Chapter 134 The Third Child of the Zhao Family
"It's me." The man in black lay on the ground, looking at Li Daoxuan.

His voice was calm, and he was not at all panicked because he was pinned to the ground. He just stared at Li Daoxuan with a bit of teasing in his eyes, but his emotions seemed to have not changed.

"I really didn't expect that it was you who was playing tricks in this house." Li Daoxuan took off the long sword and played with it in his hand.

"Hmm? Japanese sword?" Li Daoxuan only felt that the sword was slender. At first glance, it looked very much like the Japanese sword he knew in his previous life. But after looking at it carefully, he felt that it was not the same. It was a few inches longer than the Japanese sword.

He looked at the man in black lying on the ground, with a strange smile on his face: "Hey, Third Young Master, what drama are you acting in?"

Li Daoxuan loosened his feet and saw Zhao Laosan get up from the ground, rubbed his shoulders, sighed softly, and bowed to Li Daoxuan: "Thank you, young Taoist priest, for showing mercy."

"Forget about that, let's talk about this matter instead?" Li Daoxuan said with a smile.

"Master, can you go somewhere with me?" The other party bowed again.

"I'll go with you."

After receiving Li Daoxuan's reply, Zhao Laosan breathed a sigh of relief, put on his nightgown, and walked ahead.

The two turned left and right, passed through the old house, came to the ancestral hall, and finally entered an abandoned house in the corner.

This room used to be a small Buddhist temple, with a large stone-carved Buddha statue standing against the wall.

Zhao Laosan walked to the side of the Buddha statue and pushed it with his hand. The statue slowly moved to the side, revealing a wall.

He pressed the wall a few times and saw a stone door slowly move open.

"Please." Zhao Laosan said softly.

Li Daoxuan lifted the hem of his robe and walked into the stone door with small square steps.

I saw that there was a passage behind the stone door. After Zhao Laosan closed the stone door, he followed him down.

After turning a corner, there were a few candles, lighting up the dark passage and illuminating the face of Zhao Laosan.

Li Daoxuan looked at the layout of the stone room, which had a bed, a table, and a bookshelf, and asked Zhao Laosan, "Now it's time to tell me the ins and outs of these things, right? The third young master of the Zhao family, Zhao Zhishu."

Zhao Laosan took off his mask completely and looked at Li Daoxuan with a wry smile. "I didn't expect the young Taoist priest to be so skilled. I am no match for him."

"I didn't know that the third young master of the Zhao family, who looks so elegant, is actually such a good martial artist. The sword technique you just used is not simple. It must be from the hands of a famous master." Li Daoxuan thought of the fight just now. When Zhao Laosan used this long sword, his body moved the sword and the sword followed him. It was very fast and sharp, and he couldn't help but praise him.

"Master, you are very knowledgeable. I used the Xinyou Sword Technique created by General Qi of the Ming Dynasty." Zhao Laosan nodded. "I didn't recognize you just now, so I didn't show any mercy."

"It's not that you didn't recognize me, but you wanted to silence me too." Li Daoxuan naturally didn't fall for Zhao Laosan's trick. He just wanted to deceive the child. Did he think he was a fool? What do you mean he didn't recognize me? He was the only child in the old house at this moment. Isn't his height and body shape obvious?
I didn't recognize it as fake, so I'm afraid the murder to silence him is real.

".The Taoist priest is right. I want to kill you to silence you." Zhao Laosan said with a bitter smile. "If the Taoist priest hates me, I have no regrets."

"I have no hatred or grudge against you, nor against the Zhao family. Why do you want to kill me?" Li Daoxuan asked puzzledly.

"I" Zhao Laosan opened his mouth but couldn't say anything for a long time.

He looked at the lights on the wall for a long time before he spoke: "I am in pain and very confused. I don't know how to face this matter, nor do I know how to say it."

"It's what it is. There are many mundane things in the world. If you can say it, then say it. If you don't want to say it, forget it." Li Daoxuan said nonchalantly, and he also disdained Zhao Laosan. "You all want to kill me to silence me. Since you are willing to kill people, what else can't you say?" Zhao Laosan's eyes flickered when he heard this, as if he was hesitant.

"If you don't want to say it, you'll just hold it in. Anyway, you invited me here, and you want to kill me, but you can't kill me. I really don't know what's going on in your mind." Li Daoxuan saw this and sneered at you. "I actually know what you want to say. If you want to say it, I'm just a passerby anyway. After all, I'm not an official. Just tell me what's hidden in your heart."

