The man sounded as though he had just woken up and was startled by Xiaowu’s presence.

“Why are you still here?”

“I want to hear more about Uncle Gen.”

Xiaowu sounded mild. It felt as though he hadn’t waited for long.

Perhaps the man felt touched by Xiaowu’s gestures, so he told him more about Uncle Gen.

“Uncle Gen is a widower without any children. He has been living here on his own for many years.”

Xiaowu recalled Uncle Gen’s deserted home and could not help sensing Uncle Gen’s loneliness.

“Since Uncle Gen buries the dead for the magistrate’s office, no one wants to be around him. Also, there have been a lot of cases of his workers going missing in the past two years. Everyone thinks he is bad luck and stays as far away as possible from him.”

Missing burial workers?

Xiaowu quickly caught on to something important.

Were there more cases of missing men other than the recent ones reported?

“What do you mean by burial workers going missing?

Xiaowu deliberately acted scared and spoke with his voice trembling.

“Sigh! It wasn’t that big a deal. They were just normal cases of people going missing. Those men probably encountered bears in the mountain.”

The man under the blanket seemed nonchalant. “In reality, it’s just common for people to go missing at the unmarked burial site. After all, that place is haunted.”

“Didn’t anyone report the cases if a lot of men have gone missing?”

Xiaowu felt baffled. Why hadn’t anyone in the justice department brought this up?

“They only went missing intermittently.” The man under the blanket yawned before he continued, “Every time people report cases, no evidence could be found. Since the place is haunted, everyone simply felt it was sheer bad luck that people went missing.”

“Intermittently? What do you mean?”

Xiaowu was a little lost about what the man was saying. Also, Xiaowu was dying to ask more when the man kept blaming ghosts.

“Men go missing every now and then one by one.”

The man yawned once more. He muttered to himself perplexedly, “Now that I think about it, they seem to go missing after a similar period of time. I’m guessing they were taken by ghosts.”

What ghosts?

How could ghosts have taken the men regularly?

The more Xiaowu heard from the man, the more he found the situation odd.

These people were simply too foolish.

He wondered how many people have gone missing all this time and whether they were on public record.

Xiaowu thought about the case files in the justice department and hurriedly left without even saying goodbye to the man.

If he left a second later, he would have gotten to hear the man muttering, “If ghosts were not behind it, then why did Uncle Gen’s talismans prove useful and helped him escape the fate of going missing?”

Xiaowu hurriedly went back to the justice department.

The sky had just turned dark and a crescent moon was faintly visible through layers of clouds in the distance.

The crescent moon was very small and even seemed slightly dim.

The people who had come to report missing family members had already gone home. Only the guards remained dutifully patrolling the compound.

The entire justice department was completely quiet. Only the footsteps of a few occasional guards patrolling the place with torches in hand could be heard.

Xiaowu was surprised to see the light on in the archives when he came in.

Who could be in the archives at this hour of the night?

Xiaowu deliberately lowered himself and walked slowly up to the door.

THUD!

The door suddenly got kicked open and the person sitting at the table in the center of the room froze and didn’t dare to move a muscle.

Xiaowu went up closer and saw the silhouette shaking with his shoulders trembling.

“Who goes there! Show yourself!” said Xiaowu sternly to the silhouette.

The man swiftly turned his head when he heard Xiaowu’s voice. He looked at Xiaowu at a loss. “Xiaowu?”

“Hang on! Who are you?”

Xiaowu was still in disguise, so the man only recognized his voice and could not see his face

“Sir Di?”

Xiaowu felt caught by surprise as well. “What are you doing here?”

The man sitting at the desk was none other than the justice department secretary, Di Yangze.

Xiaowu raised his hand to remove his disguise completely and Di Yangze finally realized it was Xiaowu. He awkwardly squeezed the case file in his hand. “Sigh. Since so many people have gone missing in the last two days, I decided to check the case files to see if there were any leads.”

Di Yangze felt a little uneasy when Xiaowu asked what he was doing in the archives room.

Xiaowu quietly went up to him and sat down beside him to look at today’s case files.

A thought crossed Di Yangze’s mind and he put down the case file and looked at Xiaowu.

“Did His Highness send you to check on the case?”

Xiaowu was looking at the statements that were taken today, so he couldn’t help sounding distracted.

“Uh huh.”

“Do you have any leads?” Di Yangze looked at Xiaowu sadly.

Xiaowu was keenly aware that the justice department was under a lot of pressure owing to the huge number of missing men. He was impressed that Di Yangzi took it seriously and was here burning the midnight oil working on the case.

He happened to want to know more about the previous cases of missing men, so he wanted to have a good chat with Di Yangze.

“Have people reported about missing men to the justice department in the past?”

Di Yangze felt puzzled by Xiaowu’s question and asked quizzically, “Are those cases related to these new ones?”

“I’m not sure for now.”

