The moment Xu Qi An voiced this long-troubling question, he instantly regretted it.
It wasn’t the question itself that was inappropriate, but rather the way he asked it… He had inadvertently exposed himself.
Number Five, Li Na, didn’t know he was Number Three. Xu Qi An had told her he was merely an outer member of the Tian Di Hui. But the question he just asked undoubtedly revealed his true identity.
Hmm, it’s all Li Miao Zhen’s fault. She made me think my identity as Number Three was already exposed… It’s also related to my current state of mental confusion and pain; I’m not thinking clearly and rationally… Xu Qi An’s expression stiffened slightly as he cautiously looked at Li Na.
“No way!” Li Na shouted, waving her arms excitedly. “I promised Granny Tian Gu I wouldn’t tell anyone about this, or reveal that I heard the news from her.”
Oh, so the information came from Granny Tian Gu… Wait, she hasn’t realized my wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing move yet?!
What a talent… Xu Qi An looked at Li Na, his eyes filled with admiration.
“That’s your prerogative. A gentleman never forces others,” Xu Qi An nodded, appearing as if he wouldn’t press the matter. But after Li Na breathed a sigh of relief, he calmly said, “Let’s calculate your expenses during your stay at the Xu residence.”
He first glanced at the pretty dress Li Na was wearing and said, “My sister made you two outfits using fine silk, imperially bestowed. Let’s say ten taels of silver per bolt, plus labor costs. That’s thirty taels of silver for two outfits.
“Lodging fees are three qian of silver per night. You’ve stayed here for quite a few days, so let’s say three taels. Then there’s food. Miss Li Na, I don’t need to elaborate on your appetite, do I? Over these many days, you’ve eaten forty taels worth of my silver.
“Now, please pay the total expenses of one hundred and twenty taels.”
Li Na stood there dumbfounded, staring at him blankly. “You’re amazing. You can calculate the total silver so quickly.”
Hehe, I’m just making all this up… Do I need to calculate precisely to fool someone like you? You can’t do the math anyway… No, I’m getting sidetracked by her.
Xu Qi An patted the edge of the bed and said loudly, “Focus on my main point.”
The little dark-skinned girl from Nanjiang said pitifully, “But I can’t break my promise. When I make a promise to someone, I must keep it.”
“Very well, then please pay the silver, or get out of my house,” Xu Qi An said fiercely.
“I…” Li Na’s eyes reddened, feeling bullied as an outsider, alone and helpless. She stomped her foot and said, “Fine, I’ll leave. I’ll go find Daoist Jin Lian. Even if I starve to death, die outside, or become homeless, I won’t betray Granny Tian Gu.”
“Wait,” Xu Qi An called out to her, making one last effort. “Granny Tian Gu is in Nanjiang, right? I’m in the capital. We’re tens of thousands of li apart. If you don’t tell and I don’t tell, how can it be considered breaking a promise?”
“Is that so?” Li Na questioned.
“Of course,” Xu Qi An nodded solemnly. “It’s like going to the brothel to sleep with women. That’s prostitution. But if you don’t pay silver, it’s not prostitution. Right?”
Li Na was stunned for a moment, thought about it, and felt that Xu Ning Yan’s words made sense.
Xu Qi An continued to persuade her gently, “Besides, you’re in a foreign land, alone and helpless. What’s sacrificing a little credibility for survival? No one will blame you.”
Li Na showed signs of hesitation and seemed to be wavering.
Xu Qi An delivered the final blow: “Three days of meals at Gui Yue Lou, all you can eat.”
Gulp… Li Na swallowed secretly and said crisply, “Deal, but you have to swear not to tell anyone else.”
Xu Qi An nodded.
Li Na turned and ran to the door, opened it, and poked her head out to look around for a moment, making sure no one was eavesdropping. Only then did she return to the table confidently and say:
“It was last time when Number Three asked through the book fragment if he had a friend who often picked up money and what that was about. Our Gu Clan’s Tian Gu Branch knows everything about astronomy and geography, observing the stars above and the mountains and rivers below, omniscient.
“So I went to ask the leader of the Tian Gu Branch, Granny Tian Gu. She said that the person picking up silver must be himself, not a friend…”
Suddenly, Li Na’s voice stopped. She stared at Xu Qi An, her eyes gradually widening, revealing an expression of extreme shock. Pointing at Xu Qi An, she screamed:
“You… you… you’re Number Three?!”
Did you just realize that? Xu Qi An mentally cupped his hands in respect, while maintaining a poker face. “Yes, I am Number Three. But I promised Daoist Jin Lian not to reveal my identity. Now it’s fine, we’ve both broken promises, so it’s not a big deal.”
