TWWDS - Chapter 41
Chapter 41
Ying Lusheng studied the person before her. The quiet certainty and composure in Chao Qingxiu's expression did not match her present age. She did not look like a mere commoner from the martial world. Recalling the scene on Wangyue Terrace, Ying guessed that she might have some connection to the Six Doors.
People from the martial world might enter the Six Doors, while those inside the Six Doors might one day end up back in the martial world.
Ying Lusheng: "May I ask whether you are a disciple of Lord Situ, Duke Weiding?"
Chao Qingxiu: "I have long admired your name. It is a pity I have never had the honor of meeting you."
Chao Qingxiu said only that she was not Lord Situ's disciple, without taking the opportunity to mention her own background. Clearly, she did not wish to say more.
Ying Lusheng studied her for a moment and said, "I have lived in Yongning for a long time and seldom encounter the great heroes of the realm. I had no idea the southern lands had produced a talent such as you, Miss Chao." She added, "You must know what I wanted you here for today."
Chao Qingxiu's gaze shifted, and she said, "I have only just arrived. I would hardly presume to take over your duties."
Ying Lusheng could not help but smile at that.
Her words were polite, but they revealed extraordinary courage. Chao Qingxiu was sure Academy Head Ying had entrusted her with an important task; otherwise, she would not have said she would not presume to take over.
Ying Lusheng: "Are you confident you can do it, Miss Chao?"
Chao Qingxiu: "Without knowing the details, it is hard to say."
The conversation inside was not loud, but the martial arts masters outside could hear every word clearly.
Li Guixian thought that although Chao Qingxiu did not know the details, many people had learned the course of the case before she had, yet none had proposed a workable solution even now. Even so, Chao Qingxiu was not intimidated in the slightest. She did not believe that because even the seasoned hands of the Six Doors could not break the impasse, she must be helpless too.
What magnificent youthful self-assurance!
No wonder even a renowned figure such as "Mountain-Cleaving Saber" was willing to follow at her side. She had a bearing that inspired genuine admiration.
Ying Lusheng fell silent again. After a long while, she finally said, "I will tell you everything in detail now." She then continued, "The item stolen from the storehouse was, in fact, the military Defense Map for Fangzhou and its surroundings."
Chao Qingxiu's expression shifted slightly.
It had been some time since she had crossed over, and she had gained a basic understanding of the world.
The realm now called itself Great Xia. The emperor was surnamed Yin, the capital was Dingkang, and Fangzhou lay precisely on the border between Great Xia and Northern Xi.
Ying Lusheng: "The Defense Map is made from the thread of an unusual silkworm. Its outer casing is sealed with wax, and it is hidden inside the left eye of a red sandalwood statue."
A teapot sat on the table. Chao Qingxiu had just poured herself a cup and was about to drink when she suddenly stopped. She lifted her eyes to Ying Lusheng, her voice ringing clear and sharp. "Can we truly not surround them and kill them here?"
Ying Lusheng: "The theft occurred at midnight."
Her voice was steady. Ying had plainly already considered that course.
After all, no one had noticed anything amiss at the time. By dawn, the Defense Map might already have been quietly carried away. Thus, even if Academy Head Ying killed the Northern Xi delegation on the spot, it might do no good and would only give others a pretext for war.
Chao Qingxiu lowered her gaze and thought for a moment. "In that case, may I go and inspect the scene? If the matter is confidential, I can enter blindfolded."
Academy Head Ying shook her head. "The storehouse's location has already been exposed. Letting a few more people know would not matter." She turned to Xu Feiqu. "Take Miss Chao to have a look."
Chao Qingxiu raised an eyebrow and turned to Xu Feiqu. "You know where the storehouse is?"
Xu Feiqu: "I came to the Academy at the beginning of this month and accidentally stumbled into it."
Chao Qingxiu smiled. In detective fiction, the moment Xu Feiqu said that, the suspect count for the case went straight up by one.
After calculating the dates, she praised Xu Feiqu. "You only arrived at the Academy at the beginning of the month, then immediately sat for the monthly examination and placed among the top five. That is truly remarkable."
Xu Feiqu made a modest bow, as though the praise were more than she deserved, then turned and led Chao Qingxiu toward the storehouse.
The Academy Head's study was not far from the storehouse entrance. Xu Feiqu led Chao Qingxiu through twists and turns in the Academy until they came to a cellar.
