The words sent the diners in the front hall into a panic, and they scattered in all directions.
Those who weren’t staying at the inn slipped away as fast as they could, while the guests lodged there huddled together, too afraid to head upstairs.
The Eldest Boss strode forward and grabbed the inn waiter by the collar, hoisting him up. “What the hell are you screaming about? You’ve scared off all the customers!”
The inn waiter seemed to have lost his soul. He ignored the boss completely and just jabbed a finger toward the stairs.
“There’s a dead body! A ghost!”
“What kind of nonsense is that?”
The Eldest Boss refused to believe it. He flung the waiter to the ground and lifted a foot to climb the stairs. But just then, a thick, viscous liquid began seeping slowly down the steps.
“What is this stuff?”
Yinghong squatted down in disgust to examine it. The dark red ooze didn’t look like blood, nor like any kind of dye.
While everyone’s attention was fixed on the stairs, Tao Chuyi quietly crouched low and dabbed a bit of the liquid onto her fingertip.
It was blood, all right—just coagulated after the victim had been bleeding for some time.
The inn waiter’s eyes bulged as he bellowed up at the floor above. “The Third Boss is dead!”
“What did you say?”
Shocked to his core, the Eldest Boss bolted upstairs.
Tao Chuyi and the others followed suit, taking care to skirt the dark red stain along the edge.
The third floor of the inn featured six Heavenly Character Superior Rooms. Three were occupied by the inn’s three bosses, while the remaining three housed Tao Chuyi and Nangong Yunshang in one, plus two other households.
The group charged onto the third floor, where they found the Eldest Boss cradling a man’s corpse and weeping uncontrollably. Another man stood beside him, his face etched with grief.
Tao Chuyi observed in silence. These three men must be the inn’s bosses. The room showed no signs of a struggle; beyond the blood smeared across the floor, there was nothing noteworthy.
Suddenly, the Eldest Boss threw his head back and let out a mournful howl. “I’ll make everyone in this inn join him in the grave!”
Zishan whipped out her sword and pressed it to his throat. “Who exactly do you want to join him?”
The Eldest Boss: “…”
At Nangong Yunshang’s gesture, Zhao Linglong flashed her official waist tablet. Even the roughest wanderers of the jianghu recognized it for what it was—she served as an officer in the Capital City and hailed from a line of martial generals. They might scoff at court officials, but they held warriors in high regard.
Upon seeing the tablet, the Eldest Boss and Second Boss visibly deflated, their talk shifting from “everyone dies” to pleas for the general to investigate thoroughly.
The three brothers had come from out of province and had been running the inn for seven or eight years. They had no known enemies, just stuck to honest business.
With her general’s status out in the open, Zhao Linglong took charge of the questioning. Every guest and every member of the inn staff was a suspect now. No one was allowed to leave until the killer was apprehended.
Once back in their room with Nangong Yunshang, Tao Chuyi betrayed no hint of unease. She simply pestered her to play.
Two hours later, Zishan returned with the gathered statements to make her report. According to the inn waiter, while he cleaned the rooms, half the second-floor guests had been in their quarters. Those who hadn’t could be accounted for in the front hall, dining.
That left the second-floor guests, along with the Eldest Boss, the inn waiter, and the chef, all with solid alibis. The suspects boiled down to the Second Boss and the other two Heavenly Character Superior Room occupants.
The inn waiter and the chef both confirmed that the Second Boss and Third Boss hadn’t been on good terms lately—their relationship held together only by the Eldest Boss. No one knew the root of their quarrel, just scraps of clues. Though icy with each other, they’d never clashed openly until this year, when arguments turned to brawls more than once.
Nangong Yunshang skimmed the testimonies. “And the other two guests?”
Zishan inclined her head. “Those two households aren’t fully questioned yet. One is a grandfather traveling with his granddaughter. The other is a widow.”
Nangong Yunshang waved her away. She turned back, her expression softening into gentle warmth.
“Chuyi, are you sleepy?”
“Chuyi isn’t sleepy.”
Tao Chuyi crawled over beside her and wrapped her arms around her waist.
“Sister needs to rest well.”
Nangong Yunshang let out a soft laugh as she stroked the girl’s large head. No matter how she looked at it, she resembled an oversized Fifteen.
How was she just so adorable?
“Sister knows. She won’t push herself too hard.”
At that moment, Tao Chuyi caught a whiff of fragrance at the tip of her nose. She slid off the bed to track it down and found a stick of burning Rhinoceros Horn Incense on the windowsill.
Who had lit this incense?
Nangong Yunshang peered at her curiously as she stood frozen by the window. “What’s the matter?”
Tao Chuyi casually pinched out the incense and scampered back to the bed, burrowing into Nangong Yunshang’s embrace like nothing had happened.
“Chuyi is sleepy now. Let’s go to sleep.”
Nangong Yunshang flicked the tip of her nose. “You and your whims. All right, let’s sleep.”
That night, the wind picked up outside. Icy gusts howled through the air, rattling doors and windows and shattering sleep.
In the dim room, Tao Chuyi opened her eyes. In the span of a blink, she had thrown on a robe and flipped out the window.
The two women stood facing each other atop the inn’s eaves. The moonlight bathed their faces in chill silver, frosting their features like ice.
“I told you not to come looking for me again.”
Tao Chuyi spoke to the figure across from her, each word deliberate.
Fendie was clad in tight black traveling garb, a quiver of arrows slung across her back. She ignored Tao Chuyi’s words entirely.
