Peach leaf tip.
Willow Leaf Sky.
The girl skipped over to Li Chu.
"Hello, I'm Li Xinyi, a Purple-Clad Guard from Facing Heaven Pavilion." Her voice was crisp, her tone gentle, and rather pleasant to hear.
The constables in the yamen jail behind them all looked as though their glasses had fallen off, their jaws dropping to the floor in unison.
She had clearly been fierce-faced, dry-voiced, and hard-toned in front of us. How had she turned into a soft girl in an instant?
That face-changing speed was terrifying indeed!
Li Chu did not care whether the person before him was a soft girl or a tigress. He only cared about the name he had heard.
Facing Heaven Pavilion.
Alas.
He sighed inwardly and cupped his hands. "I am Li Chu, a Daoist from Virtuous Cloud Temple outside Yuhang Town. Since an official from Facing Heaven Pavilion is here, I suppose I am no longer needed?"
What he was truly saying in his heart was, Then my reward is gone, isn't it?
Of course, Li Chu knew what Facing Heaven Pavilion did.
Back then, the He Luo Dynasty had officially invested the Twelve Immortal Sects, dividing them into the Seven Sects and Five Factions.
The Central State imperial court Facing Heaven Pavilion was ranked among the Five Great Factions.
Among the great immortal sects, Facing Heaven Pavilion was highly unusual. Though it was an independent sect, it also served the He Luo Dynasty's imperial court.
This involved certain secrets of the upper echelons, secrets outsiders were not permitted to know.
In short, Facing Heaven Pavilion could now be regarded as an imperial court institution specializing in matters of ghosts and gods, with offices established in every province and prefectural city.
Li Chu possessed "self-awareness."
It was only because Facing Heaven Pavilion could not establish an office in a small town that he had a business helping the authorities drive out evil.
Now that someone from the imperial court had come, he ought to know his place and withdraw.
"Eh, why wouldn't you be needed?" Li Xinyi's eyes spun as she said with a smile, "I've only just arrived and don't understand the situation yet. With a local person helping me, I can solve this weird case more effectively."
The moment she said that, a wave of low coughing rose behind her. The images of a group of lewd constables flashed through her mind.
They did not count as people.
She swiftly made that determination.
Eh?
Li Chu's eyes lit up. "Then the yamen still needs my help?"
"Of course. Come with me later. I happen to have no knowledgeable helper myself," Li Xinyi said.
At the same time, she solemnly declared in her heart that this was for the investigation.
I already suspected this Daoist to begin with! This is the perfect chance to get close to him and see whether he has been up to something!
That's right, exactly so.
Even though he looked thoroughly incapable of being suspected...
Still, she would only know after getting to understand him more deeply.
Li Chu pondered for a moment, then asked, "Then my reward...?"
"Pay it as originally agreed." Li Xinyi waved a hand grandly.
Though someone from Facing Heaven Pavilion had arrived, logically speaking, this reward should no longer have been paid.
But... the yamen was paying for it anyway. Even if they were paying merely to hire someone irrelevant who was only pleasant to look at, it did not matter.
Could public money be called money?
Li Chu smiled upon hearing this, and his favorable impression of this generous girl increased a little.
He nodded, then said, "Of course, this is not about money. We cultivators bear the duty of eliminating demons and defending the Dao."
"The young Daoist has a very high level of awareness." Li Xinyi praised him with narrowed, smiling eyes.
At the same time, she screamed inwardly, The way he was clearly greedy for money but refused to admit it was so adorable!
Come to think of it.
People greedy for money and people lustful for beauty... made quite a good match.
"Thank you for the praise, my lady."
"Oh dear, don't call me 'my lady.' I'm still young."
"Uh..."
With their conversation drifting along in fits and starts, the two left side by side, heading toward the scene of the weird case.
The group of constables behind them could only stare at one another.
What part of you was small? You were not small at all, alright?
Very big!
And... did this very big official perhaps forget something?
You were investigating a case without even bringing constables? Though we did not really want to go either.
Then at least you should have brought the head constable, right? Oh, right, you personally knocked the head constable unconscious.
Watching one dashing and one graceful figure disappear into the distance, the constables could not help but grow suspicious.
With this style, were you really going to catch ghosts?
Li Chu and Li Xinyi walked two or three li along the riverbank before arriving at Xia Liu Village, where the weird case had occurred.
The water shimmered along the way, the setting sun reflected off the mountains, and a warm breeze met them head-on. The walk was quite comfortable.
On the road, Li Xinyi carefully probed Li Chu's aura and found that he seemed to have no fluctuations of true qi at all.
