Jiao Yu, of course, raised no objection, while General Ling spat onto the ground. "Fair enough! If that brat found anything, he wouldn't tell us either."
He Lingchuan flipped to the end of the booklet and suddenly noticed a difference. "This booklet isn't a ledger."
Outwardly, it looked no different from the others, yet inside were only a few thin pages. What was recorded was no longer the collection of pulp beads, but rather some strange numbers, such as:
7-16-41;
2-8-1.
And the like.
Three numbers separated by two dashes made up a group, with only a few groups on each page.
"It's a cipher."
Both monsters turned expectant gazes upon him. "Can you decipher it?"
"You think too highly of me." He Lingchuan did not take his eyes off the page. "A cipher like this must be paired with a codebook to be translated into words."
"A codebook?"
"A corresponding book." He Lingchuan had attended an open lecture at Wenxian Terrace, where an old scholar had explained the compilation and deciphering of ciphers. "Or rather, this cipher was designed specifically to match that book."
"We're screwed!" General Ling grumbled in frustration. "Books, ledgers—that Zhongsun fellow carted off everything with paper on it!"
"Then we'll have to approach Zhongsun Mou again," He Lingchuan said pragmatically. "He might have found something useful as well."
Jiao Yu said, "I saw him station some men disguised as commoners lingering around this courtyard. He's probably hoping for a stroke of luck, seeing if Mr. Mai will come back."
"He likely won't." He Lingchuan had no evidence for saying this, only an unexplainable certainty.
By his hand were two more scrolls, retrieved from the vase in the study alongside the others.
He Lingchuan set them aside. General Ling eyed them several times, unable to suppress his curiosity. He gripped the tie-string with his teeth, yanked it off, and nudged the scroll with his head, trying to unfurl it.
Not having hands truly was inconvenient.
He Lingchuan had no choice but to help him smooth it out. This old goat was far too fond of paper.
The first scroll was a landscape painting: towering mountains under a diminished moon, mountain torrents striking rocks. The brushwork was decent, but He Lingchuan had no interest in it.
He was a man of simple tastes, incapable of appreciating such things.
When the second scroll was unrolled, it revealed a portrait of a person:
The subject appeared to be a noblewoman, dressed in brocade with an elaborate coiffure, elegant and graceful, standing by a lakeside playing a flute.
Even without much artistic appreciation, both monsters could tell that this portrait was painted with far more care than the landscape, every stroke striving for perfection.
And then they heard a crack. Turning around, they saw—
He Lingchuan had snapped off the edge of the table.
He stared fixedly at the painting, eyes wide, yet his pupils contracted as though he had seen a ghost.
The tiger hurriedly asked, "What is it?"
Even the still life with the hidden mechanism earlier and the ledger's cipher hadn't made him lose his composure like this.
He leaned in to look. It was just a portrait of a person. Could this person step out of the painting too?
There was no special signature or seal to be seen.
He Lingchuan drew a long breath and shook his head. "Nothing." Yet his gaze never left the figure in the painting.
Strictly speaking, he was staring at the flute in the woman's hands.
The front half of the flute was obscured by the noblewoman's hands, but the rear half was painted in meticulous detail: jade-white segments, distinct joints, and two eye-catching red rings!
The moment He Lingchuan caught sight of the flute, blood rushed to his head with a roar.
This was Sun Fuling's celestial centipede bone flute!
Not only had she played it in front of him, she had even used it as a teaching tool to instruct him.
How could he possibly mistake it?
How had Sun Fuling's flute ended up in the hands of the noblewoman in this painting?
Judging by how the paper was slightly yellowed and lacked special preservation, it could not have been painted more than thirty or forty years ago.
He Lingchuan had gotten along wonderfully with Sun Fuling in the realm of souls, often consciously or unconsciously ignoring her ultimate fate. The sudden appearance of this portrait struck him with a jarring reminder:
Mortals must die in the end, and cities must fall.
Yet who had scavenged her relic after her death? How had this woman come to possess it?
"Do either of you recognize this woman?"
Both the tiger and General Ling shook their heads.
He Lingchuan silently rolled up the scroll, veins pulsing on his temple.
The answer lay with Mr. Mai. He had to find that man!
"What's so special about this woman?" Could the special envoy have a thing for this type?
"Never mind, it's nothing." He Lingchuan collected himself, pulling his thoughts back to the business at hand. "The old gatekeeper said Mr. Mai spent a great deal of time in this courtyard. Given Wan Song's elusive methods, when he issued orders to Wan Song, it's very likely it took place near the house, or even right here."
General Ling asked in puzzlement, "But Zhongsun Mou's men already searched the courtyard and found nothing."
"They searched their way, and we'll look our way."
Mr. Mai's residence wasn't large. The study was already stripped bare, leaving the bedroom, kitchen, wing rooms, and the front and rear courtyards.
He Lingchuan and the others searched once more.
The guards left behind by Zhongsun Mou stood by the entrance, coldly watching them move about with derision in their eyes.
Indeed, there was little to be found. The bunch from Lingxu City had packed up everything useful and useless alike. The bedroom held only a bed and a low table, while the kitchen contained only pots, bowls, and basins.
The front and back yards were turned over, churned into mud.
As General Ling looked around, he muttered, "What are we even looking for? We need a target, at least."
"Naturally, clues related to the demon-devouring beast," Jiao Yu's voice drifted from the backyard. "Like this."
The others hurried over to see the tiger crouched beside the backyard trellis.
