Scalp-Cutter Caught, Head Displayed

Lin Shou covered the red pellets with a white bowl and began fiddling with the Three Immortals Return to the Cave trick.

Ancient Color Arts trace back far, with the old saying "Hundred Arts of Fish and Dragon" referring to song, dance, and acrobatics—the "fish and dragon" specifically meaning magic and illusion.

Generations of later magicians passed down and innovated, refining the craft into three systems: Sleight of Hand, Manipulation, and Concealment Art.

Concealment Art was the art of hiding and carrying—hiding things.

For example, in Eastern magic, Immortal Plucks the Bean hides beans in the hand, or the fishbowl trick hides the bowl under the crotch; in Western magic, pulling a dove from thin air or producing playing cards—all are Concealment Art.

The number of red pellets under the white bowl kept changing under Lin Shou's hands—one moment one, then open it to two, then open it and none, open another bowl, and there they were...

Like this all night, until dawn.

Lin Shou opened the bowl and the red pellets were gone; bowl over bowl, open it and one bowl was gone too; hand over, lift, and everything vanished.

Both white bowls and three red pellets—all Color Artifacts disappeared. A clear stream flowed straight into his mind, and Lin Shou felt he had mastered this Concealment Art skill.

Three Immortals Return to the Cave.

Skill reaching creation—anything can be hidden on the body.

Lin Shou casually picked up the Burial Shovel beside him.

Shwoosh, gone.

A flip of the hand, and it appeared again.

Three Immortals Return to the Cave could hide objects several times a person's size on the body without being detected—truly a convenient skill.

He now had a portable mini-warehouse.

After figuring out Three Immortals Return to the Cave, Lin Shou first stashed his Medical Arm inside. In the future, whenever he made new prosthetic limbs, they'd be easy to carry too.

As for the Burial Shovel, while hiding a treasured weapon in invisibility could catch opponents off guard in a fight, Lin Shou didn't usually spar or brawl, so he didn't have much use for it.

Besides, the Burial Shovel was his work tool—he needed it for every funeral job. If people saw him pulling out this thick, black, long treasure from who-knows-where on his body...

Not great. Better to just hold it in his hand normally.

And so, the "Decapitation Trick" affair at Tianqiao in the Capital City came to an end.

The old man and his son who performed the Decapitation Trick had vanished without a trace.

One Color Sect magician had been "decapitated"—dead.

The Three Judicial Offices had one more headache-inducing unsolved case file.

Lin Shou had gained a Concealment Art skill: Three Immortals Return to the Cave.

Tsk, thinking about it, he was the sole winner, raking it in.

Lin Shou was happy. As for whether he'd ever see that father-and-son magician duo again—the rivers and lakes were long, everyone had their own path. He couldn't tell fortunes, so who could say?

The next few days were still leisurely and ordinary.

Lin Shou occasionally went to Qingcheng Teahouse to listen to storytelling. He did run into An Yunli there. Though she was still clinging to life, after taking the medicine he prescribed, she was much better, coughing less often.

Lin Shou called out to her then. An Yunli heard someone shout her name, turned around, and saw it was the big Devil King. Her face went white with fear, and she fled back to her private room.

Aside from the teahouse, there was the Tofu Shop.

Ning Luowei still came every day to give Lin Shou tofu to eat, and Lin Shou, as usual, had no conscience—ate his fill, wiped his mouth clean, and shooed her away.

Like this, until today, when news spread through the streets: someone was shouting, "The Scalp-Cutter has been caught! Beheaded at Caishikou execution ground!"

Not long ago, the Three Judicial Offices had issued a wanted notice, offering a thousand taels for the Scalp-Cutter's capture. If they couldn't catch him within two months, the Minister of Justice would resign and go home to grow sweet potatoes.

Now, within the deadline, the man had been caught.

Lin Shou heard the news while eating tofu pudding. He looked up at Ning Luowei sitting across from him and thought, Who did they catch?

Ning Luowei innocently spread her small hands.

Both were puzzled, so they went to the execution ground.

On the way, Lin Shou lamented with great sorrow—ah, what a shame the Great Jing Dynasty had missed out on a sweet potato farming magnate.

