Lu Qingxi squeezed out a tired smile and nodded slightly.

Wu Jiao turned around slightly, looked at the sky outside the window, and frowned.

It's afternoon now, and at this time of previous years, His Majesty had already returned with the hunting team.

For some reason, Wu Jiao felt uneasy since noon and always felt that something was about to happen. Two hours ago, he sent a patrol team to Beishan Hunting Ground. If an accident really happened, as many as 500 elite soldiers should be able to control the situation.

The sound of rapid footsteps came from outside the hall.

After a moment, several tall figures rushed in from outside. The leader was the patrol captain who had been sent out before. His face was covered with sweat, and his nervous and terrified expression became more and more terrifying as he breathed heavily.

Wu Ke's face changed suddenly, and she couldn't help but stand up from the chair. At the same time, the patrol captain also knelt down on one knee and shouted in extreme horror.

"Great National Master... Your Majesty... Your Majesty..." He ran all the way, not resentful.

"What's wrong with Your Majesty?" Wu Jiao's face was full of anxiousness.

"Your Majesty is dead." The captain finally adjusted his breathing rhythm and gasped, saying, "Everyone... is dead."

"What did you say?" Lu Qingxi and Wu Jiao exclaimed at the same time.

Although the King of the Deer was hidden in his heart, he was still shocked by the sudden news and his face turned pale.

Your Majesty is dead?

Everyone is dead?

The national master Wu Jiao opened his mouth wide and stood there blankly, as if his soul had floated away from his body, leaving only a useless skin.

“…Great National Master…Great National Master?”

The patrol captain pulled him back from the depths of his astonishment with a trembling voice.

The neck was very stiff, and the elderly Wujiao twisted his mind hard, looking at the captain with his lost eyes, and he asked a hoarse question: "...all dead... what do you... mean?"

"We found a large number of dead people in the Beishan Hunting Ground. After careful identification, we found His Majesty, the four princes, as well as the patriarchs, including the guards, and none of them were alive." The patrol captain knew that at this time, he could not say a word. He controlled his beating heart and kept his tone as stable as possible.

"Tell me my order and let all the commanders come and discuss matters immediately."

"Send two thousand guards to Beishan Hunting Ground to strictly guard the scene. Without my order, no one is allowed to enter. Those who violate the order will be killed!"

"The whole city is martial law and the door is closed."

The awakened Wujiao released a powerful aura and quickly issued three orders. The guards around him followed the orders. He stared at the patrol captain and asked seriously and hurriedly: "Do you know who did it?"

"Reported to the national squad, no traces of military attack were found at the scene." The captain wiped his forehead with cold sweat: "There are the footprints of wild beasts everywhere. According to my analysis, Your Majesty and the others should have encountered a pack of wolves."

"Wolf?" Wu Jiao shouted in disbelief: "This is Bucks City, and the Beishan Hunting Ground is not a remote place. How could there be a pack of wolves appear?"

The captain did not argue, and he whispered: "Please ask the national tutor to come and see it in person."

"Wait first!"

Wu Jiao's eyes were flashing with a shrewd light. He turned around and looked at the opposite side of the table, raised his hand to point Lu Qingxi sitting on the chair, and said coldly: "Catch him up."

Several guards rushed over immediately, grabbed Lu Qingxi's shoulders and pressed him on the table.

It was so surprising that Lu Qingxi, who was unprepared, was stunned. He struggled to raise his head, glared at Wujiao and screamed: "Master, what do you mean? What mistake did I make?"

"Don't try so hard. I'm asking you to catch him, not letting you kill him!" Wu Jiao quickly stopped the guards' rude movements: "Tie him up and detain him alone. No one is allowed to approach him without my order. Those who violate the order will be killed!"

After saying this, Wu Jiao stared at Lu Qingxi with a deep gaze, as if he wanted to see through him alive.

"You didn't attend the previous banquet."

