The longer he looked at the headless corpse before him, the more reassured he felt, as though all the guesses and doubts of these past days had finally found their resting place, settled here in solid reality.
Pei Ye had guessed long ago that he would come this way.
Back then, they had diverted water from Taiye to the Scenic Pool, but they could not possibly have brought it into the Bedchamber of Bright Moon Palace. So how had He Wujian appeared out of nothing? After taking on "Bright Moon's Stab," a case that had remained unsolved for twenty-three years, from the Immortal Platform and spending half a month killing Yu Sicheng, this was the only missing link.
It was not until Pei Ye stepped into that spring night where Yue Muzhou was, and something cool struck his cheek with a patter, that he suddenly shuddered.
Oh. Rain.
It really was hard for him to think of this long-absent sprite of nature. His last encounter with it had been three or four months ago, when he was still at the West Pool discussing the Academy Entrance Examination with Fang Jidao. Those few words in Yue Muzhou's case file were hardly enough to awaken his sense of all things steeped in moisture.
Drizzling and pattering, rushing and splashing, it stirred white mist through the world and washed people's vision into disarray. Of course, only it could blur the boundary between shore and water.
At times like these, things in the water could come briefly, intermittently, onto land-perhaps the heavier the rain, the better?
Pei Ye had guessed this long ago, just as he had guessed that the assassin's sword strike must have been prepared in the Mirage Realm, only entering reality when it was unleashed.
But he absolutely dared not gamble.