Translator: Cinder Translations
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It was already an hour later by the time everyone had fully regrouped.
An Xuan and Zuo Jing were the last two to return, and Qin Jian noticed something peculiar as he watched the two approach, his eyes flickering with a strange glint.
The others did too, though to varying degrees of subtlety.
"Why did you two take so long?" You Qi asked in a muffled voice, first glancing at Zuo Jing, then shifting his gaze to An Xuan, his expression suspicious. "Did you find something?"
"Not yet," An Xuan replied calmly, seemingly accustomed to such questioning. "There are too many small paths here, and we got lost, which delayed us."
"Lost?" Shi Liaozhi turned to look at Zuo Jing, as if trying to verify An Xuan's words from her reaction.
But he failed.
Because he noticed that Zuo Jing was deliberately avoiding his gaze. Although she appeared calm, she hadn't been like this before they left.
After realizing someone was staring at her, without needing An Xuan's reminder, she lifted her head and spoke in a formal tone, "We did get lost. By the time we found where Young Master Huang lives, it was already too late."
"So... you didn't go in?" Shi Liaozhi frowned.
"No," Zuo Jing replied, one arm hanging naturally, though her fingers kept subtly clenching and unclenching.
"Alright," An Xuan said with a smile. "We didn't find anything on our end. How about the areas you were responsible for?"
He turned to look at Qin Jian, who couldn't help but feel a slight chill.
"Old Master Qin," An Xuan asked, "didn't you say you had some clues? Did you find anything?"
"Yes... yes, we did," Qin Jian stammered. Being stared at by someone like An Xuan felt like being watched by a venomous snake. Although Qin Jian wasn't genuinely cooperating with him, he didn't want to offend such a person either.
"We found some strange marks in the abandoned house," Qin Jian said, his expression darkening as if recalling the scene. "The front was pointed, and the back was wider. They extended from where the sedan chair from last night was placed and disappeared by the lake."
"They were from the kind of embroidered shoes worn by women with bound feet," Shi Liaozhi added. "You Qi... You Qi said the female paper figure brought back last night was wearing shoes like that."
"Embroidered shoes?"
"Yes, exactly," Shi Liaozhi continued. "I measured it with my hand, about..." He gestured with his hand, "about this big."
"And the footprints were unusually deep," You Qi added with a grim expression. "I tried stepping hard to make footprints, but they weren't even half as deep as those."
"Are you saying that after we left, the female paper figure walked out of the sedan chair on her own and went into the lake?" The fatty swallowed hard, his voice trembling uncontrollably.
His imagination was running wild, and he could already picture the scene.
This was too unbelievable. Young Master Huang had replaced Tang Shirou with a paper figure, and now that paper figure had come to life?!
No one spoke, but the silence suggested that they all thought this speculation might be true, as no one refuted it.
"Did anyone else see those embroidered shoes?" Jiang Cheng asked timidly.
"No."
"I didn't notice."
"Nope."
"Brother You," An Xuan interjected, "what did the embroidered shoes you saw look like?"
"Red," You Qi replied immediately. "They were red embroidered shoes," he paused, as if suddenly remembering something, and added, "and... there seemed to be two birds embroidered on them!"
"Those would be mandarin ducks," Chen Qiang, who had been silent until now, spoke up, one hand propping up his chin.
"It seems Young Master Huang's illness is related to the woman he married," Qin Jian said, piecing things together. "She was likely his wife."
Based on the available information, this speculation seemed quite plausible.
"And this woman is probably already dead, which is why Young Master Huang is so fixated, coming to the lake every night to sing opera," Shi Liaozhi added, stroking his chin.
"It's the cause of her death that's the issue," Qin Jian nodded, then glanced at the lake. The lake's surface looked beautiful under the sunlight during the day, a stark contrast to its eerie and mysterious appearance at night. "She was likely murdered first, and then..." Qin Jian ventured a bold guess, "her body was dumped in this lake."
"But there's one thing that doesn't add up," Xia Meng spoke up. "If Young Master Huang loved her so much and knew she was murdered, why didn't he avenge her himself?"
From Young Master Huang's previous behavior, everyone had tacitly accepted that he was a ghost.
And according to the opera's lyrics, the two lovers had both died in the end, which likely corresponded to the devoted Young Master Huang and his beloved.
"Could it be..." Jiang Cheng blinked with a pitiful look and asked softly, "that Young Master Huang isn't a ghost? He's human, just... not quite normal."
An Xuan turned to look at him, and several pairs of eyes with unclear intentions also focused on him. Everyone now knew Jiang Cheng was pretending; he was no newcomer.
"Mr. Hao, have you discovered something?" An Xuan asked in a low voice.
"No, no," Jiang Cheng quickly waved his hands. "I was just guessing, just a random guess."
He licked his lips, giving everyone a look that was both fearful and innocent, then whispered, "After all, you all know I'm just a clueless newcomer."
Hearing this, everyone's expressions turned strange.
There was something off about his words.
This weird feeling lingered until after lunch. This time, the middle-aged woman didn't come, and everyone naturally gathered in the pavilion, sat down, and began eating lunch.
After lunch, they returned to their rooms to rest.
Only after Jiang Cheng's figure disappeared did someone finally look away.
This person's thinking seemed quite different from the others. If someone like Shi Liaozhi or Qin Jian had said it, everyone might have discussed it briefly and moved on. But this person gave off a very different vibe.
This couldn't simply be explained by poor acting skills. It was as if he was doing it on purpose.
And his words... had indeed piqued many people's interest.
"What exactly are you trying to do?"
As soon as the door closed, Xia Meng confronted him with an accusatory expression, staring at Jiang Cheng as if he were a lunatic. "Are you only satisfied when you've attracted everyone's attention?"
"Of course not," Jiang Cheng replied calmly. "I have my own goals, and I don't need to explain them to you."
Xia Meng was slightly taken aback. She had expected Jiang Cheng to come up with some strange excuse to get her off his back, but she hadn't expected him to be so composed.
Suddenly, she had a bad feeling.
"What the hell?!" the fatty shouted. "What the hell is going on?"
(End of the Chapter)
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