Unbelievable Observation Skills

“You’re afraid of women acting cutesy around you?”

Song Caitang took the piece of cloth from the man and looked at it carefully in the light, but she didn’t stop her snarky comments.

“In most cases, men love it when women do that. So, if you don’t like it, there are two possibilities. One, women don’t like you, or you don’t like women. Two, you get it too often, and you’re traumatized by it. Which one are you?”

The man narrowed his eyes at her, “You’re very interested to find out which one I am?”

Song Caitang froze and the smile on her face faded.

He had really gotten angry this time and was deliberately finding a different way to deal with her. He wasn’t going to play along with her anymore.

“No, no.” She turned and looked very seriously at him, “Having excellent observation skills is no fault of mine.”

The man’s eyebrow twitched violently but he didn’t say anything.

She smiled and pointed at the water stains on his shoes, “You’re afraid of water, yet you bravely decided to rescue someone from possibly drowning. Don’t give me that look – you can look as fierce as you like, but it can’t hide the soft heart you have. You might find women troublesome, but you don’t bully or humiliate them with evil intentions. When you were holding my waist in the air earlier, your breathing was a little faster than normal, which means you’re not entirely uninterested in women.”

The man’s glare was getting more and more intense. He looked like he was ready to murder someone now.

“It’s a natural thing that happens between men and women, so there’s no need to be so shy about it.”

Song Caitang was gentle and unassuming as she consoled him, “You let go of me immediately when we landed, but it’s not because you couldn’t wait to get rid of me. Based on the way you speak and behave, you’re not the humble and cautious gentleman either, so…”

“You’re probably bothered by women a lot, so you have the habit of making sure you keep a distance whenever you interact with women. Your instinct is to be wary of them because you don’t want to attract them and you don’t want them to get close to you.”

“You’re afraid that I…might harass you.”

Song Caitang’s eyes gleamed with intelligence, “It’s too bad, I have strange tastes. There are things that others like that I might not.”

The man scoffed, “So, I should feel honored?”

“Perhaps. After all, a woman like me,” Song Caitang smiled sincerely, “is born into a lowly family and often clashes with those from prominent families. Few can truly tolerate it.”

“From prominent families?”

“No?” Song Caitang raised and eyebrow as her smile brightened, “Since the beginning of time, there are two ways to make women like you and surround you. One is to be good looking, and the other is to hail from a well-to-do family. Your face…”

“Tsk tsk.” She shrugged and looked like she thought it was such a pity, “So, you must be from a very, very outstanding family.”

The man began to grind his teeth.

“Luanze isn’t a very developed place, so there aren’t a lot of scions that could make the hearts of women flutter to choose from. You must be from elsewhere.”

Song Caitang began to speak more quickly and objectively, “You’re not local, and you’re either rich or someone of high status, plus you’ve come to a place where a murder has taken place. And if I remember correctly, you called me ‘Miss Song’ earlier. Since you know my surname, you must have either done some investigations, or you watched me dissect the body earlier today.”

“I admit that I’m from an ordinary family and nobody would be interested in finding out who I am, so you must be here because you’re interested in the murder at Tianhua Temple.”

It wasn’t difficult to reach a conclusion after putting all those facts together.

“Am I right? Surveillance Commissioner Zhao Zhi?”

Song Caitang’s gaze was calm and her smile was faint, but the words she spoke were like the crashing waves of the ocean.

It was hard for Zhao Zhi to remain unimpressed.

This woman was too smart.

Song Caitang had been observing his expression all this while. So she knew that she had guessed it right.

“I’m sorry for offending you earlier,” she bowed and put on a graceful and respectful expression, “I was an ignorant country bumpkin who couldn’t recognize Commissioner Zhao immediately, so I hope that you will be magnanimous and not fault a young girl like myself.”

Zhao Zhi looked straight at Song Caitang and said in a slow voice, “Weren’t you veeeery good at talking just now? So good, you were ready to kill someone with your words?”

Wasn’t it a little too late to suddenly turn around and say she was just an ignorant woman who didn’t mean to offend?

Song Caitang kept her smile on, “I’m sure you must be a very magnanimous man who wouldn’t make life difficult for a young girl. Besides, we’re all alone here, just one man and one woman. It’s fine if we just leave things as they are and go our own way, but if we keep pursuing one particular matter and become entangled…”

She didn’t have to finish her sentence. That was a big enough hint.

If a woman didn’t have any intention to make things difficult for another, nothing would happen. But once she did, Zhao Zhi knew better than anyone else how difficult it could be to get rid of a woman bent on harassing him.

Worse still, this particular woman was the unbelievably clever Song Caitang!

She could gather so much information in such a short time with so little interaction. If she really wanted to get him, he couldn’t possibly hide from her. No matter how he tried to hide or what he did, she would definitely be able to find out.

This woman was threatening him!

Zhao Zhi swallowed his anger and rubbed his temples. He couldn’t be bothered to quibble with her anymore, “Fine. Back to this piece of cloth. Is this evidence?”

