How come the guard disciple had no demonic energy? Wasn't he the demon that killed and used the female disciples as human cauldrons?

Wei Wuxian's eyebrows furrowed. His forehead wrinkled from distraught."Then... what exactly is going on?" Abruptly, a loud noise festered.

The door to the room was kicked off their hinges.

In came the rest of the three couples. Hua Cheng and Xie Lian came in, carrying the second of the two guard disciples (knocked out unconscious). Apparently, the other guard disciple thought to attack them while their buddy attacked Wei Wuxian and Lan Zhan. Unfortunately for them, they were defeated in response.

"You were attacked as well?" Wei Wuxian questioned.

"Mhm." Xie Lian nodded. "Oh, but don't worry. San Lang's got everything." He shot his lover a look, who responded with a gentle smile.

Shen Qingqiu and Luo Binghe were unharmed. They entered the room as well, examining the two knocked out guarding disciples. "...did you figure anything out?"

Wei Wuxian had a dark face. "There's no trace of demonic energy in them."

"What?" As a half demon himself, Luo Binghe was astonished. He rushed to both of the unconscious guard disciples, then felt around their dantian. Indeed, there was no demonic energy. "How could that be? If they're not the demons attacking the Mo Clan, then why did they attack us?"

The remaining cultivators held their chin and fell deep in thought.

Finally, Xie Lian snapped his fingers. "We should question the guard disciples."

"Good idea." Wei Wuxian piped in.

Xie Lian took out Ruoye, the white bandage, then wrapped it around the two disciples. The two guard disciples were rendered immobile. The three couples waited for some time. It was then the immobile guard disciples regained their consciousness. Waking up, the first of the two struggled to escape from Ruoye's hold, but was instead tightened.

"Don't try to escape." Lan Zhan opened his mouth. "Answer our questions properly, or else we'll kill you."

The guard disciples had their mouth covered by Ruoye. Their eyes widened in fear, and noticed the blade of Bichen held up against their necks. With no choice, they could only nod their heads.

Shen Qingqiu stepped forwards. "Were there any strange activities around the Clan Gate?"

The guard disciples shook their heads.

"You're lying." Xie Lian piped in. He frowned, "There were obviously many guest cultivators who visited-" Abruptly, he shut up. Something seemed to go off in his brain.

"What's wrong, Gege?" Hua Cheng nudged gently.

Xie Lian's eyebrows furrowed. "We never got to see the guest cultivator's bodies. Only the female deceased... do you know what that means?"

"Does that mean..." Wei Wuxian seemed to get a grasp. "The bodies of the guest cultivators have something that the female deceased ones don't?"

"The opposite." Xie Lian shook his head thoughtfully. "The female deceased bodies have something that the others don't..."

Silence ensued.

Finally, Xie Lian spoke up. "I want to go steal Mo Huanhan's alchemy book. There is something in there that might fulfill my suspicion."

"I'll go with you." Wei Wuxian nodded.

Shen Qingqiu piped in. "Binghe and I will go and find the bodies of the guest cultivators. We may be able to realize how they died and find the exact culprit."

Wei Wuxian nodded. He looked towards his hubby and Hua Cheng, "Lan Zhan, you and Hua Chengzhu can look after the guard disciples. Make sure to not let them get away. They might be underlings of the culprit. The culprit might come over and release them, so you can find out who the culprit is through that way. We'll leave it to you."

The two husbands nodded with a stoic face. They believed that their lovers were capable of handling the difficulties on their own.

"Then, let's get going."

Wei Wuxian tied his hair into a swift and long ponytail. The dark coffee brown hair swayed back and forth in the night wind. Behind him, Xie Lian followed closely.

They lightly left the dormitories, and head on their way to the disciples' sleeping quarters.

Eventually, they figured out an issue. Where exactly was Mo Huanhan staying?

"We can search in every room." Xie Lian had suggested.

Wei Wuxian agreed, so they looked onwards to the disciples' sleeping quarters. There were about fifty rooms aligned in a row (about fifty disciples in total). If they wanted to search for Mo Huanhan's book, they'd have to go through at maximum fifty rooms. Additionally, they would also have to go through at risk of waking up at maximum 50 disciples. Who knows if the culprit is amongst them.

