So Messy

Xin Yongwang’s words were spoken gravely and firmly.

So, he felt that this whole thing was unfair to his Young Mistress?

Song Caitang stole a glance at Ye Nan, then continued asking Xin Yongwang, “What happened after that? After you said these things to the victim, how did he react?”

“How else did you think he would react?” Xin Yongwang’s lips curled upward in disdain. “Of course he disagreed and we started fighting.”

“I can bear witness to that!” Hua Rong suddenly raised his hand.

This young man had a face that resembled a doll’s. His eyes were large and round and he looked very serious when he stared at people. “I saw Hall Master Xin and Mr. Liao get into an argument.”

Xin Yongwang scoffed. “What a busybody.”

The young man seemed a little scared and shrank back before continuing, “It was quite late at night, so it was very quiet around here. The wedding was the next day and getting into a fight seemed inappropriate, so I tried to stop them… and then I got bashed instead.”

“They were moving too quickly so I don’t know who hit me either. But when they saw that I was hurt, they felt bad about fighting and stopped. Hall Master Xin left angrily, while I went into the room with Mr. Liao and consoled him for a bit.”

Song Caitang asked, “What did you say to him?”

Hua Rong looked down at the teacup on the table. “Just some words to counsel him… I told him that getting married is supposed to be a happy affair and everyone should be happy about it. If there’s any unhappiness or regrets, it’s best to say it out loud and not keep it inside… it’ll be bad if others misunderstand…”

“What was the victim’s expression when you said these things to him?”

“He was a little… sad, I guess?” Hua Rong recalled the scene at that time. “But he was also very certain. He really wanted to marry Ye Nan-jiejie…”

He looked up at Song Caitang. “Actually, I did have my doubts too. I wasn’t sure if he was sincere about marrying her and whether he would be able to take good care of her. Ye Nan-jiejie is such a wonderful person and deserves only the best person and the most blissful of days. But at that moment, when I saw the expression on his face, I dared not say that to him.”

The young man looked quite emotional as he said these things, so Song Caitang asked, “You call her… Ye Nan-jiejie?”

Everyone knew that the elder sect leader of the Night Sanctum only had one daughter and no sons.

Song Caitang’s question was not very direct, but everyone knew what she was trying to ask. She was essentially asking him how he was connected to this place.

Hua Rong was young, but not stupid. He immediately sat up and said, “My name is Hua Rong. Eight years ago, Ye Nan-jiejie saved my life, but she did not say who she was or where she lived. I’ve been grateful to her all this time and have been trying to look for her… I was young back then and was really scared, so my memories were a little confused and I was not searching in the right direction at first. I finally found her just a few months ago.”

“Ye Nan-jiejie was about to get married…” He lowered his gaze slightly. “I wanted to give her my blessings, so I came over specially with gifts to congratulate her.”

Xi Rui scoffed as she raised an eyebrow and dragged her words out, “You make it sound like it’s nothing, but those congratulatory gifts aren’t just any presents. They’re enough to feed a wealthy family for a few generations!”

As she spoke, she threw Hua Rong and Ye Nan suspicious glances. It was obvious what she was thinking about as she did that.

Hua Rong grew unhappy. “I’ve got money, so I can spend it any way I like, and I can give away as much as I want! Don’t you dare impose your wayward values on me, not everyone is like you!”

Ye Nan closed her eyes. “Xi Rui, that’s enough.”

“What’s wrong? Upset that I’ve seen through you?” said Xi Rui as she dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief. “My poor Xingjian has already met his downfall because of you…”

Ye Nan suddenly slammed the table. “I said, ENOUGH!”

As the Young Mistress and future sect leader of the Night Sanctum, she often kept her cool. But once she was angry, her aggression could really be felt and even her glare was enough to kill.

Xi Rui immediately stopped speaking. She froze momentarily, then covered her face with her handkerchief and started sobbing pitifully.

Song Caitang turned back to Hua Rong. “What does your family do?”

