Pawn Crossing the River

Zhang Yuelu's main mission when she left Yujing this time was to eradicate secret societies. Master Cihang gave her great autonomy, without specifying targets or dividing regions. In other words, Zhang Yuelu can decide on his own where to go and what secret associations to attack, and under the banner of Tiangangtang, all local governments must provide assistance.

Now that Zhang Yuelu was invited to Wuxu Palace, he did not forget his responsibilities and began to arrange errands for his bosses.

At the beginning, she had only two chiefs under her, which was in line with the rules of the Taoist sect.

However, over the years, many rules have become false. For example, the rule that each deputy hall leader has two principals under him was set during the Xuansheng period. At that time, the Taoist sect was not as large as it is today, and two principals were enough to handle various tasks. kind of affairs.

However, with the continuous development of the Taoist sect, the two principals gradually became stretched thin, and it was difficult to change the structure rashly, such as adding another level of position between the deputy hall master and the principal, so the deputy hall masters and deputy palace masters wanted to Come up with a compromise strategy, continuously increase the number of bosses under your command, and form an invisible hierarchy through the ranking of bosses.

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

After Zhang Yuelu took over Shangguan Jing's old department, he already had five chiefs under his command, including Sun Yongfeng and Lingquanzi. Xu Kou also entered the stage of returning to his true nature not long ago, and was promoted to chief by Zhang Yuelu regardless of past suspicions. There are six chiefs in total. Not inferior to many deputy hall masters with real power, it is no wonder that he is called the little master.

In fact, the appointment, addition or deletion of principals still requires the permission of the real person in charge of the hall. It is not something that can be appointed by the deputy hall leader. It is just that Master Cihang also gave Zhang Yuelu great autonomy in this regard and reported it to the real person in charge of the hall. It turned into a formality, and it was okay to say that Zhang Yuelu was appointed.

The reason for this is that Master Cihang was afraid that Zhang Yuelu's authority would not be able to suppress several principals who originally took orders from Shangguan Jing. After all, Shangguan Jing was a second-grade Taiyi Taoist priest, and now Zhang Yuelu is only a fourth-grade wine-sacrifice Taoist priest. Two levels worse. Therefore, Master Cihang handed over the personnel power to Zhang Yuelu. Anyone who dares to challenge Zhang Yuelu must be prepared to be dismissed by Zhang Yuelu. At the same time, she made her attitude clear. At least in Tiangang Hall, Master Cihang unconditionally supports Zhang Yuelu. If you want to file a lawsuit, you can only go to Jinque.

This time, Zhang Yuelu sent out all six of his chiefs and ordered them to lead their Taoist priests and spiritual officers to wipe out the small group of secret association forces. In addition to centrally dispatching and commanding, she only brought a few deacons directly under her to continue investigating Wan Xiuwu's case.

Pan Cuiqing had no objection to 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. When the flying boat was attacked, Tiangangtang only dispatched one commander.

After spreading out the people, Zhang Yuelu left the Wuxu Palace in Xijing Mansion and came to the "Ghost Pass" to visit the spiritual officer stationed here.

This spiritual official is a genuine first-grade spiritual official with a transcendent status. by

Zhang Yuelu's rank as a Taoist priest naturally makes it impossible to talk to him on an equal footing, but within the Taoist sect, there is still a matter of position. In terms of position, Zhang Yuelu is definitely of low status and power. The deceased Shangguan Jing is also the deputy hall master, and is a second-grade Taiyi Taoist priest. , just enough to correspond to a first-grade spiritual officer.

Because of this, the spiritual officer did not turn Zhang Yuelu away, but he was not too enthusiastic and kept the distance just right.

In fact, within the Taoist sect, because spiritual officials were created by Taoist priests, they are regarded as tool men and are not allowed to interfere in politics. However, most spiritual officials have a keen sense of smell.

This situation seems contradictory, but it is realistic.

Because Taoist priests' realm cultivation comes from themselves. Even if they fail, the worst they can do is become a free and unyielding person, or retreat to the second line. What's worse, they leave the Taoist sect in a rage, and no one dares to offend them despite their realm cultivation. But the level of cultivation of the spiritual officers comes from the Taoist sect. If you accidentally stand in the wrong team, you will probably lose everything, even if you are a first-grade spiritual officer. So the spiritual officials had to be careful.