"I'll start from one end, you'll search from the other." Wei Wuxian whispered.

Xie Lian nodded to show his understanding. They then began searching separately.

Light on his feet, Wei Wuxian gently pushed open the bamboo window of the first room. To his surprise, there was nobody inside! Not even a soul was insight!

Suddenly, an idea came over him.

No longer disguising his sound, Wei Wuxian rushed to the next room. He kicked the door open. There was no disciple inside either. Not the next, nor the next, or the next of the next... Gradually, Xie Lian understood the situation as well. They kicked all the doors to the sleeping quarters open. There was not a single disciple in sight. "What does this mean..." He muttered.

Quickly grouping back together with Wei Wuxian, they told each other their findings.

"Where could the disciples be?" Wei Wuxian scoffed.

"Where could the book be?" Xie Lian scoffed.

They turned around, looking at each other with a faint smile. Then, they asked each other the same question, "Why are you focusing on the wrong thing?"

Suddenly, two figures dropped behind them, landing lightly on the ground. One was white, and the other was red. "San Lang?" Xie Lian was confused as to why their husbands would suddenly come to find them.

"The guard disciples killed themselves from biting on their tongue." Hua Cheng reported.

Wei Wuxian froze. He didn't think that the guard disciples would make such a suicidal move.

"However," Hua Cheng added, "We did find something. When questioning them whether or not there were any visitors to the Mo Clan before the incident, they tensed up. We deduced that there may have been a few visitors besides from the guest cultivators."

"Visitors that weren't the guest cultivators?" Wei Wuxian pondered.

"Yes," Lan Zhan remained stone-faced. "We asked how many there were. When asking if there were five, they tensed up again." His sleeves fluttered in the wind.

Wei Wuxian held his chin. "So there were five visitors before the big incident?"

Suddenly, his eyes shone a brilliant light. The rest of them understood as well. "Gege," Hua Cheng piped in. "The book you're looking for is in the fifth room to the right."

"Thank you, San Lang." Xie Lian wasn't surprised. He went to the fifth room on the right, grabbed the book from the empty room, then left to join the rest. "How did you know it was in that specific room?" Wei Wuxian was curious, so he naturally asked.

"My spiritual energy sensed and familiarized with the book." Hua Cheng responded blankly. "You can expand your spiritual energy in the surroundings. It's like growing an extra pair of eyes."

"Oh." Wei Wuxian blandly said. He understood.

Just barely.

"Where are the disciples?" Lan Zhan spoke up. Looking around, the disciple sleeping quarters was equivalent to an oasis! It was completely empty! "We don't know." Wei Wuxian shook his head dramatically. "When we arrived, there were no disciples in sight. Where else could they possibly be? Did the demon kidnap them? Or did they leave on their own regards?"

While he was mumbling to himself, Xie Lian had already flipped open the alchemy book. He rummaged through some pages, then stopped at one.

"I knew it." He sighed.

"What is it, Gege?" Hua Cheng nudged him by the shoulder.

Xie Lian placed the book on the ground so that everyone could see. He then pinpointed to one page, which illustrated the image of a needle. "It is a method for extracting spiritual energy." Indeed, there was a label around the tip of the needle. It showed the tip of the needle, which is used acupuncture a cultivator's dantian, then absorb their spiritual energy.

With the spiritual energy absorbed at the needle, it can then be refined into a pill. After refined into a pill, the pill can be eaten to improve one's own cultivation. Basically... it was utilizing other people's hard work to improve your own.

"Does this mean..." Wei Wuxian uttered.

"Yes," Xie Lian nodded. "It means that the female disciples might have not been used as human cauldrons. It is possible that the culprit used this method of acupuncture to absorb the female disciples' spiritual energy. Later on, we mistook it as the result of dual cultivation."

"Then..." Lan Zhan raised his sharp eyebrows. "Why is this method found in the Mo Clan's alchemy book? Does this mean that the culprit is Mo Huanhan?"

