Astonishing

On the evening of January 28, at the Dai family's home in Room 901 of a building in Dongsheng Yuyuan Residential Area.

After dinner, Li Xun, Dai Ying, and Dai Ying's parents sat in the living room watching TV. Naturally, they were watching Young Bao Qingtian.

Li Xun had already moved into Room 501 in the same building, very close to Dai Ying's home, so he wasn't in a hurry to leave after having dinner with the Dai family.

Episodes 11 and 12 of Young Bao Qingtian had officially gone online the previous night. Dai Ying's parents hadn't watched them yet, so after dinner that evening, Dai Ying's father suggested they all watch the costume suspense drama written and edited by his future son-in-law!

"Li Xun, your show may be cleverly written, but I've already figured out who the killer is. Believe me?" Before Episode 11 started, Dai Ying's father said with a smile.

Li Xun smiled too. "Uncle Dai, you must have secretly watched the ending, right?"

Dai Qingshan laughed heartily. "Why would I need to sneak a look at the ending? Your hints have been obvious enough!"

"Then tell us, Uncle Dai. Who's the real mastermind?"

Dai Qingshan said, "Isn't it obvious? It's Teacher Meng Fang!"

Li Xun and Dai Ying both turned to look at Dai Qingshan.

Seeing the identical expressions on his daughter's and son-in-law's faces, Dai Qingshan felt rather pleased with himself. It looked like he'd guessed right!

"The clues are obvious. In Episode 10, why did Teacher Meng Fang react so strongly when Bao Zheng draped a scarf around him? Something's fishy when someone reacts abnormally! So Teacher Meng Fang must be hiding something. Even if he isn't the mastermind, he's at least in on it."

Li Xun gave him a thumbs-up and said with a smile, "Uncle Dai, you're brilliant. Truly brilliant! I'm impressed!"

Dai Qingshan continued, "And there's the character 'ri' that the academician clutched in his hand when he died. It can't be that the killer's name just happens to contain 'ri'—that would be too easy. But the character must be an important clue. So I figure that perhaps 'ri' doesn't hint at the killer's name, but at the killer's profession!"

"For instance, the character 'yin' in music contains 'ri'! And Meng Fang is the music teacher at Tianhong Academy!"

Li Xun smiled. "Uncle, you must have secretly watched Episode 11, right?"

Dai Qingshan burst out laughing. "What, does it bother you that I cracked the clue you agonized over so easily?"

Just then, the theme song ended, and Episode 11 of Young Bao Qingtian began.

In fact, this world's Young Bao Qingtian had already diverged somewhat from the original version. Besides fixing some plot holes in the original, Li Xun had deliberately added or cut material from individual episodes.

For example, in the original Young Bao Qingtian, Bao Zheng and Gongsun Ce had already figured out the source of the torn character 'ri' in the academician's hand by the end of Episode 10. It came from the character 'yin' in the line "xiang yin wu gai bin mao shuai." But in the version Li Xun edited for this world, he'd moved that scene to Episode 11.

In Episode 11, Bao Zheng, Gongsun Ce, and the others found a copy of the painting the academician had torn a character from. It featured a poem by He Zhizhang, A Return to My Hometown.

"Though young when I left home, I've come back old; my local accent unchanged, my hair grown thin. The children see me and don't recognize me; they smile and ask where I'm from."

At that, Dai Qingshan slapped his thigh and laughed. "What did I tell you? The 'ri' in the academician's hand was actually half of the 'yin' in music! There's no doubt the killer is Meng Fang!"

Liu Fang chuckled beside him. "You're not young anymore, yet you get so excited over a TV show. You're like a child who never grew up!"

Li Xun smiled too. "Now I see why Yingying is so clever. She inherited Uncle's brains!"

Liu Fang pretended to be angry. "Are you saying Auntie is stupid? Thank goodness Yingying inherited her father's intelligence, so she's achieved what she has and become Penguin Video's vice president, right? If she'd inherited Auntie's intelligence instead, she wouldn't be nearly as successful, would she?"

