PFC Chapter 87 The Hidden Truth of Cailian Manor
Chapter 87 The Hidden Truth of Cailian Manor
Fang Duobing handed the dregs of medicine he had found outside to Guo Qian.
“Master Guo, do you still remember these two doses of medicine dregs? One of them is the medicine Guo Kun usually drinks to treat his madness. As for the other one, I found it in the filth.”
“I just took it to the doctor, and the two prescriptions have completely different effects. Yesterday’s prescription was clearly not the right one; it only made Guo Kun more agitated.”
"So that's why Guo Kun suddenly went crazy and scared people last night, just because you wanted to make him a scapegoat? Am I right, Master Guo?"
“Master Guo, Lion Soul clearly stayed at Cailian Manor for a long time. The Corpse Fragrance Flower Tomb in the Lotus Pond is the best proof. Yet you say he only stayed for three days. Are you hiding something? Why lie about such a trivial matter?”
Li Lianhua's words, one after another, relentlessly attacked Guo Qian's psychological defenses.
Even after the truth came out, Guo Qian remained stubborn and refused to say anything: "What Corpse Fragrance Flower Tomb? I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Don't you know about the abandoned corpses that have been missing outside the city for ten years? Do you want me to help you remember? Or have someone dig up the bottom of the pond and take a look?"
Fang, who was ill, added.
“Even a mentally challenged person can’t just imitate anyone they see. They can only imitate the people closest to them. So the nonsense Guo Kun is spouting isn’t him going crazy, but rather he’s imitating what you said when you killed someone.”
Di Feisheng added, "The palm strike Guo Kun delivered to Fang Duobing was the very Bagua Xingyi Palm you used to strike Lion Soul."
"Why did Madam Xu not leave in the end, but instead die at Cailian Manor? And where did Lion Soul go in the end? Master Guo, don't you want to tell us?"
The group of people took turns explaining the general outline of the matter.
Seeing that they had guessed most of the truth, Guo Qian kept quiet.
"If Master Guo doesn't want to say it, then let me say it for you. I guess this is how it goes."
Li Lianhua recounted the events to everyone present.
"Ten years ago, I lost my soul and accidentally fell into your lotus pond, where I was rescued by Madam Xu. Because of his appearance, the lion spirit suffered a lot and became timid and insecure. Madam Xu was kind-hearted and did not treat him as a monster, but took him in. The two of them developed feelings for each other."
"You became suspicious and treated Madam Xu very harshly. Lion Soul arranged to elope with Madam Xu. However, you discovered the secret in this painting, so you killed them in a fit of rage."
"It just so happens that Guo Kun witnessed the entire process of you killing people at that time, and he also remembered the moves you used to attack people. He also saw you carrying and hiding the corpse, which is why he was running around with the skeleton on his back. Who would care about the actions of a madman?"
"But you know, all his actions were imitations of your murders. You were afraid of being exposed, so you went along with it and shifted the blame onto your mentally unstable brother, am I right?"
Li Lianhua practically threw the evidence in Guo Qian's face.
"No, that's impossible," Guo Huo said in disbelief.
“It wasn’t my father who killed those people, it wasn’t.”
Guo Qian remained defiant, smiling smugly: "This is just your speculation, without any evidence. Does your Baichuan Academy really intend to pin the blame on me?"
"You want evidence? Simple."
Di Feisheng pulled the sword that had just been knocked away and stuck in the roof beam, and held it to Guo Qian's neck.
Guo Qian took a step back in fright: "What do you want to do?"
"I have plenty of ways to get people to talk."
Di Feisheng dragged Guo Qian directly to the best lotus viewing platform they had previously met: "Will you talk or not?"
Fang Duobing followed and advised, "Afei, you'll only get a confession out of us by torture."
Guo Qian remained tight-lipped: "You want to force a confession out of me and frame me."
"Since you've put it that way, then I'll throw you into this lotus pond to serve as nourishment for the Corpse Fragrance Tomb. What do you say?"
Di Feisheng's tone was slightly cold, and he spoke in a threatening tone.
Seeing that Di Feisheng was really pushing him into the pool, Guo Qian was terrified, feeling that he really could do it, and quickly replied, "I'll talk, I'll talk."
Di Feisheng threw him back onto the lotus platform.
With Guo Huo's help, Guo Qian got up and spoke slowly after regaining his balance.
"I killed the Lion Soul you're looking for, and I poisoned Guo Kun."
