The fatty was stunned by this, and a chill ran down his spine. The doctor was right. Zhennan Hou, who could slaughter such monsters, was truly terrifying!

In an era without precision heavy firepower, the only thing the fatty could think of was using a disciple to deal with a disciple. Could it be... could it be that Zhennan Hou also had an army composed entirely of disciples, or was Zhennan Hou himself a super disciple whose strength surpassed everyone under General Guo?

The problems he could think of, Jiang Cheng and the others naturally thought of as well, but Li Bai shook his head. "It doesn't seem like it. The book doesn't record any decent achievements of Zhennan Hou, except for defeating General Guo. That seems more like an accident. And taking a step back, if Zhennan Hou is truly a top disciple with extraordinary strength, then he wouldn't be shrinking in the Hou mansion all day, living in constant fear."

Li Bai and the others remembered that not long after entering the Hou mansion, Zhennan Hou's strange illness relapsed. Combined with the layout of the mansion, it was not difficult to guess that this Zhennan Hou was being haunted by vengeful ghosts, probably the resentful souls of General Guo and the others.

Although the case was confusing, it all revolved around one central question: What exactly happened on the Chun Shen Lake many years ago?

From the encountered dream realm, as well as the water ghosts in the lotus pond described by Fatty Yao Shunyu, it could be basically determined that General Guo and the others did die in Chun Shen Lake. What they left here were cenotaphs. The real corpses should still be at the bottom of Chun Shen Lake, which could also be corroborated by the story told by the old fisherman.

In the old fisherman's experience, he heard the sound of knocking on the bottom of the boat coming from underwater, which should be the water ghosts at the bottom of Chun Shen Lake, the wronged souls of General Guo and the others.

It seemed they would have to take a trip to Chun Shen Lake sooner or later.

Unfortunately, without finding the corpses, they couldn't determine the cause of death of General Guo and the others, whether they died from knife wounds, poisoning, or even more directly, drowning.

The fatty had sharp eyes and discovered a red cloth bag in the coffin. The red color on the bag wasn't uniform, as if it had been painted on later. The base color should be white.

The fatty picked up the cloth bag. The bag wasn't very big. He shook it, and there was a rustling sound of bamboo sticks colliding inside. After opening it, the fatty's eyes widened. Inside were wooden pieces, also red, all made into the shape of command arrows. The fatty looked at them and became more and more familiar. Weren't these the death tablets inserted on the graves? Except they were many times smaller.

Li Bai, on the other hand, seemed unsurprised and nodded at the fatty as if to reassure him, "Don't worry, this thing is harmless to us. It's similar to the thunderstruck wood death tablets outside. They only have an effect on the one in the coffin."

"What is this?" Hearing that it wasn't harmful, the fatty wasn't in a hurry to throw it away. He looked at it curiously.

"This is called chi hun ling. It's something created by some heretical Daoists. It's a spell that damages one's yin virtue. The bag outside is a white cloth bag, and then it's smeared with the tongue-tip blood of someone who died by hanging. It's said that this can bring the curse you want to say to the hell officials. There are a total of 18 command arrows in this bag, corresponding to the 18 types of capital punishment in ancient times."

"Lingchi (death by a thousand cuts), drawing and quartering, beheading, waist chop, skinning, paolao (branding with a hot iron), cooking, evisceration, abdominal disembowelment, shooting, drowning, strangulation, poisoning, burning, nail to the skull, burying alive, cannibalism, and others."

Listening to Li Bai's enumeration of the 18 cruel punishments as if she were listing family treasures, the fatty felt uncomfortable all over. Thanks to his magical ability to fill in the blanks, it was as if he had experienced all these cruel punishments while she was speaking.

The fatty shrank his neck. "Then... then what's the use of this chi hun ling?"

"When the hell official who comes to guide the soul sees this bag, they will understand the message inside, treat this person as someone who has committed heinous crimes, and make this person's soul suffer punishment in hell. The punishment methods are extremely cruel, and they have to experience all 18 types of cruel punishment. It is said that the vast majority of ghosts cannot endure it." Li Bai sighed slightly at this point.

"What if they can't endure it?" the fatty continued to ask.

"The soul dissipates." Jiang Cheng took over the conversation, directly sealing off the topic. Now was not the time for idle chat.

The fatty fiddled with the command arrows in the bag. Who would have thought that these exquisitely crafted little things were actually such insidious cursed objects? Indeed, in this world, the most cruel thing is people.

Just as he was about to throw the chi hun ling far away, suddenly, the fatty unexpectedly discovered that there didn't seem to be 18 command arrows inside, as Li Bai had said. He counted them again carefully. That's right, there were 17, one was missing.

Hearing the fatty call her again, Li Bai took the bag and carefully counted them again. Her eyebrows rose. "That's right, there are really 17, one chi hun ling is missing!"

Li Bai, who was well-versed in this art, understood that although those heretical Daoists who specialized in this technique were insidious, their methods were very clever and they would never make such a low-level mistake.

Jiang Cheng and Yao Shunyu also gathered around, but the two of them knew nothing about the so-called chi hun ling. This thing was already obscure. Li Bai was able to find it through a very old senior. The senior taught her orally, and she just remembered it.

But at this time, everyone clearly felt a trace of something unusual. Jiang Cheng walked back to General Guo's coffin. After searching for a while, he also found a bag of chi hun ling from General Guo's armor. He poured them out and counted them. Sure enough, there were also 17!

"Since there are 18 types of cruel punishment, and now there are only 17 left, what is the one that's missing?" Jiang Cheng asked, looking at Li Bai.

Li Bai was holding a command arrow and carefully examining it. Yao Shunyu took one and found that there were several yin-engraved runes at the end of the command arrow. He naturally couldn't understand them, but looking at Li Bai's appearance, she seemed to be able to understand some, although it was also very reluctant.

The fatty squatted next to Li Bai. He looked at Li Bai's serious appearance, and a burst of envy rose in his heart. He had little knowledge and understood little, so he always suffered losses, suffering the losses of being uncultured. Sudan Novels Network

Soon, after a careful check, Li Bai finally found the missing command arrow, "It's... it's chenshui (drowning), the chenshui ling is missing!"

"What does the missing chenshui ling mean?" the fatty asked. "Does this corpse's soul not need to suffer the punishment of drowning anymore?"

The fatty asked very carefully. He didn't think that those heretical Daoists, especially the people from Zhennan Hou's mansion who had found those heretical Daoists, would be so kind.

"I know, I know where the last command arrow is!" Li Bai excitedly dropped the remaining command arrows in her hand, jumped into the coffin, and under everyone's gaze, poked her fingers into the wooden figure's mouth. Then, after groping for a while, she quickly took out a delicate command arrow.

Needless to say, it was the last chenshui ling!

"These people all died from drowning!" Li Bai said firmly, clutching the chenshui ling. "There's no mistake!"