Chapter 268: Child

After Cao Hanyan excitedly reached his conclusion, he began to enthusiastically investigate the room once more. This time, he searched almost inch by inch. Following Li Miao's example, he carefully scraped away the plaster on the walls and, sure enough, discovered more traces of Xue Bangzhu's life.

Broken tiles buried in the dirt, bloodstains soaked into the texture of the shards, mottled friction marks on the wall level with the bed, and a cane already rotted away in the soil.

Li Miao had been deliberately guiding him, gradually instilling in him a new way of collecting and processing information. Cao Hanyan was indeed talented; as more traces were uncovered, a figure gradually emerged in his mind.

Broken tiles, bloodstains... this was a ceramic spittoon, and there was blood inside. Xue Bangzhu had frequently spat blood into it, in large amounts and very often, which was why the blood had seeped into the texture of the ceramic.

Friction marks level with the bed... Xue Bangzhu was in great pain; even while sleeping, she would constantly toss and turn, her clothes rubbing against the wall and leaving those marks.

And the cane.

After moving here, Xue Bangzhu's physical condition had already been very poor. And this deterioration was not due to injury; it was more like some kind of disease developing continuously from the inside out.

An expert capable of reaching the Heaven-Human realm, regardless of whether they were clever or foolish, must have a strong state of mind. The pain that could torture her into tossing and turning on the bed was enough to shatter the sanity of an ordinary person.

However... there were still some unclear points that caused the figure in Cao Hanyan's mind to blur.

For instance, he had dug up three chopsticks from the soil.

For instance, the friction marks on the wall were missing a section in the middle, about two or three feet wide.

Cao Hanyan was, after all, only a beginner, and it was difficult for him to draw effective conclusions. But the experience of deducing a scene from such minute details truly excited him.

He stood up, ready to ask Li Miao for guidance, only to find that during the time he had been so engrossed, Li Miao had already walked out of the wooden hut.

Cao Hanyan stepped quickly outside and looked around, spotting Li Miao under a tree beside the hut, his hands behind his back, examining the trunk, though it was unclear what he was looking at.

Cao Hanyan walked over quickly and cupped his hands.

"My lord, I made some discoveries just now, but there are also some points I don't understand. Could you please enlighten me?"

Li Miao did not turn his head, saying calmly.

"Speak."

"Yes."

Cao Hanyan nodded and relayed his findings to Li Miao, then posed his questions.

"Xue Bangzhu's Wu Gong was 'gradually fading.' I feel it is inseparable from her illness, but I do not know which is the cause and which is the effect."

"This matter likely traces back to the secrets of the Penglai inheritance, so let us set it aside for now. What puzzles me are the three chopsticks I found and the gap in the marks on the wall."

He said in a low voice.

"Xue Bangzhu came here alone, and after the massacre, she likely had no need to entertain guests. Logically, for a recluse like her, a single pair of chopsticks would suffice; if they broke, she could simply whittle a new pair."

"And these marks on the wall by the bed—they were left by her tossing and turning unconsciously while sleeping, yet a section is missing in the middle."

Cao Hanyan lifted his leg and bent his elbow, mimicking a curled-up posture.

"Logically, when people are in pain, they instinctively curl up, so the friction marks should be concentrated in the middle—yet that is the only part missing."

"It is as if... even in her sleep, Xue Bangzhu was subconsciously forcing herself not to curl up. Or as if she were holding something in her arms..."

After finishing, Cao Hanyan looked at Li Miao, waiting for an answer.

Li Miao smiled and said.

"You actually already have a guess, but you just don't dare to be certain, right?"

"Look here."

He pointed a finger at the tree trunk in front of them.

Cao Hanyan's gaze followed Li Miao's finger; on the trunk, faint scars could be seen, as if cut by a sharp weapon, distributed evenly from top to bottom, like some kind of scale.

"This is..."

Cao Hanyan hesitated.

"Height."

Li Miao said calmly.

"When you were young, your parents likely did the same. They would find a wall, have you stand straight against it, use a ruler to measure the top of your head, and leave a mark on the wall to record your height."

He placed his hand on the trunk.

"There aren't many tree species around Kaifeng Prefecture, and I happen to recognize this one—it is a Chinese scholar tree."

"This tree grows two or three feet a year for the first ten years, one foot a year between ten and fifty years, and basically stops growing after fifty years."

"And the growth rings of this tree are very distinct."

*Shing!

Cao Hanyan felt his waist lighten, and in a flash, his saber was already in Li Miao's hand.

*Swish!

A cold light flashed; before Cao Hanyan could clearly see Li Miao's movement, the long saber had already swept across the trunk, moving from left to right as if cutting through air—neither wood chips flew, nor was any sound heard.

Li Miao flicked his wrist, and with a *clatter*, the saber was sheathed.

Immediately, he raised his hand and struck the trunk with a palm.

*BOOM!

The trunk, as thick as a man could embrace, along with its massive canopy, shifted horizontally like a cannonball and crashed into the dense forest!

Li Miao, acting as if he had merely moved a teacup off a table, walked up leisurely, glanced at the severed stump, and turned to smile at the dumbstruck Cao Hanyan.

"Over seventy growth rings; this tree has some age to it."

Cao Hanyan finally regained his senses, his hand tightening involuntarily on the hilt of his saber. After a long silence, he let out a long breath and walked to Li Miao's side.

"So, from the time Xue Bangzhu left until now, the height of this tree has basically not changed."

Cao Hanyan reached out and touched the highest mark on the trunk.

"This last mark must have been left before Xue Bangzhu moved to the righteous manor. It is about three and a half feet from the ground, roughly the height of a seven or eight-year-old child."

He let out a long sigh.

"With this, everything fits."

The extra chopstick, the height marks on the tree trunk.

Xue Bangzhu was not living here alone.

The missing section in the middle of the friction marks on the wall was also explained—because Xue Bangzhu was holding a child. Although she could not suppress the intense pain, she instinctively forced herself not to curl up in her sleep and crush the child in her arms.

The blurred image in Cao Hanyan's mind finally became clear—the child in Xue Bangzhu's arms was sleeping peacefully, while she, covered in cold sweat, kept her back straight, her arms, head, and legs leaving friction marks on the wall from the pain.

The Xue Bangzhu massacre case was twenty years ago, and she moved to the righteous manor thirteen years ago, living here for seven years in between.

Seven years; the highest mark on the tree trunk was also just about the height of a seven-year-old child.

Twenty years ago, when the massacre occurred, the reason Xue Bangzhu gave for leaving Kaifeng Prefecture was to go to the Bodhisattva Temple outside the city to pray for a child. But this reason was what Xue Bangzhu told the authorities—what if she wasn't telling the truth?

What if she didn't want people to know the real reason she went to the Bodhisattva Temple?

When a woman goes to the Bodhisattva Temple to pray, she usually prays for a few things: peace, wealth, a child...

And—to protect a pregnancy.

At the same time, all the clues were subtly linked together.

Zheng Yi had spoken to Cao Hanyan about Penglai; he knew that both Penglai and Yingzhou relied on bloodline inheritance, but this posed a problem—how did they ensure their families could always produce good candidates suitable for practicing Wu Gong?

Most people want to pass their Wu Gong to their children and grandchildren, but in the current Great Ming, the inheritance of Wu Gong is basically passed from master to disciple, the fundamental reason being that no one can guarantee their child is suitable for practicing Wu Gong.

Li Miao's first opponent in the Jianghu, the Plum Blossom Thief Yun Zelin, came from a major sect but was born with incomplete meridians, was spurned and bullied by his peers, and eventually betrayed his sect and drifted into the Jianghu.

No matter how good the talent, it cannot be stably inherited by descendants—this is the fundamental reason for the rise of sects and the decline of noble families.

In the entire Great Ming, there are only a few dozen candidates with hope of reaching the Heaven-Human realm, yet Yingzhou, as a family, could produce several Heaven-Human experts at once, and even had a heaven-defying talent like Li Miao drifting outside.

The reason for this was already vaguely emerging in the truth of the Xue Bangzhu case.

Xue Bangzhu came to Kaifeng forty-five years ago, married forty years ago, and did not give birth until twenty years ago, which is clearly abnormal for a Heaven-Human expert with unobstructed Qi and blood.

After the massacre occurred, Xue Bangzhu avoided notice and moved here alone to give birth to the child. At the same time, her body and Wu Gong went from bad to worse; spitting blood, intense pain, and aging gradually appeared on her.

By the time she moved to the righteous manor thirteen years ago, her appearance already matched her age, and her back had gradually become hunched.

By five years ago, when the merchant's family pushed her over, her Wu Gong and realm had completely vanished.

"This is simply like..."

Cao Hanyan's face was blank as he muttered.

"Passing one's own foundation and realm to one's child..."

He suddenly remembered Yan Fan, who had committed suicide, and his expression froze.

"Yan Fan only moved away from Kaifeng Prefecture five years ago; before that, he showed no signs of anything unusual—so Xue Bangzhu must have told him the truth before she died."

"At that time, Xue Bangzhu's Wu Gong was completely destroyed and she was at the end of her rope; she must have known her death was imminent, so she likely wasn't begging Yan Fan to save her."

"The Seven-Star Begonia Yan Fan left behind was not to tell us Xue Bangzhu's background, but to let us know Xue Bangzhu came from Penglai, so that from the news of her destroyed Wu Gong, we could deduce the existence of this child."

