No one could answer this question.
Li Yuchun broke the silence. "What's the reason for the supernatural creature stealing the tax silver?"
Prefect Chen pondered briefly before responding. "Supernatural creatures act without conscience, doing as they please. Seeking a reason is just inviting trouble for ourselves."
The yellow-dressed girl, however, had a different opinion. "Isn't human flesh tastier… Hmm, wait a moment, let me finish these buns first."
She gobbled down two large meat buns with impressive speed, her cheeks puffing up like a chipmunk storing food for winter. After swallowing with visible effort and taking a long sip of tea to wash everything down, she returned to the previous topic—now free to casually discuss the consumption of human flesh:
"Supernatural creatures act without restraint. Silver might not be as tempting to them as living humans. Even if they wanted silver, theft or robbery would be safer than directly stealing tax silver."
In the capital of Great Feng, stealing tax silver in broad daylight was extraordinarily risky—practically suicidal.
Prefect Chen nodded thoughtfully. "That makes sense. We can't rule out the possibility of human instigation."
Li Yuchun's eyes narrowed to calculating slits. "Then who would instigate supernatural creatures to steal tax silver? What's the reason? Why specifically this batch of tax silver, and why exactly 150,000 taels?"
"We can think of it this way: the mastermind needs a huge sum of money but can't make too big a commotion…" Prefect Chen paused as understanding dawned. "More precisely, they can't accumulate wealth recklessly."
"So they targeted the tax silver?" The yellow-dressed girl pursed her brightly colored lips in consideration.
"The tax silver transport route is randomized, decided on the spot by Centurion Liu Pingzhi of the Imperial Sword Guard. Yet the supernatural creature was able to ambush them in the river in advance…" Li Yuchun let the implication hang in the air before glancing at Prefect Chen. "There's likely an insider in the transport team. Shall we go to the Yunlu Academy and ask a Confucian expert to read minds?"
The yellow-dressed girl gave him a sidelong glance dripping with disdain. "Are you looking down on our Astrology Bureau's aura-reading skills? I've already said that all the soldiers transporting the tax silver were completely unaware."
Their train of thought hit another dead end, and the three investigators fell into frustrated silence.
The air grew heavy with tension and unspoken worry.
Li Yuchun lowered his head to examine the case files with renewed intensity, searching for anything they might have missed. Prefect Chen sighed deeply, the weight of imperial pressure evident in the sound. The yellow-dressed girl fiddled absently with the feng shui compass at her waist, her mind already wandering to more pleasant thoughts—she needed to leave the Metropolitan Prefecture before sunset to sneak a meal with the Elder Princess in the palace.
The palace chefs' culinary skills were world-class! Thinking about it made her mouth water.
Compared to the two officials, the yellow-dressed girl named Caiwei acted more as a guest consultant, assisting in the investigation without bearing the full weight of responsibility. She held no official position, and although she was one of the case leaders, she didn't need to shoulder the consequences of failure the way they would.
Prefect Chen's eyes flickered with something like desperation as he probed carefully, "The case is progressing slowly, and time is of the essence. It's truly anxiety-inducing. Master Li, why don't we seek advice from Lord Wei?"
The middle-aged man glanced at him sideways and snorted coldly. "You civil officials have your court inspections, and we night watchmen have ours. To be frank, this is the assessment Lord Wei has given me."
Prefect Chen smiled bitterly, understanding the predicament. "If we can't solve this case, I'm afraid I won't be able to keep my position either. The entire court and populace are watching us."
The two men fell silent, gazing at each other across the table. The atmosphere grew even heavier, oppressive with the weight of impending failure.
"If it's the work of supernatural creatures, then I'm completely helpless!" Xu Qi'an's face turned pale as he felt the deep, profound malice of the heavens bearing down on him.
This world had supernatural creatures—monsters, demons, spirits. The supernatural races had existed since ancient times, hunting and devouring each other alongside humans in an eternal struggle for dominance.
In the Ten Thousand Mountains of the Southern Borderlands, there had once been a kingdom of supernatural creatures, the largest gathering place for their kind—a nightmare realm where humans dared not tread.
Five hundred years ago, the Western countries, led by the Buddhist sect, had declared war on the supernatural kingdom in the Southern Borderlands. The war lasted for sixty brutal years, eventually annihilating the supernatural kingdom in a campaign of systematic extermination.
Historical records named this genocidal crusade the "Sixty-Year Supernatural Purge."
Since then, the supernatural races' destinies had been damaged beyond repair, and they gradually declined into scattered remnants. The Buddhist sect, on the other hand, soared to prominence on the backs of their conquest, and Buddhism flourished across the land.
