The Rebirth Of The General Who Always Sees Himself As A Replacement

Chapter 61: How Could Anyone Even Afford To Possess Half Of His Beauty?

“A Nobleman?” Pei Hantang asked with curiosity. “What Nobleman?”

The girl shook her head and replied: “That I don’t know.”

Pei Hantang: “Thank you, sorry to bother you.”

The girl saluted and left.

Pei Hantang sighed: “Although it seems that the two of you were predestined to meet, this couldn’t happen in the end.”

“Yeah.” Mu Zhiming nodded and turned to look at the painting again in more detail. Mu Zhiming noticed that the young woman in the painting was holding a fan, which revealed an ink painting of flowers and birds. With a slender and delicate figure, she was lying lazily on a sofa decorated with peonies, arousing the men’s fantasies.

In reality, compared to himself, Mu Zhiming felt that the girl in the painting looked more like a person he knew.

On the other side, Pei Hantang whispered to Gu Heyan: “It is similar, hm? Do you want to bring the painting back to your Residence and hide it?”

Gu Huyan indifferently replied: “No, they don’t look alike.”

Pei Hantang: “Ah?! But their eyebrows and eyes are so similar, how can they not look similar?”

Gu Heyan said: “Mu Zhiming has always conducted himself with elegance, sitting with a stable and upright posture, just like the bells in the temples.” Then, Gu Heyan looked at the painting of the beautiful woman again, but no matter what, no ripple surfaced in his eyes. With even more certainty than before, he said: “They don’t look similar.”

‘Mu Zhiming comes from an influential family that has produced several high-ranking Officials for many generations, and has always treated people with courtesy from an early age. How could he be compared to the lazy and ungraceful woman in the painting?’

‘Not to mention….’

‘In this world, how could anyone even afford to possess half of his beauty? Where does the alleged resemblance even come from?’

Pei Hantang: “…..Al-alright.”

—

After waiting for some time, the Madame of the Pavilion finally came to see them. At that instant, Pei Hantang routinely asked her if there was anyone missing, or if there was a courtesan, who was good with the zither or pipa, who hadn’t returned to the Pavilion for three days.

However, all the answers were negative.

Since they couldn’t get any clues at this location either, the four men left, making their way to the street. Once there, they found themselves surrounded by the hustle and bustle of the crowded streets, which only made them feel bewildered as well as physically and mentally exhausted.

At that moment, Wen Heyin couldn’t help but say: “This is like looking for a needle in a haystack, it’s too exhausting. What if that woman wasn’t a Courtesan, but merely a maidservant working in somebody’s Residence? Wouldn’t we be wasting our time then?”

Pei Hantang laughed: “Little one, that’s how investigations work, they’re time-consuming. If you come across a difficult and complicated case, it can even take up several months to investigate.”

Mu Zhiming turned his head to look at Gu Heyan, only to whisper to him softly: “Heyan, aren’t you tired? Your injured arm just recently finished its healing….”

Gu Heyan didn’t seem to expect that Mu Zhiming was going to speak to him, so he stood there feeling stunned for a while. Gu Heyan even forgot that he was supposed to reply. As he thought about his answer, Gu Heyan tried to suppress all emotion in his voice, which only made him seem both cold and indifferent: “I’m not tired.”

Right at that moment, someone suddenly arrived at high speed on horseback. The speed was so great that even the passers-by shouted indignantly at him for startling them.

Gu Heyan frowned. Without even thinking about it, he grabbed the young son of the Duke of Yan, pulling him behind his back to protect and prevent him from being hit by the horse. By doing this, Gu Heyan also blocked the dust for Mu Zhiming that had been raised by the horse’s gallop.

The man who came in a hurry was a Guard from the Capital Prefecture. After roughly pulling the reins, he dismounted and rushed to Pei Hantang to urgently tell him: “Lord Pei, I finally found you! Something, something bad happened!”

Pei Hantang: “What happened? Slow down and be clear.”

The Guard: “The female corpse that was found yesterday with a burned face and bruises on her back, it was stolen!”

—

The four men returned to the Yamen in the Capital Prefecture without stopping for even a second. Once there, they headed straight for the morgue, where several Guards of the Capital Prefecture were waiting for them. The morgue keeper was also present, trembling as he stared at the empty coffin in front of him in complete bewilderment.

Pei Hantang walked a few steps forward and asked out loud: “How can a corpse go missing?!”

The morgue keeper rushed to greet Pei Hantang, then said with some fear and anxiety: “It was, it was stolen.”

“Stolen?! By whom? Did you get to see him?” Pei Hantang asked one question after another.

“There were two men dressed in black.” The morgue keeper said. “Today, around Youshi hour1, I locked the morgue and left. Halfway through, I remembered that I had forgotten something, so I went back. But at that moment, I saw that the door of the morgue was wide open from a distance! Just as I wondered if I had really closed the door, I saw two people dressed in black carrying out a corpse! I got so scared that even my legs started shaking!”

“You didn’t call for anyone, the Guards?” Pei Hantang asked.

“Yes, I did!” The morgue keeper hastily replied.

The Guard of the Capital Prefecture, who was present, said in consternation: “At that hour there were very few people around, and the two men dressed in black were highly skilled in martial arts. It also appeared that there were other people outside, waiting to pick them up. We were highly incompetent and couldn’t run up to them or catch them.”

The fact that the Capital Prefecture was assaulted in the afternoon and a corpse went missing was an utter disgrace. Pei Hantang was so furious that his face froze like ice, and his voice became as icy as snow: “Check the morgue.”

However, it was evident that the black-clad men had come prepared and knew which way to go, which is why not a single clue had been left behind.

This incident soon alerted Lord Pei, the Magistrate of the Capital, and Pei Hantang’s father.

Since it was inappropriate for outsiders, like Mu Zhiming and Wen Heyin, to stay in the Yamen at this point in time, they bid their farewells and left.

On the way back to the Mu Residence, Wen Heyin noticed that Mu Zhiming was silently frowning. Wen Heyin advised him: “Young Master, don’t think too much. You should leave everything behind for the day and rest early tonight. Don’t you still feel a little sick?”

Mu Zhiming came back to his senses and looked at Wen Heyin, only to say: “I’m fine, it’s just that there’s something I can’t quite understand.”

Wen Heyin said: “What is it?”

Mu Zhiming: “The woman’s face had been burned so no one can recognize her face, making it difficult for us to find where she came from. Besides, the Capital isn’t a safe place in which you can just come and go as you please. Why would the murderer risk getting caught by trespassing into the Capital Prefecture, which would leave clues behind, for the sake of stealing the body?”

Wen Heyin scratched his head and said: “Yeah, uh, why?”

“I guess it’s because….” Without blinking, Mu Zhiming’s eyes looked at Wen Heyin with intensity, he tightened his own throat and said in a ghostly voice: “….That female corpse….can talk….”