“I have to take you away. Nangong Yunshang will kill you the moment she learns who you are. Rou’er, don’t be a fool—you led the assassins who targeted her father emperor three years ago.”
“Going back means death anyway. I’d rather die at the hands of the one I love.”
Tao Chuyi replied with calm indifference, as if life and death meant nothing to her.
Fendie seized her wrist. “I don’t want you dead. We leave this place, steer clear of their fight. Live free under false names, wander carefree, and die together someday.”
Tao Chuyi wrenched her hand free. “Senior Sister, I have unfinished business. I can’t vanish into hiding with you. Besides, betrayal cuts off the antidote. You don’t need to throw everything away for me.”
“Are you really that stubborn?”
Fendie’s eyes darkened with malice. “Fine. Then I’ll kill her first—and take you away.”
Tao Chuyi caught the faint sound and leaned in close, whispering directly into her ear. “I will kill you.”
With that, she vaulted back through the window. Nangong Yunshang was already sitting up in bed, so Tao Chuyi plopped straight down onto the floor and pretended to sleepwalk.
“Sister, why is the bed so hard?”
Nangong Yunshang reached for the edge of the bed and found it empty. She looked down to see a shadowy little figure shambling about on the floorboards. Amused, she shook her head.
“The floor is hard, of course.”
She rose from the bed and went to help up her little darling.
“You never sleep soundly. Did you hurt yourself falling? I heard a noise—it must have been you tumbling off.”
Tao Chuyi’s gaze snagged on fleeting glints of cold steel. She lunged forward and hugged Nangong Yunshang tight, shielding her completely.
“What’s wrong?”
Nangong Yunshang stroked her back with gentle pats. “Did you have a nightmare? There, there—sister’s right here.”
They clung together for what felt like ages until the threat faded from the corner of Tao Chuyi’s eye. Only then did she let go.
“Sister, I’m sorry. I woke you up.”
“No apologies needed.”
Nangong Yunshang guided her back onto the bed. “Sister’s here with you. No demon or ghost will come near.”
Tao Chuyi burst into giggles. “What about the old monster? Will it come grab Chuyi?”
“No. With sister here, it wouldn’t dare.”
Tao Chuyi nestled close to her chest, ear pressed to the steady thump of her heartbeat, and drifted into deep slumber at last.
The next morning, whispers swept through the inn about ghosts haunting the night before. Everyone claimed to have seen shadowy specters drifting about.
Tao Chuyi caught the details and breathed a quiet sigh of relief. No one was talking about her.
In an inn this size, packed with people, only she and her sister had seen nothing. It had to be that Rhinoceros Horn Incense.
As Yinghong spun her vivid tale, Tao Chuyi slipped over to the windowsill and cried out, “Sister! Sister! It’s a black lump—just like the one in our room!”
Nangong Yunshang hurried over. One glimpse, and the words tumbled out. “Rhinoceros Horn Incense?”
She immediately ordered the guards to search every room. Sure enough, identical sticks turned up in all the guest quarters—even the inn waiter’s sleeping area.
Someone had tried to blame the murder on restless spirits. Only the inn waiter or one of the bosses could have slipped into every room unnoticed, unless the culprit boasted peerless lightness skill.
Tao Chuyi couldn’t get away. Her sister kept her glued to her side every step.
They pored over the final two statements. The grandfather and granddaughter were simply sightseeing. The widow had been cast out by her husband’s family after his death, handed a bit of silver and shown the door.
Nothing in the accounts linked them to the victim. The Second Boss remained the prime suspect.
With no one from the Dali Temple along on this trip, there was no coroner handy. Borrowing one from the county magistrate would take too long to quench this fire. The body lay in the woodshed under guard. Only Zhao Linglong had given it a cursory look; no one else had gotten close.
Dead men could still speak, in their way. Tao Chuyi wanted to examine the corpse.
While Nangong Yunshang dozed, she sneaked into the woodshed, lifted the coffin lid, and revealed the body inside.
The Third Boss sported a gaping hole in his gut—that was the source of all the blood. No fight in the room suggested the killer had drugged him first, or perhaps earned his trust as an acquaintance.
Tao Chuyi leaned in close to inspect the corpse’s hands and spotted thick gray powder packed under the fingernails. She scraped off a sample. It resembled incense ash.
Just then, a commotion erupted outside.
Tao Chuyi slipped out in the chaos and hurried back to the room, resuming her pose as if she’d never left.
“Sister, there’s been another death.”
The noise roused Nangong Yunshang. She sat up slowly.
“Yinghong, what is it?”
“Mistress, the Second Boss is dead in his room.”
The top suspect, the Second Boss, had met a gruesome end identical to his brother’s. The Eldest Boss knelt on the floor, sobbing without restraint.
One after another, people were dying right under everyone’s noses, with the killer continuing to strike openly. This left the other guests in a constant state of panic, more convinced than ever that it was a curse from some ghost or monster.
“Ah!”
Tao Chuyi deliberately tripped and fell, her eyes sweeping over the corpse’s fingernails. Gray powder was indeed lodged in the crevices.
Nangong Yunshang hurried over to help her up. “Did you hurt yourself? Come on, get up quick.”
Tao Chuyi obediently stood, letting the others brush the dust from her clothes.
“Sister, is there really a ghost?”
“How could there be? That’s just to scare people.”
Nangong Yunshang assumed she had been frightened and spent quite a while comforting her.
Tao Chuyi silently stared at the corpse. Two people dead already—the killer clearly had a specific target, and there was a connection between the victims.
It was most likely a revenge killing. The next one on the list would be the Eldest Boss.