On the execution platform, the executioner held a huge Ghost-Head Blade. The "Scalp-Cutter," tied up tightly, knelt on the ground, trembling like a sieve.

Lin Shou took a look at the "Scalp-Cutter's" appearance—a face full of rough flesh, a long-haired mole at the corner of his mouth—identical to the wanted poster.

The supervising official read out the Scalp-Cutter's crimes: killing twelve people within the Capital City, cruelly scalping them, heinous and evil, to be executed today, blah blah blah.

Finally, he threw down the execution token. Crack.

Head hit the ground!

It was Lin Shou's first time watching a beheading at the execution ground. He sucked through his teeth—too bloody. Couldn't they just hang him?

The spectacle of the beheading was over quickly—a matter of raising the blade and dropping it, no dawdling. On the way back, Lin Shou remembered and asked Ning Luowei one thing:

"Why did you kill those people back then?"

"Didn't I tell you? On my master's orders, to slay the wicked."

"How do you know they're guilty?"

"My master gave me a list. Those people are all lower-level dealers peddling smuggled Fortune-Longevity Paste. I once—"

Ning Luowei stopped mid-sentence, her expression shifting as if she realized she shouldn't be saying this, a hint of regret flashing across her face.

Lin Shou glanced at her. Seeing that she fell silent afterward, he didn't press the topic.

But on the way back, Ning Luowei wasn't as lively as usual. She barely spoke, uncharacteristically refrained from bothering Lin Shou, and quietly returned to the Tofu Shop on her own, as if something was weighing on her mind.

Lin Shou wasn't particularly concerned. What did Ning Luowei's affairs have to do with him? When he got back, he'd tend to his plants and recite the Classic of Burial as usual.

It wasn't until evening that a corpse was delivered to Lin Shou.

He lifted the straw mat and saw the Scalp-Cutter with the hairy mole.

Lin Shou shook his head helplessly. He really didn't want to know too many secrets, but fate saw fit to send this corpse to him.

The Record of Selling Corpses appeared, and the Lantern of Life ignited.

Lin Shou witnessed the entire life of the hairy-moled Scalp-Cutter.

The hairy mole wasn't a local. His hometown was Zhangpu County in the south, where he'd been nothing but a street thug, robbing people daily for money to drink, visit prostitutes, and gamble—never doing an honest day's work.

Later, when the Heaven and Earth Society attacked the Zhangpu County yamen and war broke out in the area, life became hard. He traveled all the way to the Capital City to seek refuge with his uncle.

His uncle was kind enough to take him in, but this wretch didn't act like a decent person. He mooched off his uncle, eating and living for free without lifting a finger to find work. After just a few idle days, his gambling addiction flared up again. Broke, he stole his uncle's money to gamble.

In the end, he was caught red-handed stealing. The hairy mole's malice surged, and he grabbed a knife and killed his uncle.

A complete ingrate.

Later, he was arrested by the yamen and thrown into jail to await trial.

Watching the Lantern of Life up to this point, Lin Shou calculated the dates.

The Scalp-Cutter was still active when the hairy mole had already been locked up, before the wanted notice was issued. So why did the wanted notice still use his portrait?

Clearly, someone had deliberately pinned the Scalp-Cutter's crimes on this unlucky bastard.

The real culprit was Ning Luowei. This hairy mole had been pushed forward to take the fall for her.

Tsk. Tampering with the case files of the Three Judicial Offices, issuing fake wanted notices, using a scapegoat—if someone could pull this off, what kind of big shot was behind it?

Why would this big shot commit such a dereliction of duty, deceiving superiors and subordinates alike, just to keep Ning Luowei from being caught?

Was he afraid that if Ning Luowei was captured, she'd spill something?

What did Ning Luowei know?

"The twelve people I killed were all lower-level dealers peddling smuggled Fortune-Longevity Paste..."

Ning Luowei's words from the afternoon swirled in Lin Shou's mind.

Fortune-Longevity Paste, the Western Affairs Party, the constable who died at Shallow Water Pier.

The scattered pieces of the puzzle were slowly coming together.

Lin Shou's Subtle Perception observation and deduction were nearly piecing together the rough outline of the case.