Some melons, fruits, and medicinal herbs had been planted in the yard. In this season, they should have been flourishing; the gourds had climbed the trellis, and the prunella spikes were blooming with small purple flowers. But Zhongsun Mou's men hadn't spared this place either. The soil had been overturned, leaving muddy footprints everywhere and trampling the plants.
Had Mr. Mai hidden anything in the ground, it would have been dug up.
Jiao Yu turned his tiger head toward the base of the wall.
This was the north wall, perpetually sheltered from sunlight and holding the most dampness, so the foot of the wall was carpeted in moss.
Here, He Lingchuan spotted a faint, glossy reflection.
"Mucus, but the trail is very narrow. Probably left by an ordinary snail." As He Lingchuan was about to stand, he unexpectedly noticed a stone urn over a foot tall lying by the trellis.
Stone urns like this were carved and polished from a single block of stone into various shapes. Ordinary households placed them in their homes: some as feng shui stones to anchor fortune, some nestled among plants for decoration, and some simply used as weights to press pickling jars... In short, they had all sorts of uses.
This one must have originally rested quietly beneath the trellis, but Zhongsun Mou's men had ruthlessly knocked it over, leaving half of it buried in the soil.
However, the side facing He Lingchuan bore the spiral whorls of a shell.
He reached down and wiped away the dirt clinging to the urn.
The whorls became increasingly distinct.
The two monsters saw it as well and leaned in. "Is that a snail shell? Or a conch shell?"
"A snail shell." He Lingchuan had caught plenty of candy snails in the Panlong dreamscape and could distinguish between the two.
Truth be told, it was sculpted quite artistically, speaking well of the craftsman's skill. But sitting in Mr. Mai's backyard, it looked deliberate no matter how one viewed it.
A faint trace of moss grew on the stone urn, indicating it had sat here for quite some time.
After a moment's thought, He Lingchuan swept it straight into his storage ring.
The courtyard had already been turned completely upside down; there was nothing left to search.
...
Night fell.
When lamps were lit in the post station, Zhongsun Mou was also writing furiously.
"Someone, come here."
A guard arrived immediately.
"Take this letter to the capital of Chiyan and present it to the Ruler."
The letter's contents were simple: a formal complaint that the special envoy sent by Crown Prince Fu Shanyue was coarse, insolent, and obstructing the investigation.
He knew the Ruler of Chiyan had never favored his eldest son. Receiving a complaint from an Inspector of Lingxu City, the sovereign would surely take action.
After the guard took the order and left, Zhongsun Mou began to enjoy his dinner.
He disliked hot food, so the cook traveling with him had prepared crystal raw slices tonight—thinly sliced raw fish and clam foot, each required to be sliced so thin that light shone through to be deemed acceptable. Paired with shredded chili and sliced garlic, then dipped in sauce and mustard, it was the flavor Zhongsun Mou was accustomed to.
Monsters in Lingxu City had lived alongside humans for centuries, adopting many refinements in food, clothing, housing, and travel, yet they still lacked humanity's penchant for myriad flavors. Zhongsun Mou was considered quite open-minded; most jiaoren cared little for human sauces.
As he ate, he examined the ivory sphere in his hand.
Fu Shanyue's envoy had snatched the sphere first and handed it over with obvious reluctance. Could there be something suspicious about it?
He had studied it for a long time and applied various medicinal liquids to it, yet found nothing out of the ordinary.
In the end, he simply had someone cut it open.
It was solid, with no hidden mechanism inside.
The appraisal showed that it was indeed ivory, and nothing more than ivory.
A complete waste of his time.
After finishing his meal, a thought struck him, and he had Mr. Mai's old gatekeeper brought in again for detailed questioning.
This time, he primarily asked about Mr. Mai's daily routines and living habits, taking the opportunity to see if the old man was lying. Frequently, the same question would resurface out of the blue, sprung at the moments when the old man's guard was lowest. Had his answers been inconsistent, he would certainly have suffered for it.
Had He Lingchuan been present, he would likely have recognized an expert at work. Both Uncle Hao back in Blackwater City and the Gale Army often interrogated prisoners in this exact fashion.
Yet the old man did not slip up once.
Finally, Zhongsun Mou asked about Mr. Mai's diet.
The old man said Mr. Mai preferred noodles and rice vermicelli over rice, and for a late-night snack he would order something brothy. "Every time he came to Shuanglu Town, he brought a kind of rice vermicelli that was exceptionally fine and white, and had me boil it for him. As soon as it hit boiling water, it was cooked through. Whenever Mr. Mai ate it, he always insisted on adding dried shrimp."
"Exceptionally fine and white? Where was it produced?"
"I wouldn't know that, my lord."
Zhongsun Mou dispatched a guard to make another trip to Mr. Mai's home to fetch the fine vermicelli.
The candle beside the table happened to gutter out.
As a guard replaced it with a fresh candle and lit it, Zhongsun Mou caught a flash of greenish light at the corner of the old man's eye.
"Hm?" His interest was piqued. "Do your eyes usually trouble you?"
The old man blinked frequently, which hadn't surprised him earlier; after all, age brought many ailments.
Now, however, Zhongsun Mou snuffed out the candle flame with one hand and told the guard to light it again.
He was the master and could do as he pleased; naturally, the guard raised no objection.
When the candlelight flared once more, Zhongsun Mou indeed saw that flash of greenish light cross the old man's eye again!
It lasted only an instant, yet it did not escape his discerning eye.
Zhongsun Mou gave a cold chuckle. Suddenly seizing the old man by the throat, he dragged him close. With his other hand, he scooped up a spoon from the dish and thrust it into the old man's eye socket, pressing down and gouging outward!
Chapter 461