is hidden within the scriptures, but the monks inside the temple are completely unaware of this fact?"
Lu Zhenghai was unsure.
Regardless, he needed to find a time to visit Leiming Temple.
"However, not now. My current strength is too weak. I must at least wait until the Grandmaster Realm before considering it. Personal safety is paramount."
"As expected, there is some truth to the Wuxia novels saying that all Martial Arts originated from Shaolin. Even in this alternate world, the Great Yu Dynasty, the Buddhist temples are incredibly formidable!"
As Lu Zhenghai pondered, he arrived at the main courtyard.
"Lu Zhenghai, Young Master Lu, Young... Young Master..." Just as he arrived at the main courtyard, he saw Gao Yunran sunbathing while holding Xiaobai. Gao Yunran quickly stood up, changing her form of address three times in a row.
Lu Zhenghai sized up Gao Yunran.
She was indeed prettier. After resting for ten or so days, her complexion was much better, and she had applied light makeup. Her delicate beauty carried three parts of willful charm.
If she were in his previous life, Gao Yunran's appearance and temperament would definitely be that of a campus belle.
"Young Master, I temporarily cannot serve you tonight. I... I have my period!" Before Lu Zhenghai could speak, Gao Yunran suddenly declared.
"Heh, does warming the bed necessarily mean serving me sexually?" Lu Zhenghai snorted, displeased.
Even if he was starving, he wouldn't turn Gao Yunran from a girl into a woman while she was menstruating. Wouldn't it be more comfortable to enjoy the meal a few days later?
Gao Yunran wanted to retort but dared not. Her delicate and beautiful face felt hot all of a sudden.
Warming the bed was just warming the bed; it was the duty of a personal Maidservant.
At worst, after warming the bed, she would return to the side couch to sleep.
Gao Yunran was very thankful that her period had started last night; at least it bought her a few days.
"Go arrange for the rough Maidservants to draw water. I want to take a bath. Also, you come into the bathroom too and scrub my back." Lu Zhenghai said as he walked towards the bathroom.
"Yes!" Gao Yunran's voice was like a mosquito's buzz... Half an hour later, Lu Zhenghai finally finished bathing, changed into a new set of clothes, and felt very comfortable.
Gao Yunran's face was flushed red. It was hard to detail what happened while scrubbing his back; one could only imagine.
In any case, although he couldn't immediately "eat" Gao Yunran due to her period, Lu Zhenghai hadn't been honest during the bathing process.
"Has the bed I asked people to move from the Gao Residence been delivered?" Lu Zhenghai asked.
"It... it has been delivered."
Gao Yunran's voice was very soft, but she secretly cursed in her heart, *Big pervert, he wasn't honest even while bathing. Hmph.*
"Where was it placed?"
"The Maidservants put the bed in the warehouse. If you need it in the master bedroom, you can instruct the Maidservants and servants to bring it over now."
"No need," Lu Zhenghai said flatly. He didn't have a peculiar habit of sleeping on a bed someone else had slept on.
He went directly to the warehouse.
It took a lot of effort to remove the wooden planks covering the outside of the bed.
Then he saw a complete, pure gold bed.
"Not bad." Lu Zhenghai's face was filled with greed. He estimated that based on weight, this bed could be exchanged for at least 100,000 taels of silver.
Damn.
It was even more than he had anticipated.
What a luxurious bed.
He quickly dismantled the bed, breaking the gold into pieces since it was quite soft.
"I'll find a way to sell all of it later."
The Imperial City did not lack black markets. Although the price offered might be slightly lower, the advantage lay in security.
"I might not even need to go to the black market. Qian Sheng can help dispose of it, after all, his family's businesses are spread throughout the entire Imperial Dynasty."
After completely dismantling the gold bed, Lu Zhenghai left the Lu Residence and headed for the Garrison.
He hadn't worked for ten or so days; it was time to clock in.
As soon as he arrived at the Garrison, he saw Chief Huang frowning and contemplating something, so much so that he didn't even notice Lu Zhenghai had arrived.
"Chief Huang." Lu Zhenghai greeted him proactively.
"Brother Lu, you finally came out of seclusion!" Chief Huang was stunned, then his face filled with joy and excitement: "If you hadn't come out, Centurion Sir would have been itching to send people to the Lu Residence to smash your front gate."
"What happened?"
"The day after you went into secluded Cultivation, the Imperial City Yamen came running to the Embroidered Uniform Guard for help, saying that they had received several reports recently." Chief Huang quickened his pace: "These reports had one thing in common: the complainants were all security agencies within the Imperial City."
"Security agencies?"
"Yes, security agencies. Escorting goods is very dangerous. It's normal to run into bandits or thieves on the road and die. But at least a body should be left behind. However, these security agencies reported that several of their escorts were completely wiped out. Not only were the goods gone, but the escort leaders, guards, porters, and servants all vanished into thin air, leaving no bodies behind. It's extremely bizarre."