Using Xu Qi'an's knowledge from his previous life, he understood the brutal truth: humans had won this battle for the top of the food chain. The supernatural creatures were now the hunted, not the hunters.
If the tax silver theft was truly the work of supernatural creatures, then he could only save himself and the Liu family by recovering the silver—an impossible task.
As a peak Qi Refinement cultivator, equivalent to an unyielding silver rank fighter, Xu Qi'an knew he had no way to turn the tables against a genuine supernatural threat.
In the autumn season, the weather was damp and cold. Yet Xu Qi'an broke out in a different kind of cold sweat—the sweat of pure, undiluted fear.
He was terrified!
Having fully integrated the original owner's memories, he knew with absolute certainty that he had no chance of escaping prison. He also knew that in this society where imperial power reigned supreme and absolute, human rights were virtually nonexistent.
Life and death were decided at the whim of others—a stroke of the emperor's brush, a magistrate's mood.
He had previously entertained foolish fantasies about traveling back in time to ancient China to show off by reciting Tang poetry, thinking it would be cool and impressive. Reality had given him a harsh slap across the face.
Even after transmigrating to another world, he still had to face society's cruel beating. Some things never changed.
"No, this is just speculation. This is just the Metropolitan Prefecture's conjecture. I can't be influenced by their guesses. I'll analyze it myself… There's still hope, still hope…"
A fierce survival instinct kicked in, making him quickly calm down. His logic became rigorous and clear once again, his mind sharpening like a blade.
"Why would supernatural creatures steal tax silver? Isn't human flesh more appealing to them… Even if they needed silver for some reason, they wouldn't necessarily target tax silver specifically… I've heard that supernatural female creatures are all alluring and graceful… I wonder if there are cat girls or dog girls in this world…"
"Slap!" Xu Qi'an slapped himself hard across the face. "Focus! Back to deduction!"
The most important aspect of proper deduction was elimination—listing the clues one by one and sorting through them methodically.
Otherwise, it became a tangled mess, getting more confusing the more you thought about it. You'd end up chasing your own tail.
There were two most obvious clues in the tax silver case:
One: Supernatural wind!
Two: The tax silver exploded after falling into the river!
Apart from martial artists, all major cultivation systems possessed the ability to summon supernatural winds. Therefore, "Clue One" could only serve as evidence of a "cultivator's" involvement, without providing more specific targets.
This observation actually lessened the suspicion of his Second Uncle, who came from a pure martial arts background—though it didn't completely rule out the possibility of him conspiring with others.
Clue Two—the explosion—was the more interesting anomaly. Explosions were normal in battles between high-level cultivators, when energy clashed against energy. However, in this tax silver theft case, there had been no physical confrontation, no battle at all. So the occurrence of an explosion was deeply unreasonable.
"Unless the explosion was necessary!" Xu Qi'an muttered to himself, pacing the small confines of his cell.
"Among the major cultivation systems, which profession needs to rely on explosions to achieve its goals?"
Xu Qi'an thought hard for a moment but couldn't come up with anything concrete. Then he realized with frustration that he had made the same fundamental mistake as the Metropolitan Prefecture.
The Metropolitan Prefecture's line of thinking had gone wrong from the very start. Based on the most obvious clues in the case, they had determined that the culprit was a supernatural creature, and then they had run wild with this idea, never to return to reexamine their basic assumptions.
This wasn't necessarily wrong in itself—following obvious evidence was sound practice. The problem was that this judgment had been too hasty, too eager. They'd wanted an answer so badly they'd grabbed the first one that presented itself.
Although Xu Qi'an had integrated the original owner's memories, his modern way of thinking still dominated his mental processes, primarily based on his previous life experience. He preferred to dissect case files meticulously, chewing over those easily overlooked details before reaching any conclusions.
"I can't figure out this path for now, so let's change the approach and break through from another angle. First, I'll rule out supernatural creatures causing trouble and assume instead that this is a carefully planned, man-made event.
"If that's true, there must be flaws left somewhere in the case—no crime is perfect.
"Locard's exchange principle tells us that any crime will inevitably leave direct or indirect traces at the scene… Every contact leaves a trace.
"All sorts of traces can be divided into two main categories. I can't remember the specific classification, but they should include hand and footprints, fingerprints, vehicle and horse tracks, tool and equipment marks, and so on.
"The flaw isn't in the two most obvious clues—those are too obvious, possibly deliberately so. The real answer is in these various traces…"
Based on the case file descriptions, Xu Qi'an replayed the process of his Second Uncle transporting the tax silver in his mind, running through it like watching a film.