"You'll get sick when you come to Bucks City."

"You are the only patriarch who has not participated in the hunting and has not followed His Majesty out."

"According to the law, if His Majesty is in the heavens, without a designated heir to the throne, all princes shall rule together for one year, and a new successor shall be selected from them. If there is no prince of direct blood, the tribe chiefs shall rule together, and the new king shall be elected publicly in the second year."

"They are all dead, but you are alive. There is no doubt that you will be the biggest profiter, and may even be the new Deer King."

Lu Qingxi trembled all over, his face was pale, and he looked at Wu Jiao's eyes as if he saw a ghost: "You... do you suspect I did it?"

"I have no evidence, and I don't know anything now." Wu Jiao said in a deep voice: "But you must admit that you have the greatest suspicion."

Lu Qingxi struggled hard, and he roared viciously, hoarsely: "It's not me! I swear in the name of the gods, it's not me!"

Wu Jiao looked at him for half a minute.

"Maybe I'm wrong, and I really hope it's not you. To be honest, I don't want to see the entire tribe split up because of this. I'll find out the situation now. As for you... stay honestly and prove your innocence with practical actions."

Before leaving, Wu Jiao suddenly stopped, turned around again, staring at Lu Qingxi with a cold and fierce look.

"It's better that this matter has nothing to do with you. Otherwise... I swear in the name of the gods that you will die miserably."

...

The cold wind whistled, sweeping the bloody red ice slag from the ground and drifted into the distance.

Four batches of troops were mobilized, a total of more than 7,000 deer soldiers, and surrounded the entire Beishan hunting ground.

Wu Jiao, with a cold expression, walked into the dense forest with a group of commanders and ministers of state. The periphery here had been cleared by soldiers and a cordon was established. The search range was expanding, extending more than ten kilometers north of the country.

The ground was filled with corpses, and the scattered flesh and blood had long been frozen, and was exposed to the air in the form of stiff ice. Different shapes of broken bones, broken limbs, and shattered clothes were everywhere, and blood-stained weapons and arrows were everywhere in the forest.

Wu Ke's face turned pale. Under the guidance of a commander, he came to a broken body and squatted down slowly.

The deceased's abdomen was torn open, the two rows of ribs were not neat, most of which were chewed off, all internal organs of the chest and abdominal cavity were hollowed out, and the remaining intestines were dragged to more than ten meters away, and the dark yellow feces mixed with black blood.

Several soldiers surrounded the nearby areas and gathered the fragments of the remaining limbs they found from various places and put them together with the corpse. However, the body fragments were too few and too messy, so they could only barely splice them according to the clothes and materials of the deceased. The soldiers had no experience in this area, and it can be seen that some of the remaining limbs did not belong to the deceased.

Wu Jiao bent down and picked up the head placed above the shoulder of the corpse.

Only half of it was left, a single eyeball was gone, the bones were exposed from the inside of the muscles and fat, and the slurry substances in the cranial cavity had been frozen and hard and no longer loose.

There was a black spot on the side of the remaining head and a white scar. Based on these two characteristics, Wu Jiao identified that this was Lu Fengguo.

"Your Majesty...Your Majesty..." He cried loudly, heart-wrenchingly.

All four princes were dead, and all wounds proved that they were not killed by murder, but by real beast biting.

The patriarchs were all dead, and there were no traces of weapons fighting on the scene, only countless claw marks of wild beasts.

Only the biting of the black howling wolf will cause such terrible damage. If it is a human murder, there is no need to be such trouble. One arrow can shoot a person to death, and one stab into the body can be fatal. Only wild beasts will bite the prey into pieces. They like soft internal organs the most because there is no bone. Carnivorous beasts especially like the fishy smell from the prey, such as pepper, star anise, ginger, and garlic to improve the taste of dishes. They think this is a delicious food and is better than ordinary meat.

