Year thirty-three of the Hongyun Era, the ninth day of the second month. Li Si’s third day in Mingling County.

He visited the Ji Residence once again. Ji Liang still didn’t show his face, but he met with Old Madam Ji.

Beside the Old Madam was a woman around fifty years of age. The house servants and maids all respectfully called her Mama Rong. Mama Rong was specifically responsible for taking care of the Old Madam’s meals and daily living.

Situ Bo explained the request to provide relief to disaster victims to the Old Madam. The Old Madam sympathized deeply with the suffering refugees. “Back then, my hometown was also struck by disaster. We couldn’t survive and fled as refugees to Mingling County. Thanks to kind-hearted people distributing porridge and giving clothes, we didn’t starve to death.”

“Now, it’s time to repay that kindness,” the Old Madam said. “I will certainly persuade Ji Liang to donate grain.”

“Old Madam’s righteousness is admirable. On behalf of the disaster victims, I thank you.” Situ Bo cupped his hands in gratitude.

After the Old Madam ate some tea snacks for a while, she returned to her room to rest, instructing Mama Rong to keep the guests company.

The Ji Residence had vast grounds with deep courtyards. The pavilions and terraces were ingeniously crafted. Li Si suggested touring around the Ji Residence. Mama Rong accompanied the three of them as they toured, and Li Si inquired about the Ji family members. Mama Rong briefly introduced them.

The Ji family consisted of the Old Madam, Young Master Ji Liang, and the young mistress Ning Suqin.

Besides this, Li Si also learned that Ji Liang pretended to be cultured and refined, and had specifically hired a painter at the residence.

The hired painter was named Lu Qianbo.

“Lu Qianbo…”

Li Si recalled his previous visit to the Ji Residence, when in the flower hall he saw a man painting with abandon alongside the young mistress Ning Suqin. Nine times out of ten, that was the painter Lu Qianbo.

Li Si strolled along and arrived at the southern courtyard of the Ji Residence. In the southern courtyard were two large buildings with high walls. As soon as they approached, fierce dog barking erupted from inside the large building. Then a man jumped out furiously from the building. “Who is it? Don’t you know the southern courtyard can’t be entered casually? Is your skin itching for a beating?”

“What an arrogant thing!” Wu Wen clenched his fist, wanting to go over, but was quietly held back by Li Si.

Mama Rong hurried over and exchanged a few words with this person in low voices.

From ten paces away, Li Si sized up this man. The man had slit-like eyes, with barely visible eyeballs that occasionally shot out fierce glints. After Mama Rong’s explanation, the man glanced toward Li Si’s direction twice, shook his large head, and returned to the large building.

“Who is that person? So domineering!” Situ Bo was, after all, the magistrate of a county. Being yelled at like this by a fierce brute, he couldn’t save face.

“Oh, my lords, please don’t take offense with him.” Mama Rong pointed at the large building and said, “He was hired by the young master to care for the family dogs. His name is Chen Er’gou. His whole person has a dog’s temperament—he just likes to bark for no reason.”

“A dog keeper, hmph!” Situ Bo snorted disdainfully.

After Li Si toured a bit more, he bid farewell to Mama Rong and left the Ji Residence.

Not long after Li Si left the Ji Residence, the young mistress Ning Suqin secretly snuck into the north wing room, calling out softly.

A tall, slender black shadow pounced on her, embracing her from behind.

“Don’t do this. Someone might pass by,” Ning Suqin resisted, but her voice was gossamer-thin.

“Hmph, what is there to fear? That damned Ji Liang isn’t at the residence. He’s probably gone to the Dog Pit to look at dogs again. In his eyes, a beautiful wife like a flower isn’t as good as a beast.” The black shadow revealed his face—sword-like eyebrows and starry eyes. It was precisely the Ji Residence painter Lu Qianbo.

Ning Suqin sobbed quietly. Lu Qianbo turned over her sleeve. Beneath the sleeve, her wrist had blue-green bruises. Lu Qianbo’s brows furrowed in anger. “That bastard hit you again?”

Ning Suqin spoke wordlessly, only gently nodding her head.

“Damn it, sooner or later, I’ll make him pay the price. Suqin, rest assured, I won’t abandon you,” Lu Qianbo vowed solemnly.

“I trust you. I only hope these heartless days will come to an end.” Speaking thus, she sobbed quietly again.

Lu Qianbo held Ning Suqin tightly and walked toward the bed inside.

