Chapter 303: The Xie Family

Golden Spring Street, the Xie residence.

While leading Ding Songyan toward his own small courtyard, Xie Fengchao said to him, "I was just about to look for you. Miss Zheng has sent another letter."

Senior Sister has finally reported she’s safe... By my count, it’s about time. After a day or two with the caravan she could leave it and head for Changhua on her own, which would be much faster... Ding Songyan entered Xie Fengchao’s study and watched him find the letter and hand it over.

He didn’t stand on ceremony and opened it on the spot to read.

As he had expected, Zheng Zhuxi had traveled south with the caravan for a day and then left on her own, turning east. Sometimes she used the Waxing Moon Phantom Form, sometimes borrowed or swapped horses, and made it home in only three days.

She had told only her father that she was about to break through, planning to keep it quiet until her realm stabilized and her martial arts improved.

The second half of the letter was mostly her concern for Ding Songyan, asking whether he had met Ji Hanyi and whether he’d been hurt.

Now that Senior Sister has a fairly complete understanding of the situation, she can write a lot more obliquely without worrying about someone stumbling on it by accident... Ding Songyan quietly breathed a sigh of relief.

"Ji Hanyi" could be replaced with Little Sister or Sister, so anyone reading would just think it was a family letter.

I’ll write back today to put Senior Sister’s mind at ease... Though I no longer have to worry about Little Sister intercepting or swapping letters, I should still prepare two copies and send them through both the Hongxin Trading Company and the Liheng Bank, in case Ji Hanyi was lying to me before. Besides, she said herself that every so often she picks something to do against her own heart... Ding Songyan thought for a moment and said to Xie Fengchao with a smile, "Could I borrow a brush, ink, paper, and inkstone?"

"Isn’t this reply a bit too eager?" Xie Fengchao found it funny.

"You wouldn’t understand." Ding Songyan went to the desk on his own, found a sheet of paper, and spread it out.

Xie Fengchao handed over the brush and inkstone and teased in a drawn-out voice, "I don’t understand, true. All I know is what the plays always say: a couple invokes more envy than immortals."

See, you really don’t understand. I’m worried that what I’m about to tell you will send shockwaves through the Liheng Bank and affect my mail, so I’m sending this first... Ding Songyan gathered his thoughts for a moment and packaged his exchange with Ji Hanyi as a brother and sister’s household chatter. He left out only the part that would expose Twelfth Madam’s true identity, but instead of hiding it outright, he told Zheng Zhuxi why he wasn’t saying and promised to explain after the Flame Capital business was over.

The matter of going to the Yin-Yang Temple to fish for information from Jiang Lanting, he wrote as an everyday gathering of a handful of friends for fun and sparring, hiding the key details in trivialities.

Xie Fengchao didn’t try to peek at the content of Ding Songyan’s letter, afraid of being grossed out by the lovey-dovey stuff.

After copying the finished letter, Ding Songyan folded and sealed one copy, handed it to Xie Fengchao, and said with an ingratiating smile, "Fifth Brother, my dear Fifth Xie, could I trouble you to have the Liheng Bank send this out right now?"

Xie Fengchao hissed.

"Second Ding, don’t say I didn’t warn you. There’s a saying that deep love doesn’t last, so take it easy.

"Ah, but for that ’Fifth Xie,’ I’ll get it done for you."

He took the letter, left the study, and went personally to find the Liheng Bank’s manager.

Ding Songyan stayed in the room and picked up a miscellaneous book to leaf through casually. In the meantime, a pretty maid brought tea, snacks, and other things.

After nearly half an hour, Xie Fengchao returned and said to Ding Songyan with a smile, "Perfect timing. It goes out in two hours."

Ding Songyan thanked him first, then closed the book and said seriously, "Fifth Xie, there’s something else I need to ask you. What I say now comes out of my mouth and goes into your ear, and nowhere else."

Seeing the usually easygoing, smiling Second Ding with a serious expression, Xie Fengchao also instinctively put away his smile.

"Go ahead."

Ding Songyan said, unhurried, "Have you ever seen a sleeve arrow that looks like it’s made of gold, gleams with a pure light, gives off some heat, and can destroy ghosts?"

He was trying to use a rare item to pin down the true identity of the man in the bamboo hat from last night.

"No." Xie Fengchao shook his head, puzzled. "From your description, it sounds like Sunlight, a hidden weapon that my Xie family and the Fang family once conceived. It would be made from Great Sun golden essence and Kunwu bronze and other heavenly treasures, used with a specific technique, to make up for the weakness of having trouble against vengeful ghosts. But the treasures are too hard to collect, and it’s really not worth it for such a small use."

Kunwu bronze was a heavenly treasure used for forging divine weapons. The famous Eight Swords of King Yue of the current age were mainly cast from it, hence also called the Eight Swords of Kunwu. Ding Songyan’s Frostshade also contained a little Kunwu bronze.

"Have you seen something like Sunlight?" Xie Fengchao suddenly caught on.

Ding Songyan nodded.

"Last night I was tracking a Returning Abyss Order member..."

He gave a brief account of last night, focusing on the man in the bamboo hat and his two mechanical hidden weapons.

Ding Songyan didn’t deliberately mislead him, but it was in fact the man in the bamboo hat who had killed Shang Liangyun.

Xie Fengchao assumed the Returning Abyss Order member who was killed was only at the Great Proliferation Realm and didn’t pay attention to that. He looked at Ding Songyan with a grave expression.

