Chapter 15

That day, Baozhu stayed in bed catching up on sleep, claiming that visiting the scene of a murder and burial had frightened her into a sudden illness. She needed to conserve her strength to sneak out that night. Bao Lang did not believe someone as bold as she was could have been frightened, and sent people to check on her. But when they found her genuinely confined to bed, there was nothing he could do except leave her alone for the time being.

Yang Xingjian made an even greater fuss, using the excuse to rake everyone within sight over the coals, from the highest to the lowest. He scolded the servants for their laziness and stupidity, called for fright-soothing pills, and hounded the kitchen into brewing Calming Decoction. If all the monks in Xiagui County had not been locked up, he probably would have summoned a few to perform an exorcism as well.

He kept it up until midnight, wearing everyone out until the very sight of father and daughter filled them with dread. Then Yang Xingjian dismissed the servants and stayed alone to attend to Baozhu. Sure enough, Wei Xun returned, looking somewhat puzzled.

Baozhu sprang out of bed and asked eagerly as she put on her shoes, "Did you get up there?"

Wei Xun nodded. "I did, but I found no hidden mechanisms. This was the only thing left in the tower."

He took a bundle from inside his robe. Wrapped within it was a square lacquer box, a Seven-Inch Size but exquisitely made. Its exterior used Gold-and-Silver Inlay, adorned with gold leaf, silver flakes, agate, glazed glass, tridacna shell, and other materials from Buddhism's seven treasures. Inside the lid was a painting of flying celestial beings offering treasures, while the box itself was lined with a soft brocade cushion embroidered in gold thread with ornate lotus patterns.

Regardless of what it had contained, the empty lacquer box alone was a meticulously crafted treasure.

Baozhu held up the lacquer box and examined it. "This was probably the container for the snake pearl, wasn't it? It looks like the work of craftsmen from Changzhou, which is under the jurisdiction of the Wuwei Army's Military Governor."

She turned the Lacquer Box over and, sure enough, found the tiny inscription, "Respectfully presented by your servant Cui Keyong," on its base. In a corner farther toward the edge was the signature Faming, presumably the craftsman's name. This vessel, made specifically for the imperial household, was extraordinarily refined. Even its inscriptions were written in such dignified, elegant script that it was entirely unlike anything made for ordinary people.

Wei Xun removed the brocade lining to inspect it, occasionally bringing it to his nose to sniff.

An offering intended for the emperor ought to have been perfect down to the smallest detail, yet the brocade bore a transparent stain the size of a walnut. It had dried completely and was almost invisible without close inspection, but felt stiffer to the touch and still carried a faint fishy smell.

Wei Xun thought about how he had climbed into the tower to investigate, forcing his way in through sheer martial skill. Once inside, however, he had felt every tile above the beams and every brick on the floor, and truly found no opening anyone could exploit, nor any sign of an underground chamber. With its main doors sealed, the tower was a locked room to anyone else.

That puzzled him too. Could there be a second person in the martial world whose abilities matched his? And could that person have happened to appear in this little county town of Xiagui County at the same time as him? Wei Xun took considerable pride in his peerless lightness skills. Now his youthful competitive spirit flared, and he became determined to uncover who had stolen the snake pearl and then courted death by framing the Green-Robed Wanderer.

Seeing that Wei Xun had truly penetrated the layers of guards surrounding the twenty-zhang stone tower, and even brought back evidence from a major case, Yang Xingjian was naturally appalled. "Did you see a note in the tower?"

"What note?" Wei Xun asked.

"Yang Xingjian said that after stealing the treasure, the thief left a note inside the lacquer box. He only had time to glance at it."

Wei Xun shook his head. "There wasn't one."

"Then Bao Lang must have put it away," Yang Xingjian said. "That's strange too. It's clearly important evidence in the case. Why won't he show it to everyone? We might at least identify the handwriting."

Wei Xun smiled. "Easy enough. I'll go ask him for it."

"I told you not to provoke him!" Baozhu snapped. "At least not now. Tonight, we'll look at Luo Chengye's house first, then decide what to do."

"Why have you suddenly taken an interest in that headless Unworthy Marshal?" Wei Xun asked.

"Although Luo Chengye's house is right next to Lotus Flower Temple, after that case of the wife buried beneath the millstone, I don't think his murder necessarily had the same culprit as the pearl theft," Baozhu said. "On the morning the White Snake Pearl was discovered missing, Luo Chengye was actually still alive. Isn't that strange? What if, like the other cases, someone foresaw how far the pearl theft would reach and deliberately pinned this on you too? You're already carrying one pot of blame on your back. A few more would seem perfectly natural."

