Deep in the Wu Mountains, the silver moon hung like a hook.
Amid the rugged wilderness, two figures climbed a slope side by side and stopped before a cave with a collapsed entrance.
The remote mountain forest was deserted, but traces of a fight were visible on the ground, along with quite a few throwing knives and needles.
Before a thicket nearby, a corpse hung upside down. After exposure to the blazing sun and heavy rain, it had rotted and begun to stink.
Cao Aning wore a bamboo hat and the garb of a wandering martial artist, with a Straight Saber wrapped in black cloth on his back. He crouched before the thicket and examined the corpse carefully for a long time before saying gravely:
"If I'm not mistaken, Chief Lu committed suicide."
Beside Cao Aning stood a man in a brocade robe, a little over thirty. At those words, he pointed at the craters smashed into the ground:
"He was wounded all over and beaten this badly, and you're telling me it was suicide?"
Cao Aning gestured for patience and pointed at the corpse's right hand:
"Chief Lu was holding a handful of concealed weapons. It looks like he wanted to ambush an expert far stronger than himself, but accidentally stabbed the weapons into his own hand. I reckon the other party was rather surprised too, and couldn't even be bothered to finish him off afterward. Calling it deliberate murder is quite a stretch."
"A member of our Cloud-Cutting Palace died out in the wilderness. If we don't get to the bottom of it, won't we become the laughingstock of the martial world?"
"Wu Prefecture is such a mess, and this is out in the wilderness. One heavy rain washed away every trace. There's no investigating it."
Cao Aning