Hua Cheng intercepted his reasoning. "Not exactly. We can't determine that Mo Huanhan is the only person who knows about this method."

In the background, Wei Wuxian was excitedly chatting with Xie Lian. "How did you know that this book is so important?"

Xie Lian shrugged. "When Mo Huanhan talked about extracting spiritual energy, I already had my suspicions. I just concealed my expression."

"Amazing, Xie-xiong!" Wei Wuxian praised.

As per usual, the white-clothed scrap picker blushed. His cheeks went to a dark shade of tomatoes. "It's not that worthy of praise. Enough... we still haven't figured out where the disciples are."

"Do you think..." Wei Wuxian suddenly stiffened. "Do you think that the disciples are in danger?"

Xie Lian shook his head. "I don't think they are in danger, but rather, they are the danger." His golden pupils flashed a strange light. Then, he picked up the book from the ground. "We should go group back up with Shen-xiong and Luo-xiong. I'm afraid that this case isn't so simple."

"What do you mean?" Lan Zhan furrowed his eyebrows, looking down at the shorter man.

Xie Lian frowned. "The demon—"

Shen Qingqiu listened keenly to his surroundings. By his side, Luo Binghe clung to his forearms seriously without any sense of shame.

Their robes swayed close to the ground.

"Shizun~" Luo Binghe cooed. "I'm so scared."

Shen Qingqiu resisted the urge to swat the brat off his arms. Instead, he held his lover closer to himself. The embrace was warm and comforting. "Don't be scared. You have this Shizun here. You won't be hurt." He patted his lover on the back.

Surprised, Luo Binghe softened into his lover's arms.

"Let's go find the guest cultivators' bodies." Shen Qingqiu urged himself. They were walking down the underground tunnel, where the cellar containing the bodies were hidden in.

"Shizun is the best. Shizun is the cutest. Shizun is the best. Shizun is the cutest-"

"Binghe," Shen Qingqiu his lover's chant. "That's enough." He was not only flustered, but also tormented.

Luo Binghe pouted, but he did as he was told.

Walking down the underground hallway, they finally arrived in front of the cellar gate. Behind the gate were the female disciples' bodies. "We need a key to open the gate." Shen Qingqiu pondered to himself. His one spare hand rubbed his chin.

Beside him, Luo Binghe directly took out his Zhengyang sword and slashed the lock into pieces.

Shen Qingqiu, "..." Never mind.

Pushing open the door, a croak festered. The two lovers crouched down to examine the female bodies. Once again, they felt around the demonic energy stained inside their meridians. "Can we try and find out the owner behind the demonic energy?" Shen Qingqiu questioned.

"Demonic energy is basically all the same." Luo Binghe responded. "There are no different forms of it."

Shen Qingqiu sighed. He pondered where the bodies of the guest cultivators could possibly be.

"Actually," Luo Binghe began. "I was always wondering why the guard disciples had no trace of demonic energy. Even if they aren't the mastermind, they would've at least been tainted by the demonic energy."

Shen Qingqiu eyed him. "What does that mean?"

Luo Binghe's face suddenly darkened. The sound of hundreds of footsteps thundered down the hallway. It was loud and undisguised. The lantern's lights flickered. The golden light hesitated, and silhouettes fell over the cave walls. Those shadows took on the shape of fifty figures... and those fifty figures belonged to the fifty disciples of the Mo Clan.

The two lovers understood something.

The fifty disciples stepped out from the shadows. All of them wielded a spear in their hands. The blade of the spear was directed at the two lovers, with the intent to kill.

Luo Binghe scoffed. "Shit, they've gotten us."

Shen Qingqiu was confused. "What?"

Luo Binghe frowned, "The demon—"

Xie Lian frowned, "The demon—isn't the culprit, but the deceased."

Luo Binghe: Shizun, I'm so scared wink wonk

Shen Qingqiu: Don't be afraid. I am here

Wei Wuxian: unamused Shen-xiong, you're shaking

The author has something to say: I took like... four hours to research about xianxia cultivation just to write and make up this investigation. It hurts 😂 Also, happy pride month y'all! Take joy in this occasion!