Chapter 112 Getting Closer

Zhang Yuelu's main mission when she left Yujing this time was to eliminate secret societies. Cihang Zhenren gave her great autonomy, without specifying targets or dividing regions. In other words, Zhang Yuelu could decide where to go and what secret societies to fight, and under the banner of Tiangang Hall, all local Daofu had to assist.

Now Zhang Yuelu was invited to Wuxu Palace, and she did not forget her duties, and began to arrange tasks for her subordinates.

At the beginning, she had only two subordinates, which was in line with the regulations of Taoism.

However, over the years, many rules have become meaningless. For example, the rule that each deputy hall master has two subordinates was set during the Xuansheng period. At that time, Taoism was not as large as it is today, and two subordinates were enough to handle various affairs.

However, with the continuous development of Taoism, the two subordinates gradually became stretched, and it was not easy to change the structure rashly, such as adding another level of position between the deputy hall master and the subordinate, so the deputy hall masters and deputy palace masters came up with a compromise strategy to continuously increase the number of subordinates and form an invisible hierarchy through the ranking of subordinates.

Generally speaking, only the newly promoted deputy hall master will have only two deputy hall masters, and the chief deputy hall master will have as many as nine chiefs.

After Zhang Yuelu took over Shangguan Jing's old subordinates, including Sun Yongfeng and Lingquanzi, he already had five chiefs under his command. Xu Kou also entered the return to the true stage not long ago, and was promoted to chief by Zhang Yuelu regardless of past grudges, with a total of six chiefs. Not inferior to many powerful deputy hall masters, no wonder he is called the little hall master.

In fact, the appointment and increase and decrease of chiefs still need to be approved by the hall master, and it is not that the deputy hall master can appoint them. However, Cihang Zhenren also gave Zhang Yuelu great autonomy in this regard. Reporting to the hall master has become a formality, and it is okay to say that it was appointed by Zhang Yuelu.

The reason for this is that Cihang Zhenren is afraid that Zhang Yuelu's authority cannot suppress several chiefs who originally obeyed Shangguan Jing. After all, Shangguan Jing is a second-grade Taiyi Taoist priest, and now Zhang Yuelu is only a fourth-grade Jijiu Taoist priest, two levels lower. Therefore, Cihang Zhenren handed over the personnel power to Zhang Yuelu. Anyone who dared to challenge Zhang Yuelu had to be prepared to be dismissed by Zhang Yuelu. At the same time, she expressed her attitude. At least in Tiangang Hall, Cihang Zhenren unconditionally supported Zhang Yuelu. If you want to sue, you can only go to Jinque.

This time, Zhang Yuelu sent all six of her chief officers out and ordered them to lead their Taoist priests and spiritual officials to wipe out small groups of secret societies. In addition to directing and commanding in the middle, she only brought a few deacons directly under her to continue investigating Wan Xiuwu's case.

Pan Cuiqing had no opinion on this. After all, Wan Xiuwu was only a fifth-grade Taoist priest, not even a high-grade Taoist priest. It was impossible for the entire Yaoguang Division to revolve around him alone. When the flying boat was attacked, Tiangang Hall only dispatched one division.

After sending out the manpower, Zhang Yuelu left Wuxu Palace in Xijing Prefecture and came to "Ghost Pass" to visit the garrison spiritual officer there.

This spiritual officer is a genuine first-grade spiritual officer with a superior status.

With Zhang Yuelu's Taoist rank, he naturally cannot have an equal dialogue with him, but the Taoist sect still emphasizes positions. In terms of position, Zhang Yuelu is definitely a low-ranking but powerful person. The deceased Shangguan Jing is also a deputy hall master, a second-grade Taiyi Taoist priest, who just corresponds to the first-grade spiritual officer.

For this reason, this spiritual officer did not reject Zhang Yuelu, but he was not too enthusiastic, and the distance was just right.

In fact, in the Taoist sect, because the spiritual officers were created by the Taoists, they were regarded as tools and were not allowed to interfere in politics, but most of the spiritual officers had a keen sense of smell.

This situation seems contradictory, but it fits the reality.

Because the realm cultivation of Taoists comes from themselves, even if they lose, the worst thing is to become a free and easy person, or retreat to the second line, or even worse, leave the Taoist sect in anger, and no one dares to mess with their realm cultivation. But the spiritual officials' cultivation comes from the Taoist sect. If they accidentally stand on the wrong side, they may lose everything, even the first-grade spiritual officials. So the spiritual officials have to act carefully.

This is also the reason why the spiritual officials are naturally inferior to the Taoist priests.

Zhang Yuelu did not want to win over this spiritual official, but just asked if there was anything unusual in the recent Ghost Kingdom Cave Heaven.

A member of a secret society came to "Ghost Pass" and stayed in "Ghost Pass" for two days. What is the purpose? The biggest possibility is to target the Ghost Kingdom Cave Heaven.

After all, Siming Zhenjun has coveted the Ghost Kingdom Cave Heaven for a long time.

