A hand floated on the water’s surface, like a withered branch. Li Si grabbed hold of the lone hand drifting in the river for the second time, dragging a blood-soaked person out from the water and flinging them onto the stern of the small boat.
Little Qizi only glanced once before turning away and retching violently. Wu Wen looked for a few moments, then also couldn’t help but turn his face away. What had been flung onto the small boat was a mangled corpse covered in blood and flesh. Li Si frowned as he examined it carefully. This corpse had been destroyed beyond recognition—its face twisted and deformed, the entire body densely covered with bright red wounds, as if dark-colored maggots were crawling all over it. Even Li Si felt his stomach churning as he looked at it. Li Si also noticed the shape of the wounds on this corpse. Though there were many wounds, the scars all had the same shape—all were serrated internal cuts, as if the skin and flesh had been sliced open by sharp little sickles.
Li Si stared at the corpse in a daze. Beside him, Little Qizi turned back his gaze and suddenly said, “Catcher-ye, I know who this dead person is.”
“Who?” Wu Wen asked.
“It’s Zong Yuan,” Little Qizi spoke the name he’d thought of, then added, “Although I can’t recognize his face, that black pendant at the corner of his clothes—that’s Zong Yuan’s. Many people in Night Bridge Town can recognize it. If you don’t believe me, you can go ask.”
Seeing Little Qizi speak with such certainty, Wu Wen turned his face to look at Li Si. Li Si straightened his body and said, “That’s right, it’s these…”
Wu Wen couldn’t help but ask, “Catcher, what have you discovered?”
Li Si slowly opened his palm. In his palm was the golden leaf that Little Qizi had given him. Looking at the golden leaf, Li Si said, “The wounds on the corpse were precisely cut by this golden leaf. The sickle-shaped scars are from the sharp edge of the leaf.” Li Si brought the golden leaf close to one of the wounds on the corpse—the edge of the golden leaf matched exactly with the traces of the internal cut in the wound. Li Si continued, “The killer must have used the golden leaves to slash open the deceased’s blood vessels and flesh, causing the deceased to die from massive blood loss. Then the killer threw the deceased along with those golden leaves into the Jade River.”
Listening, Wu Wen said angrily, “This killer is too cruel. But Catcher, if these golden leaves really were used to kill someone, doesn’t that mean the killer is the thief we’ve been pursuing all along?”
Li Si let out a long breath and said, “On the surface, every clue in the killing points to this thief. But there’s something I still can’t figure out. This thief who lured us to Night Bridge Town—he went through great effort to steal treasures, but he doesn’t use them to amass wealth. Instead, he uses them all to kill people. First it was the luminous pearl deep in Ren Youcai’s throat, and now these golden leaves cutting into flesh. All of this is too bizarre, too incomprehensible.”
Li Si then turned his face to look at Little Qizi and said, “Little Qizi, you just said this deceased is called Zong Yuan. Is he the Zong Yuan who was by the side of the old Pavilion Elder Jiang Zhenshan?”
Little Qizi nodded and said, “That’s him.”
“I see.” Li Si responded, his mind beginning to race continuously, thinking.
At that moment, a sudden gust of strong wind swept across the river’s surface. The already heavily laden small boat was blown to tip to one side. Little Qizi flailed about in a panic, nearly falling into the river again. Li Si flashed over and grabbed hold of him. But on the other side of the small boat, Zong Yuan’s corpse slipped with a splash and slid into the river. Li Si inwardly cried out that this was bad and rushed to the stern, but it was too late—Zong Yuan’s body was already slowly sinking into the depths of the river water.
The next moment was truly shocking!
Just as Zong Yuan’s corpse was sinking down, Li Si saw another human face leisurely rising up from the river bottom. After brushing past Zong Yuan’s cheek, it gradually floated up before Li Si’s eyes.
Li Si couldn’t breathe. The face gradually became clear. Li Si saw the mysterious smile hanging at the corner of the face’s mouth. In fact, every inch of skin on this face was smiling eerily. The entire face was twisted at an inconceivable angle, like wrinkled orange peel. For the first time, Li Si experienced true fear. He struggled to pull his body back into the boat.
The face suddenly opened its mouth. A pair of pale hands grabbed hold of Li Si, yanking him down from the small boat. In the instant Li Si plunged into the river, he saw clearly those pale hands—they were precisely the ghostly hands that had been beckoning to him in the Jade River!
At this moment, these ghostly hands were firmly clamping onto him, pulling him toward the darkest place…
Li Si’s heart was heavily compressed, causing him to open his eyes from unconsciousness. Around him was a deep green watery realm, but that mysterious face had already disappeared.
The deep water made Li Si feel a bone-piercing cold. He held his breath and floated bit by bit to the surface, gulping in the air above the river. Not far away beneath the water’s surface, Li Si faintly made out a long black shadow. The black shadow was like a water monster hidden in the river. Li Si moved closer before he could see clearly—it turned out the black shadow was precisely that hidden stone bridge.
Li Si’s body was exhausted. He grabbed onto the stone bridge and swam toward the riverbank. With the support of this stone bridge, Li Si indeed quickly reached the opposite shore. Li Si couldn’t wait to throw himself onto the ground, lying down horizontally in complete exhaustion.
Suddenly, a strange feeling surrounded Li Si. It seemed something was wrong, or perhaps… Li Si half-raised his body and turned his gaze. Not far behind him appeared a large expanse of dark red tree shadows. Li Si said in surprise, “The Reincarnation Bamboo Forest?”
Just over ten zhang away was the Reincarnation Bamboo Forest that Li Si and Wu Wen had searched for so long during the day without finding any trace. As the sky gradually darkened, their slender waists swayed in the evening wind, adding several degrees of seductiveness. Li Si gazed at the dark red bamboo forest for a moment, then moved his feet and walked over.
In his ears roared the sound of wind and the trembling of bamboo leaves, along with another kind of strange sound he couldn’t quite describe, like faint weeping. Li Si paused. In this Reincarnation Forest, there seemed to be no way to find a path out at all, yet it also seemed that with every turn and sidestep, a path would appear beneath your feet. Li Si simply stopped thinking about paths and no paths. He walked straight toward the depths of the bamboo forest. Where the bamboo shadows connected, a dilapidated dark gray manor suddenly appeared.
“I’ve finally found you,” Li Si said, as if he had found an old friend who had been missing for many years. He slowly pushed open the manor’s main gate.
Li Si came before the mysterious and enormous tomb, gazing at the name “Yan Zige” on the gravestone. He slowly bent down and said softly, “I’ve found you. Why don’t you come out to see me?”
As soon as Li Si’s words fell, the white tomb suddenly began creaking and splitting open to the left and right. The noise gradually stopped, and in the middle of the tomb a passageway just wide enough for a single person appeared, leading straight underground. In the darkness of the tomb, there seemed to be two golden glittering objects that attracted Li Si’s attention. Li Si walked in step by step as if entranced.
As Li Si went deeper inside, the white tomb closed back together. The lonely wind cried out in the night. A pale white figure slowly walked out from a corner of the manor. His gaze was dark as death’s light, staring at the tomb for a long time before finally letting out a deep, ghostly sigh.
Tens of thousands of golden rays pierced into Li Si’s eyes like tens of thousands of golden needles. Amid the intense eye pain, he finally faintly saw it, saw it…