Adrenaline flooded his system, and brain cells fired at maximum capacity. If information could be personified, they would be like koi in a pond, frantically competing for food—the surface of his consciousness boiling with activity.
He replayed the scene over and over again, examining every detail from different angles.
Various pieces of information and clues from the case files converged and collided. His brain operated like a high-speed CPU processing massive amounts of data simultaneously.
As different pieces of information came together and interconnected, the case became clearer and clearer—like fog burning away under morning sun.
Without consciously willing it, Xu Qi'an felt himself enter a strange state. His soul floated lightly, breaking through his mortal body, breaking through the prison building, and arriving high above the capital city.
Time seemed to flow backward. In the east, dawn was breaking, and the sun was about to rise over the horizon. Liu Pingzhi led a group of heavily armed soldiers, escorting the tax silver through the streets toward the Ministry of Revenue.
At this time, it was the second quarter of the Mao hour—early morning. As they reached Guangnan Street, suddenly a gust of supernatural wind blew from nowhere, startling the horses, which reared and plunged into the river in panic.
Boom!
The river surface exploded violently, muddy waves surging skyward in a fountain of water and debris.
This explosion seemed to resound in Xu Qi'an's heart as well, jolting him back to awareness. He reflexively kicked out his legs and came crashing back to his senses, back into his body, back into his cell.
His eyes were filled with deep fatigue from the intense mental effort, but his face was transformed by excitement and wild, unbridled joy.
"I know, I know, haha, I've solved the puzzle!!" Xu Qi'an laughed like a madman, pounding on the iron bars with both fists. "Someone come! Someone come quickly!"
The jailer on duty was startled from his half-doze and came over with a fire stick, cursing irritably. "All this noise, are you tired of living?"
He banged the fire stick hard against the bars to frighten Xu Qi'an into submission.
Xu Qi'an took a prudent step back, releasing his grip on the bars to avoid having his fingers broken by the club. He said in a deep, urgent voice, "I need to see the Prefect."
"A prisoner wanting to see the Prefect…" The jailer laughed mockingly. "Why don't you take a piss and look at yourself?"
He extended the fire stick through the bars to poke at Xu Qi'an, trying to teach this upstart prisoner a lesson.
Xu Qi'an retreated again to dodge the jab.
"You dare to dodge?" The jailer fingered the keys at his waist, sneering with malicious intent. "I'll break your legs today, teach you some respect."
"I have important clues about the tax silver theft case. I need to see the Prefect." Xu Qi'an stared at him with unwavering intensity. "If the case is delayed because you wouldn't pass along my message, you'll be held responsible."
The jailer's face froze, his confident sneer cracking.
In the inner hall, the girl who had finished eating meat buns was now chewing on sugarcane with evident satisfaction, occasionally pulling out preserved fruits from her deerskin pouch to eat alongside it.
On one side of the room: gloom and despair. On the other: carefree indifference.
"His Majesty has ordered us to solve the case within five days because if too much time passes, the tax silver might never be recovered," Prefect Chen paced back and forth in the hall like a caged animal, unable to sit still even for a moment. "But with time so pressing, we're at a loss for what to do."
Solving cases took time—you couldn't rush investigation and deduction.
The Prefect stopped pacing and clapped his hands decisively. "I'll personally go and ask Lord Wei for the case files."
Li Yuchun hesitated, clearly torn. "I'll go with you."
The yellow-dressed girl glanced at him, her smile charming but cutting. "That works. With our Great Feng's master strategist taking charge, you two won't have to face His Majesty's questioning directly. But losing points in Lord Wei's eyes is much worse than facing His Majesty's questioning."
She smiled wider, revealing two small, pearly white canine teeth that somehow made the expression more predatory than friendly.
The middle-aged man's face darkened visibly, but he had no retort.
A yamen runner in black clothes suddenly hurried in, bowing as he reported breathlessly, "Prefect, the jailer reports that Liu Pingzhi's nephew, Xu Qi'an, just said he has important clues about the tax silver theft case and wishes to see you, sir."
The three investigators' gazes sharpened simultaneously, their attention snapping into focus like hawks spotting prey.
Xu Qi'an… If memory served, he was just a peripheral figure completely unrelated to the case. After initial questioning and routine torture, he had been deemed an irrelevant bystander and tossed into a cell to await his uncle's fate.
Prefect Chen pondered for only a moment before deciding. "Bring him here."
Shortly after, Xu Qi'an appeared, wearing prison clothes stained with dried blood that told stories of previous interrogations. As he walked, his handcuffs and shackles clanked noisily with each step—a grim percussion announcing his arrival.
The three investigators watched him approach with varying expressions of curiosity, skepticism, and interest.
The game, it seemed, was about to change.
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