Sunlight shone in through the lattice window, dust floating in the air.
In the quiet room, Xu Qi’an stood silently for a long time before the throbbing veins on his forehead subsided. With a blank expression, he began to examine the scene.
The tables and chairs were all in their proper places, with no signs of a struggle. The man’s carotid artery had been cut by a sharp weapon, and the left side of his temple had caved in.
He had died instantly.
The mother and daughter had both been pierced by a sharp weapon at the same time. The mother had her heart pierced, but the little girl was stabbed in her right chest. After Xu Qi’an felt her head, he found that her real cause of death was a shattered skull.
He then turned over the three corpses, lifting their cotton jackets to examine the condition of the livor mortis.
The time of death doesn’t exceed eight hours; they were killed this morning… No, that’s not right. Last night, the temperature was around two degrees. If they were killed at night, the actual time of death would be even earlier.
Low temperatures have a preserving effect and would affect the judgement of time of death.
“Although there are no signs of a struggle inside the house, that doesn’t necessarily mean the murderer was an acquaintance. After all, dealing with ordinary people is far too easy, it could be done in an instant.”
But for no reason, who would kill this innocent family?
Xu Qi’an sat at the table, lightly tapping his fingertips on the surface. Amidst the steady tapping, information boiled in his mind…
“Other than myself and Chai Xian, who else knows about this place? If no one else knows, then the killer is either him or me… If someone else does know, then why didn’t they come sooner or later but chose to strike right after I sent a message, killing everyone to silence them?
“The aim wasn’t Chai Xian, but to stop him from attending the Demon Slaying Conference… But what’s the point? If you wanted to ambush him here, wouldn’t it have been easier to just kill Chai Xian directly?
“So, was it Chai Xian who killed everyone to keep them quiet? No, that doesn’t make sense, his motive isn’t right.”
Xu Qi’an’s eyes suddenly widened as he thought of a possibility.
Unless on the day I became a cat to tail Chai Xian, I was being tailed as well…
“Chai Xian couldn’t detect that I was tailing him, because zombies don’t have anti-tracking senses. But neither did I. At the time, I was just a cat, not my real body. If, that night, someone was quietly following us…”
Xu Qi’an sprang to his feet, left the house, carefully shut the door behind him, mounted his little mare, and galloped away.
…
Chai Manor.
Li Lingsu held a steaming cup of tea in both hands and took a small sip of the sweet liquid.
The snowy white, delicate cup was filled with goji berries, making the small amount of tea unusually sweet.
Ah, day after day… Li Lingsu sighed.
Before the beyond-mortal realm, Daoists gained little benefit to their bodies, nowhere near as monstrous as martial artists did.
Moreover, in the past half year, the Dongfang sisters deliberately drained his energy, leaving him constantly exhausted.
He used to think that after leaving the Dongfang sisters, he could have a good rest and restore his energy. Unexpectedly, for various reasons, he still had to accompany other female confidantes.
From Wenren Qianrou to Chai Xing’er, it was all dry wood meeting a raging fire.
“Maybe I should try cultivating the martial artist system. Although, before the Refining Qi stage, martial artists can’t break their chastity, but that only applies to those with no foundation. If you break your body early, you can’t practise Qi. If I restore my cultivation, with fourth rank Daoist powers, it shouldn’t be hard to forcibly practise Qi.
“Hmm, I’d still have to start from Refining Vitality. Otherwise, without the process of tempering my body, I’d never be able to reach fifth rank Transforming Force. Wait, I’m not doing the martial artist path for combat power, Refining Qi would be enough…”
As his thoughts drifted, suddenly a figure emerged from the shadow of the tea table.
It was none other than the unremarkable looking Xu Qian.
“Senior?”
Li Lingsu was startled. He hadn’t expected Xu Qian to visit personally, wasn’t he afraid of being discovered by Buddhist monks?
He was about to ask this when he suddenly sensed something off about Xu Qian’s condition.
