Chapter 1362: The Non-Existent Village and the Non-Existent Daughter

That's right, everyone looked at each other in dismay. More than a hundred people died in the Chen Village, and the Wuma family's Greenery Villa was turned upside down, with even the villa master and his son dead. Yet the cause of this series of events, that little girl of unknown origin, had instead disappeared without a trace? "Several hours after killing Wuma Xu, the Child-Ghoul appeared in the North Courtyard and killed Wuma Dan; and those two demon puppets also headed north before the Child-Ghoul jumped into the well." Dong Rui was stitching up the wound. His needlework was prettier than a seamstress'. "So, was that little girl hiding in the North Courtyard at the time?"

Wanqi Feng pointed at the three black-armored warriors and said: "We searched the North Courtyard; apart from a few members of the Wuma clan, we didn't see any girls under fifteen."

He paused: "The Child-Ghoul jumped into the well to escape, possibly because it was being chased by the Lord. Xiao An is also nowhere to be found; it is indeed a bit strange."

A flash of light flickered in He Lingchuan's eyes: "You said just now that the Child-Ghoul is adept at shapeshifting?"

"Correct." Dong Rui let out a long sigh and took off his spider-silk gloves. "All done; the heart fragments have all been removed. He can recover within half a month."

In just over a quarter of an hour, he had completed a high-difficulty surgical operation.

Wanqi Liang looked at Pu Hua expectantly: "How long until he wakes up?"

Dong Rui said casually: "Within two hours, if I didn't miscalculate the dosage of the Wood-Petrification Poison."

Wanqi Liang swallowed his saliva and asked cautiously: "A-and if you miscalculated?"

"Then—" Dong Rui spread his hands and made a helpless gesture.

"..."

"It's not a big problem; I've tested it many times on demon puppets. At his age and build, diluting the Wood-Petrification Poison another 128 times shouldn't be a lethal dose."

Wanqi Liang scratched his head: "So this is the first time it's been used on a human?"

"Otherwise?" Dong Rui was calm and composed. "You guys never gave me the chance before."

"Shouldn't we be heading back?" Having captured three demon puppets from someone else's house, he felt like a cat scratching at his heart; he couldn't wait to get back to Ju City in one step. "Anyway, that masked man can't catch up anymore."

"Don't be impatient." He Lingchuan waved his hand. "Can you track the whereabouts of your demon puppets?"

"Of course I can." Dong Rui understood as soon as he opened his mouth. "Oh, you're worried he'll chase us to Ju City?"

"This Demon Puppet Master can always catch up to Xiao An, which means he placed a tracking method on the little girl. These three demon puppets were caught in one fell swoop by us; how could he be reconciled? He'll most likely chase us to take revenge." He Lingchuan pondered. "Therefore, you cannot return to Ju City."

The relationship between the Yangshan Society and the Black-Armored Army must absolutely not be exposed right now.

"Then where can I go?" He needed a safe, quiet experimental site where he could let go and work.

He Lingchuan's gaze shifted, and he smiled: "I've thought of a good place. You can work there without being disturbed."

Dong Rui parted ways with the Black-Armored Army at Location No. 3.

He Lingchuan and the others left through other exits of the abandoned mine tunnel, and only after the Soul-Absorbing Mirror confirmed it was safe and there were no other eyes behind them did they put away their armor and change back into regular clothes.

￥￥￥￥￥

Back in Ju City, everything was as usual.

He Lingchuan talked business when he needed to and socialized when he had to.

Pu Hua had also woken up, his condition stable and gradually recovering. However, it took him five hours to wake up from the post-surgical coma.

Not long after, Yu Hai came to the Yangshan Society to find He Lingchuan and said as soon as they met: "The missing person notice has been sent out. Also, the matter you wanted me to investigate has some leads."

Besides managing the Original Homeland Society, he was also a noble of the Pei Nation and was currently quite valued by the Pei monarch. The efficiency of handling matters in Liu County was too low, and County Lieutenant Li really couldn't find any information, so He Lingchuan had no choice but to entrust Yu Hai to find a way.

He Lingchuan was now a popular figure in the Allied Forces and was investigating a murder case for the Pei Nation, so he could mobilize some official resources through Yu Hai.

Some things were a hundred times more convenient to handle through official channels than by individuals or private forces.

"Please sit." He Lingchuan was always enthusiastic toward him and called to the servant by the door: "Bring tea!"

Serving tea couldn't just be tea; it had to have three tea accompaniments: mung bean cakes, preserved plum dried plums, and wind-blown crackers.

Yu Hai drank a mouthful of warm tea to moisten his throat: "In the towns within a hundred miles of Chen Village, the government is organizing manpower to post portraits of Xiao An and missing person notices, saying she is a witness to a series of murders; those who provide clues will be given three taels of silver, and those who bring the little girl directly will be given thirty taels of silver."

For commoners, thirty thousand coins was not a small sum. He Lingchuan smiled: "Thank you for your trouble."

Mobilizing the power of the masses was the best method right now.

"Oh, why is Brother He thanking me? You are investigating a case for my Pei Nation; the King even asked me to convey his thanks."

Yu Hai continued: "Maodun is a small town, forty miles north of Liu County, with a population of about two thousand; the land is not fertile enough, but the area has mineral deposits and lacquer materials. I sent people to investigate in the town, and that woman named Ah Hui was a native of Maodun; her father died when she was seven, and she married into the Li family of Liang County at fifteen, giving birth to two daughters, but her husband died of illness within two years. The in-laws sold her two daughters to outsiders and sold Ah Hui to a peddler thirty miles away."