After Zhang Yuelu explained his intention, the first-grade spiritual official was shocked, because not long ago, there were indeed some abnormalities in the Ghost Kingdom Cave Heaven. For this reason, he also met Mr. Yin specifically.

Unexpectedly, Yujing knew it so quickly. Who leaked the news? Or did Yujing plant people in "Ghost Pass"? Does this mean that Yujing no longer trusts himself?

For a moment, this first-rank spiritual officer began to speculate whether Zhang Yuelu had a special mission, and the so-called elimination of secret societies was just a cover.

Most smart people are like this, judging others by their own standards, and eventually their smartness backfires.

So Zhang Yuelu easily got the answer he wanted.

The Ghost Kingdom Cave Heaven has indeed had an abnormality recently. According to the formation, the overlap between the Ghost Kingdom Cave Heaven and the present world has deepened, but this overlap generally only occurs on the 15th day of the seventh month of each year. However, the impact is not great. It may just be a normal change in the cave heaven. The "Ghost Gate" has strengthened its vigilance and has not found any traces of suspicious people.

The time when the abnormality occurred in the Ghost Kingdom Cave Heaven just happened to correspond to the time when Wei Wugui passed through the "Ghost Pass".

Zhang Yuelu did not comment on the statement that "no suspicious person was found", but she was very satisfied with this answer, proving that her ideas and speculations were correct. All the clues pointed to this Wei Wugui, and there was indeed a problem.

This is not just a matter of Wan Xiuwu.

After leaving the "Ghost Pass", Zhang Yuelu came to the summer palace of Zhongzhou Daofu.

The summer palace can also be regarded as a large Taoist temple, which also provides the function of a post station.

However, there are certain requirements for the grade and position of Taoist priests, and ordinary Taoist priests cannot stay.

Zhang Yuelu listed the various clues obtained in the past few days in his residence. In the absence of sufficient evidence, he began to make bold assumptions and carefully verify.

What is the purpose of Wei Wugui entering the Ghost Kingdom Cave Heaven?

There are three long-standing Yin objects inside the Ghost Kingdom Cave Heaven. As early as the Xuansheng era, they have existed in the cave heaven. They are the creations left by the previous owner of the cave heaven and are also half the owners of the Ghost Kingdom Cave Heaven.

There was something abnormal in the Ghost Kingdom Cave Heaven, but the three Yin Objects did not take the initiative to report it. Instead, they waited until the spiritual officer guarding the place asked, and then replied that there was nothing abnormal, it was just a normal change in the cave heaven.

The first possibility is that the three Yin Objects really did not find any abnormality. But the problem is that the formation in the "Ghost Pass" has already discovered the abnormality in the Ghost Kingdom Cave Heaven, and the three Yin Objects that are integrated with the cave heaven cannot fail to notice the abnormality in the cave heaven.

Then there is the second possibility, the three Yin Objects noticed the abnormality in the Ghost Kingdom Cave Heaven, but chose to conceal it from the Taoist sect.

Why did they conceal it?

This can lead to a speculation, is Wei Wugui's entry into the Ghost Kingdom Cave Heaven related to the three Yin Objects? Or, he entered the Ghost Kingdom Cave Heaven just to see the three Yin Objects.

In this way, it makes sense that the three Yin Objects concealed the abnormality of the cave heaven from the Taoist sect, and they were covering up the fact that they had met Wei Wugui.

If this speculation is true, then what happened after Wei Wugui met the three Yin Objects?

Did the three Yin Objects have second thoughts and want to cooperate with outsiders? Or did Wei Wugui make some conditions on behalf of an ancient immortal to the three Yin creatures?

Both are possible.

Zhang Yuelu did not expect that a simple murder case would involve so many inside stories.

Qin Wubing, the deputy governor of Xizhou in the court, Pei Xiaolou, the second-rank Taiyi Taoist of the Taoist sect, and the three Yin creatures of the Ghost Kingdom Dongtian, no matter which one, can not be considered a small figure.

There is also Feng Bo. The secret societies are not united, and they often fight among themselves. Feng Bo took the risk to sneak into Xijing Mansion to hunt down Wei Wugui, which is also very strange.

These people are like beads, and Wei Wugui is like a line that connects these beads.

In front of these people, Wan Xiuwu becomes insignificant, and it is even difficult to connect the two.

This makes Zhang Yuelu waver in some of his speculations.

Is Wan Xiuwu's murder just an accident?

In fact, Wei Wugui and Wan Xiuwu have no hatred. Maybe Wan Xiuwu accidentally discovered Wei Wugui's true identity and was killed by Wei Wugui to silence him. Maybe the two of them simply had a conflict, just like "Xiao Tiangang" bullied Wei Wugui.

If that was the case, then Wei Wugui had nothing to do with Qi Xuansu.

Who wanted to link Wei Wugui and Qi Xuansu together?

Thinking of this, Zhang Yuelu suddenly remembered someone.

Yue Liuli.