The Heaven Sect had “investigation of the fundamental” abilities, making them especially sensitive to the people and objects they spent time with, able to detect even minor changes.
It was the precursor to “Unity of Heaven and Man.”
Although Li Lingsu didn’t know Xu Qian too well, they had spent a fair amount of time together.
The Xu Qian of before was like still water, unfathomably deep. Now, Xu Qian was a stormy sea, turbulent beneath the surface.
Xu Qi’an nodded and said, “Where was Chai Xing’er last night?”
She was in my bed… Li Lingsu replied, “She was with me the whole time.”
Xu Qi’an reminded him, “Are you sure?”
She could have snuck out while you were asleep to do something shady.
Li Lingsu frowned, “We didn’t finish until half past midnight. Also, I’ve broken through a small part of my seal, so I sleep lightly. If the one beside me left, I couldn’t fail to notice.”
As he spoke, he instinctively rubbed his sore lower back.
Half past midnight, are you really kidney-deficient? Xu Qi’an nodded slowly, not wasting words: “Meet me outside the north city wall in an hour.”
He turned into a shadow and vanished from the room.
“So secretive…”
Li Lingsu immediately left the room, borrowed a horse from the Chai Residence steward, and rode straight along the main road toward the north city gate.
It took just a quarter of an hour to meet outside the north gate. Li Lingsu noticed that Xu Qian had changed appearance again.
Xu Qi’an gave a faint nod, offered no explanation, squeezed the little mare’s belly with his legs, and rode off.
“Hyah!”
Li Lingsu snapped his whip and followed at once.
Nearing the village, Xu Qi’an slowed his horse, tossed a robe and hood to Li Lingsu, and said:
“Put these on. There’s been a murder in the village. You’re to summon the souls and ask the spirits, find out who the killer is.”
Once Li Lingsu was in disguise, Xu Qi’an dismounted and snapped his fingers. The little mare and Li Lingsu’s mount obediently trotted into the woods by the roadside to hide.
Tsk, the power of the Beast-taming Gu really is useful… Li Lingsu thought with envy.
The Heart Gu was also called the “Beast Gu” or “Beast-taming Gu” because its wielders often used it to control poisonous insects and wild beasts.
The two of them walked shoulder to shoulder into the village. As they neared their destination, Xu Qi’an saw the yard outside the house was filled with villagers, and mournful cries came from within.
Some villagers stood inside the yard, some outside, pointing and whispering.
Xu Qi’an faintly heard a few snippets:
“Did old Wang’s family provoke someone?”
“Who knows? Even the child wasn’t spared. The murderer is completely heartless.”
“Aye, could it have been that Chai Xian? It must be him, I heard he’s a madman and even killed his foster father.”
“Aiya, does that mean we’re all in danger?”
He and Li Lingsu squeezed through the villagers into the courtyard.
Inside, simple planks had been set up. The family of three lay on top, covered with filthy white cloths. An elderly man with white hair sat slumped by the side, weeping uncontrollably.
A young couple busied themselves inside the house. They wore ordinary cloth clothes and had rough hands and tanned faces, people clearly used to hard work.
“Who are you?”
Seeing Xu Qi’an and Li Lingsu come in, the young couple became wary, especially since Li Lingsu was wearing a robe and hood.
“The Government.”
Xu Qi’an said sternly, “Who allowed you to move the bodies without permission? What if you destroyed clues the killer left behind?”
His barrage of questions left the young man at a loss, thinking he had made a big mistake.
Li Lingsu took the opportunity to slip into the inner room, the scene of the murder, and shut the door.
Without giving the young man a chance to react, Xu Qi’an kept a stern face and asked, “What’s your relation to this family?”
The young man glanced at the male corpse, sadness showing on his dull face:
“He’s my brother. My father is his uncle. At noon, a neighbour saw a stranger come in and leave soon after. My father went to check; he called for ages without anyone answering. When he came in to look, he found everyone had been killed…”
As he spoke, his eyes turned red.
Xu Qi’an’s face remained impassive. “Then go and fetch the surrounding neighbours.”
