Chapter 304: Child

After Cao Hanyan excitedly reached his conclusion, he began to explore the room with renewed vigor. This time, he searched almost inch by inch, carefully scraping away the mud and plaster from the walls just as Li Miao had done, and sure enough, he discovered more traces of Xue Bangzhu's life.

Broken tiles buried in the dirt, bloodstains seeped into the texture of the shards, mottled friction marks on the wall level with the bed, and a cane that had 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 quite gifted; as more traces were uncovered, a figure gradually began to emerge in his mind.

Broken tiles, bloodstains... this was a ceramic spittoon, and there was blood inside. Xue Bangzhu had frequently spat blood into it; the volume was large and the frequency high, which was why the bloodstains had seeped into the texture of the ceramic pot.

Friction marks level with the bed... Xue Bangzhu had been in great pain, tossing and turning even while she slept, her clothing constantly rubbing against the wall and leaving those marks.

And the cane.

After moving to this place, Xue Bangzhu's physical condition had been extremely poor. Moreover, this decline was not due to injury, but rather resembled some kind of disease that was constantly progressing from the inside out.

An expert capable of reaching the Heaven-Man Realm, whether clever or foolish, must possess a formidable mental state. The pain that could force her to toss and turn in 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 dirt.

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 from this. 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 hurried out the door, looked around, and spotted Li Miao under a tree beside the hut, standing with 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 in a salute.

"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, recounted his findings to Li Miao, and then posed his questions.

"Xue Bangzhu's Wu Gong was 'gradually fading,' and I feel it is inseparable from her illness, but I don't 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 broken marks on the wall."

He said in a low voice.

"Xue Bangzhu came here alone, and after the annihilation of her sect, 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 curl up unconsciously, so the friction marks should be concentrated in the middle section—yet that is the only part that is missing."

"It is as if... even in her sleep, Xue Bangzhu was subconsciously forcing herself not to curl up. It is also 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, you just aren't certain, right?"

"Look here."

He reached out and pointed at the tree trunk in front of them.

Cao Hanyan's gaze followed Li Miao's finger; on the trunk, one could faintly see several scars, as if carved by a sharp weapon, evenly distributed from top to bottom, resembling 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 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—this tree is a Chinese scholar tree."

"In its first ten years, this tree grows two or three feet annually; from ten to fifty years, it grows one foot a year; after fifty years, it basically stops growing."

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

*Zeng! *

Cao Hanyan felt a lightness at his waist, a blur before his eyes, and his saber was already in Li Miao's hand.

*Shua! *—

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

Li Miao flicked his hand, and with a *clanging* sound, the saber returned to its sheath.

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

*BOOM!!!! *

The trunk, as thick as a man's 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 from a table, walked up leisurely, glanced at the severed stump, turned to the dumbstruck Cao Hanyan, and smiled.

"Over seventy growth rings; this tree has been here for a long time."

Cao Hanyan finally regained his senses, his hand tightening involuntarily on the saber hilt. 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 one must have been left before Xue Bangzhu moved to the righteous manor. It's 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 of the friction marks on the wall by the bed was also explained—because Xue Bangzhu was holding a child; although she could hardly suppress the excruciating pain, she instinctively forced herself not to curl up in her sleep and crush the child in her arms.

The blurred scene 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 marks of pain-induced friction on the wall against her will.

The Xue Bangzhu sect annihilation case was twenty years ago, and she moved to the righteous manor thirteen years ago, having lived here for seven years in between.

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

Twenty years ago, when the sect annihilation 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, it is usually for a few things: peace, wealth, praying for a child...

And—to protect a pregnancy.

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

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

Most people wanted to pass their martial arts to their children and grandchildren, but in the current Great Ming, martial arts inheritance was basically passed from master to disciple, the fundamental reason being that no one could guarantee their children would be suitable for practicing Wu Gong.

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

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

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

The reason for this had already faintly emerged 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 was clearly highly abnormal for a Heaven-Man expert with unobstructed Qi and blood.

And after the sect annihilation, Xue Bangzhu avoided notice and moved here alone to give birth to the child. At the same time, her body and Wu Gong deteriorated day by day; spitting blood, excruciating pain, and aging gradually appeared on her.

By the time she moved to the righteous manor thirteen years ago, her appearance was completely consistent with 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 disappeared.

"This is simply like..."

Cao Hanyan's expression was blank as he muttered.

"As if she passed her own root bone and realm to her 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 didn't show any abnormalities—so Xue Bangzhu must have told him the truth before she died."

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

"The Seven-Star Begonia Yan Fan left behind wasn't to tell us Xue Bangzhu's background, but to let us know Xue Bangzhu was from Penglai, so that from the news of her wasted 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 his saber hilt 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 warn you in advance—the scene after finding this child may not be what you imagine."

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

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

Li Miao placed him on the ground; as soon as Cao Hanyan stood steady, he saw Yin Suqin using light-body technique, running rapidly along the mountain path toward them.

Before reaching them, Yin Suqin shouted urgently.

"My lord! We found the murderer!"

"I recognized him from 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 reached them. He stopped, not even bothering to catch his breath, and spoke like a string of firecrackers.

"My lord!"

"After we arrived at the righteous manor, we didn't make a sound; we stopped from far away and then slowly crept over! After waiting for 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 that Jianghu bandit who annihilated Xue Bangzhu's entire sect twenty years ago, 'No-Trace'!"

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

Cao Hanyan frowned and also 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 this 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, an expert suddenly appeared and snatched that person away from Heroine Zheng!"

"Heroine Zheng chased after them, and it would have been useless for me to follow, so I hurried over to tell you, my lord!"

Cao Hanyan was suddenly stunned, as if he had realized something, and turned 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 roughly around twenty years old?"

"Yes! Although she was masked, looking at her exposed eyebrows and eyes, she should be around that age!"

"Was her stature exactly the same as Xiao 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. Cao Hanyan beside him 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 Yingzhou and Penglai, and his own Wu Gong was mediocre; he likely didn't have the talent to practice Penglai's cultivation methods. Since he killed Xue Bangzhu, he must have been after something."

"Plotting to get a henchman, or plotting to find the secret of how Penglai passes root bones to others from this henchman in the future, are both 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 order her to kill Brother Yin and me at the time?"

Li Miao smiled and replied.

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

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

"So he could only do it himself, first silencing Yan Fan. Once we left the righteous manor, he would come to move Xue Bangzhu's corpse, and then let 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 their mother's killer!"

Li Miao sneered and said in a low voice.

"Does this need guessing?"

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

"Five years is enough for the murderer to have washed their brain clean. They might even have come to recognize the thief as their father."

"Enough."

Li Miao said to the two of them.

"You two rest here."

"I am going to give this dead child a good beating on behalf of Xue Bangzhu and Yan Fan!"

Before the words faded, a blur passed before their eyes.

Looking again, Li Miao had already disappeared.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 305 =====