Chapter 281: A Matter of Great Consequence

Not knowing is only natural... Would the Demon Sovereign’s real scheme be something you’d get to find out...? Still holding the umbrella, Ding Songyan turned to Twelfth Madam Luo to see whether she had anything to ask.

Twelfth Madam Luo slowly shook her head, signaling that what needed to be learned had either been made clear or Monk Faxin wouldn’t know about it.

She thought for a moment and said to Ding Songyan, "Later, leave a letter for the Martial Prohibition Bureau, Chengtian Prefecture, and the Body-and-Will Heterodox Sect telling them what we found out, so they don’t miss anything critical. Mm, can you disguise your handwriting? If not, I’ll write it."

"I can." With Manifesting the Way and its Virtue, Ding Songyan could copy others’ handwriting with a 60–70% likeness even without special training. That wouldn’t fool the Martial Prohibition Bureau or Chengtian Prefecture, but it was enough to hide his original handwriting.

Ding Songyan had no plan to question Faxin’s ghost further. Any more and the ghost would scatter, and the Martial Prohibition Bureau needed to be left a "witness" so that they would truly believe the letter’s contents.

Though there had been no danger of exposing his real identity in the fight or the questioning just now, Ding Songyan still tested Faxin’s ghost.

"No matter who comes asking, you must not say anything about me or my companion."

He wanted to see whether the intimidation of Banishing Demons and Warding Off Evil could make a ghost refuse to answer certain questions under other people’s spirit channeling.

As for concealment, a ghost acting on instinct lacked that kind of awareness and intellect, unless it had something special in life.

"Yes," Faxin’s ghost answered with utmost respect.

He was trembling all over.

Just then, Twelfth Madam Luo reached out and patted Ding Songyan’s arm, helping him quickly change his name and reality and suppressing his realm to the early Great Proliferation Realm. That would greatly shrink the range of Banishing Demons and Warding Off Evil, so that Ding Songyan wouldn’t reach Faxin’s ghost and obliterate him while writing the letter in the room.

Ding Songyan extended the 72-cm sword, destroyed the wound at Faxin’s throat, and then cut off the head.

Only then did the Presence-Absence Myriad Forms Qi clinging to the wound dissipate completely, and the blood, no longer so bright red, flowed out and mixed into the packed earth and the sparse rain.

After wiping the traces off the sword, Ding Songyan slid it back into the umbrella handle and handed it to Twelfth Madam Luo, then asked after some deliberation, "Twelfth Madam, can Tan Guanchan sense that I relied on the Candlelight Sword Intent to last until you attacked?"

Twelfth Madam Luo shook her head.

"Don’t worry, he can’t sense it. He used Faxin’s heart demon to attack from afar. I got rid of the heart demon and Faxin on the spot and forced him to take the initiative to cut off the connection to ensure his concealment."

That’s good... Ding Songyan heaved a sigh of relief.

As for the night he killed Hu Chaohui, whether Tan Guanchan was there, whether he was watching, and why he did not attack, he had nothing to base any speculations on for the time being. The only thing he could be sure of was that of all the martial arts he used, other than the Chaos-related Establishing the Six Directions that ensured no spreading of the combat sounds, nothing else was exposed. It would not point to Brightnight Sect. However, the Celestial Heart easily reminded people of the Sage-Severing Way.

There were also many martial arts and secret arts that sealed combat sounds, and there were also many that gave similar sensations to Establishing the Six Directions.

Ding Songyan quickly went into the main building, found paper and a brush, and ground ink to write the letter.

The handwriting he knew best was that of Zheng Zhuxi, Su Qingli, Ji Hanyi, Twelfth Madam Luo, Ren Youyang, and others, but imitating theirs risked leading someone straight back to them, so Ding Songyan took copybooks he had seen as his template, referenced the style of street-corner calligraphy and painting sellers, and wrote down in full that Faxin had deviated and colluded with the Accumulated Evil Way and that Tan Guanchan had lived in this side courtyard.

Ding Songyan didn’t embellish or offer his own guesses, only laid out the points of doubt plainly for the reader. He also didn’t mention the Celestial Thearch’s gaze as the source, saying only that after the celestial disturbance that night, the Demon Sovereign told Faxin to watch for a particular target. The Bureau could find out the details from Hu Chaohui’s ghost, since the former Sea-Treading Gang leader hadn’t scattered yet.