"Then I can go and take a look myself," Wei Xun said. "Why must you wade into those muddy waters again?"

Yang Xingjian had never imagined he would agree with this man. He hurried to add his own persuasion. "Yes, exactly. Please take care of yourself, Princess. Don't put yourself in danger. Leave these things to others."

Baozhu snorted and told Wei Xun, "You don't know how awful it is being locked up. Yesterday, the magistrate's wife insisted I join the women of her household for tea and needlework. I had to hold a needle while they judged me from head to toe, terrified that one wrong word would give me away. It was misery."

Wei Xun knew she had been cooped up too long and wanted a chance to get out for some air. With him accompanying her, he reckoned nothing serious could happen, so he stopped objecting. Yang Xingjian tried to argue again, but one glare from Baozhu silenced him. He could only pinch his beard and sigh.

Wei Xun went out again to scout the route, and Baozhu took the opportunity to make a rubbing of the inlaid designs on the lacquer box with her Stone Eyebrow Pigment. Since it was evidence in a major case, they could hardly keep it for long. They would have to return it to its original place eventually, lest the tower guards become suspicious.

During the hour of the ox, when the whole town was deepest asleep, Wei Xun came to Reflection Pavilion to fetch her.

Baozhu stepped onto the windowsill, expecting Wei Xun to carry her down properly in his arms or on his back. Instead, he pushed her from behind, then caught the belt at her back as she lost her balance and hauled her down like a sack of rice. Though she landed steadily, she broke into a cold sweat. Displeased but unable to think how to complain, she straightened her clothes with a stiff expression and demanded, "Which way?"

All her earlier talk about Luo Chengye becoming a ghost belonging to the state because he had drawn his sovereign's pay had merely been something she invented to reassure herself. The prospect of actually visiting a place where someone had died horribly had left her uneasy all day. Now, faced with the pitch-black street, her heart pounded like a drum. Just then, a passing stray cat let out a harsh yowl. She jolted and hunched her shoulders, and ten parts of courage instantly shook down to three.

Wei Xun found her timidity rather amusing. After a moment's thought, he said, "There's something I meant to return to you once you were released. Since you're out tonight anyway, you might as well take it now." With that, he leaped up and vanished into the dense crown of a large scholar tree, returning a moment later with several things.

Baozhu was delighted when she saw them: they were the bow, arrows, and quiver she had left at the Sun Family Inn. She had mentioned to Wei Xun that the bow's size and draw weight suited her perfectly, and that even if she bought another later, it probably would not feel so right. She had no idea when he had retrieved them from the Sun Family Inn and hung them in the treetop for safekeeping.

With a weapon in hand, Baozhu immediately lifted her head and squared her shoulders, feeling her courage return. Wei Xun smiled. "There. If you see Luo Chengye's ghost, you can shoot an arrow at him first."

Baozhu nodded solemnly. "Just like Li Guang shooting the tiger. Even if I miss, I'll have won in spirit."

They headed together to Luo Chengye's house beside Lotus Flower Temple. Led by a professional night prowler, they encountered neither watchmen nor patrolling officers and arrived without a ripple of trouble. At the mouth of the alley, a small, shaven-headed figure in monk's robes was waiting. It was Thirteenth Son.

"What are you doing here?" Baozhu asked delightedly. "If I'd known you were coming, I would have brought some pastries."

"He's not as delicate as you," Wei Xun said with a smile. "Missing a couple of meals won't hurt him."

Thirteenth Son rubbed his head sheepishly. "I'm staying in the courtyard for Itinerant Monks Staying Temporarily. I don't know anyone there, and seeing the same faces every day is boring. When Eldest Senior Brother brought me provisions and mentioned this, I was tempted. I thought you'd need someone to keep watch."

"Now everyone's here," Baozhu said happily. "One more pair of eyes means one more measure of vigilance."

They proceeded down the alley. Luo Chengye's cramped home was wedged between two large compounds, much like his straitened life, squeezed between the lawful world and the criminal one. Though he had reformed and once devoted himself to his duties as Unworthy Marshal, his outlaw origins left a stain that prevented him from entering respectable society. His position had also earned him many enemies in the martial world, leaving him unable to return to it. He was trapped between advance and retreat, with no easy path on either side.

The courtyard had been spread with a thick layer of dry sand to cover the blood, like an execution ground. Wei Xun said Bao Lang had personally executed an Unworthy Man there for failing in the investigation, destroying all the original footprints so that their former shapes could no longer be discerned.

An official seal strip had been pasted across the main door. Baozhu was wondering what to do when Wei Xun stepped forward and gently stroked it back and forth with his palm. Whatever technique he used, on his second pass the entire strip peeled away intact, without the slightest damage. Thirteenth Son carefully caught it and set it aside, ready to paste it back when they left.