On the way back to Mingling County Yamen, Situ Bo blinked his eyes and asked, “Lord Li, I wonder where the secret envoys His Majesty dispatched to inspect governmental affairs have arrived?”

“Hehe, Lord Situ can rest assured.” Li Si smiled and said, “On Mingling County’s side, there’s only me. As long as I recognize that Lord Situ is diligently handling affairs for His Majesty, there won’t be any problems.”

“That’s good, that’s good. Everything depends on Lord Li.”

“Lord Situ should return first. Wu Wen and I still have someone we want to meet.” Li Si parted from Situ Bo and came to Luohua Village.

At some point, an acrobatic troupe had arrived at the village entrance of Luohua Village. The acrobatic content was quite rich—there were fast clapper storytelling, waist drum dancing, juggling, gong-beating and small-drum-playing monkey acts, tables set up for magic tricks, and so on. They had a bit of everything from all corners of the world.

Among them, the most exciting performances were by the dark-faced man telling clapper stories and the waist drum dancer with a yellow veil covering her face. They continuously drew applause and cheers from Luohua Village residents.

Wu Wen searched through the crowd twice but didn’t discover any trace of Xia Jiuying.

“He won’t be here. There’s no place for him here either.” Li Si spoke with a rare sense of grief and indignation. His gaze moved from the acrobatic troupe’s stage toward the distance. “It’s him, Xia Jiuying.”

Wu Wen followed Li Si’s line of sight and gazed into the distance. At the top of the northern hillside stood a thin, weak figure, disheveled long hair dancing together with tattered clothes. It couldn’t be anyone but Xia Jiuying.

This youth, this youth who made even the terrifying Black Silk Panther tremble with fear, this youth who should be fearless—yet he feared walking down from the hillside, afraid to walk into the crowd. Perhaps those who weren’t him couldn’t comprehend that the contemptuous, hateful gazes of one’s own kind were far more terrifying than those wild beasts and demons.

He could only stand in a distant place, in darkness, in corners, avoiding these gazes.

At the end of the hour of Shen, the sky darkened. Li Si unexpectedly discovered two figures lingering beside Xia Jiuying’s thatched hut.

One was the dark-faced man telling stories from the acrobatic troupe, and the other was the dancer with a yellow veil covering her face. The two looked toward the interior of the thatched hut with strange expressions, as if searching for Xia Jiuying. But Xia Jiuying wasn’t in the grass hut, and the two people also left furtively before long.

“Could they be trying to steal something?” Wu Wen said doubtfully.

“Wu Wen, keep a close watch on the acrobatic troupe. In a couple days, quietly invite the troupe leader back. I have business with him,” Li Si instructed Wu Wen, who nodded.

Past the middle of the hour of Hai, Ji Liang walked out from the Dog Pit rubbing his temples.

Huang Mazi followed behind, complaining, “Ever since Xia Jiuying intimidated Black Silk Panther and won a large sum of money, for three consecutive days now hardly anyone has placed silver bets. Young Master, what should we do?”

“Hmph, ordinary games can’t arouse the interest of these gambling addicts. To dig out the money in their hands, we still need to think of other methods.” Ji Liang tapped his palm lightly with his folding fan. His handsome face became gloomy and cruel in the darkness.

“How about having Xia Jiuying take the stage again?” Huang Mazi suggested. Ji Liang shook his head slightly. “Having been fooled once, they won’t easily be fooled a second time.”

“Let’s talk about it tomorrow. It’s too late. You go back to the Dog Pit.” Ji Liang instructed. Huang Mazi yawned and turned back to Shanhai Tower. Ji Liang walked back to the Ji Residence leisurely.

The high courtyard of the Ji Residence was just a hundred paces away. Ji Liang suddenly felt a chilling coldness behind him, as if a pair of eyes were watching him. He shifted his gaze. In the blurry moonlight, at the end of the distant alley, a thin, long black shadow crouched. Ji Liang swallowed his saliva and rushed quickly toward the Ji Residence.

Ji Liang pounded heavily on the Ji Residence’s main gate. The cold feeling behind him became even more profound, as if a block of ice was pressed against his spine. Ji Liang couldn’t help shouting loudly, “Open the door, hurry and open the door! Steward, doorkeeper… someone, open the door!”

There was movement inside the Ji Residence. Ji Liang’s emotions had just begun to calm when he suddenly discovered that a shadow as fast as lightning had instantly enveloped him… Ji Liang abruptly turned his head and saw only a gaping bloody maw!