Thus, she asked, "Young Daoist, which realm of the Seven Realms of Celestial Being have you cultivated to now?"
"Hm?" Li Chu froze for a moment, then honestly asked, "What are the Seven Realms of Celestial Being?"
"Hehe, just some unimportant things." Li Xinyi waved it off as though she truly did not care.
At the same time, she completely put aside her suspicions of Li Chu.
He had no true qi fluctuations and did not even know what the Seven Realms of Celestial Being were. This showed that Li Chu knew absolutely nothing about cultivation and could not possibly have committed a major crime like ghost raising to wreak havoc.
Then it was obvious...
He was merely a simple, kind, handsome jianghu charlatan.
The affairs of a liar were not under Facing Heaven Pavilion's jurisdiction.
If he had been an ugly charlatan, Master Li would not have minded handling him on the constables' behalf.
Besides, someone who could fool the entire Yuhang Town yamen for so long was quite impressive.
She was in love, she was in love.
Before long, the two arrived at Xia Liu Village. Li Xinyi's expression also began to turn solemn, recovering some of the bearing of a Facing Heaven Pavilion disciple.
As for Li Chu, he had always been solemn.
Compared with dealing with Li Xinyi's chatter, he found dealing with vengeful spirits much easier.
This tragedy had taken place at the Fang Family home in Xia Liu Village.
A tiny, dilapidated courtyard with only a few thatched huts stood at the village end, where there were scarcely any households. It seemed the Fang Family was not only poor, but possibly on poor terms with the villagers as well.
People from the yamen had come early in the morning to clean up, and the scene had already been cleared.
It now looked like nothing more than an empty courtyard. Though the interior of the house was a mess, there were no bloodstains to be seen.
Li Xinyi had reviewed the case files several times before coming and knew this case like the back of her hand.
"There were four people in the Fang Family. The father, Fang Da, was thirty-three. The son, Fang Gang, was twelve. The mother, Fang Liu Shi, was twenty-three. The daughter, Chen Yingying, was four," she briefly explained to Li Chu.
"Fang Da's daughter was Chen Yingying?" Li Chu immediately caught the blind spot.
As Li Xinyi paced back and forth across the courtyard, seemingly measuring something, she explained:
"Both Fang Da and Fang Liu Shi had been divorced before. Fang Da's former wife... was beaten to death by him. Fang Liu Shi's former husband died of illness. Both had brought children into their second marriage."
Li Chu fell silent for a moment.
Li Xinyi's voice also lowered halfway through her words.
That a man could beat his wife to death, continue living perfectly well, and even marry another wife afterward was indeed something that left one speechless.
After a pause, Li Xinyi continued, "Someone said that last night, they saw Fang Liu Shi searching the village for her daughter, saying Yingying had gone missing. But she probably did not find her."
"Early this morning, people heading to the fields noticed something was wrong. The Fang Family's door had not opened, and all the poultry and dogs they kept in the courtyard were dead. A bold villager went inside and saw a horrifying sight."
"According to the coroner's examination, Fang Liu Shi was killed by a blow from a blunt weapon to the back of the head, while Fang Gang was poisoned to death. The reason it was determined to be the work of a vengeful spirit was Fang Da. He had strangled himself alive. His corpse was icy cold, and two ghost handprints had been left on his neck—clear signs of possession by a vengeful spirit."
Li Chu stroked his chin. This seemed rather complicated.
Fang Liu Shi and Fang Gang should have been murdered by a person, because ghosts could not possibly use methods like poison or blunt-force strikes.
But Fang Da had been killed by a ghost.
He asked, "What about the little girl?"
"Chen Yingying's body was found behind the mountain. She fell down a hillside and died as well."
Sure enough, it was a massacre that had wiped out an entire family.
But with such a hodgepodge of causes of death, Li Chu could not make sense of it for the moment.
Still, it did not matter if he could not make sense of it. He was not a yamen constable and did not need to investigate the truth of the case.
As long as there was a ghost here, that was enough.
A chill wind blew over from the far side of the mountain, easily piercing through the walls of the Fang Family's thatched huts and carrying a mournful whimpering sound.
It was as though someone were crying.
Without anyone noticing.
Night fell.
Li Xinyi looked at Li Chu with utter seriousness. "Do not act rashly without my command later. Vengeful spirits are different from ordinary ghosts. Once you anger one, things will become very troublesome."
In her heart, Li Chu was already a jianghu charlatan through and through.
Thus, her only requirement of Li Chu was that he not cause trouble.
For Li Xinyi, a newly promoted Purple-Clad Guard of Facing Heaven Pavilion, this was rare gentleness.
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