“I…” Guan Mian hesitated.
Mu Anxiao hummed lightly, “You can’t say it, can you?”
“I truly didn’t expect things to get this serious. I really didn’t know…” Guan Mian said, “I didn’t know what kind of demonic book that was. That medicine, I really did concoct it myself.”
“I advise you to tell the truth,” Mu Anxiao said coldly.
“…” Guan Mian frowned, “What truth do you want me to tell?”
“Did you steal it from the cultivation sect, or did you concoct it yourself?” Mu Anxiao asked calmly.
Guan Mian: “Of course, I concocted it myself. That book, I got it from…”
“On matters like this, I still advise you to be truthful.”
“I..”
Just as Guan Mian uttered one word, Mu Miyan took out a medicine bottle from her sleeve and handed it to Mu Anxiao. “This is the medicine he gave to the elderly people before he died. Please take a look.”
Upon hearing this, Mu Anxiao glanced at Guan Mian, walked over to Mu Miyan, took the medicine bottle, and then turned to look at Guan Mian, whose eyes were wide open. She smiled and said, “The book is gone, and this bottle of medicine has lost its original value. Tsk tsk, what a shame.”
“....” Guan Mian visibly relaxed.
A trace of disappointment appeared on Mu Miyan’s face.
Mu Anxiao stared at the medicine bottle, then shook it in her hand, saying, “Oh, it turns out this contains only one pill.” As she spoke, she made the silver rope temporarily disappear, casually pulled out the red stopper, and poured the last pill in the bottle into her palm.
Guan Mian asked, seeing this, “What are you doing?”
Then, Mu Anxiao walked closer to Guan Mian, saying, “I heard this pill can also be given to souls. Since you say you concocted it, you certainly wouldn’t dare to eat it yourself. But,” she stopped in front of him, “if this is that poison, you can eat it. Would you like to try?”
“This is… ordinary medicine.”
“Ordinary? Then try it.” Mu Anxiao held the pill up to Guan Mian’s mouth.
Guan Mian lowered his head to look at the pill, deliberately taking a step back, saying, “I can’t touch this.”
“Try it, don’t refuse,” Mu Anxiao said in a singsong voice.
Guan Mian looked at Mu Anxiao’s sinister expression and his soul trembled, “I don’t want to eat it.”
“You’re afraid to eat it, aren’t you?” Mu Anxiao lowered her hand and scanned Guan Mian from head to toe, saying, “Time is almost up. If you don’t confess, I’ll really have to resort to force.” She threw the bottle onto the ground, where it transformed back into the silver rope.
“You’re going to…”
“Three counts. If you don’t confess, don’t blame me for using violence,” Mu Anxiao said, deliberately whipping the silver rope towards the ground.
Guan Mian heard the “snap” of the silver rope hitting the ground, and his soul trembled again, “I really…”
“One…”
“I…”
“Two…” Mu Anxiao’s eyes widened noticeably.
“Can you…”
Mu Anxiao deliberately coughed and cleared her throat. As she opened her mouth, about to say “three,” Guan Mian quickly confessed, “I stole it from the cultivation sect.”
“So, that means,” Mu Anxiao retracted the silver rope and looked down at the pill in her hand, “you knew about the toxicity of this thing.” Yunnan.
“I initially…”
“You didn’t know at first, but you found out later.”
“Can you let me finish speaking?” Guan Mian was no longer arrogant.
Seeing Guan Mian’s improved attitude, Mu Anxiao decided not to press him further. “Alright, speak. I won’t interrupt.”
“…” Guan Mian sighed and said, “I didn’t know it was poison at first. It wasn’t until the first elderly person died that I realized there was something wrong with that book.”
“....” Mu Anxiao frowned.
Guan Mian continued, “When I took the book from the cultivation sect, it was completely blank. Because I didn’t have any silver, I couldn’t buy Xuan paper. But I wanted to do business, so I stole a brush. I thought I could use that book as an account book in the future. As for the pill, I also took it from the cultivation sect, but I didn’t know it would harm people, because a senior brother told me that the medicine from the cultivation sect was useless.”
“....” Mu Anxiao didn’t interrupt, continuing to stare at him.
Being stared at by Mu Anxiao, Guan Mian felt a bit embarrassed. “Why aren’t you asking me questions?”
“Wouldn’t it be better if you told me everything at once? What else do I need to ask?”
“If I tell you everything at once, can you understand it all at once?” Guan Mian asked cautiously.
Mu Anxiao sighed, “So far, there’s nothing I don’t understand. Continue.”
“Oh.” Guan Mian nodded, too rushed to look at anyone else, and continued, “So, I thought, using the reputation of cultivation, I could sell medicine and do business…”
“Wait, how much of this medicine did you take out?”
“A whole basket.”
“A whole basket?” Mu Anxiao expressed surprise. “You carried it on your back?”
“Yes, and then it all sold out. I didn’t expect there to be another bottle here.” Guan Mian said, glancing at Mu Miyan, who was still hiding behind Xu Lan, and asked, “Can you tell me who gave this to you?”
Mu Miyan withdrew her peeking head behind Xu Lan and did not reply.
Seeing Mu Miyan’s silence, Mu Anxiao sighed and said, “Disciple, speak up!”
Mu Miyan’s body trembled. She peeked out again, pointedly ignoring Guan Mian, and looked straight at Mu Anxiao’s back, saying, “A monster gave it to me.”
“A monster?” Mu Anxiao repeated, her mind immediately going to A Long. She then turned to look at Mu Miyan and asked knowingly, “When did you meet?”
Mu Miyan: “The night we killed him, I met that monster. She gave me this bottle, saying it would be useful to me in the future. And it was her, who gave me…” She thought of what she had done to Guan Mian that day, and her body involuntarily shuddered twice. She continued, “gave me that kind of courage.”
“The courage to kill,” Mu Anxiao stated plainly.
Mu Miyan nodded slightly.
Mu Anxiao, seeing Mu Miyan’s reply and recalling what A Long had said to her before, felt her heart sink. She temporarily put Mu Miyan’s matter aside and turned back to Guan Mian, “You continue.”
Guan Mian glared at Mu Miyan and continued, “I wanted to sell medicine and do business under the guise of cultivation. Fortunately, that day I met an old man on the street who bought medicine, and I got the idea to sell the medicine to him.”
“....” Mu Anxiao frowned.
Guan Mian paused for a few seconds and continued, “When I went back, I wanted to record the accounts. But when I opened that book, I saw the old man’s name faintly appearing on the first page. I was startled then, but I didn’t think much of it. Not long after, the old man’s name completely appeared on it. When I went out, I heard that he had died.”
“How much silver did you sell a bottle of medicine for?”
“Initially, it was twenty taels. Later, to avoid suspicion, I deliberately raised the price of the medicine to fifty taels a bottle. Two bottles were one hundred and fifty taels,” Guan Mian replied truthfully.
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