"You suspect the man in the bamboo hat is from our Xie family?"

"Could also be from the Fang family," Ding Songyan said by way of reassurance.

Xie Fengchao fell silent, his fingers rubbing the teacup beside him.

After a while, he exhaled.

"Second Ding, I’m indebted to you for this. You actually told me about this frankly."

"Just remember it," Ding Songyan chuckled. "Besides, I’m also doing it to catch the Returning Abyss Order people."

That was true. Last night, through the Dream Sword, he had discovered that the Returning Abyss Divine Art might be of some use to him.

Returning Abyss was similar to Bringing All Things Into Unity, while Disaster-Averting was close to the Way of Utmost Sincerity’s prescience. This divine art might serve as an intermediate bridge for folding the Scripture of Utmost Sincerity into the Chaos Scripture, letting Ding Songyan finish that early.

He had originally thought it wouldn’t be too hard to fold the Returning Abyss part of the Returning Abyss Divine Art into the Chaos Scripture, but its effect was almost entirely encompassed by Bringing All Things Into Unity, so there was no need to waste effort. Now he found that the Returning Abyss was connected to Disaster-Averting. Although the latter might not fold into the Chaos Scripture well, the way it coexisted with the Returning Abyss could serve as a reference.

Xie Fengchao was silent for a moment, then added, "Going by your description, that man in the bamboo hat really does seem like someone from our family or the Fang family.

"The Star-Shattering Precious Canon started as martial arts and hand techniques. Only later did it add signature hidden weapons one by one.

"Some of these signature hidden weapons win by their unique materials, like my Instantaneous Blossom. Sunlight has never been forged or used before, but I can’t rule out that someone happened to get Great Sun golden essence and Kunwu bronze and other heavenly treasures and secretly made one. Its casting isn’t complicated.

"That’s hard to trace. Though such treasures are rare, they mostly circulate quietly."

Xie Fengchao paused, then continued in a low voice, "But the more mechanical hidden weapon can be looked into. Our Xie family keeps several Jiguren and other skilled craftsmen who make signature hidden weapons and special mechanisms for the family. The Fang family does the same.

"Each trade has its specialists. That man in the bamboo hat can’t have made those spherical mechanisms himself. If we find the source, we can find out who he is.

"Come on, let’s go talk to those craftsmen. Maybe we’ll find some clues, and I hope to clear our Xie family of suspicion."

Ding Songyan looked at Fifth Young Master Xie.

"So eager, and you don’t think of covering it up?"

Xie Fengchao put on a grim, forced smile.

"When our Xie family split off from the Fang family, the ancestors left behind a saying: ’Better to go slowly than to go wrong.’"

With that, Young Master Xie stood up and walked toward the study door.

Ding Songyan followed beside him and asked casually, "You’re not reporting to the family head and going to the workshop to investigate on your own?

"Aren’t you afraid of being silenced?"

Since the man in the bamboo hat had used the spherical mechanisms and the Sunlight sleeve arrow, he would most likely guard against anyone investigating along those lines, especially as he hadn’t managed to kill Ding Songyan, who was also there.

Xie Fengchao gave a wry laugh.

"Right now I look at every Grandmaster in my family and think something’s wrong. If I report it up, there might be no follow-up.

"If we can deal with this now, good. If we drag it out until it’s a long-standing problem, we’re in trouble."

As he spoke, he turned his head toward Ding Songyan.

"This is the capital, under the emperor’s nose, and I’m visiting openly and aboveboard. I shouldn’t be assassinated.

"If the man in the bamboo hat really takes a desperate gamble, that proves he really is from our Xie family. In that case, Second Ding, don’t worry about me. Escape on your own, and use my death to make a fuss and make the Xie family take this seriously. I believe most of the Grandmasters in my family are still good."

Aristocratic sons really do value their families. Fifth Xie is a responsible one too... Ding Songyan laughed.

"Don’t worry. I got away from the man in the bamboo hat last night, and if I’m attacked today I can run just the same."

Xie Fengchao took a breath and led Ding Songyan to the back alley of Golden Spring Street.

The Xie family workshop was right there, closed to outsiders, and the skilled craftsmen lived around these two streets, all under the Xie family’s watch.

"I just thought about the style of that spherical mechanism. Only three people are good at this kind of thing. We’ll visit them one by one and test the waters." Xie Fengchao glanced at the sky.

It was nearly noon, and the workshop’s people were about to have a break for meals.

The first person Xie Fengchao and Ding Songyan visited was the Jiguren, Old Master Pang. After hearing Xie Fengchao’s idea for the spherical mechanism, the old craftsman said it couldn’t be done with mechanisms alone and that a special technique would have to be created to go with it, or it wouldn’t achieve the expected effect.

His inner voice said the same.

The two then went to a nearby courtyard, home to the Jiguren, Dou Nanwei, the sixth child of his family.

Just as Xie Fengchao was about to knock, Ding Songyan suddenly sighed.

"I smell blood."

What... Xie Fengchao’s eyes narrowed. He pushed open the half-closed wooden door and swept into the main room as fast as a gale.

A three-eyed, one-legged Jiguren lay dead beside the square table, eyes wide open, a deep wound in his chest, the blood that had flowed out long since congealed.

Though Ding Songyan knew he might not be able to spirit channel, he still opened his yin eyes to look, and the result was as expected.

He turned to Xie Fengchao and said calmly, "Report to your family head."

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