Li Daoxuan said this, but he was thinking in his heart. Zhao Laosan invited him in the beginning because he thought that as a Taoist priest, he could easily solve Mr. Zhao's strange problems. But now he suddenly wanted to kill him. He must have found that he needed to do some investigation, and this investigation might have touched on Zhao Laosan's secrets that he could not show to others.

"This..." Zhao Laosan was silent for a moment, and Li Daoxuan stopped talking.

After a while.

"Alas! I don't actually want to save my father." Zhao Lao San said slowly while sitting on a stone chair. "I hate the Zhao family, I hate my father, I hate my eldest brother, I hate everything about the Zhao family! I hate myself, I hate my incompetence and weakness, I hate why I am a member of the Zhao family!"

Zhao Laosan gritted his teeth, clenched his fists, and spoke viciously as if he had made up some kind of decision.

The emotions in his tone were too complicated, with regret, hatred, and a hint of reluctance.

What came out of his mouth might be surprising, but Li Daoxuan thought it was normal.

"I'm a monster, an unfilial son, and a brother-killer." Zhao Laosan turned to look at Li Daoxuan. He grinned, but his expression was extremely deep. "Are you curious about why I said that?"

"Because I was the one who killed my second brother with my own hands!"

After Zhao Laosan finished speaking, he couldn't help but burst into laughter.

He looked up at the top of the secret room, a line of tears flowing from the corners of his eyes.

"You didn't expect that I was the one who killed my second brother! It was me who exposed him to the evil spirit, and it was me who bought the spices and lured him to the second concubine's bed. I did all this, and I killed my second brother bit by bit with my own hands. I made him die in an uneasy and dirty way, and he will be cursed in the underworld!"

After a period of madness, Zhao Laosan calmed down.

He reached out to wipe away the tears from the corners of his eyes, looked at Li Daoxuan calmly and asked, "Are you surprised now?"

"I'm not surprised." Li Daoxuan said with a smile.

"Not surprised?!" Zhao Laosan was stunned.

"Not surprising." Li Daoxuan stopped pacing and looked at Zhao Laosan sideways. "In fact, I had already suspected this when I went to check on your second brother's sudden death, because I was familiar with that fragrance, mixed with the bark of the Chinese cassia bark, which is a common item in Taoist temples. This kind of incense has the effect of clearing the mind and calming the spirit. Under normal circumstances, it can have a hypnotic and calming effect, but in certain circumstances it is also a poison. If a person with a corpse evil spirit often smells this incense, the medicinal power will accumulate in the body, and eventually it will conflict with the corpse evil spirit, causing the person to die suddenly."

"Anyone who is familiar with this characteristic must have some knowledge of Taoism, and you, Third Young Master, are the most suspicious."

"I am the most suspicious? Does the Taoist think so highly of me? He thinks that I know Taoism very well?" Zhao Laosan's heart trembled. Looking at Li Daoxuan's expression, he was indeed not surprised. But why did Li Daoxuan suspect him?
"Do you remember the first time we met?" Li Daoxuan continued with a smile. "Although I gave the official a certificate at that time and mentioned once that I was a Taoist priest from Mount Mao, you should know that the official and I were far away from the stage at that time. If you were paying attention to the stage, you would definitely not be able to hear the conversation between me and the official."

"But you recognized me right away, Third Young Master, and you also knew that I was a Taoist priest who had been ordained. It seemed that you recognized my certificate at a glance. Ordinary people may not recognize a certificate, let alone see it once in their lifetime. I was surprised that you could recognize it at a glance and even knew about the ordination. You know so many things about Taoism. Even if you are not a member of the Xuanmen sect, you are almost there. So when I smelled the fragrance in the room, I guessed that it was you, Third Young Master, who did it."

"Haha, so meticulous!" Zhao Laosan clapped his thigh and laughed, agreeing with Li Daoxuan's analysis. "I didn't expect that I would reveal so much without realizing it. It's also because the young Taoist priest is so smart."

"In addition to these, there is one more thing. That night, your father lost his soul and went to dig a hole in the yard. I happened to find some paper figures in the pit. The birth dates of the Zhao family members were written on these paper figures. Each paper figure had been sacrificed and refined. At that time, the third young master seemed to be very concerned about the pit." Li Daoxuan said, slowly turning his body completely around, with his hands behind his back, facing Zhao Laosan, staring at Zhao Laosan's eyes without blinking.

His eyes were sharp, as if he wanted to see through Zhao Lao San, and he asked word by word: "Can I ask, did the Third Young Master have a plan in mind when he first saw me?"

(End of this chapter)