Because the Academy's main buildings used a great deal of timber and covered a large area, numerous cellars had been built, and some of them were used to store odds and ends. The room Xu Feiqu had entered contained candles, dry grass, and other items, with several wooden cabinets placed against the walls.
Xu Feiqu: "I had only just entered the Academy and did not know the way around. I fell and tumbled in through here, then happened to see someone inside opening the door. That was how I learned a little about the situation."
It was precisely for this reason that Ying Lusheng had quickly come to know Xu Feiqu. In her role as Academy Head, Ying had to keep an eye not only on students with potential, but also on students who had learned important secrets.
In the cellar, Chao Qingxiu looked from side to side, her expression thoughtful.
Xu Feiqu had seen the entrance open before she knew that this place was connected to the Academy storehouse. Until then, she had not even known that the Academy contained such a hidden place.
Yet the thief who had slipped into the storehouse had indeed succeeded in taking the item. In other words, the storehouse could be opened from the outside.
Chao Qingxiu walked all around, examining this and that, as if trying to find the mechanism for opening the door.
The cellar was not large, and it was packed with old, unused clutter. Whenever Chao Qingxiu leaned close to anything, she stirred up a cloud of dust.
At that moment, she badly missed her mask.
Chao Qingxiu was wearing a white robe, and there was so much dust around that Xu Feiqu tactfully said, "The mechanism for this storehouse is not especially hidden. It is only that someone who knows nothing of it probably would not think to..."
As soon as she spoke, Chao Qingxiu walked up to a wooden cabinet, gripped its handle, and tried pushing the drawer inward.
A creaking sound rang out, and a concealed door large enough for a person to pass through opened abruptly in the wall. The edges of the doorway lined up with the joints between the stone bricks. The door itself was thick, making it difficult to spot.
Chao Qingxiu turned back to Xu Feiqu and smiled. "Thank you for the reminder."
Xu Feiqu: "..."
To Xu Feiqu, her few words had hardly amounted to a hint. Yet since crossing over, Chao Qingxiu had gradually become accustomed to viewing everything around her as a puzzle to be solved...
Xu Feiqu reasoned that anyone who could place among the Academy's top five on her first try could hardly be dull.
Of course, there were still vast differences between one clever person and another.
Chao Qingxiu explained casually, "Dust has settled all over this cellar. I checked just now, and the dust in those places is not stuck to the floor, so the mechanism cannot be there. That leaves only the cabinet worth checking. Pulling a drawer out would be too obvious; anyone could think of that. Since I could guess it, so could a skilled mechanism expert from the martial world."
Someone was stationed in the storehouse at that moment. Xu Feiqu approached and showed the guard a note bearing the Academy Head's approval. Only after confirming it did the guard clear the way.
Chao Qingxiu watched this unfold.
The guard did not attack immediately upon seeing visitors, so the person who had slipped in that night might have pretended to have urgent business. While holding up a note for the guard to inspect, the intruder could walk close and kill him in a single blow. Of course, if the intruder were more highly skilled, the entire disguise could be skipped. The instant the entrance opened, they could flash inside like a ghost and shatter the guard's heart with one palm strike.
The smell in the storehouse was not oppressive. There was probably an air vent. A dim oil lamp was embedded in the wall, making the room look faintly forbidding.
The guard: "Apart from the fact that the corpse has been removed, everything remains as it was on the night of the theft. The two of you may inspect freely."
Chao Qingxiu looked down. The blood on the floor had long since dried and turned almost black. In the middle of the walkway lay a wooden monkey carving hacked to pieces.
Its eye sockets were two empty holes, each a little larger than a longan fruit. The wooden rack nearby had also been hacked apart, leaving many objects scattered across the floor.
Since the Defense Map had been stolen, the storehouse had not been tidied, in order to preserve the scene as far as possible.
Chao Qingxiu saw that a gold paperweight had rolled onto the floor, its edge dented flat.
"Apart from those two items, is anything else missing?"
The guard shook his head. "No."
Chao Qingxiu nodded.
The storehouse contained many valuable objects, yet the thief had abandoned every one of them that night. Clearly, the theft was not motivated by greed.
The guard, watching the care with which Chao Qingxiu conducted her investigation, fetched an inventory register and brought it over.
Chao Qingxiu took it and skimmed through it. She found that the wooden statue containing the Defense Map had been stored a month and a half earlier, while the bottle of Wuling Pills was the most recently stored item.
