BCUP CH80
Chapter 80: Jinsheng (3)
The woman looked at He Tingkong, her gaze sweeping over his face again and again. She covered her lips and whispered: “Young master, how much cultivation do you even have? Don’t come and make trouble.”
He Tingkong rummaged around in his chest pocket and produced a jade token from Qingyun Academy, then took out a letter of appointment from one of Langhuan Pavilion’s teachers, shaking it open lightly. He pointed at the seals on it for the woman to see, his pair of round eyes blinking over and over — a picture of ten-tenths sincerity, his face full of naïve, earnest enthusiasm, practically as though the words “Come use me” were written across his forehead.
“Sister, have you heard of Qingyun Academy?”
The woman covered her lips, feigning surprise: “Of course I’ve heard of it. Just last year, a merchant caravan even brought news of their enrollment. But… what does that have to do with the Immortal Alliance?”
“Qingyun Academy’s headmaster, Xu Yinwei, is the younger brother of the Immortal Alliance’s leader,” He Tingkong raised a single finger, his face full of mysterious inscrutability. “This place may look like an ordinary academy on the surface, but it’s backed by the Five Sects and Seven Clans — above, the Sword Master of Guili teaches and educates; below, the Young Master of Yuanchen Palace is enrolled. Tell me, Sister — what do you think our relationship with the Immortal Alliance is?”
The woman narrowed her eyes, then her gaze filled with tears, and she looked at him piteously: “Since that is the case, little Immortal Lord, you must stand up for me!”
He Tingkong abruptly put everything away, lightly patting the items in his palm, his face full of sympathy. He said warmly: “Don’t worry. If the fat old man won’t deal with it, I’ll deal with it. If the Immortal Alliance won’t deal with it, I’ll deal with it. We people of Qingyun Academy can least stand to see a beautiful woman in tears. I’ll take this case.”
The young man’s tone was firm, clear and resounding. Standing tall with his chest out in the sunlight, he was every inch the upright, righteous, pure-hearted little Immortal Lord.
The woman licked her lips; even her voice turned a shade sweeter: “Since that’s so, I’ll have to trouble the little Immortal Lord to come with me.”
And so He Tingkong followed her without a shadow of suspicion — looking every bit like a foolish rabbit trailing behind a fox’s tail.
*
Yuan Xiaoqing was dragged out, held upside down by his feet.
He lay on his back on the ground. Beneath him was coarse sand and gravel, grinding against his flesh with a scraping, tearing pain.
Jialíng City in daylight was empty. The pale sunlight was somewhat dazzling; the sky was veiled in a layer of muddy yellow by the drifting sand and dust. The grit that fell into his eyes brought a dry, stinging pain, and tears involuntarily streamed down his face, mixing with the dirt on his cheeks to carve two muddy streaks.
“Told you — you’d have a bloody disaster today. Do you believe me now?” A young man’s smiling voice drifted down from above. Yuan Xiaoqing shifted his eyes and could only make out a section of boot at his side; the robe swayed with the other person’s movements — a blue like lapis lazuli, like the butterfly spreading its wings in an ancient ghost-market painting.
Yuan Xiaoqing decided this person was probably mocking him. He had no desire to speak, so he closed his eyes and turned his head to wait for death.
He Tingkong raised an eyebrow and stopped paying him any mind. He turned to look at the woman who had been sizing him up all along and flashed her a radiant smile: “Sister, what might your name be?”
“Meng Zhezhi.” The woman smoothed the loosened bun at her temple and smiled gently. “Just call me Sister Meng.”
“Sister Meng.” He Tingkong’s voice carried a sticky sweetness. “When did you and your husband part ways last night? What time this morning did you discover the body? Could you describe the events of these past few days for me?”
Meng Zhezhi lowered her eyes and pondered for a moment, then said softly: “The city has been unsettled these past few days. My husband stayed in the study for three consecutive nights, meeting with people. I asked a few times and only vaguely overheard that there was some friction between the businesses of Yinyue Ancient Assembly and Shenglou Sea Assembly. Yesterday my husband handled official affairs at home during the day, and at night he said he was meeting an old friend and would be out — he never returned…”
Tears fell drop by drop, and the woman wept: “I thought my husband had had too much to drink and stayed out. But who could have known that this morning I’d find his corpse… How am I supposed to go on living!”
