That night, fierce winds raged through Suishui City. Trees swayed in the wind like night owls baring fangs and brandishing claws. Wailing cries came from the darkness, resembling the weeping of ghosts.

At Xiao Ning’s residence, Li Si’s eyelids twitched. In his nightmare, several reddish-brown walnuts circled and spun around him. The walnuts rotated in mid-air along with ghostly winds and will-o’-the-wisps like spinning tops. First they traced large circular trajectories, then the circles grew smaller and smaller. The reddish-brown walnuts gradually drew close to within inches of Li Si’s face, suddenly accelerated their movement and fused together, forming a face made of reddish-brown walnuts!

The face was covered entirely with mouths that opened and closed but could not produce any sound. Li Si stared at those mouths and read their lip movements:

“Have you forgotten? Have you forgotten…”

The face made of reddish-brown walnuts slapped onto Li Si’s face with a smack. Countless mouths tore and bit at Li Si.

“Hah!” Li Si woke from the nightmare.

The window rattled loudly from the strong wind. Li Si looked in shock to see a ghostly human shadow disappear at the far end of the courtyard. The shadow seemed oddly familiar. Li Si then discovered that the cabinet hiding the walnuts appeared to have been rifled through.

The 4th day of the 1st month, the Blood Evil Day—all misfortunes converge from the four directions. At Suishui County Yamen, Meng Xiu paced back and forth. Before long, Meng Fanchuan arrived. Meng Fanchuan’s small eyes were filled with bloodshot veins. Meng Xiu knew his son was exhausted from investigating the murder cases and couldn’t help but feel heartache.

“Fanchuan, take these two tickets to the dance hall on the table. It’s a new dance performance at Furong Garden. You and Gao Ling should rest a bit.” Meng Xiu said slowly.

“Senior Martial Brother probably won’t like pleasure-quarter dance performances.” Meng Fanchuan picked up the tickets and thought for a moment.

Furong Garden was a pleasure-quarter dance hall in Suishui City. During the Great World era, official dance gardens were called dance workshops, while private dance gardens in the pleasure quarters were called dance halls—the two were clearly distinct. Dance workshops trained dancers and performances for the enjoyment of imperial relatives or high-ranking officials. Dance halls rehearsed performances to please the general public and patrons.

Gao Ling was unruly and rebellious, so he probably wouldn’t be interested in a pleasure-quarter dance hall. But the result was beyond Meng Fanchuan’s expectations—Gao Ling actually agreed.

The wind lessened somewhat, but dark clouds began to gather densely. Not long after the Hour of the Monkey, heaven and earth were already a chaotic mess.

Li Si remained at Xiao Ning’s residence, idly recalling the blind old man’s story segment “Sudden Wind Rises.” As Li Si thought about it, he unconsciously began reciting a few lines from the segment.

“The Kuopo River rolled up a towering wave, thirty-three zhang high and more. When the wave crest fell, it revealed wolf-head water ships filled with barbarian soldiers. The barbarian soldiers covered in wolf totem paintings roared and shouted at the Great World’s water forces. Their eyes shot forth a fearless spirit and intense killing intent.” Li Si spoke to himself to this point. In his mind, he pictured the barbarian soldiers raising their swords and crossbows, howling wildly, and those countless resolute gazes… Li Si suddenly felt the back of his neck turn cold, as if countless eyes filled with killing intent were staring him down.

Li Si spun around sharply. A black shadow darted from beside the window.

The black shadow was a black cat with deep green eyes.

The black cat stared fixedly at Li Si, and Li Si stared back at the black cat. After an unknown amount of time, the cat’s mouth corners twitched, its whiskers stood on end, and then it let out a sharp, high-pitched cat cry. Just as the black cat opened its mouth, something rolled out from inside the cat’s mouth, rolled down the window, and rolled to Li Si’s feet.

It was a round, reddish-brown walnut!

—The fourth walnut representing killing intent and death!