"Twenty-five catties of gold ingots were stored on April 12"
"One red sandalwood monkey statue was stored on April 20"
"One sword named Qinghong was stored on April 30"
"One bottle of All-Purpose Pills was stored on May 1"
"One copy of the ancient book Neidan Scripture, written on silk, was taken from storage on May 3"
"One copy of the ancient book Neidan Scripture, written on silk, was stored on May 7"
"One bottle of Wuling Pills was stored on May 15."
Besides the time, each entry specified the shelf in detail.
Chao Qingxiu and Yan Kaixian had arrived at Chongming Academy on the twenty-fourth. It was the afternoon of May twenty-sixth, and the theft had occurred in the early hours of the twenty-fifth.
Following the register, she found where the Wuling Pills had originally been kept.
The shelf was empty.
Chao Qingxiu drew a long needle from her sleeve, touched it to the dust on the shelf, and brought it close to her nose to smell.
Xu Feiqu noticed but was not surprised.
Although Chao Qingxiu had always said that she was not a physician and had merely looked through a few pages of medical books, the practiced confidence in her everyday movements made her seem every bit the renowned physician.
Chao Qingxiu had no idea what Xu was thinking. Since entering the Academy, she had kept Medical Outline of Pulse Diagnosis equipped in her Skill Slot.
The book was Doctor Zhou's masterpiece, and it contained some material even its author had never fully understood. With the book in an equipped state, Chao Qingxiu's theoretical knowledge had been raised to a new level.
Chao Qingxiu stared at the tip of the needle and quickly reached a conclusion.
Besides the medicinal scent, the dust carried an unusual fragrance called "Bushen."
The aroma of Bushen was highly distinctive. Even without the scent of medicine to mask it, it was so faint as to be almost impossible to detect. Its advantage was that it could linger in the air for a very long time.
At that point, they could conclude that, if members of the Northern Xi delegation had carried out the theft, they had indeed used the aroma to pinpoint the location. Their reconnaissance might not have taken place that day. More likely, they had learned the storehouse's location on the day the pills were deposited, then held their position while investigating how its door opened. They waited until conditions were ripe and the defenses had grown lax before suddenly making their move.
Chao Qingxiu: "May I ask why Chongming Academy agreed to let the people of Northern Xi store the Wuling Pills here on that occasion?"
To her, it was like a famous detective in a novel insisting on holding a gathering in a mountain villa whose only access road could be destroyed with the greatest ease.
Xu Feiqu: "The Academy Head had social engagements she could not easily refuse and so could not remain at the Academy every day. When she went out, the people from Northern Xi would make their request, and the others would find it difficult to refuse."
After all, even among the Academy's other instructors, those skilled in both literary and martial arts were nowhere near Ying Lusheng's level.
Moreover, after the Wuling Pills were stored, the Northern Xi delegation did not act immediately. Slowly, the Great Xia side's defenses grew lax.
Chao Qingxiu: "In my judgment, some Bushen incense was mixed into those Wuling Pills. If someone here were familiar with spices, they could probably use it to find the storehouse entrance. Now that we have inspected the site, let us report back to Academy Head Ying."
In the study.
After hearing Chao Qingxiu's assessment, Ying Lusheng's expression did not shift in the slightest.
Chao Qingxiu understood that even if they guessed who the culprit was, it would not solve the fundamental problem in this case.
Ying Lusheng suddenly said, "The Defense Map's arrival here was a secret. The wooden statue was originally kept in my private storehouse. Only on that day did I sense something was amiss, so I moved it into the Academy's storehouse."
Something stirred in Chao Qingxiu's mind, and she immediately asked, "Could the Academy Head explain what was unusual?"
Ying Lusheng: "Actually, on the seventh day of last month, at the Qiongtai Banquet, I noticed that someone had set a fire outside my private storehouse. I went straight to inspect the wooden statue and found that the Defense Map had not been stolen. I then pursued the intruder, whose lightness skill was only slightly inferior to mine. After losing a moment, I ultimately returned empty-handed."
On hearing the Academy Head's account, Xu Feiqu's face showed a flash of surprise and thoughtfulness.
Chao Qingxiu asked directly, "Master Xu, have you thought of anything?"
Xu Feiqu shook her head. "No. I was merely surprised to hear that someone had set a fire at the Academy Head's private storehouse."
Chao Qingxiu smiled. "You started at the Academy late. It is no wonder your classmates never mentioned it."
Xu Feiqu: "The Academy's top five do not speak of what happened at the Qiongtai Banquet to anyone outside that group. If a classmate is curious, they must rely on their own ability to earn a place among them and see for themselves."
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