“Ahhh!”

Mama Rong was the first to hear the commotion. She pulled open the Ji Residence’s main gate. A person drenched in blood lay sprawled at the doorway, eyes wide open in fury. If it wasn’t Ji Liang, who else could it be?

“Heavens, Young Master… someone come! Murder!”

Early in the morning on the tenth day of the second month, Li Si was awakened by Situ Bo pounding on his door. Situ Bo was covered in cold sweat. “This is terrible. The Ji Residence’s young master has been killed.”

“Ah!” Li Si was shocked.

At the hour of Chen, Li Si, Wu Wen, and Situ Bo all arrived at the Ji Residence. The coroner was examining the corpse. Ji Liang lay prostrate at the edge of the main gate. On his neck were four obvious tooth marks. Blood had spurted out from the wound. Ji Liang’s eye sockets had burst open, blood vessels filling his eyeballs. On his back was a large arc-shaped purple-red bruise.

Li Si entered the Ji Residence. The entire Ji household was already in chaos. After learning of her son’s tragic news, Old Madam Ji had also fainted and still hadn’t awakened. Mama Rong guarded her without leaving for a single step.

Li Si instructed a maidservant to summon Mama Rong. Mama Rong came. “My lord, you sought me?”

“Yes.” Li Si had Mama Rong first drink some tea, then asked, “Were you the first to discover the deceased Ji Liang?”

Mama Rong’s eyes reddened. “Yes. In the middle of the night, I got up to relieve myself and vaguely heard someone pounding on the door. I opened the door, and it turned out the young master had died at the doorway!”

“After you discovered Ji Liang’s corpse, did you notice any suspicious people or suspicious matters?” Li Si continued asking.

Mama Rong shook her head. “I didn’t pay attention. At that time, my mind was entirely on the young master. How could I spare attention for other things?”

“Mm.” Li Si paused. “Before Ji Liang returned home, were all the other people in the Ji Residence still in the residence?”

“They should all have been there. I didn’t see anyone going out,” Mama Rong said.

After sending Mama Rong away, the three of them had just walked out of the main hall when Wu Wen saw from afar two shadows pressed together suddenly separate. Li Si had long since seen it clearly. The two people pressed together were respectively the Ji Residence’s young mistress Ning Suqin and the painter Lu Qianbo.

“Those two are acting furtively and are quite suspicious, Big Brother Li,” Wu Wen muttered quietly.

“Sooner or later there will be time to interrogate them both. Return to the county yamen first,” Li Si said.

County Yamen dark room.

After Li Si waited for an hour, the coroner and his apprentice came out through the door.

“The deceased’s fatal cause of death was the bite mark on the left side of his neck. This bite accurately severed the blood vessels, causing blood to spray out in large quantities, resulting in death from excessive blood loss. Besides this, the deceased’s back has an arc-shaped bruise left from being struck,” the coroner determined.

“Are there any other clues?”

“Yes, my lord. I used a silver needle to verify the depth of the wound. Ji Liang’s neck had four tooth mark wounds, each wound approximately over one inch deep. But an adult human’s teeth are less than half an inch long. These clearly aren’t tooth marks bitten by a person,” the coroner said doubtfully.

“If they aren’t tooth marks bitten by a person, then what bit him… a dog?” Situ Bo instantly thought of fighting dogs and spoke.

“Not quite. Even the fiercest fighting dog’s teeth are only half an inch long and couldn’t tear to this depth,” Li Si said. The coroner also agreed. “Lord Li is correct.”

“Not a person, and not a dog either. Then what on earth bit Ji Liang to death?!” Situ Bo clasped his hands behind his back, pacing back and forth agitatedly.

“A wolf!” Li Si suddenly spoke.

Situ Bo stopped. “A wolf? Right, a wolf.”

The coroner also nodded. “Wild wolf fangs are sharp. Wolf teeth are also about one inch in length, which matches Ji Liang’s wound precisely.”

“Though the wound matches, there are still suspicious aspects to this matter,” Wu Wen said, tilting his head. “You must know that wild wolves are animals that live in dense forests and have strong territorial awareness. They won’t easily leave their territory range, much less run dozens of li away to the county seat to bite someone to death.”

“Then how do we explain Ji Liang’s death?”

“Whether Ji Liang was bitten to death by a wolf still requires careful consideration.” Li Si glanced toward the dark room. “At the very least, we still need more clues to prove it.”