After using Presence-Absence Myriad Forms Qi to erase all traces, he came out of the main building and took the oversized oiled-paper umbrella back from Twelfth Madam Luo.

In the cold rain, Ding Songyan looked at the letter held down by a paperweight and Faxin’s body on the ground, raised the umbrella, and walked step by step out of the side courtyard with Twelfth Madam Luo, slowly disappearing into the deep night.

...

After a while, the "name" faded and the rain stopped, and what had happened in the side courtyard became clear.

An arrow burning with crimson flames streaked across the night sky, landing on the eaves and lodging between the tiles.

The nearby watchtower had found Monk Faxin’s body and was letting all parties know.

The fire arrow quickly went out, but it had alerted all the monks of Shilin Temple that something was wrong.

Before long, Shilin Temple’s abbot, Monk Fumo, Martial Prohibition Bureau Director Hong Zhengyang, and others had gathered in the side courtyard.

While waiting for the Bureau’s spirit channeler to arrive, they checked the rooms and soon found a letter on the main building’s table, held down by a paperweight.

Hong Zhengyang picked up the letter and read it carefully.

The more he read, the more alarmed he became.

Demon Sovereign Tan Guanchan had been living at Shilin Temple for some time, in this very side courtyard?

And through Faxin’s heart demon, he traded two moves from afar with whoever killed Faxin?

Hong Zhengyang turned, unable to hide his astonishment, to Monk Fumo, who was reading the letter too, and asked in a low voice, "Can one really sink into one of the six realms by deviating in the Nine Realms True Words?"

The Bureau Director suddenly felt this was beyond him and even beyond Deputy Chief Luo, and had to be reported at once to Chancellor Gao!

The matter involved the Demon Sovereign’s whereabouts, and anyone who could trade two moves with the Demon Sovereign and leave at ease had to be a Supreme Master too!

Chancellor Gao referred to the Martial Prohibition Bureau’s minister, Flame Chancellor Gao Wutong.

Monk Fumo, the handsome but aged monk, said after giving a Buddhist proclamation, "It is so."

Hong Zhengyang fell silent.

Can Buddhist teachings gone astray be that terrifying?

Neither he nor Monk Fumo doubted the letter’s contents for now, since Faxin’s ghost remained and they could cross-check.

Before the Bureau’s spirit channeler arrived, Faxin’s personal disciple Huien was brought over.

He had only just woken up. He looked in terror at his master’s head, severed from the body, and, utterly shattered and dazed, said to the gray-robed Monk Fumo,

"It’s that man and woman!

"It has to be them!

"Only heretics would play Go like that!"

"Namo Amitabha," Monk Fumo said in a mellow, gentle voice. "Huien, calm yourself and speak again."

Huien took a few breaths and told the abbot and Director Hong everything about what he had gone through and what the man and woman looked like.

"Do you know their names?" Hong Zhengyang pressed.

Huien’s heart tightened, and he shook his head quickly.

"I don’t know."

He had been too focused playing Go.

Hong Zhengyang didn’t look at the "Go Monk" again. He had his subordinates return to the Bureau to report and sent people to find the guest-receiving monk who had received the man and woman.

Huien stood under the eaves, uneasy, panicked, and bewildered, murmuring in disbelief, "How could he play Go like that..."

From the guest-receiving monk’s account, Hong Zhengyang, Monk Fumo, and the others learned the man and woman’s names.

"Cai Youde, Chi Yu..." Hong Zhengyang looked at Monk Fumo.

Monk Fumo thought for a moment.

"Never heard of them. They must be aliases."

"There are no traces of a fight in this courtyard. Faxin must have been killed in a few moves... and they also traded two moves with the Demon Sovereign from afar... One of Cai Youde and Chi Yu must be a Supreme Master, maybe both... sharing one umbrella, intimate relationship..." Hong Zhengyang tried to guess who was investigating the Demon Sovereign and secretly helping the Martial Prohibition Bureau.

Supreme Masters were few in the world, and couples or lovers who were both Heaven-Man were rarer still, most of them in the Self-Revering School.

After thinking for a long time, Hong Zhengyang still couldn’t match them to any Supreme Master.

