For Ding Songyan, it would have been fine if Feng Zhengning, who was suspected of keeping an Evil Object, really had come from Jinyang Prefecture in Du Province. After all, what province or prefecture did not have a few evil-path fiends? What worried him was the possibility that the man had deliberately fabricated his origins and deliberately entered Jinyang Prefecture, Du Province, in the register.
That would suggest he might know Ding Songyan had extracted the surname "Jiang" from Yan Changqing's remnant soul. It would suggest he might have some connection to the mastermind who had reduced Yan Changqing to ashes, and that his visit to Flat Lake Town was intended to steer the authorities' subsequent investigation toward Jiang Lanting of the Yin-Yang Religion!
While Ding Songyan pondered this, Zheng Zhuxi had already begun making orderly arrangements. Though the Xiaoming Sect disciples around her were all her senior brothers and sisters, or even her martial uncles and aunts, and outranked her in both seniority and martial arts, she still took charge of the whole affair as a matter of course.
She sent people to investigate whom Feng Zhengning had contacted in Flat Lake Town and what he had done, while she took Ding Songyan with her and split up with her fellow disciples to check the two town gates and confirm whether the cloth merchant had left.
Their inquiries revealed that Feng Zhengning had left Flat Lake Town through the west gate a little over half an hour earlier, heading north along the main road and out of sight of the watchtowers on the town walls.
"The rest of the investigation will take slow, painstaking work. The Enforcement Hall will take over," Zheng Zhuxi told Ding Songyan, sounding somewhat disappointed.
She quickly recovered her spirits and said with a smile: