Chapter 302

"This..."

Yin Suqin widened his eyes and looked at the corpse.

Although the clothing was different from what he had seen before, it had only been a day since their last meeting, and he would never mistake him—it was the storyteller who had told them about Xue Bangzhu!

It was like this again!

Just as they followed the clues and found him, they could only see a corpse!

He had originally thought this storyteller was the mastermind behind everything and that catching him would resolve the matter. But this corpse ruthlessly dispelled that thought—they were still far from touching the truth of this matter!

Cao Cao Hanyan was the first to calm down; he walked to Li Miao's side and observed the scene carefully.

Zheng Yi also walked over and spoke of the information gathered from the Prefectural Yamen: "My lord, this person's name is Yan Fan, sixty-five years old, a local resident. His identity and background are very clear, and his ancestors were also locals; it doesn't look like a forgery."

"Moreover, there is one more thing—five years ago, the same year Xue Bangzhu went missing, he moved once."

"Before moving, he lived alone in a small courtyard and there was nothing unusual. But the Prefect remembered that you had asked him to investigate Xue Bangzhu's matter, so he had the clerk check one step further and discovered a key point."

Zheng Yi looked at the corpse and said in a deep voice.

"After Xue Bangzhu arrived in Kaifeng, she rented a small courtyard, and later, after getting married, she went to live at her husband's house. This Yan Fan was exactly Xue Bangzhu's neighbor before she got married!"

"He knew Xue Bangzhu, and what he told us about Xue Bangzhu was definitely not groundless; he must have had some purpose."

After Zheng Yi finished speaking, there was a moment of silence.

Yes, Xue Bangzhu was a member of the Penglai Sect, and Yan Fan had told them about this on purpose; these guesses had all been confirmed, but so what?

In the end, they were still a step too slow; the dead could not tell them the truth.

Just at this moment, Cao Cao Hanyan suddenly spoke up.

"No, my lord."

He turned to look at Li Miao.

"Was this person's death suicide or murder?"

He pointed to the kang.

"I looked carefully; his clothes are neat and clean, and it doesn't look like there was any struggle. After we entered, he was already in rigor mortis, yet he was sitting upright, which means he died while sitting perfectly well."

Cao Cao Hanyan stepped forward, lowered his head, and sniffed the teacup on the low table; sure enough, the liquid inside also faintly emitted that strange fragrance.

"The Seven-Star Begonia you mentioned earlier should be the name of the poison, right? Could it be that he committed suicide by taking poison?"

"But since he told us about Xue Bangzhu, he must have been deliberately leading us to find the truth, so why would he commit suicide at this critical juncture? Wouldn't it have been better to just tell us everything?"

He looked at Li Miao in confusion, expecting Li Miao's answer.

Li Miao said in a deep voice.

"There is one explanation."

"He was an insider, but not a participant. He wanted to tell us the truth because he himself lacked the ability to resolve Xue Bangzhu's problem."

"He couldn't even dig up Xue Bangzhu's corpse to let her rest in peace."

Li Miao reached out and pinched the corpse's pulse, and as his true energy surged, he immediately sighed.

"Sure enough—he knew no martial arts."

"What!?"

The three people present all exclaimed in unison.

Zheng Yi said urgently: "How is that possible!"

"He knew so much about Xue Bangzhu, took the initiative to come to us to provide clues, and the poison that killed him was the Seven-Star Begonia—to be involved in such matters, where even Xue Bangzhu, a Heaven-Man, died silently, and yet he knew no martial arts?"

Li Miao shook his head, looked at Yan Fan's corpse, and after a long while, stepped forward and closed his wide-open eyes with one hand, then turned to the three and said.

"Think about it, what did he do after Xue Bangzhu died?"

Before the three could answer, Li Miao continued.

"He spread the story of Xue Bangzhu and the rumors of the ghost-haunted Yizhuang. When he saw you coming to ask for information, he took the initiative to come forward and tell you the story of Xue Bangzhu."

"He was definitely not covering up the truth, but guiding others to seek it."

"But there is a problem here."

Li Miao held up a finger.

"Although I don't know why Xue Bangzhu appeared so weak in her later years, her bones and muscles had still been tempered. Someone capable of folding her bones like that must have high martial arts."

"He handled Xue Bangzhu's corpse in that way, surely not wanting anyone to discover the truth—which means Yan Fan stood on the opposite side of the murderer."

"If he told everyone the matter so clearly, he would likely soon attract the murderer's attention and be silenced. Therefore, he would consciously choose whom to tell the truth."

Li Miao turned to Cao Cao Hanyan and Yin Suqin.

"What is the difference between you and others? Why did Yan Fan choose you?"

The two were suddenly stunned, looked at each other, and felt inexplicably shocked. Both were complete strangers to Xue Bangzhu; could it be that their own ancestors had some connection to her?

Li Miao shook his finger and pointed to the weapons worn at their waists: "Don't think too much; the reason he chose you is very simple—you are Ordinary Jianghu people."

"And Cao Cao Hanyan is a local, and Yin Suqin's reputation is not small; it's possible Yan Fan recognized you. He felt you had the ability to dig out the truth."

"The reason is just that simple."

Li Miao turned again to look at Yan Fan's corpse.

"He knew no martial arts, this is beyond doubt. His meridians were blocked, his bones and muscles were weak, and his dantian hadn't even been opened—he had never practiced martial arts."

"Look at this room; all the utensils are in a single set. He lived here alone and had lived like this for many years."

"Of the three unfilial acts, having no descendants is the greatest. Especially since his parents died early and he was the only son in the family, if he didn't carry on the family line, his lineage would be broken. What made him choose to live alone?"

"People living to seventy are rare since ancient times; he is sixty-five and doesn't have many years left to live, so why did he bother with this Xue Bangzhu matter?"

Li Miao scanned the room, walked slowly to a wall, touched it, and sure enough, felt a protrusion.

He slowly pulled out a brick, revealing a hollow space. Li Miao reached in, took out a cloth bundle from the hole, and tossed it to Zheng Yi.

Zheng Yi caught the bundle and unwrapped it in his palm.

Inside was a piece of beeswax.

In the center of the beeswax, a flower was sealed.

Five dark red petals were faintly transparent, their edges slightly curled, gathering toward the center. The center of the petals had a white cross pattern, resembling stars.

Only the edge of the beeswax was not round, as if a corner had been ground off, just happening to grind away a part of the petals.

"Seven-Star... Begonia..." Zheng Yi muttered.

Li Miao nodded.

"That's right. This flower should have seven petals, each with a cross pattern, resembling stars under the moonlight, hence the name Seven-Star Begonia. It is highly toxic if untreated, but it doesn't store well."

"But now there are only five petals..." Zheng Yi said in confusion, but suddenly froze, turning to look at Yan Fan's corpse.

Li Miao had already laid all the clues before them, and the truth of Yan Fan's death had also faintly surfaced.

Cao Cao Hanyan let out a long sigh.

"So, that's how it is."

Yin Suqin looked at him and asked: "Brother Cao, have you guessed something?"

Cao Cao Hanyan nodded.

"Actually, when I saw Yan Fan's death face just now, I had some questions. The lord has already told us all the clues, so I have a conjecture."

He turned to look at Li Miao.

"My lord, let me state my thoughts; if there is anything incorrect, please correct me."

Li Miao raised his chin, signaling him to go ahead.

Cao Cao Hanyan then spoke slowly to the other two.

"According to my conjecture, this Yan Fan committed suicide, but it could also be considered murder—in other words, death was his active choice, but dying today was the result of someone else's coercion."

Cao Cao Hanyan walked a few steps and said in a deep voice.

"Let me start from the beginning."

"Xue Bangzhu arrived in Kaifeng forty-five years ago, and that was also when she met Yan Fan. At the time, both were in their early twenties; one had fled to the Great Ming alone, and the other had lost both parents; their situations were similar."

"The two became neighbors, and both lived alone, so they must have interacted often. A lone man and a lone woman, young and full of longing."

"I guess Yan Fan fell in love with Xue Bangzhu at that time."

He took the beeswax from Zheng Yi's hand, rubbed it a few times, and nodded.

"This beeswax is of excellent quality, and it must be at least a hundred years old. This should be a memento Xue Bangzhu brought from Penglai, yet it was in Yan Fan's hands."

"I guess Xue Bangzhu must have also been fond of him back then, giving him this object brought from Penglai to express her feelings. And Yan Fan, either because he didn't recognize the object or because he was hesitant, didn't respond."

"So Xue Bangzhu thought he had no interest and married someone else later."

"Yan Fan was unable to change things, so he never married in his life, only hiding this matter in his heart."

Cao Cao Hanyan looked at Li Miao, and seeing that he had no intention of interrupting, continued.

"If the matter ended there, it wouldn't be considered bad."

"But later, a tragedy of extermination changed everything."

Cao Cao Hanyan sighed.

"Twenty years ago, until Xue Bangzhu died, we still have no clues about what happened in between, and I dare not make any assertions."

"But five years ago, at the same time Xue Bangzhu went missing, Yan Fan also moved here; this cannot be a coincidence. I guess Xue Bangzhu was harmed at that time, and Yan Fan also knew the truth."

"But he knew no martial arts; he had absolutely no ability to participate in this matter, and he couldn't even dig up Xue Bangzhu's corpse to bury it—because that would alert the murderer and lead to him, the last witness, being silenced."

"So he chose another path."

"He moved to this village, far from Yizhuang and Kaifeng Prefecture, avoiding the murderer's sight. At the same time, he transformed into a storyteller, turning the Yizhuang matter into a ghost story to tell others."

"He must have been trying to attract others to investigate, to make a big scene, to force the murderer away, and only then could he dig up Xue Bangzhu's corpse for burial."

Yin Suqin frowned and raised a question.

"No, Brother Cao, there is one point here that doesn't make sense."

"If he told this story to people every day, wouldn't that also attract the murderer's attention?"

"And when you and I were asking for information, not many people knew about this; if Yan Fan told this story every day, shouldn't everyone know about it?"

Cao Cao Hanyan shook his head and sighed.

"Brother Yin is right, but he overlooked one point."

"Do you still remember the missing merchant caravan? Do you remember what the lord said just now about why Yan Fan chose us?"

Yin Suqin was startled.

Cao Cao Hanyan continued.

"Yan Fan definitely couldn't tell the whole story, as that would soon attract the murderer. So the story he made up must have been edited quite a bit, mentioning things vaguely, which is why it didn't attract the murderer."

"But he would choose some people to tell more."

"Like you and me, like that merchant caravan."

Cao Cao Hanyan pursed his lips and said.

"Traveling merchants generally hire Ordinary Jianghu people as guards, otherwise they wouldn't get far before being robbed by bandits. Which means that among this caravan that disappeared in Yizhuang, there must have been Ordinary Jianghu people present."

"I think they didn't accidentally wander into Yizhuang, but knew some information from Yan Fan and went to investigate on purpose."

"The evidence is this flower."

Cao Cao Hanyan held up the beeswax in his hand.

"The petals of this Seven-Star Begonia are missing two."

"It corresponds exactly to that caravan and our two groups of people."

He said slowly.

"Yan Fan was just an ordinary commoner; he had never experienced Ordinary Jianghu matters, and he had no way to judge whether the martial arts of the people in front of him were capable of finding the truth."

"So all these years, he only told this matter to two groups of people."

"I guess every time he told others the story, he would take out this memento Xue Bangzhu gave him, grind off a petal, and soak it in tea."

"Just now the lord said this Seven-Star Begonia is not easy to preserve, but it retained its toxicity in this beeswax. After he changed his clothes and washed himself clean, he would sit on this kang and face this cup of poisoned tea for the whole night."

"If someone could get close to the truth, the murderer would come to kill him, and he would drink this cup of poisoned tea before the murderer could act."

"At the same time, the scent emanating from his body would also mask the smell of the Seven-Star Begonia in the beeswax."

"When the person who discovered the truth realized something was wrong and turned back to find him, they would discover this piece of beeswax—which is the clue he left behind with his own life."

"If we didn't know about Yingzhou and Penglai, by following this Seven-Star Begonia, we could trace Xue Bangzhu's origin."

Yin Suqin frowned.

"This is too unreliable."

"What if the murderer caught the person investigating and interrogated them? What if the person who came didn't notice this beeswax at all?"

"Besides, people from Yingzhou also have this Seven-Star Begonia, right? If the person who came traced it to Yingzhou, wouldn't that be walking into a tiger's den?"

Cao Cao Hanyan shook his head.

"No, Brother Yin, we are martial artists and stand beside Lord Li, so of course we can talk without feeling the pain."

"But we cannot demand more from Yan Fan."

He looked at the corpse lying on the kang and sighed.

"After all, he didn't marry Xue Bangzhu, and Xue Bangzhu wouldn't tell him everything; he probably only heard fragments of these things."

"He knew no martial arts and had no way to judge who was stronger, the murderer or us. He was just an ordinary person who knew the truth but lacked the power to resist, who knew where his lover's corpse was hidden but dared not approach it."

"As an ordinary commoner, as an old man who knew no martial arts, as a person who had never walked the Ordinary Jianghu..."

"He had no right to hope for stability."

(End of chapter)