Yan Tuo began his story from the moment he received Nie Jiuluo’s self-destructing message.
Nie Jiuluo wasn’t typically one to interrupt with questions, but when matters concerned her directly, she couldn’t help wanting to know more.
Her first question was: “You put me in a suitcase? The same one Chen Fu was in?”
After getting Yan Tuo’s confirmation, she felt somewhat disgruntled—to think she’d shared a suitcase with Chen Fu.
But she couldn’t complain; she could hardly expect Yan Tuo to use a fresh suitcase for each person.
As she continued listening and learned how Lu Xian had treated her, her second question arose: “This Lu Xian, how old is he?”
Yan Tuo: “Around twenty-seven or twenty-eight.”
“Only twenty-seven or twenty-eight and already a doctor?”
Yan Tuo retorted: “You’re not even twenty-seven or twenty-eight, and aren’t you already an ‘artist’?”
Nie Jiuluo: “That’s different.”
A doctor’s qualifications and experience were crucial—the kind of profession where you needed to put in years, becoming more valued with age. You often heard of prodigy artists and sculptors, but had anyone ever heard of a prodigy doctor?
Yan Tuo said: “Someone like Lu Xian if he worked in a proper hospital, wouldn’t even qualify as an attending physician at his age. But since this was all ‘off the books,’ he’s been performing surgeries for years already. Besides, he did save your life.”
Nie Jiuluo bit her lip lightly: “Wasn’t there… a female nurse or someone?”
She wasn’t stupid. When she woke up in Liu Changxi’s bed, she was wearing new sleepwear. In other words, everything she had worn before, including undergarments, was gone.
Yan Tuo coughed lightly, his palms feeling warm. He pulled back his hand and shifted his position, saying: “There was.”
After speaking, he picked up his cup to drink, indicating his mouth was too busy for further conversation.
Nie Jiuluo didn’t ask more, continuing to fidget with the plastic wrapper in her palm until it crackled. Finally, she said: “Continue.”
Thank heavens—he had nearly finished his cup of water.
Yan Tuo put down his cup and continued with subsequent events.
He had initially planned to skip the Lin Ling section but then thought two heads might be better than one. Besides, Nie Jiuluo was an outsider who might offer fresh perspectives, so he told her the key points.
Nie Jiuluo was indeed interested, asking: “Do you have paper and pen? I’d like to take notes.”
The bookstore had included a notebook with the books, and pens were readily available. Yan Tuo handed them to her. Nie Jiuluo used a thick sculpture book as a writing surface, opened the notebook, and bent her head to write “Lin Ling.”
Yan Tuo watched her, somewhat entranced. This was a novel experience for him—his first time truly “collaborating” with someone to solve a problem. He had done so with Lin Ling before, but her personality made her too dependent on others, and their discussions usually ended up with him taking the lead.
Nie Jiuluo’s hair was quite long, and as she bent to write, it fell softly onto the blanket corner, looking smooth and silky.
She pondered for a moment: “Lin Ling was adopted by Lin Xiru? Where from?”
Yan Tuo shook his head: “Don’t know, and there’s no way to find out. Lin Ling was too young when she was adopted, only remembering that her hometown was in a poor rural area.”
Why would a Di Xiao go to the countryside to adopt a little girl?
Nie Jiuluo: “Is there anything different about this Lin Ling?”
“So far, no. She seems completely ordinary.”
“She tried to escape once?”
“Yes, after discovering several strange things about Aunt Lin, she became frightened and tried to run. She was caught within two days, and Aunt Lin was furious.”
Nie Jiuluo looked at him: “You call her ‘Aunt Lin’ even behind her back?”
From her perspective, Yan Tuo calling Lin Xiru in person was understandable—he needed to maintain his cover. But there was no need behind her back: Yan Tuo’s actions were clearly against her, he’d even investigated “how to kill Di Xiao.”
Yan Tuo said: “Better to stick with one name. Having different names for her face and behind her back is risky—what if I slip up in front of her, or say too much in my sleep?”
That made sense. Nie Jiuluo wrote “First Escape” next to Lin Ling’s name, then asked: “Then what? She never tried running again?”
“No, firstly because she was too scared, and secondly, her movements were restricted after that. Someone always followed her when she went out, sometimes closely, sometimes more like…”
Yan Tuo considered how to phrase it appropriately: “Like, you couldn’t see anyone, but you knew someone was watching from the shadows.”