For Wei Xun, it was only a small demonstration of skill, but Baozhu stared in amazement at this firsthand display of a master thief's methods. These supposedly foolproof traditional precautions against theft might as well not exist for a gallant outlaw like him. No wonder he managed to dig me out even when I was buried deep in the tomb's underground palace.

Before opening the door, Wei Xun handed Baozhu a clean cloth and a few Bath Beans. "Plug your nostrils with these, then cover your face with the cloth. The smell inside is strong. You won't be able to stay otherwise."

Baozhu obediently did as instructed. Only then did Wei Xun push open the door, light a candle with his fire lighter, and lead her inside.

The blood on the floor and walls had dried, losing its bright red color and turning dark brown. Yet the thought that someone had died horribly here not long ago, his corpse not only beheaded but stripped of all its internal organs, still sent a chill through her.

Baozhu dared not examine the pool of blood on the floor, which still faintly retained a human outline. Looking around, she quickly surveyed the room. So this is what "nothing in the house but four bare walls" looks like. She could not help muttering, "This house is tiny. There isn't even a separate inner room. Why doesn't he have a single piece of furniture? Was the Unworthy Marshal paid so little?"

Wei Xun grinned. "Apparently not enough to make ghosts turn a millstone."

Remembering her earlier remarks about drawing the sovereign's pay and serving him loyally, Baozhu felt embarrassed. She gave a cold snort. "He had no official rank. Naturally, his income was meager."

But Wei Xun said, "The Unworthy Marshal's income didn't come from his salary. It came from extortion and bribes. Anyone who passed through his hands during an investigation, guilty or not, had to pay to save their skin. He gambled his money away."

As he teased Baozhu, he carefully examined the blood patterns and reconstructed events in his mind. Only when he was certain did he say, "It really does look rather like a killing between accomplices over an uneven division of spoils. Luo Chengye knew the murderer."

We came in together. How did he work it out first? Baozhu wondered. "What makes you say that?"

Wei Xun pointed to the blood on the floor. "Look at the direction of the spatter. The source was very low, level with the floor. The victim was stabbed while sitting on the ground. There's a broken jar beside him. The liquid has dried, but you can still smell wine. Two people sitting face-to-face on the floor with wine beside them-that's something only acquaintances would do."

Wei Xun called Thirteenth Son into the room and had him sit where the victim had been. Sitting opposite him as the murderer, he demonstrated for Baozhu. "They were drinking together when one suddenly attacked, rising onto one knee and thrusting out his weapon. At such close range, the other man had nowhere to dodge. With enough strength, he could pin the victim's shoulder with one hand and drive the weapon through him with the other."

As he spoke, he hooked one hand into a claw and clamped it firmly over Thirteenth Son's shoulder. With the other, he mimed gripping a weapon and stabbing, then shifted aside. "Dodge as you pull it out and let the blood spray onto the wall. That keeps your clothes clean. This was an experienced hand."

His movements were fierce and agile, and the remaining blood on the wall did indeed match his reconstruction. Baozhu was impressed, but privately muttered, You look like quite an experienced hand yourself.

Wei Xun continued, "But to take someone by surprise this way, you need a weapon within easy reach. If you have to seize his weapon before killing him, you can't do it so calmly. At the very least, he won't sit obediently waiting to die. I hear Luo Chengye was stabbed to death with his own Four-Sided Pattern-Welded Iron Mace. Either the murderer could disarm and kill him in a single instant, or Luo Chengye willingly lent him the weapon to examine, giving him his opening."

Baozhu could not make sense of it either. "Wu Zhiyuan and the others think the murderer bore Luo Chengye a deep grudge. That's why he cut him open, pulled out his organs to desecrate them, and even hung his intestines from a beam to disgust people. After all, that first blow was fatal. There was no need to mutilate the corpse afterward. But if they had such a bitter feud, how could they have sat calmly drinking face-to-face?"

"Pulled out his intestines and hung them from a beam?" Wei Xun repeated quietly. He looked up toward the ceiling, considered for a moment, then sprang upward.

The house had a very high roof, and in the dim light of night, Wei Xun seemed to leap into darkness and vanish. Baozhu craned her neck and waited for some time before he lit a candle up on the beam, leaned down, and beckoned to Thirteenth Son.

"Thirteenth, come up here too."

The little novice's face fell at once. "Eldest Senior Brother, you know my lightness skills aren't very good. Are you trying to make me embarrass myself in front of Ninth Lady?"

