A sudden shriek erupted from the crowd: “The abbess — that’s the abbess!”

There, suspended within the waterfall, hung a figure draped in a grey monk’s robe. The rushing water had soaked her garments through, and her monastic cap had fallen away somewhere, leaving her bare, bald head lolling to one side.

The current swept across her face, revealing a pallor of ghastly white.

“How can this be?” Jing Xin covered her mouth and dropped to the ground. “The abbess is dead — and in exactly the same manner as Master Hui Xiu.”

Amid the horrified cries of the crowd, Shi Ting strode quickly to the edge of the waterfall. It was a falls formed by a river, flanked on both sides by mountains, the cascade plunging more than twenty meters down.

Just as Jing Xin had said, this was not something an ordinary person could climb.

“How did she get to the middle of the waterfall to hang herself?” Yan Qing stepped to the edge, the thunderous roar of the water nearly deafening. “Did she fly up there?”

“There’s something off about this waterfall.” Shi Ting stared at the churning water before him. “There must be some way up.”

“But all around it are sheer cliffs, and above is a deep, fast-moving river. No ordinary person could get up there — unless they could rock climb.”

At the mention of rock climbing, Shi Ting said suddenly: “Let’s go back and find some equipment. I need to get over there and have a look.”

“No.” Yan Qing quickly stopped him. “It’s far too dangerous.”

Shi Ting clasped her hand in his, his gaze resolute. “Nothing will happen to me. I promise you.”

Meeting his steadfast eyes, Yan Qing knew that when he was like this, nothing she said would make any difference. She knew him, just as he knew her.

She let out a soft sigh. “Then please be careful.”

Meanwhile, the nuns onshore had fallen into a state of frantic disarray — some weeping, some crying out. Hui An’s death had shattered their composure entirely.

“Master Jing Xin.” Shi Ting walked to her side. “When Master Hui Xiu’s body was found, was it only after the current cut through the rope that she fell?”

Jing Xin’s face was streaked with tears. She listened and then nodded. “When we found Master Hui Xiu hanging in the waterfall, we tried every means we could to retrieve her body — after all, the dead must be laid to rest properly. But as you can see, the only way to reach that spot would be for someone to fly. There was simply no way.”

Jing Xin wiped her eyes. “We had no choice but to send someone to keep watch every day until one day the current finally cut through the rope, and Master Hui Xiu’s body fell into the waterfall. The current was so swift that even after searching along the bank for a long time, we found nothing. In the end, the matter was left unresolved.”

Shi Ting said, “Could you trouble yourself to go back to the convent and find me some equipment? I want to go down and have a look.”

Jing Xin’s eyes went wide. “Sir, you want to go down beneath the waterfall? Absolutely not — the depths are bottomless there, and the current is fierce. If you fall in, there’s no coming back.”

“I don’t believe Master Hui An flew up there to hang herself. I need to go down and see before I can determine the cause.”

Jing Xin was speechless for a long moment. Finally, one of the young nuns spoke up: “Sir, can you truly climb down to reach the waterfall? Can you truly bring the abbess’s body back?”

“I can’t guarantee it, but I can try.”

“Then I’ll help you find the equipment.” This young nun was called Jing Shu — she was Hui An’s personally taught disciple. Hui An had been like a mother and teacher to her, and with Hui An gone, she was the one most devastated of all.

Shi Ting and Jing Shu returned to the convent and found several lengths of thick, sturdy rope, along with some sharp spikes and a hammer.

When they returned to the waterfall, Shi Ting secured one end of the rope to a large tree, then tied the other end firmly around his own waist, knotting it tightly.

“I’ll be fine.” Shi Ting ruffled Yan Qing’s hair lightly, chuckling at her worried expression. “Have I ever broken a promise I made to you?”

Yan Qing carefully examined the rope around him, still uneasy. “The cliff face will be slippery. Be careful — please, please be careful.”

“I know.” Shi Ting stepped to the edge and looked down. “Qing Qing, look how dark it is behind that waterfall. Doesn’t that strike you as strange?”

Most waterfalls had rock faces behind them, but behind this one was a patch of utter darkness. The distance was too great, and the water too dense and swift to make anything out clearly.

“I’m going down now.” Shi Ting gave her hand a squeeze, then pulled on the rope.

“Be careful.” Not reassured, Yan Qing followed him to the very edge and watched as he gripped the rope and descended slowly along the cliff face. The spraying water quickly soaked his clothes through.

Shi Ting pressed his feet against the protruding rock and moved downward inch by inch. Years of flowing water had worn the cliff face extremely smooth. Without the climbing spikes in his hand, he wouldn’t have been able to maintain his footing even where there were holds — and the damp moss clinging to the rock only slowed his descent further.

