Mu Hong’s words to Lu Qing and Zhu Yu were not unexpected, and indeed not surprising. Zhu Yu’s comnts were ant to draw Mu Hong into continuing his story.
Perhaps the painful mories had been pent up for more than twenty years without anyone to confide in, the feeling was not easy to bear, those sorrows could only be buried in the heart, tornting oneself over and over again.
Now that soone was willing to listen, Mu Hong could no longer hold back: "Back then, to protect our family and the people on the manor, my father had to obey that person’s orders and concoct so horrifyingly effective fragrances as per his instructions. That person was present every day, watching whatever my father did.
Initially, we all thought that person was simply there to supervise us, afraid we might disobey, but turned out his mind was more malicious than we imagined, and his intelligence exceeded our expectations.
His daily presence was not just for supervision, but he was secretly learning our family’s techniques for making perfus, and soon mastered them.
After he felt he had fully grasped the art of perfury, he began to target the people on our manor one after another.
Initially, it was those apprentices working with my father, who suddenly fell ill, and soon passed away, afterward my father fell ill as well.
As I attended to him beside his sickbed, he secretly took out two pills when no one else was around, telling they were given to him secretly by my grandfather, a fake death dicine concocted during the years of chaos when the family sought to avoid disaster. These pills were not used back then, and now he intended for us to use them at a critical mont to save our lives.
Father said he knew his illness was unusual, likely leading to inescapable death, and urged to prepare for escape while he was still alive.
Later... I kept looking for opportunities, during which I secretively stored things that might be useful, but because I hadn’t found a suitable chance, I couldn’t execute the plan.
Until later, when that person personally transported a batch of prepared fragrances to the capital, delivering them to Prince Lan, temporarily leaving Mu Family Manor, it was with the help of a kind soldier that I wrapped what I wanted to take in layers and hid myself among a pile of corpses.
It was then that I realized, without noticing, many people on the manor had been poisoned to death while helping them grind and refine so bizarre herbs.
I hid in the corpse pile for a day, and when they ca the next day to haul these villagers’ corpses away for disposal, I took the fake death dicine in advance and was not detected, discarded together with the others’ corpses in a ravine.
When I woke, surrounded by wild dogs scavenging for at, I was almost devoured.
Afterward, I fled all the way here, discovering a tomb that had evidently been raided at so unknown point in ti, presumably abandoned as the raiders feared being spotted. I stayed here, using a small wooden building they had erected as my hiding place."
"So this small building is not built by you, and those things on the windows aren’t barricades from you?" Zhu Yu asked.
"Those were indeed done by ." Mu Hong appeared extrely candid at this mont, "I was afraid of being discovered here and that others might co later, so I sealed all the windows.
Never thought, in the end, soone would still find their way over, luckily I carried a lot of seductive fragrance our family concocted for protection.
Afterward, people elsewhere spread rumors of evil spirits haunting here, groups ca to exorcise, also scared off by , I pasted their talisman papers and painted with cinnabar outside the wooden building, creating an appearance of intense haunting.
After that, no one ca here for a long ti, quiet until you arrived, genuinely startling ."
Lu Qing and Zhu Yu listened to his story, realizing it matched what they heard in the previous small town, it appeared Mu Hong hadn’t concealed anything from them.
Mu Hong seed to have guessed sothing from their brief silence, sighing: "I know previously I deceived you twice, so perhaps you don’t fully trust .
But I assure you, I speak the truth, not trying to put you on.
These twenty years, though alive, it was no different from being dead, the fact you didn’t kill outright upon capturing led to bet you’re not one of Prince Lan’s people, so I want outsiders to know about the Mu Family Manor’s situation, I must be truthful."
Lu Qing nodded to the rune beside him, who quickly went upstairs, soon returning, holding the cloth carefully removed from the window.
The fabric originally should have been very sturdy, but after years of exposure, its color faded, and it beca fragile.
If it weren’t for the Qilin pattern embroidered on it, it would have long been eroded beyond recognition, they wouldn’t have discovered it.
The rune carefully presented the cloth before Lu Qing, Mu Hong, and Zhu Yu.
Zhu Yu’s gaze settled on Mu Hong’s face, watching his expression at this mont.
Mu Hong appeared very calm, not nervous, even showing a hint of confusion.
"You don’t recognize this?" Zhu Yu asked.
Mu Hong shook his head, suspiciously glancing at them: "What is this thing?"
"You don’t know what this is? Isn’t this what you sealed on the second-floor window?" The rune suspected Mu Hong was playing dumb, questioning with hostility.
On this matter, Zhu Yu disagreed with the rune’s suspicion, feeling perhaps Mu Hong’s reaction was genuine.
If he knew what the Qilin pattern represented, perhaps he wouldn’t dare to blatantly hang it on a window as a seal.
Previously they focused on the Qilin pattern appearing in such an isolated wooden building in the wilderness, coupled with being twice knocked unconscious and thrown outside by Mu Hong, inevitably affecting their emotions, montarily overlooking this issue.
Lu Qing’s calm reaction reflected his complete composure at this point, recognizing this detail.
After listening to the rune’s words, Mu Hong realized where the cloth ca from, suddenly understanding: "So it was the cloth I used to seal the window... All these years I’ve not dared to go to the second floor, afraid of being accidentally seen from outside. Without you removing it, I would have forgotten.
It was a piece of wrapping cloth I stole when wrapping myself in things!"
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