He Tingkong looked down at Yuan Xiaoqing lying on the ground playing dead. He waved his hand for everyone to stop, then crouched in front of the young man and asked quietly: “What about you? What did you see this morning?”
Yuan Xiaoqing lay there with his eyes closed and said nothing.
“Don’t want to talk? You should still have an older sister — she ran away fast enough.” He Tingkong threatened under his breath: “I just wonder whether she’s managed to escape the city. If you can’t tell us, then we’ll have no choice but to put out a full-city manhunt for her.”
“…There was no one.” Yuan Xiaoqing opened his eyes. His bloodshot gaze held the utter calm of someone who had already made peace with death. “When my sister and I entered the alley, he was already dead. We took the spiritual artifacts from his body to sell at Luosha Ghost Market. Then I was caught. That’s all.”
“Nothing left out?” He Tingkong asked.
“No matter how many times you interrogate me, it’ll come out the same.” Yuan Xiaoqing coughed twice and stared mockingly at He Tingkong. “The Assembly Master is a twelfth-realm half-immortal. What is my cultivation? How could I injure him by even a fraction?”
He let out a low, scornful laugh: “How does a fifth-realm nobody like you dare take on a job like this? Whoever killed a twelfth-realm half-immortal must have cultivation above the twelfth realm. That kind of power — they’d walk sideways anywhere in the world. Crushing you would be like crushing an ant.”
He Tingkong: “Does having high cultivation give you the right to kill people as you please?”
Yuan Xiaoqing’s eyes were blood-red, his breathing ragged: “What else? This world is survival of the fittest — today you devour me, tomorrow I devour you. If I had the twelfth realm, I’d slaughter every last one of you!”
He Tingkong: “…”
Yuan Xiaoqing lay on the ground laughing uproariously. Meng Zhezhi clapped her hands and someone came to drag him away. The young man was hauled along the ground, leaving a long trail of blood behind him, and — at He Tingkong’s reminder — was eventually locked in the Yinyue Ancient Assembly’s prison to await questioning.
*
The Yinyue Ancient Assembly’s main businesses were mineral veins, spiritual artifacts, and medicine — all concentrated in the western part of the city. Now all their associated properties hung mourning cloth, and at first glance it looked as though half the city was draped in white.
He Tingkong entered the residence surrounded by a crowd of people. Inside the courtyard, mourners were packed in tight. Seeing that Meng Zhezhi had gone out and come back with some young upstart in tow, the crowd’s expressions were unreadable.
“Madam, you’ve…”
“This is the little Immortal Lord from Qingyun Academy, here to investigate the murderer.” Meng Zhezhi began dabbing at her tears again. “His name is—”
“My surname is He,” He Tingkong parted the crowd and walked straight to the nanmu coffin. Under everyone’s astonished gazes, he briskly pulled it open. He bent down to look at the corpse and said quietly: “You may all call me Little He.”
In the candlelight and incense smoke, the man’s body inside the coffin had already stiffened. A bloody gash on his neck had nearly severed his head entirely. Whoever had done it was ruthless and brutal, giving the man no time to react at all — a single strike, instant death.
He stared down at that wound for a long while. Under the collective gaze of everyone present, his face gradually drained of color, until at last — as though he could no longer stomach the gory scene — he retched.
Meng Zhezhi quickly stepped forward and guided him to the side, her face full of uncertainty: “Little Immortal Lord He, are you all right?”
He Tingkong waved a hand to indicate he was fine. With a pale little face, he looked at the woman with what seemed like a plea for help: “Sister Meng, is there any water?”
Meng Zhezhi could see he was pushing through it. Thoughtfully, she had a maidservant lead him away to the back to be sick in private.
Once the blue-clad figure had departed, the people in the mourning hall exchanged glances. An elder looked at Meng Zhezhi and said hesitantly: “Madam, didn’t you go to invite Daoist Xuanji? Where did you dig up this character to come and embarrass us?”
Meng Zhezhi walked to the coffin and considerately straightened the clothing that had been disturbed on the body, then sighed: “Daoist Xuanji refused to get involved. This young master wants to bring justice to my husband. I can see his wholehearted sincerity, so I let him come.”
