In the small pouch, Anji noticed a hairpin. It was a plain accessory that Liu Guiya mentioned was commonly worn by the palace servants.

"However, we noticed that most of the servants wearing this hairpin act weirdly. They often lose memories of what they are doing, even when we have full evidence that they were trying to send secret letters to leak information. Moreover, a good number of those incidents happen at night. The imperial doctors have diagnosed it as a sleepwalking disorder, but I suspect that is not the case. There are faint traces of spell carvings on these hair accessories, but I don’t recognise them."

Ah, so this was why she needed to come down in person. Anji untied the pouch carefully. If it were about complicated spells, only those from the Mystical Qilin Sect were capable of deciphering them. However, finding someone from their sect was hard. Even if they sent many researchers out on the combat field to aid in the war, the Rainbow Alliance would have attempted to decode it before seeking Anji’s assistance.

"I’m assuming none of the Mystical Qilin Sect disciples aiding in the murim war were able to understand these spells either?"

The ladies exchanged a glance.

"We have not shown it to them yet," Noble Consort Liu admitted. "It was a sensitive issue. In fact, these investigations were carried out in secret."

The secrecy made Anji even more suspicious. From the Empress to the Emperor, what exactly was going on behind those forbidden walls? Noble Consort Liu, like Hong Nian Niang, seemed to be a woman of many secrets. Anji did not want to pry. However, it was difficult to quell her curious nature.

Shifting focus to the hairpin, Anji immediately noticed something different. It was not the spell embedded that made her recoil. It was the stench that came from it that resembled the air in the city.

"Miasma traces?" she frowned and activated her second sight.

Although very faint, Anji quickly identified the source of the miasma emitting fragment. Thanks to the purification wards placed around the Red Palace, Anji immediately realised the carefully hidden piece of cursed object.

Seeing Anji’s eyes change into a molten shade of gold for the first time, Liu Guiya’s eyes widened in surprise, but she remained silent. Yihao and Mingshen had seen Anji’s eyes glimmer with a lighter shade when they were children. However, the bright golden eyes also shocked them. Was this a side effect of the clarivoyant skill from the Mystical Qilin Sect?

"Can I have tweezers and a handkerchief?" Anji asked. "We have to remove this small white round bead in the centre of the flower. There’s something I need to confirm."

Hong Nian Niang tugged on the rope in the room to summon her servants immediately. Beside Anji, the boys barely breathed.

"Is it dangerous?" Yihao asked. "It looks like some cheap pearl to me."

Unlike his less observant younger brother, Mingshen disagreed. It was no pearl. The colour of this was too white to be pearl.

"It’s probably polished marble or ivory. Is there a problem with this bead?" he asked.

Even Liu Guiya was curious. Imitation products were abundant in the capital. Compared to a fake pearl, shouldn’t the mysterious spell be more important? 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

After a few minutes, Hong Nian Niang presented Anji with the tweezers and handkerchief she requested. Here, Anji carefully pried the bead off with careful concentration. She pushed energy threads into her fingertips and removed the pearl with the precision of a surgeon, steadily.

As soon as the fake pearl came off, the spell carvings on the hairpin dissipated in smoke, and the hairpin crumbled completely, turning into black ash. It collapsed on the handkerchief. The fake pearl in Anji’s tweezers remained, but everyone soon noticed something strange.

"It’s now black! How did it happen?" Yihao gasped.

Although confused, the two ladies and Mingshen held their tongues. Anji’s expression darkened. It was not a good sign.

"This is a curse," Anji explained. "I cannot go into details about how it was developed. However, I can only tell you how it works. From now on, if you suspect any victims of this brainwashing hairpin, confiscate their hairpins and send them to me. The owner of this hairpin might already be dead because of my mishandling. I’m very sorry."

If there was one thing Pu Jianming was known for, it was flag formations. Anji heard a few things about him from Elder Shen. Flag formations were more than rigid spells. This very hairpin was a great example. There must have already been thousands of flags planted all over the capital, explaining the strange, putrid scent of miasma Anji noticed when she first arrived in Chang’an. Such a thing cannot be accomplished overnight. This ploy must have gone on for at least a decade, if not longer.

Alarmed by how dangerous what they thought was a simple mind-controlling tool was, the ladies paled. How could a cursed object kill a person?

"This is bone," Anji explained. "It’s tied to the life of another person in the demonic cult’s control. By tying this person’s life using their bone as a medium, they can use it to possess the wearer of this accessory and control them remotely. The palace attendant who wore this might still be alive, but the person to whom this bone belongs is already dead. It’s a typical anchor mechanism used in flag formation spells, something Pu Jianming is very good at."

As if this new discovery was not horrifying enough, Anji revealed how the capital was flooded with many such trinkets that can transform ordinary folks into the demonic cult’s disposable army at any moment, without them knowing where they are beforehand.

"They had the upper hand building this invisible army for at least ten years," Anji frowned. "We cannot win by sheer numbers. It’s impossible to comb through the entire capital city and palace to weed out the demonic cult. Nobody else is able to identify such a delicate spell apart from a few people from the Mystical Qilin Sect. Presently, I am the only person capable of such a thing."

It was grim news.

"Is there nothing I can do to help?" Noble Consort Liu begged. "We came this far only to be told it’s too late. I cannot accept this!"

Truthfully, it was a bleak reality. The odds were stacked against them. However, there were still some tricks Anji could try. Unlike Pu Jianming or Song Min, she was looking at the person who had direct access to the palace. The emperor’s recurring nightmares were a prophecy, and if Anji could resolve that first, they could turn the tide.

"The fact that they have thousands of disposable zombies walking around and still not enough means they were still unsuccessful at getting what they need," Anji reasoned calmly. "I suspect the Emperor’s nightmares are a ploy. If you can sneak me into the palace to investigate, I might be able to find out what they are targeting to give us the advantage in this information war."