Li Si stared blankly at the walnut. The walnut must have been placed in the black cat’s mouth by the culprit, who then directed the black cat to come to Li Si’s room and spit it out to him. The black cat must recognize the culprit. Just as Li Si was about to capture the black cat, he noticed it still stood motionless by the window like a stone sculpture.

A gust of wind blew past, and the black cat fell straight to the ground. Black, foul-smelling bloody water flowed from the cat’s orifices. It had been poisoned to death.

Li Si sighed and could only examine the walnut. Xiao Ning also arrived.

This micro-carved walnut was divided into two parts. The first part showed several magnificent purple gauze screens connected one after another. On the edge of the screens hung a plain robe, and on the ground were several drops of crimson blood. The second part transformed into a dim secret chamber. The chamber had four corners, each with a burning dark yellow tallow lamp. Each corner also had a hanging scroll depicting either landscapes or figures.

In the center of the chamber stood three stone figures. The three stone figures looked bizarre—they had hands and feet but no heads.

The walnut did not show the part with the deceased.

Xiao Ning looked toward Li Si. Li Si took a deep breath and said, “This time the culprit is imitating the Sculptor case from Jin Island.” In the Sculptor case, Li Si discovered a mechanical trap at the Ant Bone Tower on Jin Island. He broke through all the way to the underground chamber beneath Ant Bone Tower. The scene in the chamber was roughly similar to the micro-carved walnut, except that chamber had eight corners. The eight corners each hung a scroll difficult to comprehend, and the scrolls were related to the origins of the Sculptor. The Jin Island chamber similarly had three headless stone figures. One of the stone figures contained the corpse of the missing victim.

After Xiao Ning heard the full story of the Jin Island Sculptor case, he stared blankly at the several screens in the walnut. Suddenly he slapped the table and said, “I was wondering why the screens looked so familiar—I’ve seen these screens.”

“You’ve seen them? Where?”

“Furong Garden to the west of the city.” Xiao Ning said.

One quarter past the Hour of the Rooster, at Furong Garden in the western part of the city.

Meng Fanchuan and Gao Ling had already watched two dance performances at Furong Garden. The dancers’ colorful garments fluttered gracefully like butterflies treading on flowers, expressing the essence of the dance to perfection. Cheers rose and fell below the colorful stage. Gao Ling silently approved. He looked at the beautiful and graceful young maidens on stage, and another scene appeared in his heart—under that bright moonlight, a girl dancing radiantly on the colorful stage at the Moon Immortal Dance Workshop in the Holy City. Her every smile and frown seemed to gather all the beauty between heaven and earth. The girl’s lightly dancing water sleeves and hand shadows melted away Gao Ling’s twenty years of lonely arrogance like spring wind.

Gao Ling soon learned the maiden’s identity. The maiden was called Yan Qiandie, the only daughter of Great World God-Catcher Yan Cheng.

Gao Ling came from a prominent family, was handsome in appearance, and learned from the currently most prestigious Yan Chi Sword School. So Gao Ling pursued Yan Qiandie with full confidence, but was politely refused by her several times. Gao Ling, who had never known defeat, had never experienced failure. Several encounters with Yan Qiandie made his heart flutter even more. Gao Ling became certain that Yan Qiandie was his one true love in this life.

Finally, Gao Ling learned from Yan Qiandie’s cousin Li Yingfeng that someone already existed in Yan Qiandie’s heart.

In Gao Ling’s mind flashed those deep, slender eyes of Li Si. He couldn’t help but sigh deeply in regret. For the first time in his life, he felt powerless.

“It’s already been a full incense stick’s worth of time. Why haven’t the third and fourth performances started yet?” Meng Fanchuan wondered aloud. According to convention, dance performances must follow one another very closely. Gao Ling saw that the dancers beside the colorful stage were all looking left and right, as if waiting for someone.

The audience at Furong Garden grew impatient, slapping tables and making whistling sounds. This greatly worried the garden master of Furong Garden. The garden master was a middle-aged man with a protruding belly. The master waited for a servant to arrive, and the servant reported, “Master, we’ve searched everywhere, front and back, but haven’t seen Instructor Tao. Could Instructor Tao have gone out?”