The young man was a little awkward. He turned his head aside and kicked the floor gently with a foot. “Some are court officials, some are in business… all the gifts are bought with the profits from my own business…”

“What business are you in?”

“I buy and sell medicinal herbs.”

Song Caitang lowered her gaze and tapped her finger quietly against the table. Medicinal herbs, huh.

She quickly sorted out everyone’s relationship to one another in her heart, then turned to the last two people in the room. “And the two of them are…”

Ye Nan said, “They are subordinates of my household. Xu Deye and Dong Xin.”

A man and a woman came forward and bowed politely.

“We were about to have a wedding, so everyone had to help out. The two of them have been serving the main house recently.”

Song Caitang nodded. In other words, they were servants.

“On that day, when did you last see the victim?”

Xu Deye bowed with his hands clasped in front of him. “Around noon time.”

Dong Xin bowed. “Noon time too.”

That was way before the man died. Why were they suspects?

Ye Nan explained, “We’re martial artists, and I hope you won’t laugh at this, but because we’re really good at killing people, we’re also able to tell when someone has died. Someone spotted both of them nearby around the time we believe Xingjian died.”

And so… Song Caitang looked at the two servants. “What did both of you do?”

“It’s a misunderstanding! It really is!” Xu Deye became rather anxious and quickly waved them about. “I got up to patrol the place at night! It wasn’t my turn that night, but that night was so important! Young Mistress was going to get married the next day! There were so many guests and so many things to attend to, so if anything went wrong or if anything was overlooked, we would be blamed for it! I just wanted to prevent something like that from happening because I don’t want to be punished for making a mistake, so I decided to be a little more hardworking… I didn’t expect this to happen! Being more hardworking ended up being the wrong thing to do!”

“I really didn’t do anything!”

Song Caitang asked him, “When you were making your rounds, did you see anything strange? Heard anything unusual?”

“No, I didn’t notice anything unusual!” Xu Deye licked his dry and cracked lips before lowering his head and mumbling, “That’s why I happily went right back to sleep…”

Song Caitang went on to question Dong Xin, who was in maid garb, “What about you? Why were you nearby so late?”

Dong Xin seemed a little scared and didn’t even dare to raise her head. “Late afternoon to early evening was my shift… Mr. Liao did not call for me, but before I complete my shift, I have to do one last final check. If there are any areas left untidy or dirty, I have to make sure they’re cleaned up properly, otherwise I’d definitely get scolded the next morning…”

“A wedding is a big event and I was afraid of making mistakes. That’s… all.”

Song Caitang also asked if she noticed anything unusual and Dong Xin shook her head.

The two of them seemed to be two innocent parties who had been unfortunately implicated.

Xin Yongwang took issue with their statements. “You say that you were just doing your jobs, but that’s the same with everyone in the lower ranks. But why were the two of you the only ones whom everyone said was sneaking about, taking note of whether there was anybody around, as if you were doing something you weren’t supposed to?”

“Of course you’re supposed to be careful when you’re moving around so late at night! And of course we have to look around when we patrol and inspect the place! How else are we supposed to do our jobs?”

Xu Deye seemed to have bottled up these feelings inside for a long time and everything was exploding now. “All of us are upset that Mr. Liao has been murdered. Night Sanctum belongs to Young Mistress, but we’re a part of it too. All of us have grown up here and lived here all our lives, so we all want the best for the sect, and the best for Young Mistress! Mr. Liao was killed the night before he was to get married and the murderer is still on the loose! All the people here who are jumping on one another and being suspicious of each other are well-known, outstanding figures in the martial arts world! Don’t you think your behavior is embarrassing?”

“Why would I want to kill Mr. Liao? What good would his death do me? Why don’t you find out who hates Mr. Liao the most here, or who would stand to gain the most from his death? Instead, you’re wasting time focusing on us servants!”

The room suddenly fell silent as Xu Deye pointed out several motives for killing.