“He’s young and a bit green, but he is a student of Qingyun Academy after all.” Meng Zhezhi closed the coffin lid, her eyes full of resigned helplessness. “If the Immortal Alliance refuses to manage city affairs, will it or won’t it manage the life and death of its own students? If Xuanji refuses to look after those two young disciples he raised, will he or won’t he care about the life and death of his superiors’ young master?”
“Let him go and investigate. Whatever he says, do as he asks.” Meng Zhezhi wrapped her arms around the coffin, gently stroking its wood grain, her eyes cast downward. “Ideally, he’ll stir everything into absolute chaos. If I can’t come out of this well, why should those wretched people get to live in peace?”
The woman fell silent and wept. A moment later, in the mourning hall, the assembled people bowed down in reverence — and at once the sound of weeping filled the space.
*
He Tingkong was led to the back of the house to drink a pot of water. He wiped his face, then turned and asked the maidservant behind him: “Where is Yuan Xiaoqing being held? I have questions for him.”
The maidservant obediently led him to the prison.
Yuan Xiaoqing lay on the ground, unmoving, looking as though he were dead.
Seeing He Tingkong approach, his eyeballs shifted slightly. A moment later, a cup of water was poured over him. He had been interrogated all morning and had lost too much blood. The water fell on his head, and without caring whether it was humiliating or not, he tipped his head back and drank urgently.
When the cup was emptied, Yuan Xiaoqing licked his cracked lips. His spirits improved a little. He shifted on the ground, leaned his back against the wall and sat up, looking mockingly at He Tingkong: “You’re too stupid. How dare you wade into such murky waters? You’re truly not afraid of dying.”
He Tingkong: “That’s right, you’re clever. You’re locked in here waiting to die.”
Yuan Xiaoqing: “…”
Toying with his cup, He Tingkong leaned a little closer and discussed under his breath: “Judging by the look of things, you understand the twists and turns of this situation quite well. How about you explain it to me?”
“Then let me out.” Yuan Xiaoqing bargained.
“At most, I’ll get you another bowl of water,” He Tingkong propped his head in his hand. “Take it or leave it.”
Yuan Xiaoqing: “…Two bowls of water. I’ve heard you Central Plains people always carry medicinal pills on you — give me one pill to treat my wounds.”
“I’m not from the Central Plains, but… deal.” He Tingkong dissolved the pill in water and poured the entire cup into Yuan Xiaoqing’s mouth.
One pill ingested, Yuan Xiaoqing’s complexion improved considerably.
His gaze swept up and down He Tingkong, then he suddenly gave a sly smile: “That woman played you.”
He Tingkong: “Oh?”
“I’ll tell you — everyone in this city knows who killed her husband.”
“In all of Jialíng City, there are only three people with cultivation above the twelfth realm. One died early this morning. One is my master, Daoist Xuanji. And the third is inside Shenglou.” The young man raised his limp hand, his eyes flickering with malice. “My master doesn’t concern himself with worldly matters. Do you think that woman arrested me to vent her anger? She did it to threaten my master — to force him to act on her behalf.”
“My master wasn’t willing to be someone else’s weapon. And then you, this idiot, came blundering straight in.”
“As for the one in Shenglou… the conflict between Yinyue Ancient Assembly and Shenglou Sea Assembly has deep roots. The territory here in Jialíng City is only this big. Most people here are treasure-hunting travelers. The two assemblies compete over resources, connections, and territory — they’ve always been at each other’s throats, viewing one another as thorns in their sides.”
“Last month, a Shenglou Sea Assembly team that had entered the Burning Wind Plains for exploration was nearly wiped out entirely. But through those very casualties, they discovered a brand-new route into the God Dynasty ruins. However, the map was stolen by Yinyue Ancient Assembly shortly afterward.”
“The two sides, even if not blood enemies, are now locked in a fight to the death.”
“Since you’re so determined to investigate this case, why not go ask Shenglou’s master where he was last night?” Yuan Xiaoqing spread his hands. “Maybe he’ll be in such a good mood that he just admits it.”
He Tingkong clapped his hands: “Brilliant idea.”
Then he stood up and walked right out the door.
Yuan Xiaoqing thought he had managed to scare him. He watched He Tingkong run out, grabbed the prison bars, and turned pale with shock:
“Are you insane?!”