"That's not what I meant!" Li Xun hurriedly said. "I meant Yingying inherited Uncle's brains and Auntie's beauty. That made her twice as formidable, able to take on the world! What a shame it would've been if she'd inherited only one of your good qualities, right?!"

Dai Ying shot Li Xun a sidelong glance and muttered, "What a silver tongue!"

The four of them continued watching.

The plot had reached the point where Gongsun Ce explained to everyone that the killer the academician had hinted at was Meng Fang, and that the 'ri' in his hand was half of the character 'yin' in music! But Bao Zheng found the conclusion hard to accept.

They went to the academy but couldn't find Meng Fang. They heard that he'd locked himself in the music room that afternoon to finish some kind of Lufeng and hadn't come out, so they hurried there.

On the way, Chang Yu suddenly ran toward the music room, looking strangely agitated. When they called out to her, she said she could smell blood.

Following the scent, Chang Yu found the music room. The door had been locked from the inside, and it took her three tries to push it open.

"Ah!"

A moment later, Chang Yu's scream came from inside the music room.

Everyone hurried over, and the scene before them left them dumbfounded.

Behind the zither sat a headless corpse.

An image flashed through Bao Zheng's mind: the stone statue at the Kuayi Tribe's ancient sacrificial altar. "Meng Fang's" death was exactly like the death of the statue at the Kuayi Tribe's altar.

His head had been hacked off by an evil spirit!

The scene began with the sudden appearance of a headless corpse, then flashed to the sinister, terrifying statue at the Kuayi Tribe's Blood Altar. The atmosphere was genuinely chilling, and Liu Fang and Dai Qingshan, watching this plotline for the first time, both jumped in fright.

"You little brat, you scared your mother half to death!" Liu Fang turned away and scolded Dai Ying.

Dai Qingshan was startled at first, then suddenly came to his senses.

"Wait, isn't Meng Fang the killer? How did he end up dead too?"

"I was just laying out my theory so confidently, and the killer I'd identified is dead in the blink of an eye? How embarrassing! So embarrassing!"

"And another thing: my daughter's boyfriend is a real piece of work. He scared an old man like me, and he clearly knew I was wrong just now, yet he kept agreeing with me. Was he waiting for his future father-in-law to make a fool of himself? The nerve!"

Next, Bao Zheng and the others found the Kuayi Tribe's ruins. It turned out the tribe hadn't simply moved away—they'd been brutally wiped out!

When Bao Zheng and the others unearthed the Kuayi Tribe's bones, Chang Yu broke down, sobbing as she ran away.

It had to be said that Cao Shiyu, who played Chang Yu, gave a truly excellent performance in this scene.

At that moment, another thought crossed Dai Qingshan's mind.

"Chang Yu seems pretty suspicious!"

But he held back from sharing his theory with the others. His last guess had already been embarrassing enough, and this might be another little trap set by the screenwriter. He wasn't going to fall for it again!

Then Commander Mu, a highly skilled fighter, came back on horseback, holding his own head.

Another person had died—and this time it was a martial arts master. And once again, the death resembled the curse at the Kuayi Tribe's altar!

"Who on earth is the killer?" Dai Qingshan felt as if his brain cells couldn't keep up anymore.

Next came the scene where Bao Zheng draped a scarf around Chang Yu. Chang Yu suddenly broke down and shoved Bao Zheng away, shouting.

"Something's fishy when someone reacts abnormally! Could Chang Yu really be the killer? But that's impossible! Chang Yu is a delicate, weak woman. How could she have killed four grown men?"

Suddenly, Dai Qingshan had a flash of inspiration.

"Meng Fang was unusually sensitive about scarves, and Chang Yu's acting like this too. Could the scarf be an important clue? Could there be some connection between Meng Fang and Chang Yu?"

At last, Bao Zheng figured it all out.

That night, a masked person suddenly grabbed Chang Yu at knifepoint, intending to kill her! A man dressed in black appeared out of nowhere to rescue her, but Zhan Zhao stopped him.