Xiaowu had already finished reading the case files for today, but he didn’t have any leads. He frowned as he said, “Can you tell me everything you know about the previous cases of missing men?”

Di Yangze was not a nosey man and merely thought it was a bad time for Xiaowu to share the finer details since the investigation was still in progress.

He stood up and headed to the last few rows of archive shelves and searched for a long time before coming back with a thick pile of case files.

The paper was already yellow and some unknown stains even appeared on some of them.

A lot of dust went flying through the air when Di Yangze placed them on the table, making them cough nonstop.

“These are for the previous cases of missing men.”

Di Yangze searched high and low out of fear he might inadvertently omit any files, so his forehead was covered with sweat.

“So many?”

Xiaowu mentally prepared himself after hearing what the man said, but he could not help feeling startled by the sheer volume of cases when Di Yangze came back with the case files.

“Uh huh. All of these are for cases of missing men.”

Di Yangze plonked into his chair and didn’t even bother to lift his outer robe out. “If you didn’t bring it up, I would never have known that so many cases went dead.”

Xiaowu was in a dilemma. He had to report back to Uncle Gen at midnight.

Considering the sheer volume of cases, it was impossible for Xiaowu to finish reading them anytime soon. Xiaowu looked at Di Yangze and an idea came to mind.

“Sir Di, mind helping me with something?”

Di Yangze wanted these cases to be solved as soon as possible. If things escalated and more men went missing and His Majesty caught wind of this, no one could escape blame.

“Feel free to tell me what you need. I will do my utmost to help.”

Xiaowu was just waiting for him to say that. If he had said no, Xiaowu didn’t know who else he could ask.

“In reality, it’s nothing hard and just a little tiring.”

Xiaowu looked at Di Yangze with a sly look on his face. “Can you help find all the case files related to men going missing at the unmarked burial site?”

“…”

Di Yangze felt he was really asking for it. Why didn’t he stay home to read and sip tea?”

There were so many cases of men reported missing. How long would it take for him to finish the task?

Did he have to come back and work overtime?

Sadly, it was too late for him to regret it since he had already promised Xiaowu to help.

Xiaowu caught the sad look on Di Yangze’s face. He suppressed his laughter as he put on a straight face and said, “Don’t worry. I will help you.”

Di Yangze could not help feeling relieved to hear this. “In that case, let us begin.”

Xiaowu did not go on chatting and quickly split the pile of old archives into two stacks and placed one of them in front of him swiftly.

Di Yangze looked at his pile of case files and noticed it was clearly much taller than Xiaowu’s pile. He smiled sadly and quickly started going through them.

Since they were quick workers, things got done with great efficiency.

The piles of case files gradually depleted as they worked on them.

“The weather is dry, so beware of fires.” The sound of the night watchman came from outside once more.

If Xiaowu didn’t go now, he would be late, so he told Di Yangze he had to leave, “Sir Di, do you think I can come for the case files first thing in the morning?”

Before Xiaowu left, he said goodbye to Di Yangze. The moment Xiaowu smiled, even his eyes became smiley. Xiaowu had a round face and dimples appeared when he smiled. He seemed like an innocent young man from the countryside.

Di Yangze looked at Xiaowu as he smiled and couldn’t help remembering his son. He could not say no and sighed before he continued working on the case files.

Xiaowu walked quickly and arrived at Uncle Gen’s place a quarter to midnight.

Fortunately, he wasn’t late.

Xiaowu straightened out his clothes and put on the human skin mask before knocking on the metal ring on the wooden door.

This time, Uncle Gen did not make him wait for long and came to get the door quickly.

“Are you here already? Well done. You did not show up late.”

Uncle Gen turned sideways and let Xiaowu into the compound. “Hang on. More people are coming.”

Xiaowu entered to see the place seemed livelier than it did in the daytime. Three to four other men were already standing inside. All of them were strong brawny blokes.

The men inside were animatedly talking about something.

They went quiet briefly when Xiaowu entered before they proceeded with their discussion.

Xiaowu did not join in the conversation. Instead, he listened quietly.

From the looks of it, these burial workers were not new since he could hear them talking about ghosts and people going missing every now and then.

Uncle Gen did not chat with them. Instead, he squatted somewhere else in the yard and smoked his pipe. The sound of him sucking on the pipe could be heard occasionally.

Xiaowu was standing against the wind and could smell something unusual from the smoke in the air. However, he could not put his finger on it.

Before long, the door opened and more men joined their ranks.

Some of them had local accents while some had foreign accents.

They were all middle-aged men with strong builds and were clearly made for menial labor.

Uncle Gen struck his pipe on the ground a few times to remove the remaining tobacco residue before he stood up.

Xiaowu saw him retrieve a faded small bag from his chest and took something out from it and placed it in his tobacco pipe.

Xiaowu smelled the strange scent in the air once more. It smelled slightly bitter and fragrant like Chinese herbs.

Uncle Gen smoked his pipe as he gestured for them to be quiet.