Chapter 241: Call for Help

Dust rolled lazily in the old room. Zhong Kui's voice continued, "It was already warm around the Qingming Festival. Why would a piece of seasonal clothing be thrown away for no reason?"

Feng Yongfu looked dazed. He couldn't understand how, in just one morning, his brother had gone from missing to murdered, and now, seemed to be drifting from victim toward another bizarre direction.

Qi Fei understood Zhong Kui's meaning even better; the events of that night could almost be linked together piece by piece.

On a spring night twenty-seven years ago, like all the other residents of Sanwu Town, the four members of the Feng family had long since fallen into a deep sleep.

No, it should be said, three of them.

One person was still awake. The Feng family's clever youngest son, Feng Yongshou, had left his room without anyone noticing.

That night, no one knew what happened. The slaughter took place silently in the dead of night in the quiet little town.

That unclaimed corpse was dragged into the kiln by Feng Yongshou. He knew that tomorrow, this kiln would fire a new batch of jars. He also knew that once the kiln was lit, the thousand-degree heat would be enough to turn any flesh and blood into ash.

However, the dark night could not hide so much sin. Even when dawn arrived, those black claws still scratched at his heart, refusing to let go of even a bit.

Black smoke that shouldn't have been there rose from the kiln. The perfectly good jars were fired with all sorts of strange textures, as if they were curses from the underworld, urging him to go and confess.

He tried his best to hide his panic, being the first to rush into the kiln, which still held residual heat, to check for problems.

Fortunately, the corpse had vanished into thin air. Without a victim, there was no murderer. From then on, no one in this world would ever discover his sin.

Yet, while he could hide it, those hands would not lie. The jars that came from his hands all became defective.

What a craftsman fears most is a restless mind.

His family's day-and-night questioning left him with nowhere to hide.

He knew that his parents and brother, who lived with him day and night, would not believe the lies he fabricated on the fly.

Only a story that was half-true and half-false could get him through. This was a story about murder, only the murderer wasn't Feng Yongshou, but the Great Immortal Huang, whom everyone in Sanwu Town worshipped.

The one who killed wasn't him; it had never been him.

Even he himself came to believe this absurd explanation.

The recreational stories kept by his bedside gave him inspiration. This was a "genius" idea: a mysterious person named Dong Nansheng could divert his family's attention.

The lie was like an oasis in a mirage. He became the innocent Feng Yongshou once again, focusing on making the family's traditional ash urns.

That Dong-family ash urn, which would never be claimed, was the magical tool he used to bury his secret. He exhausted all he had learned in his life to create the most perfect work he had ever made, not knowing that this work would become his swan song.

Because...

Qi Fei's train of thought became chaotic at this point.

"I can't figure out why he would want to go to Nancheng," he muttered, looking through the back window at the strangely shaped kiln in the courtyard below.

"Interesting. Feng Yongshou seems to have been trying to call for help from you all along," Zhong Kui said, turning to Feng Yongfu.

"Call for help?" Feng Yongfu was confused.

"He didn't have to tell the story about the person dying. There are many ways to fabricate lies, and he chose the one closest to the truth," Zhong Kui said. "But the most obvious thing is that he suddenly told you he wanted to go to his aunt's house in Nancheng. There is a clear flaw in this: when he said this, his aunt had already passed away. He knew this, and you knew it too. If Feng Yongshou wasn't mentally deranged, then his subconscious hoped that his murder would be discovered, and he also hoped someone would know he was about to go to Nancheng.

People's lies carry more of their own intentions; sometimes they can peer into a person's true thoughts better than the truth itself.

I suspect that when he told you he wanted to go to his aunt's house in Nancheng, he had already planned to go to Nancheng. What's strange here is that he wanted to go to Nancheng, but he also sensed some kind of fatal danger.

The deceased aunt is a very contradictory image. On one hand, it represents the warm side; the aunt once took care of him, reflecting a certain intimate relationship. On the other hand, it represents death. He went to Nancheng to throw himself into the arms of death."

As Zhong Kui spoke, she cast a meaningful look at Qi Fei.

Feng Yongshou died in his family's garden and was buried by his own mother, Xi Zi Yun. What connection could Nancheng, a hundred miles away, possibly have to the hidden sins of Feng Yongshou, and who was that victim who vanished into thin air?

Qi Fei's gaze was drawn, as if by a ghost, once again to that old magazine. On the cover, the portrait of the woman dressed as a man caught his eye again.

"Kui, you said that people's lies reveal their true intentions even more, so what about this 'Dong Nansheng' that Feng Yongshou fabricated? With so many magazines and so many stories, why did he choose this fictional character to deceive his family?" Qi Fei asked earnestly, feeling as if there was a spider web in his mind, its fragile threads looming in the darkness, wanting to lead him into the depths of the dark.

The corners of Zhong Kui's mouth lifted slightly, as usual, as if she had been waiting there all along, waiting for Qi Fei to walk toward her himself.

"This might be the same as the aunt's house in Nancheng. The aunt and this Dong Nansheng are both women, but Feng Yongshou hid them both—one hidden by death, the other hidden by a disguise of gender. If I must interpret it, there is a woman in Nancheng he was attached to, and for some reason, he had to hide this woman and this emotion." Zhong Kui kept her eyes on Qi Fei the whole time she said this, as if she wanted to watch over the person in front of her with her gaze. She knew what these words meant to Qi Fei.

Sure enough, for Qi Fei, these words deeply stung his heart—the white bones under the maple tree made his beloved mother a murder suspect, and now, Zhong Kui's analysis of Feng Yongshou clearly implied that the woman Feng Yongshou was secretly attached to was his mother, Xi Zi Yun.

The image of his mother busy in the kitchen wearing a patchwork apron appeared before Qi Fei's eyes. As usual, this scene was shrouded in a layer of golden, warm sunlight, but this time, when his mother turned back to look at him, that kind smile was somehow stained with a cold, evil aura, and that gentle face overlapped with another face with similar features.

"Clack, clack"—the sound of glass marbles hitting the ground rang in his ears. He knew whose that other face was—it was Xi He, wearing a sinister ambition, letting out a mocking laugh at him—as if saying, kidnapping Qi Dongjun was only the beginning... ===== CHAPTER 242 =====