Nie Jiuluo made a “ha” sound: “Who do you think Lin Xiru treats better, you or Lin Ling?”
Yan Tuo was honest: “Me.”
Nie Jiuluo: “But you’re not as important as her.”
Not as important?
He wasn’t as important as Lin Ling?
Yan Tuo couldn’t follow this logic: honestly speaking, at least on the surface, Lin Xiru had treated him very well. Over the years, Lin Ling had been slapped and scolded, while he hadn’t experienced any of that.
Nie Jiuluo said: “I’m talking about ‘importance.’ When Lin Ling ran away, she was found within days. When Ban Ya imprisoned you, it took two weeks before you were rescued.”
“Afterward, Lin Ling lived under some degree of surveillance, while you remained relatively free to move around—it gives the impression that Lin Xiru could do without you, but losing Lin Ling would be disastrous.”
Yan Tuo carefully considered her words, murmuring: “I never thought about it that way before.”
He had always assumed Lin Xiru must have had a reason for adopting Lin Ling but had never considered the question of importance.
Nie Jiuluo: “That’s because, in your mind, importance equals care—if someone is important to you, you naturally care for them. But Lin Xiru treats Lin Ling poorly, worse than you, so you overlooked it.”
Speaking, she drew an arrow from “Lin Ling’s” name and wrote “Lin Xiru,” then drew another arrow back, noting “forced marriage.”
She couldn’t quite understand: “If Lin Ling is so important to her, why is she in such a hurry to marry her off?”
Yan Tuo corrected her: “Who still thinks of marriage as ‘marrying off’ nowadays? Even after marriage, they can still meet often, and given our financial status, the son-in-law would likely move in with us.”
Nie Jiuluo looked at Yan Tuo: “So you’re saying the important Lin Ling would still be by her side. Just getting married? What difference does marriage… adding a man… make?”
Yan Tuo responded casually: “After marriage, you start a family, then have children.”
As soon as he said it, a strange feeling arose in his heart.
Does marriage lead to children? Was Lin Xiru in a hurry for Lin Ling to have children?
Nie Jiuluo also froze, though not because of Lin Ling, but because she suddenly remembered her trip to Xingbazi Village for field research, and the story the driver, Old Qian, had told her… about that young bride.
—That young bride, burned almost to charcoal and barely breathing, had whispered that she couldn’t rest without leaving an heir for the family, that she wanted to watch the second brother remarry and have children…
—Old Qian had rambled on, “Miss Nie, logically this doesn’t make sense. Why insist on leaving an heir for the family? That’s unusually conscientious. And another thing, if demons need to replenish their energy, they could choose anyone, so why specifically target their own family?”
An indescribable chill rose from her heart. Nie Jiuluo felt she was on the verge of realizing something, but couldn’t quite piece it together in her haste.
Yan Tuo waved his hand in front of her eyes: “What’s wrong?”
Nie Jiuluo snapped back to reality: “Did I ever tell you… about a young bride’s story near Xingbazi Village?”
Yan Tuo misunderstood: “The one harmed by Gou Ya?”
No, no, Nie Jiuluo took a couple of sips from her cup, then collected herself: “Much earlier than that, going back to before Liberation, no, the end of the Qing Dynasty.”
By the time she finished the young bride’s story, it was deep into the night. Thankfully, the heating kept them from feeling too cold. The humidifier’s water was running low, and its mist was noticeably thinner.
Yan Tuo sat in silence for a while, then reached for Nie Jiuluo’s paper and pen: “Let me see—you’re saying that young bride was a Di Xiao?”
Nie Jiuluo hesitated to conclude: “It’s just a suspicion…”
Yan Tuo interrupted: “It’s fine, let’s make bold hypotheses and verify carefully. Here’s the timeline: First, the eldest brother disappeared in the great marsh. The second brother went searching but didn’t find him, instead bringing back the young bride wearing the eldest brother’s pants—pants that were covered in blood when washed, right?”
Nie Jiuluo made an affirmative sound, turning to watch Yan Tuo write. Seeing her strain to move, he lifted himself slightly and moved his chair closer to the bedhead.
“The eldest brother was certainly dead, likely by the young bride’s hand. Then she married the second brother. After a year or two without pregnancy, which makes sense—Di Xiao and humans are different species, unlikely to produce offspring. Then the young bride met with disaster, struck by heavenly fire. She needed to eat people to replenish her energy, but of all the villagers, she specifically chose the second brother. There must be a reason…”
As he spoke and wrote, he drew a long reverse arrow back to the eldest brother: “Could it be because she ate the eldest brother first, establishing some foundation, and since the second brother shared the closest blood relation with the eldest, other people were meaningless to her—only the second brother would be the best medicine?”