"I'll give you a hand," Wei Xun said with a smile. "With something to pull on, you can get up." He unfastened his Dieliexie Belt and lowered it from the beam like a rope. Encouraged by this assistance, Thirteenth Son leaped hard, caught one end of the belt, and used it to give himself another boost, successfully vaulting onto the beam.

Watching the two martial brothers demonstrate, Baozhu let out an "Ah!" as understanding began to dawn.

Could cutting open the corpse and hanging its intestines from the beam have served a practical purpose, rather than being an act of hatred?!

A moment later, Wei Xun and Thirteenth Son jumped down from the beam in succession. Wei Xun said, "The house is narrow, and there's no furniture to hide behind. If someone urgently needed to conceal himself, the beam was his only option. But the murderer's lightness skills were mediocre. He couldn't get up in one leap, so he needed something to grab for another boost. There are footprints in the dust on the beam, apparently left several days ago. Slitting the belly open looks grotesque and bloody, but it merely concealed his need for a rope to climb up and hide."

"I heard the man who discovered Luo Chengye's body saw him alive on his first visit," Baozhu said excitedly. "When he returned an incense stick's worth of time later and knocked again, only the headless corpse remained."

"The murderer hadn't had time to escape," Wei Xun said. "He must still have been inside. To keep the man at the door from discovering him, he thought up this bloody solution in desperation. If he was willing to cut open a belly and pull out intestines just to hide, he must have been very afraid of someone seeing his appearance."

"Of course someone who's committed murder would be afraid of having his face seen," Baozhu said.

Wei Xun shook his head and handed her something tiny. "It wasn't necessarily because of the murder."

Baozhu saw that he had given her a four-inch hair. Examining it between her fingers, she found it unlike an ordinary person's hair: it was curly, and might have come from either a head or a beard. She had already heard how Luo Chengye earned the name "Lion Hound," and knew he had a full head and face of bushy, curly hair. Startled, she asked, "Did this come from the beam too?!"

Wei Xun nodded. "It seems the dead man might not have been Luo Chengye himself." He looked again at the blood sprayed around the room. "If he used his own Four-Sided Pattern-Welded Iron Mace to ambush and kill someone, it would explain everything. He could handle it with ease and wouldn't have to risk failing to seize another man's weapon."

Baozhu shook her head. "That doesn't fit. Wu Zhiyuan said Luo Chengye had a python tattoo on his arm. That isn't something you can fake after death."

"Ninth Lady, you wouldn't know this," Thirteenth Son said, "but members of the same gang in the martial world might well have identical tattoos. Years ago, Second Senior Brother suggested we all get matching ones too. But everyone wanted a different design, and all the senior brothers and sisters started arguing. In the end, they never agreed on anything."

Wei Xun curled his lip. "I certainly don't want some stupid design on my body that won't wash off."

"I thought Third Senior Sister's suggestion of tattooing an entire Heavenly King of the North across the back was very imposing," Thirteenth Son said.

"Listen to that shrew, then," Wei Xun sneered. "When you grow up, is the Heavenly King of the North supposed to grow taller with you, or get fat with you? Stretch him sideways and lengthways, and won't he turn into a blur?"

These two martial brothers had actually started discussing tattoo designs in a house where someone had been murdered. Baozhu's thoughts were a tangled skein, and she had to interrupt. "Both of you, shut your mouths for a moment. Wei Xun, are you saying Luo Chengye himself is actually still alive?!"

Wei Xun blinked. "Judging by these clues, he was very likely hiding on the beam at the time. The head, which could identify the victim for certain, had been cut off and taken away. They could claim the body belonged to anyone."

"Luo Chengye's head was found a few days ago," Baozhu said. "It had been thrown into the kitchen at Lotus Flower Temple and deep-fried. That's another extremely strange thing. If pulling out the intestines was merely a desperate measure to make hiding easier, what was the point of frying a human head?"

At this, Thirteenth Son's whole face scrunched up. "I heard about that too. The kitchen monk who found the head was frightened out of his mind, and they had to throw away the pot of oil they used for vegetarian dishes."

Wei Xun considered for a moment. "I can't read the murderer's mind. I can only speak from experience. In weather this hot, carrying a human head around for three to five days would certainly leave it rotting and stinking. The smell of a corpse is extremely hard to conceal. He probably couldn't hide it anymore, so he threw it into hot oil. That would remove the smell and completely destroy the face-two birds with one stone."

"But they also found Luo Chengye's curly beard hairs on the lid of the frying pot," Baozhu said.

Wei Xun smiled. "Now that does smack of a thief's guilty conscience. I wasn't all that certain before, but now I'd say there's an eighty or ninety percent chance Luo Chengye is still alive."