"It seems that besides the names, the looks were fake too... If they were orthodox Supreme Masters, there’d be no need to hide their identities... Surely it isn’t heretics infighting again, or some heretic outside the Accumulated Evil Way giving them trouble? Or orthodox Heaven-Man from the Gan, Yu, or Feng Kingdoms who happened to be here and don’t want to expose themselves and invite trouble?" As Hong Zhengyang mused to himself, the person who could spirit channel arrived.

To their surprise, Faxin’s ghost refused to answer anything about Cai Youde and Chi Yu. It didn’t describe how they acted or how they had questioned him.

Hong Zhengyang and the Bureau’s spirit channeler had never run into this before.

It was downright bizarre!

Within half an hour, the relevant documents, Luo Feng, and Hong Zhengyang appeared at the home of Martial Prohibition Bureau Minister Gao Wutong.

The Flame Chancellor had barely passed sixty and, apart from a little silver hair at his temples, showed no sign of aging. His features were deeply cut, his face somewhat long, his nose high and straight, and his eyes weren’t large but with a child’s clear, lively spark, as if he were still early on in life.

Wearing a wooden hairpin and a casual home straight robe, Gao Wutong leafed through the documents, asking Luo Feng and Hong Zhengyang a question or two now and then.

"Faxin’s wound was deliberately destroyed, apparently to hide the art used..." Gao Wutong nodded slightly, and his gaze landed on the name "Chi Yu."

He had never heard of this person, but the surname Chi, not rare yet not common either, stirred sweet and bitter memories.

When he was young and wandering the jianghu, he had met a lady named on the Peerless Beauties of the Jianghu, Zither Fairy Chi Yanluo.

After several fated reunions, he had come to admire this beauty four years younger than himself deeply, but her heart belonged to another. She was firm and unwavering, and she eventually married Feng Zhiqiu of the Five Saints Sect, a name on the Martial World’s Jade Tree Rankings.

When he heard that Chi Yanluo had exhausted herself completing an immortal melody and had died before her time, Gao Wutong had drunk all night in the back garden.

Later, he had seen Chi Yanluo’s daughter, who resembled her mother somewhat but surpassed her, radiant and sparkling.

Gao Wutong was about to ask about details when another Bureau member asked for an audience.

This one brought Hu Chaohui’s ghost’s answer.

"Hu Chaohui says that night he dreamed of Di Hong."

"The Celestial Thearch..." Gao Wutong’s eyes narrowed slightly.

He promptly pressed down on the documents and slowly stood up.

"I shall be visiting the palace."

...

Ding Songyan slipped back to the inn, changed clothes, returned to his original appearance, used Presence-Absence Myriad Forms Qi to unify anything that might arouse suspicion, and walked toward Prince Kang’s estate with Twelfth Madam Luo.

As the cold rain stopped, lights came on in several night markets, and some Flame Capital residents, cooped up for half a day, came out for fun again.

Passing through the bustle and more serenity, Ding Songyan escorted Twelfth Madam to the back courtyard of the Cheap Wine Shop.

Twelfth Madam Luo took three sticks of calming incense from the main building and handed them to him.

"One each night before sleep. Three days should do."

After serving as the "battlefield" for the Demon Sovereign and Twelfth Madam’s exchange, Ding Songyan inevitably had suffered mental trauma and damage to his soul.

Ding Songyan thanked her and said, a bit curiously, "Chi is such a pretty surname. Is that why you chose it as your fake one, Twelfth Madam?"

"My mother’s surname is Chi." Twelfth Madam Luo’s eyes rolled up as she asked back, "Surely you didn’t pick Cai because it’s pretty?"

The corner of Ding Songyan’s mouth twitched.

"My mother’s surname is Cai..."

Talk about a coincidence!

Using Zheng, Tao, Su, and the like might lead the Martial Prohibition Bureau to make connections, so the safest choice is a surname from my last life.

Twelfth Madam Luo burst out laughing.

With his head throbbing in waves, Ding Songyan took the chance to say goodbye and headed for the back courtyard’s side door.

Just then, Twelfth Madam Luo called to him.

Ding Songyan looked back at the shopkeeper, puzzled.

Twelfth Madam Luo frowned slightly.

"Why did you play Go like that?"

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