"Back then, Madam Xu saved that six-fingered monster. Unexpectedly, that six-fingered monster actually fell in love with Madam Xu. He infiltrated my Lotus Picking Manor as a servant, using special secret techniques to cultivate lotus flowers and win Madam Xu's favor."
"Because he saw me being violent towards Madam Xu, he instigated her to leave me, and even eloped on my wedding night. Luckily, I found out."
Fang Duobing was furious: "Just because of this, you're going to kill someone?"
"So in a fit of rage, I killed that six-fingered monster. As for that bitch, she panicked so much that she fell into the pool and drowned."
"That bitch deserves to die. The lotus is a symbol of purity and nobility. That bitch was promiscuous and unfaithful. She didn't deserve to love the lotus at all. She deserved to die."
Guo Qian was still very angry when he said this.
"What gives you the right to decide someone's life or death based on your own will? You always talk about loving lotus flowers, but do you even deserve that title?"
Fang Duobing directly confronted him.
After listening for a long time without hearing what he wanted, Di Feisheng quickly asked, "There's one more thing, where are Lion Soul's remains and belongings?"
Guo Qian said smugly, "Haha, that weirdo, I threw him under the lotus pond a long time ago to be used as fertilizer."
"Alright, you lot." Di Feisheng pointed at the servants who had followed him: "All of you, get into the water and pull up all the corpses. Even if you have to turn the whole pool upside down, you have to find the corpse with six fingers."
Several servants hesitated.
"Get in the water," Di Feisheng shouted again, as if he would punish them if they didn't move.
Upon hearing this, the group immediately recalled the terror they had felt in the room, dominated by Di Feisheng's voice. They jumped into the water and retrieved all the bodies.
Looking at the row of bones on the ground, Li Lianhua sighed.
"The lotus is a symbol of purity and nobility, yet it has been tainted with such evil."
Di Feisheng examined the skeleton closely and finally discovered that one of the skeletons had six fingers.
"found it."
Li Lianhua and Fang Duobing went closer to investigate, but found nothing.
"There's nothing here. Didn't you say that Lion Soul's things are never out of your sight?"
"After being submerged in water for so many years, any relics would have decomposed long ago."
Fang Duobing raised questions.
"The Lion Soul's Nine Kun skin is a product of the Heavenly Mountain, and it is incorruptible. Since he is not with this thing, it must still be somewhere in Cailian Manor."
Di Feisheng was quite certain about the Lion Soul. He then turned to look at the group of people who had just gone into the water to retrieve the corpse.
"We'll go look for it, we'll go look for it right now." The servants were truly frightened and turned to search.
They searched every inch of Cailian Manor but still couldn't find anything related to the Lion Soul. So, they decided to have Fang Duobing send a message to Baichuan Academy to bring Guo Qian and Guo Kun back to Baichuan Academy.
Since Di Feisheng was certain that the Lion Soul's things were still here, Li Lianhua continued to stay at Cailian Manor, trying to find the clues she hadn't seen.
Furthermore, there are no clues as to why Guo Qian killed the bride because of the Lion Soul, but what was the reason for killing Lady Wang and the daughter of the Weiyuan Escort Agency?
When Li Lianhua returned to the room of the young lady from the Weiyuan Escort Agency, she saw a woman holding a pair of red wedding shoes and weeping bitterly over the clothes on the bed.
"Miss, I've retrieved the wedding shoes that Madam embroidered for you, but how did this joyous occasion turn into a funeral?"
Li Lianhua stepped forward to comfort her: "Please accept my condolences, young lady. May I ask, why are all the things your young lady uses plain colors? Is it because she doesn't like other colors?"
"Because my young lady has color blindness, she can't distinguish many colors on a daily basis, so she simply started using only plain-colored things, and she doesn't usually let us talk about it."
Upon hearing this, Li Lianhua suddenly remembered something and immediately took her flute and rushed to Guo Huode's courtyard.
But they saw Guo Huo directing two people to carry two boxes, and then he pulled another person out of the yard, preparing to leave.
Li Lianhua hurriedly stepped forward to stop him: "Young Master Guo, you've already packed your luggage. Why are you in such a hurry? Where are you going?"
Guo Huo was also very surprised to see Li Lianhua here: "Li Lianhua, weren't you just about to leave? Why are you here now?"
"We haven't left yet, have we? There's a question I haven't figured out, so I came to ask Young Master Guo."
"The daughter of the Weiyuan Escort Agency knew that the pomegranate skirt was an ominous object, and she was very resistant to wearing this wedding dress, so why did she suddenly come back and die wearing that wedding dress?"