He Lingchuan said 'oh': "So she was a native of Maodun." Not Xingyun Village.

"Her in-laws wouldn't say, but the neighbors told me." Yu Hai said, "When the daughters were sold, the in-laws locked her in the room. She wailed for two days, and the neighbors heard it clearly and all complained it was noisy."

He Lingchuan nodded: "So that's how it is."

This matched what Auntie Wu of Chen Village had said.

"The peddler kept her locked in his house for more than half a year until she was pregnant, and only then did Ah Hui give up and follow him." Yu Hai continued, "I don't know what happened, but five years later, the peddler went out to purchase goods and fell off a cliff to his death, leaving her and a daughter behind."

Speaking of this, he couldn't help but sigh: "Alas, this is truly called 'hemp rope breaking at the thinnest point'; bad luck only finds the miserable. Brother Boss Situ was right before: for the common people, their fate is not their own."

The two were silent for a few breaths, and He Lingchuan only said: "Drink tea."

Yu Hai changed his cup of tea: "About a month ago, Ah Hui escaped from her in-laws' house."

"With her daughter?" Auntie Wu had also said that Ah Hui believed her in-laws wanted to sell both her and her daughter, so she fled.

"Correct, with her daughter."

Judging by her age, Ah Hui's daughter was also nearly five years old. "What is her daughter's name?"

"Wang Xiaoya."

He Lingchuan raised an eyebrow: "Is her nickname not Xiao An?"

"She's just called Xiaoya." Yu Hai said smoothly, "Besides, it's reasonable that County Lieutenant Li didn't know about the Xingyun Village you asked me to investigate."

"The village is too small? Too far?" The Pei Nation was not big to begin with, and small villages were often hidden in mountain nooks. He Lingchuan suspected that some were not even officially recorded.

"Neither." Yu Hai rarely had the chance to whet his appetite. "Since the officials in Liu County didn't know, I sent people to ask the elders in the nearby towns; most said they didn't know, only one old blacksmith said he had been there when he was young, and there was a very large apricot tree at the entrance of the village."

"He reported the location, and I sent people to investigate. Sure enough, the iconic old apricot tree at the village entrance was beautiful, but the village wasn't called Xingyun Village, but Dongbai Village."

Could Xiao An have remembered wrong? He Lingchuan pondered; would a five or six-year-old girl remember her birthplace wrong?

Yu Hai ate a mung bean cake, and his speech became a bit muffled:

"The strange thing is here: according to the villagers, that place was indeed called Xingyun Village, but that was twenty years ago!"

"Twenty years?" This answer was beyond He Lingchuan's expectations. This matter seemed to be getting more and more interesting. "What happened to that village, why did it change its name?"

"It didn't change its name; it was destroyed by the flames of war. At that time, a strongman led an army to ransack Xingyun Village, killing many people, and the remaining villagers all fled. Years later, new outsiders entered the original site and rebuilt Dongbai Village there." Yu Hai gave a bitter smile. "The small villages in the Boss Situ family's territory were once eaten up by the Ghost King until not one was left. This kind of thing happens occasionally here."

"Did Dongbai Village lose a girl named Xiao An?"

"No." Yu Hai shook his head. "The whole village only has two girls under five, and neither their formal names nor nicknames are that, and none have gone missing."

He Lingchuan thanked him immediately: "My sudden whim really caused Brother Yu trouble."

"Small matter." Yu Hai had always been worried that he had no way to repay He Lingchuan's kindness, so he was happy to be assigned tasks by him.

The two chatted for a while longer, and Yu Hai took his leave tactfully.

This person had a very good grasp of boundaries and was comfortable and measured in his dealings with others; it was no wonder he could build the Original Homeland Society.

After seeing him off, He Lingchuan looked out the window, lost in thought.

This spring, a pair of swallows had built a new nest under the eaves of his study, and in the last few days, there had been chirping sounds; perhaps baby swallows had been born.

Birds, beasts, insects, and fish all had their own parents.

The Soul-Absorbing Mirror asked him: "Thought of something?"

Why would Ah Hui's daughter say she came from Xingyun Village, a small village that had already perished twenty years ago?

"Could it be that Ah Hui told her daughter the story of Xingyun Village, and Xiao An remembered it?" The Soul-Absorbing Mirror reasoned for itself. "This mother and daughter are both a bit crazy."

"No, Xiao An is not Ah Hui's daughter." He Lingchuan corrected it. "Ah Hui gave birth to three daughters, and none of them were called Xiao An."

"Then what is going on with this mother and daughter!" The Soul-Absorbing Mirror considered itself knowledgeable and experienced, but now it was also stunned and confused.

"You have to look at it this way: although Ah Hui is crazy, everything she said can be verified. Her words are credible."

The Soul-Absorbing Mirror thought for a moment: "Seems like that's true."

He Lingchuan continued to analyze: "Then, if we take her words as a baseline, once Xiao An's account is inconsistent with it, it is a contradiction and confusion."

"I'll go first, I'll go first!" The Soul-Absorbing Mirror was full of interest. "Xiao An said her mother took her and fled Xingyun Village to avoid the monster attack; but in fact, Ah Hui took her daughter and fled from her second in-laws. If we must say there was a monster chasing them, could it be the people who wanted to chase them back?"

(End of Chapter) ===== CHAPTER 1363 =====