Matricide

After hearing Su Xingfang's account, Sun Shaozong remained silent for a long while. Yet the first thing he asked about was the Black Post Master's conduct.

"That night, I had some official business left unfinished, so I stayed at the county office, working by candlelight. He suddenly appeared in the shadows between the reception hall and the inner chamber, then immediately exposed my true identity."

"He wore night clothes and covered his face with a black cloth, so I could not make out his features. Still, he was extremely tall and powerfully built. Compared to you, Lord Sun, he was probably only a little shorter."

"He muffled his voice and spoke with a Beijing accent, so there was nothing to be gleaned from it."

"However..."

Sun Shaozong had been disappointed by the familiar details so far. Hearing that "however," he promptly focused again.

"Though he tried hard to restrain himself before me, he probably liked to gesture when speaking to others."

"Also, the calluses on his hands were somewhat unusual. They resembled those of my uncle, who often practiced with a Single Blade, except this man had calluses at the base of both thumbs."

"And when he mentioned you, Lord Sun, he seemed to show no particular emotional reaction. But that clearly did not match the task he gave me."

Just as expected!

The Black-Clothed Man's greatest mistake had been setting his sights on Su Xingfang!

The people the Black-Clothed Man had incited in the past were either common peddlers and laborers or impoverished scholars with chivalrous ideals. Their powers of observation and breadth of experience were inevitably limited.

But Su Xingfang had grown up around people of the martial world and had several years of investigative experience as a mid-to-low-ranking official!

Naturally, he had noticed far more details than