The Discipline Keeper’s words struck to the bone and the others immediately took a step away from Sage as soon as they landed. Sage looked around at the group and then he suddenly broke into laughter, “That’s it? That’s your evidence? You just listened to some stories and now you’ve decided the truth of the matter? Is this the level of the Clear Sky Academy? You’re utterly incompetent!”

Before the Discipline Keeper could open his mouth, Sage broke into a tirade.

“Why have you not separated all the ‘witnesses’ here and questioned them individually? Aren’t you afraid of them passing secret messages? Or do you think yourself capable of finding them all and that’s what you’re looking for? Foolish. Why have you shown everyone the crime scene? You’ve given everyone information about the victim which not only means they can spread rumors, but now they’re all on the same page about the circumstances. If one of them claims to be the killer you can’t use the details on the scene to determine if they’re telling the truth because you’ve already shown it all to them!”

Sage even looked over to the three golden haired students, the librarian and Teacher Zhou, “You’ve even questioned them all as a group and let them arrange their stories into a perfect little play. How can you find any inconsistencies between them if you let them work together to fill in the gaps?”

Sage took a step towards the Discipline Keeper and then looked down at the body of Lu Ju, “You’re completely useless as an interrogator, but at least you have not contaminated the crime scene by moving the body. Then you outdid yourself and used your Spiritual Sense to smash everything in the area. Anything you didn’t notice has now been destroyed by your overbearing attempts to ‘search’ for the culprit. Small traces of residual aura or faint traces of poison have now been wiped clean, not by the villain, but by you, the investigator! You haven’t collected even a trace of actual evidence and are now relying entirely on circumstantial evidence in the form of witness testimony and your own prejudice against an outsider.”

After his tyrannical tirade towards the terrible teacher threatening to turn the target to him, Sage finally came to a sudden halt. He could see that the flurry of insults hurled at the Discipline Keeper had served to shock the man into silence. The man’s lofty position among the Clear Sky Academy, one of the five great academies of the Tianxia Empire, had filled him with so much arrogance he’d never imagined anyone could say such words to him. It took all the way to this momentary pause for him to recover from the shock he suffered. Clarity finally returned to his eyes and he lifted his jaw back up from where it had fallen open in amazement. His lips started to twitch as he prepared to berate Sage, but Sage pre-empted him.

“Since you will no doubt continue to hurl your baseless accusations at me, it seems I am forced to make up for your lack of ability and solve the case myself. Be silent for a moment now while I do your job for you.”

I was quite lucky that a Sunset Rain Snake was loose, but now it seems my luck has run out and I’ve encountered an incompetent man in power. I have to find the real culprit now. Even before I said anything, this fool would have tried to pin it all on me.

This new set of ‘insults’ came from a completely new direction and the Discipline Keeper was stunned for a second time. This shock lasted much shorter than the previous one, but it was enough for Sage to close his eyes and use the Timeless Eyes. This time it was his left eye that had a field of stars within the pupil. He usually didn’t have much opportunity to use this vision, that of Hindsight, but this situation helped him remember this capability and how he’d always felt it could create the greatest detective ever. It was quite a shame he had no desire to take this role, and he couldn’t pass the technique on to others.

By the time the Discipline Keeper had let out a frustrated growl, Sage had already ‘rewound’ his vision of the scene back to the time of Lu Ju’s death. Luckily, the crime was fairly recent so he didn’t have to waste too much time as the target of the Discipline Keeper.

“What huge guts you have! You dare to insult the Clear Sky Academy to such a degree, do you not fear death? Only someone as insane as you would dare to commit murder in the middle of the academy. We will be doing the world a service by executing you. Only then you will no longer be able to commit such terrible crimes. Hahaha, a murderer being assigned to investigate his own murder victim. What sort of farce would that be? Do you intend to kneel and turn yourself in?”

The Discipline Keeper’s words suddenly halted when he felt the air stir and a gentle Qi swept over the area around Lu Ju. The Discipline Keeper lifted his club and was about to activate the formation around the library, but then he recognized the technique that this Lang Sheng was using and he garnered just enough curiosity to let him continue.

Around the body of Lu Ju a ghostly blue projection of light appeared. It layed over the body like a second skin and then it lifted into the air. As it moved, the blue light was in the exact shape of Lu Ju. It wasn’t a layer of light, but a ghostly approximation of Lu Ju. This ghostly Lu Ju lifted back up to a standing position with a strangely bent forward neck. This ghost was looking down at its chest and then it lifted its head and looked towards the shelfs where they had just found the bawdy stories. Then the ghost spun around, facing away from those shelves and moved its legs backwards. It was at this moment that all the people watching all realized that this ghost was moving in reverse. The ghost ran backwards towards those same shelves. Then it crouched down for a moment before flying backwards like it was pulled on a wire, landing on top of a ghostly blue ladder that just appeared.

The ghost let out a silent scream and then looked down towards the floor to its left. Then something suddenly flew out of the ghost’s ear and shot down towards where the ghost had been looking. This small object flew down into the open hand of a person wearing a black outfit, complete with a mask and hood.

“What do you think you’re doing? Are you trying to use a little trick to get yourself out of trouble? Did you think I wouldn’t recognize the Phantom Mirror technique? This is all just an illusion of your own making. I must admit you’re quite creative to come up with such a weird method to prove your innocence. You think this little show you’ve made up will save you?”

Sage put a pause to the show and looked at the Discipline Keeper, “Oh, really? Then why don’t you check Lu Ju’s ear. You never mentioned how Lu Ju died, but I think we all just saw how it happened.”

“This proves nothing, you might merely be revealing to us how you killed Lu Ju and created this illusion to mislead us. How else would you know where Lu Ju’s injury was?”

Even as the Discipline Keeper was saying these words he was approaching Lu Ju’s body, one that he had examined carefully earlier for the signs of death. He’d found nothing unusual before, but now he focused all his attention on Lu Ju’s left ear. From the outside nothing was wrong, and it was only when the Discipline Keeper sent his Spirit Sense deep into the body’s ear canal that he finally found something out of the ordinary.

Lu Ju’s brain had been pureed.