The young man stepped outside, glanced through the onlookers in the courtyard, and spoke in dialect:
“There’s an official with questions, come here a moment.”
He pointed out several neighbours.
Soon, two old women came in, both close neighbours.
The women looked afraid, yet their natural curiosity got the better of them, and their eyes kept drifting to the three bodies on the planks.
“Did anyone suspicious come here?”
Xu Qi’an asked and received the answer, “There was a strange man here around noon.”
“Was there anyone suspicious here this morning?”
The two old servant women looked at each other and shook their heads.
One said she had not paid attention, the other said she had not seen anyone.
Though the village had a small population, the benefit of this is that it makes outsiders very conspicuous, making it even more likely for crimes to happen at night… He pondered to himself. At that moment, Li Lingsu came out of the house and shook his head at him.
“Their souls have been dispersed,” Li Lingsu transmitted his voice.
Xu Qi’an’s face darkened and he nodded slowly.
The two did not linger and quickly left the village.
On the way back, Li Lingsu asked in a low voice, “What happened?”
“The other day I tracked down Chai Xian and found my way here. Chai Xian was hiding in this household, which was one of his bases.”
Xu Qi’an, sitting on the back of the mare, looked far into the distance and said,
“We agreed to use this as a contact point and share information. I intended to nudge him to go to the Demon-Slaying Assembly to confront Chai Xing’er and use the opportunity to pinpoint his location. Hmm, that day I used a Heart Gu to control a cat to follow him. By the time I rushed over in person, he had already left.”
He omitted the reason why he wanted to find Chai Xian’s true body.
Li Lingsu was somewhat puzzled but did not press for details. He mused, “But Chai Xian didn’t show up at the Demon-Slaying Assembly today.”
“That’s right.”
Xu Qi’an nodded. “So I came here to check, only to find that they had been silenced.”
“Hiss…” Li Lingsu drew in a sharp breath.
“The purpose was to prevent Chai Xian from going to the Demon-Slaying Assembly? But there’s a problem, the killer knew Chai Xian would come tonight. Otherwise, if he didn’t get your note, he most likely wouldn’t have shown up, so there’d be no need to kill these people.”
These words woke Xu Qi’an up. He said in a deep voice, “Perhaps it wasn’t to stop Chai Xian getting the note, but to scare him off.”
“What do you mean?” Li Lingsu asked.
“I don’t know much about Chai Xian, but I do know that he’s somewhat extreme by nature. He stayed in Xiangzhou to clear his name and get to the bottom of the truth. Even without my note, he would most likely have tried to redress his grievances at the Demon-Slaying Assembly.”
Xu Qi’an analysed,
“The note was just an added safeguard, but not the key point. Because I couldn’t be sure that Chai Xian would definitely come last night, so how did the mastermind know he would?”
The premise for silencing the witnesses was that Chai Xian got the note and would stir things up at the Demon-Slaying Assembly.
But even Xu Qi’an couldn’t be sure that Chai Xian would come to the village last night. If he hadn’t come, he wouldn’t have seen the note, so there’d be no motive for killing.
Yet the family of three was still killed, which meant the mastermind knew Chai Xian would come last night.
Li Lingsu understood.
“The note wasn’t the key, the key was that the real culprit behind this knew Chai Xian would come here last night. So he killed the family of three ahead of time, to frighten Chai Xian, make him suspect that the mysterious person he met before, in other words, you, was plotting against him.
“Out of caution, Chai Xian gave up on stirring up trouble at the Demon-Slaying Assembly. But what was the culprit’s motive?”
Xu Qi’an could not answer. He shook his head and said,
“We lack a crucial piece of information. Other than Chai Xing’er and Chai Xian, there’s still another player behind the scenes doing the killing. Once his identity is confirmed, the truth will be revealed.”
Li Lingsu thought of someone. “Could it be Chai Lan?”
This person had never appeared; she mysteriously disappeared on the day Chai Jianyuan died and was never heard from again.