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

Zhang Yuelu didn't want to win over this spiritual official, he just asked if there was anything unusual in the nearest ghost country cave.

A member of a secret society came to "Ghost Pass" and stayed there for two days. What was his purpose? The biggest possibility is to target the ghost country Dongtian.

After all, Lord Siming has been coveting the Ghost Kingdom Cave for a long time.

After Zhang Yuelu explained his purpose, the first-grade spiritual officer was startled, because not long ago, there were indeed some abnormalities in the cave of the ghost country. To this end, he also met with Mr. Yin.

Unexpectedly, Yu Jing found out so quickly. Who leaked the news? Or is it that Yu Jing has placed people in "Ghost Pass"? Does this mean that Yu Jing no longer trusts him?

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

Most smart people are like this. They use themselves to judge others, and in the end their wisdom is misled by their wisdom.

So Zhang Yuelu easily got the answer he wanted.

There has indeed been an abnormality in the Ghost Kingdom Cave Heaven recently. According to the formation, the overlap between the Ghost Kingdom Cave Heaven and the real world has deepened. However, this overlap usually only occurs on the Ghost Festival on July 15th every year, but the impact is not big. Maybe It's just a normal change in the cave. The "Ghost Pass" has stepped up its vigilance and has not found any traces of suspicious people.

The time when the abnormality occurred in the Ghost Kingdom Cave Heaven coincided with the time when Wei Wugui passed by the "Ghost Pass".

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

This is no longer just a matter of Wan Xiuwu.

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

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

Yes, but there are certain requirements for the Taoist priest's grade and position. Ordinary Taoist priests cannot stay.

In his residence, Zhang Yuelu listed all the clues he had obtained in the past few days. Without enough evidence, he began to make bold assumptions and carefully verify them.

What is Wei Wugui's purpose in entering the Ghost Kingdom's Cave Heaven?

There are three yin objects that have been passed down for a long time in the cave of the ghost country. They have existed in the cave as early as the Xuansheng era. They are the creations left by the previous master of the cave and are also half the masters of the cave of the ghost country.

An abnormality occurred in the cave of the ghost country, but the three evil creatures did not take the initiative to report it. Instead, they waited until the spiritual officer guarding the place inquired and then replied that there was nothing abnormal and it was just a normal change in the cave.

The first possibility is that the three major Yin objects really didn’t find anything abnormal. But the problem is that the formations in the "Ghost Pass" have already discovered the anomalies in the cave sky of the ghost kingdom. It is impossible for the three major Yin objects that are integrated with the cave sky not to notice the anomalies in the cave sky.

Then there is the second possibility. The three great ghosts noticed the anomaly in the cave of the ghost country, but chose to hide it from the Taoist sect.

Why are they hiding it?

This can lead to a guess: Will Wei Wugui's entry into the cave of the ghost country be related to the three major evil objects? In other words, he entered the cave of the ghost country just to see the three great ghosts.

In this case, it makes sense that the three great ghosts concealed the abnormality in the cave from Daomen. 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 evil creatures?

Are the three evil beings giving birth to two minds, wanting to harmonize with outsiders inside and outside? Or is it that Wei Wugui, on behalf of a certain ancient immortal, made certain conditions to the three great ghosts?

It's possible.

Zhang Yuelu did not expect that a simple murder case would involve so much inside information.

Qin Wubing, the deputy governor of Xizhou in the imperial court, Pei Xiaolou, a Taoist priest of the second rank Taiyi of the Taoist sect, and the three great ghosts of Dongtian in the Ghost Kingdom, none of them can be regarded as small figures.

There is also Feng Bo. The secret societies are not monolithic and often fight among themselves. Feng Bo does not hesitate to take risks and 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 connecting these beads.

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

This made Zhang Yuelu waver in some of his speculations.

Could it be that Wan Xiuwu's murder was just an accident?

In fact, Wei Wugui and Wan Xiuwu had no grudge. Perhaps Wan Xiuwu accidentally discovered Wei Wugui's true identity, and was then killed and silenced by Wei Wugui. Maybe the two simply had a conflict, just like how "Little Tiangang" bullied Wei Wugui.

If that's the case, then Wei Wugui has nothing to do with Qi Xuansu.

Who wants to connect Wei Wugui and Qi Xuansu?

Thinking of this, Zhang Yuelu had a flash of inspiration and remembered someone.

Yue Liuli.