Song Caitang raised her brows slightly and smiled. This surveillance commissioner was pretty clever too.

“Maybe, maybe not.” She unfolded the cloth to let Zhao Zhi have a look, “The tear marks on the side of this cloth are quite obvious, so something must have torn it with great force. Judging from the height and position of that tree, it’s possible that someone jumped through that area very quickly, but part of their clothing got caught on a branch and it tore this piece off.”

This person might be skilled in martial arts too.

“Commissioner Zhao,” Song Caitang pointed at a very small dot at the edge of the cloth, “isn’t this blood?”

The dot was very small and faint, so one wouldn’t notice if you didn’t look closely enough. The smell wasn’t strong even if you brought your nose close to it.

But Song Caitang’s olfactory senses were more sensitive than most others. She was very sure this was blood.

Zhao Zhi had spent some time on the battlefield, and even after he returned to the capital, he was assigned to several tasks that required his fighting abilities, so he had seen a lot of bloody fights and wasn’t unfamiliar with the smell of blood. He could smell this dot, too.

Song Caitang frowned, “It could be a coincidence, but since we found this near the scene of the crime, we can’t just ignore it.”

If this piece of cloth really had something to do with the case, then it could serve as a very important piece of evidence.

“Work hard then.”

Zhao Zhi turned and left after saying these three words.

He left just like that?!

Song Caitang blinked in surprise for a long time.

She had angered him, then showed off her capabilities, making Zhao Zhi angry and surprised at the same time, but he stayed here anyway. And now that the topic had moved on to the case, he decided to leave?

Did he not care for the case? Or was he happy to let her handle it?

Song Caitang suddenly felt that there were many aspects about this surveillance commissioner she still couldn’t figure out.

Wait a minute. Was he doing this on purpose?

Like maybe he was trying to tell her, “Don’t think you know me that well!” or something?

Interesting.

Song Caitang narrowed her eyes as she looked at Zhao Zhi’s back view as he walked away and suddenly remembered something. It seemed…she had met this person before.

Two days ago, she had saved that man from dying outside the blacksmith’s shop, then met with Old Madam Li, then rushed downstairs and nearly ran into a person. That person’s back view looked like this man’s. After all, someone with this impossible figure, a tall, broad, and strong man who could still maintain such a beautiful silhouette, was easy to recognize. Even if a person purposely tried to train themselves to have such a figure, it was hard to actually attain this.

Song Caitang paused for a while but did not stick around for long. She strolled off with the cloth in hand.

She was beginning to feel that this ancient era she was in wasn’t that boring after all.

Not long after she left, a snap resounded from the bamboo raft on the pond. The string holding the bamboo sticks together had snapped, and the raft came apart…

About 15 minutes later, Zhao Zhi returned. He kept his gaze on the ground and seemed to be looking for something.

In no time, he picked up a jade pendant at the same place where he stood with Song Caitang earlier.

It was made from very expensive white jade, with an intricately designed mythical river dragon carved into it. It was a symbol of his status as someone belonging to the royal family.

The difference was that the claws of the dragon were now holding one strand of purple silk that reflected the brilliant sunshine in the light…the tassels on Song Caitang’s dress weights were exactly this color.

Why had the jade pendant dropped in such a place? The answer was obvious.

It must have come off by accident when he put Song Caitang down.

Song Caitang had been too much of an expert at making him angry, so he hadn’t noticed that he’d dropped it until much later.

As he kept the pendant, a glint flashed in his eyes.

Song Caitang…

She was intelligent, sly, and had the rare skill of dissecting dead bodies. When she didn’t smile, she looked aloof and unfriendly. When she did, she looked as warm as the spring sun. And she seemed very fascinated with water.

This woman was not like most others.

After standing there for a while, Zhao Zhi did not leave. Instead, he scanned the area carefully once more. He took an especially careful look at that tree again.

He could still remember exactly which direction the cloth was hanging in and the way it was rolled up. How would one run, and which direction would one be running from in order to cause this? Did it have anything to do with that case?

He tried jumping through twice himself, landing on the ground with a neat tumble, and stood upright again. He suddenly turned and glowered at the water.

His eyes narrowed slightly, and his brows were furrowed as he clenched his fists, as though he really didn’t want to go anywhere near the water. But in the end, he let out a long sigh and walked over.

Once he got there, he noticed the scattered bamboo sticks and the string that once held them together floating neatly on the surface of the water.

Half the raft was neatly tied, but the far edge was a mess. It wasn’t that the raft itself had been tied together poorly or that the string had broken after soaking in the water for too long. Someone had cut the string! And this person had purposely made sure that the string could still hold up for a while before breaking.

Who was this person trying to harm? Song Caitang?

If he hadn’t forcibly removed her from the raft, Song Caitang would have fallen into the water if she had remained on it for a while more.

But Song Caitang said she knew how to swim…

He snorted to himself as he raised an eyebrow. His irises seemed as deep as the starry sky.

“This woman is very troublesome indeed.”