Xu Qi’an countered, “Does she have such skill?”
“Chai Lan’s cultivation was decent, but likely hasn’t reached fourth rank, maybe not even fifth. Still, we can’t rule out if she was hiding her strength.” Li Lingsu was uncertain.
Xu Qi’an said, “You don’t need to come to me for the next couple of days.”
“Why?”
“I’ll investigate in secret to find the real culprit, and then kill him.” Xu Qi’an said, his expression blank.
…
Chai Manor.
A monk returned to the courtyard and knocked on Jingxin’s door. Once given approval, he entered to find Jingxin and Jingyuan playing Go.
“Senior brothers, Chai Xing’er asked me to inform you that at a small ferry village over thirty li west of Xiangzhou city, there’s been a massacre of an entire family, likely the work of men from the jianghu.
“After questioning by the official ‘search party’, it’s already been ruled out as Chai Xian’s doing. However, according to villagers, at noon today a man in azure robes entered the village. Not long after, two others with strange dress, claiming to be officials, also arrived.
“But the constabulary confirmed that the two were not from the authorities.”
He recounted in detail the state of the family’s corpses.
Jingxin placed a Go piece with a soft “tap” and said gently, “Understood.”
The monk put his palms together and withdrew.
“Most likely wandering heroes,” Jingyuan remarked.
He meant the two disguised “officials” who came later.
“No blood was taken, and it wasn’t for money. So why kill?” Jingxin frowned in thought.
“Perhaps it was a vendetta, or perhaps practitioners of the demonic path stirring up trouble. We needn’t pay too much heed. If we want to resolve this soon, we must cut it off at the root.” Jingyuan said gravely.
After the Demon-Slaying Assembly, the authorities and several major jianghu factions had been checking household after household against the registers in the city.
In the countryside as well, “search teams” had been dispatched.
To accomplish this much, the Xiangzhou authorities were already doing very well.
“Tonight you should patrol outside the city, make sure you’re more conspicuous.” Jingxin said.
“Understood,” Jingyuan nodded.
Jingxin set down his Go piece, took an ancient book from a cloth bag, leafed through it, and stopped at a certain page.
“In the shaman clans of the Southern Marches, there is a secret art in the Corpse Gu tribe for raising corpses with corpses. This technique is derived from Gu-raising arts; the corpses devour one another, absorbing the essence, and the final victor becomes the Corpse King.”
“Above Iron Corpses are Flying Corpses. Flying Corpses lack the Refining Spirit martial artist’s danger sense, lack the Transforming Force expert’s control over strength, and lack a fourth-rank martial artist’s ‘Intent’, but they can briefly fly and are no weaker than fourth rank, perhaps even stronger.”
“Because they have absorbed vast amounts of vital blood, they have begun to condense the basic form of a blood pellet in the body, granting them regenerative abilities.”
Jingxin said slowly, “So many martial artists have been killed, some with their blood drained, some with their corpses disappearing. The mastermind probably wants to refine a Flying Corpse. He definitely won’t let you, who has mastered the Vajra Divine Art, slip by.”
Jingyuan smiled, “Especially since during the Demon-Slaying Assembly I displayed a cultivation barely at fifth rank.”
At that moment, another monk entered, handing them a note.
“Senior brother Jingxin, the Chai residence steward delivered a letter, saying it was sent for you by someone outside with your name on it.”
Jingxin accepted the letter with a frown and opened it.
…
Xu Qi’an returned to the inn and knocked on the door.
“Who is it?”
Mu Nanzhi’s highly alert voice came from behind the door.
“It’s me.”
Xu Qi’an heard something off in her voice and asked, “Open up, what’s wrong?”
Creak~
The door opened. Mu Nanzhi stood behind it, face grave.
A little white fox, two palms tall, sat obediently at her feat. With an innocent, childish voice pretending to be stern, it said:
“Someone’s been watching us! If you hadn’t come back, Auntie would have been so scared she’d have crawled under the bed.”
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