Medicine?
In Nie Jiuluo’s understanding, medicine meant things like American ginseng, cordyceps, or polygonum multiflorum. This was the first time she’d heard of a person being medicine.
She felt somewhat nauseated: “Then, why wait until…”
Yan Tuo guessed what she wanted to say: “Because if the second brother had no descendants, the medicine would end with him. So she had to wait, enduring for over a year until he had an heir before acting. Only then would it be…”
He paused, feeling the term wasn’t quite appropriate, but unable to find a better expression: “Only then would it be… sustainable.”
A long “ding” sounded—the humidifier was empty. Yan Tuo got up to turn it off, then took the water tank out to refill it.
Nie Jiuluo picked up the notebook, examining the timeline Yan Tuo had just drawn. The more she looked, the more her scalp tingled. She flipped back to her summary about Lin Ling, comparing the two.
The humidifier restarted, clearly well-filled now, releasing large puffs of white mist.
Yan Tuo sat back down: “What do you think?”
Nie Jiuluo pondered: “There seems to be a pattern we can apply here.”
She showed Yan Tuo the line she’d just written:
[Eldest → Second → Second’s Descendants]
“When did Lin Xiru first appear?”
Yan Tuo thought back: “In my mother’s diary, the first clear mention was after my birth, in late 1993. Back then, she was called Li Shuangxiu, a young maid my father hired for my mother. He even created a false identity for her, claiming she was Li Ergou’s sister.”
He added for context: “My father originally ran a mine, and Li Ergou was his employee who stole money and disappeared—calling her Li Ergou’s sister probably seemed safe since he was missing and couldn’t verify anything.”
“But after reading the diary many times, I noticed a specific date: September 16, 1992.”
He fell silent at this point.
Nie Jiuluo didn’t speak, instinctively feeling that the further back they traced, the more specific the dates became, and the heavier the implications grew.
Yan Tuo continued: “That day, my mother went to bring lunch to my father at the mine. Around noon, all the miners suddenly ran out, claiming there was a ghost in the mine. Since Li Ergou had just stolen money and fled, my father suspected the supposed ghost was him. Being skilled and brave, he wanted to show off to the miners, so he went down alone to catch the ‘ghost.'”
Nie Jiuluo tensed: “Then what?”
Though she knew Yan Tuo’s father, Yan Haishan, had eventually died of cancer, hearing this kind of story still made her uneasy.
Yan Tuo smiled slightly: “Nothing happened—he came back up and told everyone there was nothing down there. But from that day on, my mother’s diary began frequently mentioning very subtle changes in my father. Honestly, you wouldn’t notice reading any single entry; you had to read them all together. So I’ve always felt Lin Xiru’s appearance could be traced back to when my father went down into the mine.”
He realized he’d strayed from the topic: “You mentioned a pattern earlier—what pattern?”
Nie Jiuluo gathered her thoughts: “I was thinking about which role Lin Ling fits in this pattern. Given her age, she could only be the second or the second’s descendant.”
“If I assume she’s the second, there must have been an eldest before her, someone with an extremely close blood relationship—either father and daughter or siblings. So Lin Xiru didn’t adopt Lin Ling randomly; she traced the eldest’s bloodline to find her. Lin Ling is her medicine.”
“But since Lin Ling was young then, and Lin Xiru wasn’t in a hurry to use her, she kept her close.”
Yan Tuo suddenly understood everything: “Kept her close, cared for her well, but absolutely couldn’t lose her—that’s why Aunt Lin was furious when Lin Ling first tried to escape, and afterward partially restricted her freedom. It was all to prevent losing Lin Ling again. And her urgency about marriage…”
Nie Jiuluo continued: “The rush for marriage was to ensure a continued supply of medicine, wasn’t it? Even when burned so severely, the young bride wouldn’t touch the second brother for fear of having no more after that meal—when you said Lin Ling suddenly had a strong urge to escape, I can only say women’s intuition is accurate. She truly sensed something was very wrong.”
“And the previous incident of someone entering her room at night to molest her—rather than a man, I’d guess it was Lin Xiru. She wasn’t molesting her, just checking on her medicine: how it was growing, if it was thriving, if it was ripe.”