Then Bao Zheng gradually revealed the whole truth.

The tragedy had all begun with a legend: the legend that the Kuayi Tribe possessed a treasure!

"Mountain upon mountain, white peaks embrace a thousand green hues; water upon water, dark waters cradle ten thousand reds."

Years ago, Academician Ying Ming, Grand Scholar Yang Qishan, Commander Mu, and the Blind Man had interrogated the Kuayi Tribe about the secret of its treasure. When the tribe refused to tell them, they flew into a rage and set fire to the entire tribe, wiping it out.

Fortunately, Heaven had been kind, and two children had survived.

Because the two children had witnessed their entire family being strangled to death with ropes when they were young, both siblings had become unusually sensitive to ropes, scarves, and things like that.

The dead man in the music room had no calluses on his fingers, but he did have calluses on his palms. So the headless corpse in the music room wasn't Meng Fang's—it was Commander Mu's.

As for why blood tears had streamed from Commander Mu's head, it was because the head had been frozen. That had led Madam Bao to misjudge the time of Commander Mu's death.

If the body in the music room that everyone thought was Meng Fang's was actually Commander Mu's, then whose was the body that returned holding Commander Mu's head?

The Blind Man couldn't see, so he often felt his way around with his hands. He was bound to have some scars on them. And the body supposedly belonging to Commander Mu had many tiny scars on its hands. So the corpse that had ridden back on horseback holding Commander Mu's head was actually the highly skilled Blind Man!

At last, every mystery had been solved!

Next, the siblings Chang Yu and Meng Fang were both struck by arrows, and Chang Yu died in Bao Zheng's arms.

Li Xun had changed the original show somewhat here. He cut Bao Zheng's righteous speech about how Meng Fang and his sister shouldn't seek revenge.

At the end of Episode 12, Gongsun Ce handed Bao Zheng something Chang Yu had entrusted to him. It was a piece of paper, blackened all over as if it had been dirtied.

Bao Zheng sniffed it and said, "This is the Kuayi Tribe's treasure!"

"Mountain upon mountain, white peaks embrace a thousand green hues; water upon water, dark waters cradle ten thousand reds."

It turned out the Kuayi Tribe's treasure was copper oil!

Copper oil couldn't be extracted without official approval.

Yet they'd wiped out the entire Kuayi Tribe for a treasure that was completely useless!

And with that, the story of the Blood Altar, the second arc of Young Bao Qingtian, came to an end.

Dai Qingshan and Liu Fang hadn't known the ending. After watching it that evening, they both couldn't help feeling a little wistful.

They grieved for the Kuayi Tribe's tragedy, and for Chang Yu.

Chang Yu had been such a lovely girl. It was such a shame she'd died!

Dai Qingshan stood up and patted Li Xun on the shoulder.

"Nice work on the script!"

Episodes 11 and 12 of Young Bao Qingtian had set off an explosion in their daily views, once again astonishing everyone in and out of the industry who was following the show.

With 93 million views in a single day, the show not only held onto its lead for the most single-day views on a single platform, but also came within striking distance of The Legend of Consort Chen, the all-platform viewership champion.

The Legend of Consort Chen had achieved undeniably incredible results. On its third day, its ratings had broken 3, reaching an astonishing 3.3—a result that should have been celebrated at length.

But in the face of Young Bao Qingtian's stunning numbers and unstoppable momentum, its achievement had somehow paled.

It was hard not to feel that it had lost through no fault of its own.

At this point, all the episodes of Young Bao Qingtian that had been filmed had aired. Viewers who wanted to see what happened next might have to wait nearly another month.

Suspense fans all over the internet sighed with dismay, anxiously waiting for more. Only Zhao Qi, CEO of iQIYI Video, quietly breathed a sigh of relief.

He was afraid that if Young Bao Qingtian kept going like this, it would only be a matter of time before The Legend of Consort Chen lost its all-platform viewership crown!