Hui An’s body hung in the middle of the falls, suspended by a rope. As Shi Ting drew closer, her form grew steadily clearer.

But the distance between the cliff edge and the midpoint of the falls posed a serious obstacle. The cliff edge itself could be climbed, but reaching the center of the waterfall meant enduring the full force of the current — an extremely dangerous undertaking.

Shi Ting tightened the rope around his waist again. He fixed his eyes on a particular rock and launched himself forward. The surface was treacherously slick, and the moment his feet landed he began to slide. At the last possible instant, Shi Ting drove one of his spikes hard into a crack in the rock beside him. He was left dangling in midair against the cliff face as a massive wall of water crashed down from above and drenched him instantly.

Yan Qing had been standing at the edge, waiting with growing dread. That single moment had nearly stopped her heart. Only when she saw Shi Ting pull himself back up again did she wipe the cold sweat from her brow.

She had always trusted him — whenever he said something would be fine, she believed it without question. Yet watching this with her own eyes, her heart was still wound tight with worry.

Shi Ting could barely open his eyes against the battering water. As he felt his way forward across the rocks, the water rushing down from above gradually lessened, and then stopped entirely. Behind the waterfall, he discovered the opening of a cave.

The opening was large, and pitch black within — which explained why, from the outside, no one could tell it was there.

Shi Ting finally found solid footing on level ground. Hui An was hanging directly in front of the cave entrance, the rope around her neck fastened to a sharp, pointed outcrop of rock.

Shi Ting had never believed in supernatural explanations. From the moment Jing Xin had described Hui Xiu’s death, he had concluded that everything which seemed impossible was in fact the work of human hands.

He stepped forward, lowered Hui An’s body, and untied her. The current had battered her face into a pale, bloated shape — she looked truly terrible.

After laying her down, Shi Ting turned and entered the cave behind him.

Inside it was pitch black, without a trace of light. After a few steps, he retreated. If the killer was still hiding somewhere in the cave, he would be completely exposed — one easy strike away from being taken down.

After careful consideration, Shi Ting decided not to take the risk.

He returned to Hui An’s body, removed the rope from his own waist, and bound it around her instead. Then he gave three firm tugs.

This was the signal he had arranged with Yan Qing — three tugs meant he had retrieved the body.

When Yan Qing felt three firm pulls on the rope, she knew Shi Ting had succeeded.

She quickly called everyone to help, and together they hauled Hui An’s body up to the top.

Concerned about protecting both the body and the scene, Yan Qing kept everyone from crowding in. She shared Shi Ting’s view that this was almost certainly a homicide.

First: Hui An’s mental state had been normal, with no indication she wanted to end her life. Second: even if she had wanted to die, she would not have chosen such a bizarre method — and besides, how had she gotten to the middle of the waterfall? She certainly did not possess Shi Ting’s abilities.

Once Hui An’s body had been brought up, Shi Ting made his way back up the same route. This time, he had Jing Shu find him a flashlight, and with it in hand, he descended once more into the cave behind the waterfall.

He followed the cave passage deeper and deeper inside. As he went further, the temperature dropped sharply, until at last his way was blocked by a dead end.

He pushed hard against the stone wall before him — it did not move so much as a fraction. This slab of rock completely sealed off one end of the passage.

Shi Ting swept his flashlight around the floor and found several clear footprints, along with a long drag mark.

He followed the drag mark back toward the entrance and, partway along, found a single monk’s shoe lying on the ground.

Hui An’s body had been missing one shoe. He had assumed the current had carried it away — the last place he expected to find it was here. This only strengthened his conviction: Hui An had been dragged along this passage and hoisted up to hang at the waterfall entrance.

But the passage was a dead end. So how had the killer entered? Did this cave have a second opening somewhere?

By the time Shi Ting climbed back up to the top, Yan Qing was explaining things to the distressed and agitated group of nuns.

“Sir, are you saying the abbess was murdered?” one of them asked hesitatingly.

The nuns had wanted to examine the body, but Yan Qing had stopped them. She told them plainly that Hui An had died at another’s hand.

“Yan Qing is right — Hui An was killed.” Shi Ting hauled himself up, still dripping wet.

Yan Qing hurried forward, her eyes full of concern.

“I’m fine.” Shi Ting gave her a reassuring smile. “And I found something.”

He turned to face the crowd. “I am Shi Ting, of the Military Police Division. I can tell you with certainty that Hui An was murdered.”

The revelation that Shi Ting was from the Military Police Division surprised everyone — but what stunned them even more was that Hui An had truly been killed.

So who had murdered her? And was Hui Xiu’s death connected to all of this as well?

—