"Does Lord Xue not have many friends?" Wang Qingyao asked Xiao Yun.
Xiao Yun frowned slightly. "Ah, the 'Official Records' doesn't mention that..."
"Perhaps they were mostly acquaintances. Besides family, who remembers others' death anniversaries?" Wang Qingyao counted on her fingers. "Besides, he was a coroner."
Wang Qingyao pictured a fierce butcher, and many people held prejudices against coroners. This might be one reason Lord Xue never married.
"It's also possible they planned to come on the fifth of October," Xiao Yun guessed.
"The fifth of October?" Wang Qingyao was confused. "What day is the fifth of October?"
Xiao Yun knew this was another blind spot in her knowledge and explained, "On the fifth of October, scholars and commoners alike go to the outskirts to offer wine and food at their family graves. The imperial palace also dispatches carriages and horses for offerings, not only to the Daoist Academy but also to the imperial mausoleum."
So that's how it was, Wang Qingyao nodded. "How about we come again on the fifth of October? Oh, no, we have to perform sacrifices on the fifth of October too and can't get away. We'll have to send someone."
Xiao Yun nodded.
The two emerged from behind the tree where they had been hiding. Since no one was around, they no longer needed to conceal their tracks.
Then, Yuan Bao and Zhen Zhu also came out.
Zhen Zhu was still carrying a basket of offerings.
Since they were here, it was only right to burn some paper money and offer some food.
Walking to Lord Xue's grave, Xiao Yun looked him up and down. "No need to send anyone on the fifth of October."
Wang Qingyao understood his meaning at a glance. The weeds on Lord Xue's grave were half a person's height, clearly indicating no one had come to pay respects.
Xiao Yun instructed Yuan Bao to clear the grave, and then he and Wang Qingyao arranged the offerings and burned paper money.
Xiao Yun suddenly turned back. "Did you sense anything?"
Wang Qingyao was startled. She wasn't accustomed to peering into the remains of the deceased. The last time was out of necessity, and it was Xiao Yun's relative, which was practically her own relative.
As for Lord Xue...
She hesitated for a moment and said, "Ahem, I haven't started yet!"
With that, she concentrated and looked into Lord Xue's grave.
It was a good thing she looked, or she would have been shocked.
Seeing her face change, Xiao Yun eagerly asked, "What is it? What is it? Is the coffin empty? I've read many stories about people faking their deaths..."
Faking your death, my foot!
Wang Qingyao knitted her brows. "It's not empty. There is indeed a skeleton inside, but this skeleton..."
She paused, looked at Xiao Yun, and continued, "This skeleton, like Grandfather's and Father's, is green."
Xiao Yun's mouth slowly widened, his expression utterly bewildered. After a long while, he came to his senses.
"What did you say? Lord Xue's remains are also green?"
Wang Qingyao nodded gravely.
This meant Lord Xue did not die in a riding accident as claimed, but was poisoned.
This person was the same one who poisoned Xiao Yun's grandfather and father.
The two stared at each other for a moment, feeling the situation becoming increasingly complicated.
"How could this be?" Xiao Yun asked Wang Qingyao, as if talking to himself. "How did Lord Xue get involved with our Xiao family's curse?"
"Could it be a serial killing?" Wang Qingyao guessed.
"Serial what?"
"It means a killer murders people one after another in the same way. That's called a serial killing." Her eyes lit up. "Perhaps other skeletons are also green, but we just never noticed."
"Even if there were, there are so many dead people in the capital and even across the country. Can you sense them one by one?"
"Not one by one. Think about it, the three green skeletons we've found so far are all officials of the Great Sheng Dynasty. We can investigate in that direction. Isn't there the 'Great Sheng Official Records'? We can follow that."
Xiao Yun looked at her with admiration. "Yao Yao, you're so smart."
Wang Qingyao proudly lifted her chin. She hadn't watched those detective dramas on TVB for nothing.
However, another problem arose.
Xiao Yun frowned. "We need a plausible excuse to visit someone's grave. We're a prince and a princess. Just showing up at someone's grave, especially one that's been there for thirty or forty years, would be too strange!"
Wang Qingyao: "This is too easy. We'll just say Grandfather dreamt of me and asked us to pay respects to his colleague. Everyone knows Feng Fu, the Imperial Advisor, divined my fate, saying I could break your Xiao family's curse. I have to do something to live up to the divination, right? We'll investigate Grandfather's colleagues first. When we investigate Father's colleagues, we can say Father dreamt of me."
"Wow!" Xiao Yun looked at Wang Qingyao with admiration again. "You're so incredibly smart, how can you be so smart?"
Just saying it wasn't enough to express his admiration, so he leaned in and kissed her on the cheek.
Yuan Bao and Zhen Zhu, not far away, silently turned their heads, pretending not to see anything.