The candles in the secret room flickered, Pi Yanlin’s fingertips still resting on the bronze medallion at his waist.
Gu Qinghuan did not lift the hand pressing down on his shoulder. The chill of the Dark Iron Sword’s scabbard seeped through her coarse cotton tunic into her skin, keeping her far more alert than the bitter fragrance of A Lian’s calming broth.
"If Judge Wei is truly alive, he must be hiding in some secret stronghold within the city." Pi Yanlin looked at the sleeping young girl on the bamboo couch, his Adam’s apple bobbing. A Lian had said that the person wearing the Holy Monarch Cult vestment had mentioned her younger brother’s illness, and in Judge Wei’s falling-from-a-horse case, the coroner had written in the autopsy report: "Corporeal body exhibits abnormal stiffness."
Chapter 40