Li Na stared at him blankly for a while, finally accepting the fact that Xu Qi An was Number Three. Feeling that they had both broken promises, the guilt in her heart immediately lessened.
“Granny Tian Gu said that twenty years ago, two thieves stole something very valuable from a wealthy family. Some in that wealthy family have already realized it, while others are still unaware.
“Granny Tian Gu also asked me where you were. I said you were in the capital. Hearing this answer, Granny Tian Gu was incredulous, as if she believed you absolutely shouldn’t be in the capital.”
“Wait a moment,” Xu Qi An interrupted Li Na. Leaning against the high pillow, he remained silent for the time it took to drink a cup of tea, then slowly said, “Continue.”
“Later, before I left Nanjiang, Granny Tian Gu told me that one of those two thieves was her husband. In our Nanjiang, there’s a legend that one day the Gu God will awaken from the Extreme Abyss and destroy the world, turning the Nine Provinces into a world of only Gu.
“This legend has been deduced by generations of prophets in the Tian Gu Branch, and it’s an absolute future that will happen. To change the future, Grandfather came up with a plan and left Nanjiang. Then he never returned.
“The life Gu he left with the Gu Clan withered, indicating his death.
“Granny Tian Gu also told me that the thing is about to emerge, and she foresaw that I would be involved in it too, so she sent me to the capital to seek opportunities.”
Li Na finished speaking, having revealed everything except for the existence of the Seven Deadly Gu.
The Seven Deadly Gu was entrusted to her by Granny Tian Gu to be given to a fated person. Li Na believed this had nothing to do with Xu Qi An, so there was no need to reveal it to him.
“I understand… Li Na, please go out now. I want to be alone for a while,” Xu Qi An instructed. “Today’s conversation must not be leaked to anyone.”
“Mm!” Li Na nodded vigorously and walked briskly to the door. As she opened it, she turned back and said, “I’ll take Ling Yin to Gui Yue Lou first. Don’t forget to come and pay the bill later!”
“?”
Even in such a terrible mood, a question mark appeared in Xu Qi An’s mind.
He looked at Li Na in astonishment. “Wait, didn’t we just have lunch not long ago?”
“I’ll have Ling Yin practice horse stance later, so we’ll be hungry soon,” Li Na waved and left the room.
Please, give me a break. Are you two trying to eat me out of the house and home in one go? Can I take back my promise?… Xu Qi An opened his mouth, feeling the pain of his wallet.
Li Na ran out of the room happily, her mind preoccupied with the dishes at Gui Yue Lou, quickly forgetting about breaking her promise.
As for the truth that Xu Qi An was Number Three, her thought was that it didn’t matter who Number Three was, it had nothing to do with her. The important thing in life is to be happy, so why think too much about it?
If it were Number Four, Chu Yuan Zhen, he would probably be in the midst of a mental storm right now.
Passing by the east wing room, she heard the Xu family matriarch whispering with her eldest daughter: “Ling Yue, have you heard any strange noises at night recently?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“But Mother always feels that at night, people are whispering outside the window, and sometimes there’s the sound of tiles moving on the roof. Do you think the house is haunted again?”
“Mother, you’re talking nonsense again. I’ll be scared and unable to sleep at night. I’ll go find Big Brother tonight and have him keep me company outside my door.”
“Mother isn’t talking nonsense. You don’t know, that Ling Yin goes to the courtyard alone every day after dinner. When I ask her what she’s doing, she says she sees many ghosts and wants to deep-fry them to eat, but she can’t catch them. They say children’s eyes can see impure things.”
“Mother, are you having your monthly period? You’re being so suspicious. We have Father, Big Brother, and Second Brother at home. What ghost would dare to haunt our house? Besides, the Holy Maiden of the Heavenly Sect is here. What are you afraid of?”
“You have a point.”
These words were reasonable and well-founded. Auntie was convinced and then said, “Ling Yin also told me that Miss Su Su is a ghost.”
“Ling Yin is impolite. She’ll offend our guests.”
“Right, so I beat her up.”
Li Na thought for a moment and decided not to tell the mother and daughter the truth, to avoid scaring them. She walked around the mansion and found her disciple sucking on a chicken leg bone hidden in the flower bed.
“What are you doing here?” Li Na put her hands on her hips and said angrily. “Trying to slack off again?”
Xu Ling Yin looked at her, silently threw away the chicken leg bone, then clutched her stomach and fell to the ground.
“What are you doing?” Li Na blinked.
“I ate a chicken leg of unknown origin. Now I’m poisoned and can’t practice horse stance,” Xu Ling Yin announced loudly.
“Nonsense, this chicken leg bone is the one you hid during lunch,” Li Na cleverly exposed her.