A thought immediately popped into Lu Zhenghai's mind.
Hm.
The Human Flesh Inn.
The first piece of intelligence given by the System was about this.
Chief Huang grew even more helpless:
"Originally, cases like this should be investigated by the Yamen, but the Yamen couldn't find anything."
"Since the cases are still occurring, the Yamen could only come to the Embroidered Uniform Guard."
"This is a major case, currently involving a total of five escorts from three security agencies."
"The value of the goods involved exceeds 100,000 taels."
"The escort leaders, guards, porters, and servants who vanished without a trace total over 70 people."
"As the case grew larger, our superiors have already been summoned by Your Majesty."
"Your Majesty ordered the Embroidered Uniform Guard to handle this case and only gave us half a month."
"Now, only six or seven days remain of the half-month deadline, and we have no leads whatsoever."
"Brother Lu, if you can handle this case brilliantly, the position of Centurion will certainly be yours!"
... "Where are the case files? Let me see them." Lu Zhenghai became interested.
He had originally thought the intelligence about the Human Flesh Inn was not very meaningful and was even prepared to ignore it.
After all, it was 170 li away from the Imperial City.
He hadn't expected it to be a major case!
Then he definitely couldn't let this opportunity slip by... The position of Centurion? He greatly coveted it!
"Let's go, let's go, to my office." Chief Huang was overjoyed and dragged Lu Zhenghai to his office.
Upon arriving at Chief Huang's office, Chief Huang personally poured Lu Zhenghai a cup of tea.
Lu Zhenghai took a sip of tea and began looking through the files.
The files were quite numerous.
It took him a full hour to finish reading them.
The information he gathered was:
"There were 70 victims in total, coming from five escorts belonging to three different security agencies. The strongest among them was Wang Sheng, an established escort leader from Tianwei Security Agency, 57 years old, at the seventh layer of the Innate Realm."
"All five of these escorts exited the Imperial City via the North Gate."
"The goods escorted by these five trips varied: some were gold and silver, some were silk, and some were Martial Dao resources..."
...There was also various other information uncovered, which was very detailed, but not much of it was useful.
However, for Lu Zhenghai, it was already enough.
Since they all exited the Imperial City via the North Gate, he was increasingly certain that this was the work of the Human Flesh Inn mentioned in the intelligence system.
However, even the escort leader at the seventh layer of the Innate Realm had vanished without a trace.
This indicated that the boss of the Human Flesh Inn was significantly stronger than someone at the seventh layer of the Innate Realm.
It was highly likely they were in the Grandmaster Realm.
A Grandmaster Realm expert was considered a master within the Imperial City, a prominent figure in the Jianghu, and within the Embroidered Uniform Guard, they were damn near the Deputy Commander level.
"Brother Lu, have you figured anything out?" Chief Huang asked, full of anticipation.
"Do the escort routes of these five trips overlap? The perpetrator must have struck at an overlapping location."
Chief Huang nodded:
"The stretch between 27 li and 51 li from the Imperial City requires crossing Baping Mountain, and there is only one road over the mountain, which all five escorts must take."
"The stretch between 80 li and 89 li from the Imperial City is the Nutao River. The river surface is 9 li wide, and all five escorts needed to use a ferry."
"The stretch between 155 li and 180 li from the Imperial City is the Tianmu Bamboo Sea. There are many small paths through that bamboo sea, but only one main road. Normally, all five escorts would choose the main road."
... Lu Zhenghai nodded: "Have people been sent to investigate these three overlapping routes?"
Chief Huang sighed even more: "Yes, we checked. There were many eyewitnesses who saw the five groups of escorts using the ferry across the Nutao River, confirming they crossed the Nutao River completely unharmed."
"Since Baping Mountain is before the Nutao River, and they crossed the Nutao River unharmed, the incident clearly did not happen at Baping Mountain."
"It can almost certainly be confirmed that the incident involving the five groups of escorts happened within that 25 li stretch of the Tianmu Bamboo Sea."
... "Isn't that a very clear investigation?" Lu Zhenghai asked.
"That 25 li stretch of the Tianmu Bamboo Sea doesn't sound like much, but in reality, there are over 380 inns, post stations, and similar establishments distributed along that 25 li road." Chief Huang was very helpless.
"That exaggerated?"
But thinking carefully, it was normal.
After all, it was a vital route for entering and exiting the Imperial City, and the flow of customers was immense. It was indeed a good location to open inns and post stations.
"If it were only 380-plus inns and post stations, the Embroidered Uniform Guard could grit their teeth, investigate them one by one, and finish in a month. But unfortunately, the Tianmu Bamboo Sea is very large. Deep within that bamboo sea, there are hundreds of villages, and every village has various small paths leading out of the bamboo sea."
If they didn't have the intelligence system, investigating every single household would indeed be very difficult, like searching for a needle in a haystack.