“Gone out! What can we do about this?” The master anxiously wrung his hands. It turned out the scores for the next three new performances were still in the hands of this missing dance hall instructor. The master quickly asked again, “If you can’t find the person, did you find the scores?”

“We didn’t find anything.” The Furong Garden servant shook his head.

“What are we to do!” The master collapsed into a chair in dejection. In the distance, two young maidens ran over, out of breath, shouting, “Master, we found Instructor Tao’s robe in the prop room, and also…”

“And what? Stop stuttering and speak!” The master’s facial fat bunched together.

“And blood!” The two maidens leaned against each other, looking very frightened.

“Blood?” The master’s mind went blank. Two young men suddenly appeared on the colorful stage—Gao Ling and Meng Fanchuan. It turned out Meng Fanchuan had grown impatient and came to ask the master about the situation. He hadn’t expected to hear the maiden’s words.

Gao Ling frowned and said, “Take me to the prop room.”

The Furong Garden master recognized Meng Fanchuan and knew he was the county magistrate’s son, so the master immediately led Gao Ling and Meng Fanchuan to the prop room.

The prop room was very close to the colorful stage. Inside it was quite spacious, storing many dance performance props and miscellaneous items. At the very back of the prop room were several connected purple gauze screens. On the corner edge of the screens hung a plain robe, and on the ground were several drops of blood.

The blood intermittently pointed toward the prop room’s back door. Gao Ling immediately said, “Follow the blood trail.”

Everyone exited through the prop room’s back door, passed through Furong Garden’s side courtyard, and came to an artificial mountain. Behind the artificial mountain was a decayed wooden door. The wooden door led underground.

“Inside this door is a cellar, but no one has entered it for a long time.” The master said, looking at the pitch-black entrance.

“The blood trail flows into the cellar.” Meng Fanchuan said. Gao Ling took the lead and felt his way into the pitch-black cellar. Meng Fanchuan used his flint to strike a flame, lit a torch, and followed. The master and servant hesitated for a moment, then also followed down.

The cellar was unimaginably deep. It should not be as simple as just a cellar. During the Great World’s civil war, many wealthy households built underground secret chambers to store silver and hide. This cellar very much resembled a secret chamber left from that time. Walking in the torchlight for about half an incense stick’s worth of time, everyone suddenly felt their vision open up before them.

At the end of the stone steps appeared a half-open stone door. Dim yellow light shot out from within the stone door.

Gao Ling pushed open the stone door. Behind it was a very large stone chamber with dark yellow tallow lamps burning in the four corners. Beside the lamps hung scrolls depicting either landscapes or figures. In the center of the stone chamber were three strange stone figures. The stone figures had hands and feet but no heads. Bloody water dripped down from the abdomen of the middle stone figure.

A cold gleam flashed in Gao Ling’s eyes. His long sword left its sheath and swept across the stone figure’s abdomen. The stone belly slowly cracked open a fissure. The fissure widened, revealing a face with eyes glaring in rage inside.

“It’s Instructor Tao!” The master was so frightened by the person in the stone that he backed away.

Gao Ling shattered the stone belly fragments and pulled out Instructor Tao. The person was already dead. The deceased wore only an undergarment. On his wrist was a clear cutting wound still dripping blood. His fingers were bent and deformed as if he had struggled. Around the deceased’s neck was a deep, sunken purple-green bruise. His eyeballs bulged and his tongue protruded halfway—these were obviously symptoms of being strangled to death.

Gao Ling instructed Meng Fanchuan, “Return to the county yamen and bring people.” Meng Fanchuan turned and left immediately.

“Seal off the exits of Furong Garden. This person hasn’t been dead long. Perhaps the culprit is still in the garden.” Gao Ling murmured. “We cannot let slip any possible opportunity.”

“Alright, I’ll send people to seal the garden right away.” The master nodded repeatedly and turned to leave.

Before long, Gao Ling heard steady footsteps. Without turning his head, he said calmly, “God-Catcher Li arrived quite quickly.”

Behind Gao Ling, Li Si walked over calmly.