"Xue Bangzhu and Yan Fan were not protecting themselves or each other, but were begging us to save this child!"

Cao Hanyan gripped the hilt of his saber tightly and looked at Li Miao.

"My lord, do you think this child... is still alive?"

Li Miao twisted his fingers and said.

"They should still be alive, and eight or nine times out of ten, they are in the hands of the murderer."

"However, I must give you a heads-up—the scene after finding this child may not be what you imagine."

He suddenly turned his head to the side, said nothing, grabbed Cao Hanyan by the collar, and with a flash, flew rapidly toward the mountain path.

A moment later, Cao Hanyan faintly heard rapid footsteps coming from ahead.

Li Miao set him on the ground, and as soon as Cao Hanyan stood steady, he saw Yin Suqin using light-body techniques, running rapidly along the mountain path toward the two of them.

Before reaching them, Yin Suqin shouted urgently.

"My lord! We found the murderer!"

"I recognized him based on the portrait provided by the Yamen; it's that 'No-Trace'!"

His Wu Gong was not bad; he shouted while running, and by the time he finished the second sentence, he had already reached them. He stopped, not even bothering to catch his breath, and spoke like a machine gun.

"My lord!"

"After we arrived at the righteous manor, we didn't make a scene; we stopped from far away and slowly crept over! After waiting a while, someone really did come to clean up the traces!"

"Heroine Zheng flashed over and caught the person red-handed on the spot! I went up to look, and this person is the very same Jianghu bandit who wiped out Xue Bangzhu's entire family twenty years ago, 'No-Trace'!"

"He is the murderer who killed Xue Bangzhu and Yan Fan!"

Cao Hanyan frowned and asked urgently.

"Then why did Brother Yin come alone? Where is Heroine Zheng? Where is the murderer!"

Yin Suqin stamped his foot.

"Sigh!"

"We had already sealed the person's acupoints, thinking you must have come here, and were preparing to bring him directly to find you!"

"But who would have thought that just as we were about to move, a master suddenly appeared and snatched the person from Heroine Zheng's hands!"

"Heroine Zheng went after them, and since it would be useless for me to chase, I hurried over to tell you, my lord!"

Cao Hanyan was suddenly startled, as if she had realized something, and turned her head to look at Li Miao.

Li Miao seemed to have known all along and asked calmly.

"Was that person a man or a woman?"

"It was a woman!"

"Was she about twenty years old?"

"Yes! Although she was masked, judging by the exposed eyebrows and eyes, she should be about that age!"

"Was her stature exactly the same as Little Yi's?"

"Yes!"

"Was her weapon a long sword?"

"Yes!"

"Indeed, heh."

Li Miao sneered.

Yin Suqin was still confused, wondering how Li Miao knew so clearly. Beside him, Cao Hanyan let out a long sigh, shook his head, and said to Li Miao.

"My lord had already anticipated this?"

Li Miao nodded.

"More or less."

"That murderer didn't even know much about the affairs of Yingzhou and Penglai, and his own Wu Gong was mediocre, so he likely didn't have the talent to practice Penglai's techniques. If he killed Xue Bangzhu, he must have been plotting something."

"Plotting to use her as a thug, or plotting to find the secret of how Penglai passes on their foundation to others from this thug—both are reasonable guesses."

Cao Hanyan shook his head and sighed.

"I still have a few things I don't understand."

"First, since Xue Bangzhu's child was already under his control, why didn't he just order her to silence me and Brother Yin at the time?"

Li Miao smiled and answered.

"When Xue Bangzhu died, the child must have been fourteen or fifteen; she would have known who her mother was."

"The murderer couldn't let the child know he killed Xue Bangzhu, so naturally, he wouldn't want her near her mother's corpse, lest the truth leak out."

"So he had to do it himself, silencing Yan Fan first. Once we left the righteous manor, he came to move Xue Bangzhu's corpse, and then he could have the child kill us, leaving no future trouble."

Cao Hanyan nodded and continued to ask.

"But, my lord, how did you know in advance that Xue Bangzhu's child would stand on the murderer's side?"

"That is her mother's killer!"

Li Miao sneered and said in a low voice.

"Does that even need guessing?"

"When Xue Bangzhu died, she was only fourteen or fifteen. A child of that age can be easily fooled by any old Jianghu hand."

"Five years is enough for the murderer to have scrubbed her brain clean. It's even possible she has already accepted the thief as her father."

"Enough."

Li Miao said to the two of them.

"You two rest here."

"I am going to give that damn kid a good beating on behalf of Xue Bangzhu and Yan Fan!"

Before the words were finished, the two felt a blur before their eyes.

Looking again, Li Miao had already disappeared.