Hua Rong immediately raised his hand to make his stand clear, “I just want Ye Nan-jiejie to be happy, so I definitely wouldn’t kill anybody, and I don’t intend to be connected to the Sanctum in any way! All I did was to follow the boat here and I also sent a letter to my family to tell them that I’m safe and that they need not worry. I didn’t do anything else!”

And when he thought about what happened on the boat and the interactions he had, he puffed his cheeks and stared at Zhuang Qingyu. “It was Pavilion Master Zhuang who’s been scowling all day and throwing nasty, sarcastic comments the whole way, always being so secretive and refuses to say what he’s thinking about… humph, you and Madam Xi had a conversation in secret, right? I saw that!”

Xi Rui quickly defended herself, “Watch your words! I have eyes for one man only and it’s Xingjian!”

Compared to how agitated the other two were, Zhuang Qingyu put his teacup down calmly and said, “All of us have been staying here for some time now and running into one another and saying hello is perfectly normal. Do you hate me so much just because we did not get along on the ship?”

He looked at Hua Rong, his gaze as clear, aloof and cold as the moonlight, “I didn’t want to be on that journey with you either. I just thought that since Xingjian left us just like that, I should do my best until the end. Conducting the funeral personally would be most appropriate.”

“I can understand why we would suspect one another and find reasons to attack each other, but the reason you’ve thought of,” Zhuang Qingyu’s lips curled into a smile, “is laughable. If you really want to talk about someone with special feelings toward another person, besides yourself, wouldn’t Head Hall Master Xin fit well into that category?”

“He’s the one who’s actually holding a torch for someone.”

His voice was light, like a pebble thrown into a lake, stirring gentle ripples across the water.

The ripples were gentle, but impossible to ignore.

Everyone knew who Xin Yongwang was holding a torch for.

Song Caitang was speechless. What a mess.

The case seemed simple and there weren’t a lot of suspects. But their interpersonal relationships were very complex and there were too many details and too much information to process now.

Her head hurt for a moment. She wished she had someone to help her.

If Wen Yuansi and Zhao Zhi were here, they would sit down and sort out and analyze the clues together, pick out the issues they noticed and break them down, and everything would make sense…

But she was all alone now.

She felt that there was something amiss somewhere, but she simply couldn’t digest all the information she was receiving now and couldn’t really catch hold of any passing thought she had.

She had no choice but to take every piece of information seriously, remember everything as best as she could, then think about the details later to see if she could glean anything from them.

Guan Wan wasn’t familiar with solving cases, but she was familiar with her cousin’s body language. When she noticed Song Caitang’s expression and frown, she knew her cousin was bothered by something. She decided that since she wasn’t able to crack the case and she couldn’t think of anything that could be of help, she started writing down everything everyone had said and took note of any special or obvious reactions and actions.

Now that all of them were done arguing, the room was quiet again. It was about time too – Song Caitang put her teacup down. “I’ll inspect the body then.”

Everyone knew she meant that she was going to dissect the body.

The atmosphere in the room grew even more tense.

Song Caitang stood up. “Does anyone want to stand by the side to watch?”

Xin Yongwang and Zhuang Qingyu took a step forward at the same time. “I’ll go.”

The two men did not fight and there was a slight flicker in their eyes as they looked at Song Caitang with a similar expression.

Song Caitang nodded. She wasn’t afraid to let others watch her dissect bodies.

“I want to go.” Ye Nan closed her eyes slightly and took a deep breath. “Even if he’s cut open… I don’t want to miss what he looks like during his last moments in this world.”

Xi Rui smiled icily. “I’m going too!”

Everyone stared at her in confusion. Wasn’t she the one opposed to cutting Liao Xingjian’s body open?

Xi Rui pressed her hair gently, “I’ve straightened my thoughts out. If doing this will really help us to find the actual killer, that would be best. Why should I allow myself to become a suspect for nothing?” She narrowed her eyes slightly as she slowly scanned everyone else in the room. “If even the real killer dares to go, why wouldn’t I?”