The Female Cannon Fodder With Boundless Merits-Chapter 1441 - 1453: Seeking Immortality (18)

Uncle Deaf, who had set fire to each of the Four Great Families, had long vanished into the sea of people, disappearing without a trace like a fish in the vast ocean.

Uncle Deaf felt somewhat bewildered, having never imagined that revenge could be so simple. There was always a dreamlike, unreal feeling about it all.

He feared that it was all a figment of his imagination, conjured by his eagerness for revenge.

Uncle Deaf hid in a small village not far outside the city. After a few days, despite the families in the city trying hard to suppress the news, the event was too severe, and the city’s populace buzzed with discussions, all saying that the families of Zheng, Yu, Xu, and Yan had been repaid for their myriad misdeeds.

Uncle Deaf stayed outside the city for a few more days, observing that the families went everywhere seeking medical help, even consulting the Imperial Physician, but always returning empty-handed.

He was once again amazed at the formidable nature of the young lady, Xiao Xiao.

Xiao Xiao was far more powerful than he had imagined; no one could nullify the incense poison she crafted.

Indeed, the reason revenge could be achieved so effortlessly was due to the two types of incense poison concocted by Xiao Xiao.

On the night before leaving the Tang Mansion, Xiao Xiao casually made two pieces of fragrant stone, resembling but not made of jade, with a glossy, flowing surface exuding a strange fragrance.

Xiao Xiao merely said, "This fragrance is called the Soul-hooking Fragrance. The more one has committed atrocities, the more a single breath can turn the tides. The scent spirits draw an illusion, judging them within a bewildering dream."

Uncle Deaf had never heard of such a wondrous fragrance before, though it seemed to have appeared in the Tang family. Xiao Xiao nonchalantly mentioned it was a new fragrance she created, and Uncle Deaf did not doubt her, only feeling fortunate.

The stronger Xiao Xiao was, the greater the hope for the Tang family to rise again.

The Tang family was surrounded by wolves at that time, with many greedy eyes coveting them, each wanting a piece of the Tang family.

The Soul-hooking Fragrance was truly peculiar; one stone hooked the soul, the other captured the spirit. Separately, both stones had a calming effect, but once combined, they became a poison.

Disguised, Uncle Deaf seized the opportunity to infiltrate the Four Great Families, wandering among them, causing the direct descendants to fall into slumber.

Those felled by the incense poison were none but the guilty, including the main culprits behind the Tang family’s downfall thirty years ago, and others tainted with various sins.

Simply put, these people were far from innocent.

As behemoths entrenched in the Xilin Dynasty, the internal filth of the great families was abundant, merely hidden beneath the façade of prosperity and glory.

Today, they were all brought down by Uncle Deaf.

The people of Zheng, Xu, Yu, and Yan were driven mad, while the citizens outside secretly rejoiced.

The families not only deployed a large number of guards, but the palace also dispatched soldiers, searching for suspicious individuals everywhere, causing unrest throughout the Imperial City, laden with grievous energy.

The great families insisted it was the hand of the Tang family’s remnants, but they racked their brains without figuring out how and when it was done, not even the identity or gender of the adversary.

As for the most sinful old geezers, Uncle Deaf did not plan to touch them.

Let them watch as their family, their descendants, slowly walked into oblivion. The torture of a dull blade is the most agonizing affair.

----------

Upon learning of such a large-scale vicious event in the Imperial City, Your Majesty in the palace received the news immediately.

Regarding the truth of the Tang family’s destruction thirty years ago, Your Majesty wasn’t entirely ignorant.

However, he was noncommittal about the families’ speculations that it was the Tang family’s remnants who acted, doubting their capability for such feats.

If that were so, the Tang family would not have been persecuted as such thirty years ago.

Yet as time passed, various doctors and the Imperial Physician gathered without resolution. After the first scion of the Zheng family died grotesquely in their sleep, it was as if a terrifying mechanism had been triggered, death following death, rapidly spreading.

The first death was the biological son of the Zheng Family Master, also his most beloved son.

The blood mark on his arm was thick and long, extending rapidly. Within a few days, it reached his fingertips.

As some doctors speculated, the blood mark indeed correlated with their lifespan.

The Zheng Family Master stood by his son, watching as the blood mark slowly reached his fingertips. Then... his son’s complexion turned grayish-blue, his eyes suddenly flew open, regaining consciousness for a split second.

Before those around could rejoice, a horrifying scene unfolded.

The Zheng Family Master’s son’s face contorted into something gruesome and terrifying as if witnessing something dreadful, grating sounds emitted from his throat, and mouthfuls of fresh blood spurted out.

"I am guilty, I am guilty." After shouting this heart-wrenching phrase, the Zheng Family Master’s son’s body convulsed violently a few times before life entirely left him.

Wailing burst from the Zheng family; the women grieved unbearably, yet could only watch helplessly as their kin perished.

The most terrifying part was, this was merely the beginning.

Those in the Zheng family who fainted, each with blood marks on their hand, totaled precisely one hundred and three souls.

The death of the Zheng Family Master’s son was just the first.

The situations in the other families mirrored Zheng’s, their houses never without the sound of wailing during those few days.

It seemed as if the entire Imperial City was enveloped in sorrowful cries.

-----------

Upon hearing Your Majesty’s desire to leave the palace, Second Prince Li Yizhe, his mind stirred, proposed that he wished to accompany.

Your Majesty always favored this child, never once rejecting Second Prince’s proposals.

Li Yizhe accompanied Your Majesty to the Zheng family, accompanied by Daoist Qingfeng of the Suantian Palace.

Not only did Daoist Qingfeng know divination, but he also specialized in medicine and diagnosis, being a remarkably skilled physician.

If even Daoist Qingfeng could not diagnose the case, then no one in the entire Xilin Dynasty could.

Seeing Your Majesty, the Zheng Family Master, that lean and old man, cried before Your Majesty, tears streaming down his face.

No pain in life is greater than for the old to send off the young.

To bid farewell to so many, even one with a heart of stone could not endure.

The first to die was his most cherished son, followed quickly by the deaths of several other sons.

After the sons perished, it was the grandsons’ turn...

Watching this tragedy unfold, Your Majesty also felt compassion.

In his old age, still robust, the Zheng Family Master was now merely a hollow, thin frame, grief-stricken and haggard beyond recognition.

After learning of Your Majesty’s departure from the palace, the other three family masters arrived to meet with him, enduring their own grief, their situations identical to the Zheng Family Master.

Their conditions were no better than those of the Zheng family.

Your Majesty, with a heart of iron, too felt a twinge of pity.

While Your Majesty was speaking with the family heads, Li Yizhe’s emotions were peculiarly stirred, feeling an unfamiliar voice faintly emerge within him.

His mind was also crammed with knowledge he shouldn’t possess.

"What they have fallen victim to is incense poison."

"Your Majesty, please forgive the humble Daoist’s inadequacy."