Volume 3, Chapter 339 – The Soul Summoning Fails

Wei Qingyu gave her instructions quietly. “First set up a barrier formation around the perimeter. We cannot let anyone detect what is happening here.”

Everyone who had come with Wei Qingyu tonight was among her most trusted people. Not one of them would question her orders.

Several officers stepped forward briskly, pulling formation plates and formation flags from their persons.

In short order, a simple sealing formation was laid down.

The sealing formation was also a precaution against any warning spells that might have been placed on the grave.

Many cultivators, after burying their loved ones, would leave warning spells on the grave to prevent it from being desecrated.

If that girl’s identity was truly fabricated, then the woman buried here had to be fabricated as well.

Wei Qingyu’s reason for coming to dig up this grave in secret was to start with the old woman’s identity and see whether it could yield any evidence that Yu Lizhi’s background was false.

Wei Qingyu drew a slow breath and waved the surrounding officers back.

“Now. I am going to begin dismantling the formation.”

She stepped forward, drew a spell-inscribed dagger, and slowly crouched down.

She channeled her spiritual energy into the dagger, then drove it sharply into the protective formation over the grave several times.

The protective formation on the mound was one Wei Qingyu recognized immediately. It was a common type, and dismantling it was not difficult.

What was unusual was that such a formation had been placed over a mortal’s grave at all.

She had waved the officers back as a precaution against anything unexpected.

But so far everything had gone smoothly. Beyond the formation Chi Xiyan had placed, there were no other spells on the grave.

Everything appeared ordinary.

“The formation is down. Dig it open.”

Under Wei Qingyu’s order, several officers moved in quickly and broke open the earth. A ceramic urn of ashes was revealed before them.

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The old woman’s remains had already been cremated. Any hope of examining a body was long gone.

Whether the girl had simply chosen cremation for her mother, or whether she had intended to leave nothing behind, there was no way of knowing.

But Wei Qingyu had not come to examine a body. She had something else in mind.

“Bring the soul-summoning banners. Begin the ritual.”

Several small flags were planted around the urn, and as the group channeled their spiritual energy into them, a faint green glow emanated from each one.

Obscure and tongue-twisting soul-summoning incantations spiraled through the darkness.

Driven by the incantations and the soul-summoning banners, the urn began to tremble slightly.

When a mortal dies, their spirit, unprotected by any spiritual energy, quickly disperses into the world around them.

But the residual soul imprints left behind during life do not vanish entirely. They linger as faint traces, preserved within the bones and ash.

Wei Qingyu knew that after so much time, fully recalling the old woman’s soul was next to impossible.

But verifying the girl’s identity did not require a complete summoning. She needed only a few residual soul imprints to confirm who the old woman had been.

Before long, as the urn shook, a few dim pinpricks of light began to surface around it.

These motes of light gathered toward the mouth of the urn, and faintly, haltingly, they began to take the shape of an old woman.

Everything was going smoothly so far.

Wei Qingyu felt a small measure of relief.

Then, without warning, a light breeze drifted through. The half-formed silhouette of the old woman flickered in it several times, then rapidly dimmed.

Wei Qingyu’s heart lurched. She formed the proper seals with her hands and drove her energy into the soul-summoning banners as hard as she could. It was not enough. The residual soul imprints continued to scatter.

Within only a few breaths, what remained of the soul imprints had dispersed entirely.

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No matter how Wei Qingyu pushed the banners, nothing responded.

The urn sank into what felt like absolute silence.

“How can this be?” Confusion showed in Wei Qingyu’s eyes.

She had used soul-summoning banners many times before, but she had never encountered anything like this.

“Could it be…”

Wei Qingyu’s gaze sharpened. She looked at the urn before her.

Under the bewildered eyes of those around her, she stepped forward and snapped the urn open.

She reached in and pinched out a small amount of the ash between her fingers.

Her expression turned unpleasant.

“This body was not cremated with ordinary fire…”

***

At the same moment, in Chi Residence within Beihe Commandery.

Lu Zhuxin, lying in her bed, opened her eyes in the darkness.

“Oh… someone has gone to dig up Yu Lizhi’s old mother’s grave.”

The corner of her mouth curved slightly.

Her wine-red eyes glowed with a dangerous light in the dark.

“Now who could that be?”

“Who would go digging into Yu Lizhi’s past at a time like this?”

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Lu Zhuxin rolled over on the bed.

“Forget it. Let them.”

“There is nothing to find anyway.”

***

Behind Lin Family Manor, before a solitary grave.

“My lord, what does this mean?”

Wei Qingyu’s trusted subordinates looked at her, baffled.

Wei Qingyu gave a wry smile and explained: “With ordinary mortal fire, there is no spiritual energy in the flames. When a body is cremated that way, the residual soul imprints are not damaged.”

“So even with only ashes remaining, the soul-summoning banners would still work.”

“But… if spirit fire is used for cremation, it destroys those residual imprints. The dim traces that remain can no longer be gathered.”

“That is why the summoning failed partway through.”

Wei Qingyu let out another wry smile. “Who in the world would use spirit fire to cremate a mortal?”

The informant who had led them here hesitated, then said: “The old woman’s body. It was cremated by Young Miss Chi Xiyan herself.”

Wei Qingyu pressed her hand against her forehead. “Chi Xiyan. Really her? What is she playing at?”

Then another thought occurred to her.

Knowing Chi Xiyan’s temperament, she would not simply do something like this without reason.

But what if Yu Lizhi had asked her personally?

Chi Xiyan would likely not have refused.

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“We have been outmaneuvered.” Wei Qingyu murmured to herself.

“My lord.” One of the officers spoke up. “From the looks of it, that girl called Yu Lizhi must definitely be hiding something.”

“Cremating a mortal’s body with spirit fire. She was trying to hide a certain truth.”

“My lord, perhaps we should bring her in.”

Wei Qingyu was still rubbing her forehead. “That is speculation. It is not evidence.”

“Do not say anything so foolish again.”

Wei Qingyu sighed inwardly, feeling a dull frustration settle over her.

That girl had clearly anticipated from the start that someone would come to investigate the old woman’s remains.

The one who had cremated the body was Chi Xiyan. It had nothing to do with Yu Lizhi.

Not a single opening left behind.

And yet, if anything, it only made Wei Qingyu more certain that this girl was hiding something.

“My lord, what do we do now?”

Wei Qingyu considered for a moment. “Take down the formation. Restore the grave to how it was.”

Dawn had barely begun to break when Wei Qingyu returned to the Demon Suppression Bureau’s offices.

Looking at the figures moving busily throughout the Bureau, something suddenly came to her.

“That’s right… perhaps this way.”

“To the Chi Residence!”