Compared with the dead, the number of dead wolves is not large, only forty-three. A large number of animal footprints remaining on the ground indicates that the wolves are leaving to the north. They are already full. This highly cooperative beast never stays in a strange environment for a long time. They will leave after they are beaten. It is difficult to judge the specific whereabouts unless they find their nests.

"Why are there wolves here? And there are so many wolves?" National Master Wu Jiao cried sadly and asked with sobs.

There was silence around and no one could answer this question. For the safety of the royal family members, the Beishan Hunting Ground began to be cleaned many years ago. Once a predatory group was found, the army immediately dispatched to surround it on the spot. Occasionally, single beasts entered, and could not pose a threat to more than a hundred hunters.

"Catch the person who was responsible for finding prey and surveying before." Wu Jiao wiped his tears, sniffed hard, and said viciously: "Search the whole city. If any of them escapes, even the ends of the world, they will catch me back."

This order was issued three hours ago, and people had already caught it, and there were many. The royal guards were responsible for supervision and no one was allowed to intervene.

Wujiao is very smart and is the wisest of the Deer clan. He can always think of the best way to deal with the incident and find hidden loopholes when it happens.

But this time, facing the remains everywhere, he felt an indescribable sense of powerlessness.

All traces show that this is not a conspiracy, but a real accident.

If you want to murder Your Majesty, there are too many ways to do it, and there is no need to be such a trouble. You will kill it together with several princes and patriarchs. Moreover, all the evidence on the scene shows that this is the work of the wolf pack. Even if the guy who planned the conspiracy is determined to plot against the throne, who can control so many beasts?

Does he have special abilities comparable to gods?

Then, there is only one possibility that someone has known that there is such a large-scale wolf pack, which may have lured the wolf pack into the Beishan hunting ground in some way. If this is true, then all the people responsible for inspecting the hunting ground will be suspected.

Even if one of them escaped, Wujiao had enough evidence to show that it was a conspiracy.

Unfortunately, the guards seized all the hunting ground inspectors according to the list. No one resisted during the arrest, and there was no evidence that someone in the top leaders of the Deer tribe was involved in this matter.

Wu Jiao has always been decisive in his work.

The people he sent had completed the preliminary interrogation, and the result was disappointing. No one confessed. They were willing to bite their fingers and penetrate them with a knife, making the most harsh blood oath to prove their innocence.

In the eyes of the northern barbarians, oaths, especially blood oaths of this level, are far more important than any form of temptation of interest. "The ancestors and gods will stare at you" is by no means meaningless empty words.

Wu Jiao was very disappointed and felt extremely grateful.

To be fair, he really hoped it was an accident.

The conspiracy is so dirty. If it is really directed at the top of the Deer clan, it will be a catastrophe for the entire clan.

All adult royal members are dead, and the patriarch is dead, and the remaining qualified blood heirs are too young. If they are forcibly supported to the throne, they will only attract more people's covetousness. At that time, the clan will be divided and a new round of civil war will break out... That kind of situation is frightening just by thinking about it.

A commander approached Wu Jiao and asked in a low voice: "Great Master, the matter has been cleared. His Majesty's death was indeed the cause of the wolf pack. Now the King of the Deer is still locked in the city, isn't it..."

Speaking of this, he wanted to speak but stopped.

Except for Lu Qingxi, all those who are qualified to compete for the throne are dead.

He is a real lucky person.

Wu Jiao slowly stood up from the ground. He looked up at the dark dense forest in the distance, and a trace of desolation rose on his old face: "Is this really the arrangement of the gods?"

The national teacher was a little interested. In the face of the multiple-choice question of ethnic stability and a total war of division, he would only choose the former.

To be fair, he doesn't like Lu Qingxi very much.

This young King of the Stag gave him a sense of inaccessible strangeness, or even potential hostility.

Wu Jiao knew Lu Qingyuan and knew that Lu Qingxi was the youngest son of the previous King of Harts.
To be continued...