As Di Feisheng emerged from Guo Huo's courtyard, he threw a package on the ground. The package unfurled, revealing the dress inside.
"An identical purple pomegranate-red dress, found in your room. Can you explain why?"
When Fang Duobing returned with the message and saw this scene, although he didn't know what clues Li Lianhua and the others had discovered, he stood right next to them.
Seeing that Guo Huo did not answer for a long time, Li Lianhua could only say something.
"Young Master Guo, if you're too embarrassed to say it, I'll say it for you."
“I asked the bride’s maids and servants. Their young lady is naturally pale and thin-skinned. She doesn’t let outsiders know about this natural defect. She only told her future husband, that is, you, Young Master Guo.”
"Moreover, I heard from the servants that Young Master Guo had prepared a new wedding dress for her, but no one except the bride's servants had ever seen it. Young Master Guo said he wanted to give everyone a surprise on their wedding day."
"But just a few days ago, the bride's wedding shoes went missing, so she had to send her maid home to get another pair. As soon as the maid left, you secretly switched the purple and brown wedding dresses, so that when the bride, who couldn't tell the colors apart, tried on the wedding dress, she would wear this brown pomegranate skirt."
"Why are these wedding shoes found in your room exactly the same as the pair the maid brought back from the bride's family home?"
"The so-called missing wedding shoes were something you did on purpose, just to get rid of the bride's maid so she wouldn't be able to tell the color."
Fang Duobing, having understood Li Lianhua's words, immediately realized what was going on and quickly replied.
Guo Huo chuckled: "I thought I had successfully fooled you, but I didn't expect you to be so clever as to discover all of this. But that's all you've discovered."
"I guess everything you did was for Miss Lü Rou, right?" Li Lianhua looked at the woman dressed as a man behind Guo Huo.
“Young Master Guo, you have feelings for Miss Lü Rou, but Master Guo insists that you marry the daughter of the Weiyuan Escort Agency. However, Young Master Guo, you dare not resist, so you have no choice but to set a trap to kill your own bride.”
Seeing that Guo Huo neither refused nor responded.
Li Lianhua continued, "That was in Xueyu Town. The girl, Lürou, pretended not to know you at all, but she knew your tastes perfectly and subtly replaced the cilantro on your table. Am I right, girl Lürou?"
Li Lianhua's last two sentences were spoken to the woman behind Guo Huo.
The woman stepped forward, and it was indeed the same Green Soft Girl from the restaurant where the group had eaten in Xueyu Town that day.
“We’ve always thought that the same murderer killed three brides. After investigating the first case, we naturally assumed that all the murders with similar methods were committed by Master Guo. But that’s a misconception. Young Master Guo, did you do this on purpose?”
Fang Duobing continued what Li Lianhua hadn't finished saying.
When Lü Rou realized that Li Lianhua and the others had found out everything Guo Huo had done, she immediately knelt down and begged for mercy.
"It's all my fault, it has nothing to do with him. I forced him to marry me. Arrest me if you want, please let him go."
"Lu Rou, Lu Rou." Guo Huo pulled the person up from the ground: "One person does the deed and one person takes the blame. I did kill the person, it has nothing to do with Lu Rou."
"Why waste your time on this lovey-dovey stuff?" Fang Duobing couldn't stand it anymore: "Those people you killed were so innocent."
"I killed the daughter of Weiyuan Escort Agency, not only because I love Lü Rou, but also because I hate Guo Qian."
At this moment, Guo Huo was controlled by hatred, and it seemed that this hatred had long since risen from the bottom of his heart.
“I hate everything he arranged for me and controlled everything about me. My father, Guo Qian, is the kind of person who likes to have everything under his control and cannot tolerate anyone displeasing him in the slightest.”
“My mother was driven to her death by him, and I am also being suffocated by him. Therefore, I will never submit to his control and oppression, never.”
Guo Huo roared out the last sentence.
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Lotus Tower Small Theater
Di Feisheng: Li Lianhua, you promised to give me proper guidance after we found that place, right?
Li Lianhua: I will keep my word.
Di Feisheng: If there are no clues on there, what will you do next?
Li Lianhua: Since there are no clues left, there's nothing I can do. We can only wait until we have some clues later. Let's put it aside for now.
Fang Duobing: Li Lianhua, Afei, you two are using coded language in front of me again. Is there anything I can't understand? Can't you just say something I can understand?