After Qiao’er finished speaking, she shrank her shoulders.

She quickly added, “Everyone says the cats accidentally ate rat poison and were then bitten to death by dogs. Master Ji, you must watch your cat carefully. Don’t take it out, lest it accidentally eat rat poison—that would be terrible.”

Cats!

Cats again!

Qiao Zihua was afraid of cats!

The young ladies of Zhichun Tower liked to keep cats!

That cripple hated cats!

When Ye’er died, there was a cat in the room.

And cats kept dying continuously in the county town.

Uh!

She suddenly raised her head, took out the case file that Zuo Yao had given her, and read through it again.

Turning to the section about Ye’er’s death, it clearly recorded—foaming at the mouth, nose flowing with foamy, blood-colored mucus, lungs enlarged… she had been poisoned with oleander toxin.

But—

Besides oleander poisoning causing these symptoms in humans, there was another kind…

Rat poison!

“Master, what is it? Do you know who the murderer is?” Shi Zijin asked urgently and nervously.

She narrowed her eyes and said, “Wait a bit longer!”

Wait?

Must one wait when investigating a case?

Shi Zijin didn’t quite understand her meaning.

Two days later!

Ji Yunshu took out the package of pebbles she had soaked in soy sauce, dismissed the maids in the room, leaving only Shi Zijin.

She wrapped those pebbles in white gauze and gently rubbed them over Ye’er’s skeleton.

After about the time it takes to burn a stick of incense, on the originally dark gray-black wrist bones and cheekbones, several very obvious black marks suddenly appeared.

However, those black marks were in slender, elongated shapes—not like those caused by human hands pressing on them.

It was as if a skeletal hand had pressed on Ye’er’s wrists and the cheekbones on both cheeks, creating these marks.

Thin and long.

Finally—

All the doubts in her heart dissipated!

The open window!

The overturned screen!

The cup by the bed!

A dead cat!

Her lips curved slightly. “So that room didn’t only have Ye’er, Qiao Zihua, and the three people who escaped through the window. A fourth person also entered the room.”

A fourth person?

She instructed Shi Zijin, “Now do as I tell you. We’re going to… solve the case.”

…

At Zhichun Tower!

Liangda in the kitchen had just put down what he was holding, preparing to rest for a while.

The head chef walked over and shoved him, ordering him with a harsh attitude, “Liangda, quickly go to Pork Butcher Rong’s place and fetch a basket of meat. There’s no more meat in the kitchen. Go quickly and return quickly.”

He said nothing, just nodded.

Then he found a small basket to carry on his back and left through the back courtyard.

Limping along to the main street, he found Pork Butcher Rong’s stall.

“Fetch meat!” Brief and concise.

Pork Butcher Rong was bare-chested, revealing a body of hard muscle. He was holding a sharp knife, chopping meat, precisely and forcefully cutting meat for customers. He didn’t hear clearly what was said at all.

After the two customers buying meat at the stall had left, Pork Butcher Rong finally looked at him. “What do you want?”

He said lightly and deeply, “Zhichun Tower, fetch meat.”

“What?” Pork Butcher Rong’s voice was very loud.

Can’t hear!

Speak louder!

Liangda’s eyes, originally hidden under his hair, suddenly lifted. In those eye sockets that were so black one could barely see the whites, it looked like a pool of black blood—extremely terrifying, sending chills down one’s spine.

The hand holding the knife in Pork Butcher Rong’s grip suddenly trembled!

He was clearly frightened too.

“Is… is it from Zhichun Tower?”

Liangda nodded, then lowered his head again, those terrifying eyes once more hidden beneath his hair.

Pork Butcher Rong swallowed and quickly busied himself taking out the basket of fresh pork that Zhichun Tower had ordered.

Liangda then carried the basket of meat away.

But he only used one hand—that right hand burned by fire remained hanging motionless at his side the entire time.

Behind him, Pork Butcher Rong still felt some lingering fear.

It wasn’t until someone came to buy meat that his frightened heart finally settled down.

On the way back to Zhichun Tower, amid the coming and going of people, Liangda walked with his head lowered.

Accidentally—

He bumped into someone.

His steps stumbled, and the basket of meat in his hand also tipped over onto the ground.

A young lady’s shrill, thin voice rose up.

“Don’t you watch where you’re going? Dead cripple, you’ve dirtied this young lady’s clothes. Can you afford to pay for them?”

He paid no attention, just crouched down and began picking up the scattered meat back into the basket.

When the woman saw that he actually ignored her, her face reddened with anger. She tugged at the dirtied hem of her garment. “I’m speaking to you—didn’t you hear? What lowly people.”

Just as she finished speaking—

“Meow~”

A cat’s voice suddenly rang out.

Liangda’s hand, which had been picking up meat, stopped. He slowly raised his head, looking at the woman standing before him in a fury. His gaze slowly moved to the pure white cat in her hands.

His face instantly became extremely savage.

When the woman saw that face burned and wrinkled with scars, she was startled.

Her face turned pale!

Her hands loosened, and the kitten in her arms, also frightened, scrambled down and disappeared in a flash.

Liangda lowered his head again and continued picking up the meat.

The woman was no longer aggressive either. That face just now had scared the soul right out of her. She quickly lifted her skirt and left.

After cleaning up the things on the ground, Liangda carried the basket toward Zhichun Tower.

However—

Half the time it takes to burn a stick of incense later!

During this time, the sky suddenly began to drizzle. In a very secluded alley, the sound of footsteps, one heavy and one light, echoed.

Reverberating in this narrow space, like the sound of death!

A thin figure limped toward the end, wearing a straw rain cape on his body and a bamboo hat on his head.

In his hand, he carried a white cat that was frantically twisting and struggling!

Finally, he stopped at a corner by the wall.

Liangda used rope to bind the cat’s four limbs together and threw it heavily onto the ground.

Thud!

“Meow~”

The cat’s round, bright eyes stared fearfully at the person before it, face full of cruelty.

“Don’t be afraid. It will be quick.”

“Meow~”

The white cat wanted to escape, but helplessly its four limbs were bound.

Liangda took out a package and viciously stuffed it into the cat’s mouth.

Then, that right hand that had always been hidden in his sleeve extended out. But it was a… false hand.

A false hand forged from steel!

Replacing the five fingers were sharpened, thin steel rods that had been ground down.

Like Pigsy’s nine-toothed rake!

He first used his normal left hand to viciously grip the cat’s neck, then extended that false hand. The sharp steel rods were about to stab toward the cat’s belly.

To rip it open alive!

Just at that moment, Shi Zijin suddenly leaped down from above, kicking viciously toward Liangda’s forehead.

The person flipped backward, the cat in his hand was released, and he fell heavily to the ground.

The bamboo hat on his head also fell off.

Revealing that face.

Shi Zijin raised his foot and stomped heavily on his chest. “You conscienceless dog!”

Rainwater fell, striking that savage, terrifying face.

Ji Yunshu held an umbrella and walked in from outside the alley, her robes dampened by the drizzling rain.

She walked before Liangda, those eyes carrying disgust.

“Why?” she asked.

Liangda on the ground suddenly understood. He smiled, a hoarse, low sentence emerging from his throat.

“You all deserve to die.”