Xu Ling Yin was greatly shocked, not expecting her plan to be seen through so clearly by her master. As expected of her master, indeed smarter than her. So she had a sudden inspiration and said with feigned realization:
“It’s the chicken leg Big Brother left. It has his saliva on it. Big Brother’s saliva is poisonous, so I can’t practice horse stance now.”
“Your Big Brother’s saliva isn’t poisonous,” Li Na exposed her again.
“You’ve never eaten Big Brother’s saliva, how do you know it’s not poisonous?” Xu Ling Yin retorted defiantly.
Li Na was stunned, not knowing how to refute, so she gave Xu Ling Yin a beating.
A master beating her disciple is the natural order of things.
This disciple is a bit clever. If I don’t beat her now, in a few years I won’t be able to control her!
…
In the room, Xu Qi An, enduring his headache, sat at the desk and wrote four characters on the paper: “Twenty years ago.”
He originally didn’t want to analyze and deduce in such a poor state, as it would cause too many errors. But since it concerned the biggest secret about himself, Xu Qi An couldn’t wait a moment longer.
Rubbing his brow, he took a deep breath and wrote down the second sentence: “Two thieves.”
After pondering for a few seconds, he wrote down the third sentence: “Only one left.”
This point shouldn’t need to be doubted. Granny Tian Gu couldn’t have judged wrongly. As the current leader of the Tian Gu Branch, this grandmother wouldn’t make a mistake on such a matter.
Of the two thieves from back then, one had already perished.
Finally, he wrote on the paper: “Gu God, end of the world!”
He got up and walked to the round table, poured a cup of cold water, and drank it slowly. After finishing, he returned to the desk and wrote five characters after “Twenty years ago”:
“Shanhai Pass Battle.”
“On the official ship returning to the capital from Yunzhou, when I woke up, I dreamed of scenes from the Shanhai Pass Battle and saw a young Wei Yuan… This is very unscientific because twenty years ago I had just been born. I couldn’t have experienced the Shanhai Pass Battle, so I shouldn’t have related memory fragments.”
Xu Qi An’s eyes flickered slightly, and he wrote “Luck” after “Two thieves.”
“Granny Tian Gu insisted that I was the one picking up silver and believed I was related to the two thieves from back then. What’s the biggest secret about me? It’s luck!
“So, did the two thieves from back then steal the luck of Da Feng? In the ancient tomb, Monk Shenshu mentioned that the luck on me had been refined…”
Xu Qi An dipped his brush in ink and wrote “Yunzhou Ritualist?” after “Only one left.”
The question mark was there because he wasn’t certain.
“Principal Zhao Shou once said that the three forces related to luck were the Confucians, the Ritualists, and the Dynasty. First, we can rule out the Dynasty; I’m most likely not a member of the royal family. Next, we can rule out the Confucians. The strongest aspect of the Confucian system is ‘words becoming reality,’ not using luck.
“Only the Ritualists are experts in manipulating luck. I suspect that the first and second ranks of Ritualists are professions related to luck.”
So who stole Da Feng’s luck, refined it, and hid it in his body?
Xu Qi An used to think it was the Supervisor because everything about himself seemed to be arranged by the Supervisor. But now he had doubts.
Would the Supervisor be a thief? As the grand Supervisor of Da Feng, no one in the entire dynasty could manipulate luck better than him. If he wanted to steal Da Feng’s luck, would he need to conspire with someone from the Nanjiang Tian Gu Branch?
That would be underestimating this First-Rank Ritualist.
“Compared to the Supervisor, I’m more suspicious of the Ritualist who appeared in Yunzhou, that mysterious Ritualist who was at least Third-Rank. He conspired with the former leader of the Tian Gu Branch to steal Da Feng’s luck.
“Is it because the two conspired that they briefly deceived the Supervisor? The luck was stolen twenty years ago, and the major event that happened twenty years ago was only the Shanhai Pass Battle, which involved forces from all over the Nine Provinces and deployed up to a million troops.
“The fact that I saw the Shanhai Pass Battle in my dream can also corroborate this. Although I didn’t participate in this battle, it’s possible that these aren’t my memories, but scenes brought by the revival of luck. That being said, the Shanhai Pass Battle from back then wasn’t simple. If I investigate what sparked it, I might discover more clues.
“Why was the luck placed on me? I’m just an ordinary eldest son of the Xu family. There’s no reason to bestow such luck on me…
“Such an important thing was given to me, yet for twenty years there was no sound or movement. Was it just given to me for nothing?”
Suddenly, Xu Qi An’s body trembled, and his pupils contracted violently. He stood still like a statue for a long time, his arms shaking slightly as he wrote three more characters on the paper:
“Tax Silver Case!”