Only two pieces of charcoal remained in the basket beside the brazier, huddled against each other like the last survivors of something.
Cai Zhao dragged a stool over and sat in front of the dying heat. She fed it bamboo tiles from the floor one by one, coaxing the weak flames into something stronger.
Qi Yunke had the room checked a second time. Despite being deliberately cleaned, every surface told the same story: no signs of a struggle, nothing moved or replaced. No mark on the floor, the walls, the bed frame, the chairs.
Nothing.
Zeng Dalou had his disciples tear through every corner of Yuelai Inn. They came back with the same blank hands.
With no evidence, people began to wonder aloud if Cai Pingchun had simply walked out on his own.
Qi Yunke coughed softly, brow furrowed. "Is it possible Pingchun encountered something urgent and had no choice? Because with his skill, no one could have overpowered him."
Cai Zhao sat with her fingers spread toward the heat, head down, as if she hadn't heard.
By the time gray light filled the sky, everyone gave up and left. Before rising, Cai Zhao fed the last bamboo tile to the coals. The flames slowly faded and the room turned cold.
On the road back, Cai Zhao noticed new faces throughout Wuzhong. Several she had seen in town the day before. They walked at a measured pace, breathing slow, eyes quiet and watchful. Like gray sand sifting in through cracks, unnoticed.
"Who are they?" she asked.
Fan Xingjia stepped close and lowered her voice. "I don't know them either. A few days ago, Master said the demon had been moving again, that his ambitions were growing and the martial world was heading somewhere dark. He sent Elder Brother out with his token to bring in some outside help. Asked me to prepare the guest courtyard."
"Outside help?" Cai Zhao frowned. "They looked like clan descendants."
"I don't think so." Fan Xingjia moved even closer. "I've seen enough outer disciples to know the difference. These people are closed off, barely speak, and look like they've bled before."
Zeng Dalou drifted over. "What are you whispering about?"
Fan Xingjia repeated the question. He smiled and lowered his own voice, affecting a look of knowing mystery. "As head of the Six Sects, Master can't afford to show all his cards. Some pieces sit above the table. Some sit under it."
Cai Zhao blinked at him, half-understanding.
Zeng Dalou tried again. "In the old days, even Emperor Yin's command had no shortage of capable people, but true masters were rare."
Chang Ning, walking slightly apart, turned his head and made a quiet sound of contempt.
Cai Zhao asked: "Did Elder Brother know all along that Master kept hidden staff in the sect?"
Zeng Dalou paused, then laughed sourly. "Only found out recently. My martial arts are poor enough that Master probably thought telling me would just get me killed."
Cai Zhao said nothing.
Chang Ning suddenly pointed ahead. "Who are those people?"
At some point, Song Yuzhi had become ringed by a circle of fighters. All of them were sharp-eyed and still, dressed in deep scarlet brocade embroidered with gold sunrises.
Zeng Dalou sighed. "Guangtianmen people. Sect Leader Song already heard about Yuzhi's injury. He wrote to say that if the demon struck again, he'd secure Guangtian Gate's defenses before coming here. Could take a few days. These guards were sent ahead for Yuzhi."
"Guards," Chang Ning repeated, his tone quietly amused.
Zeng Dalou didn't hide his own irritation. "Sect Leader Song isn't happy, I think. Can you blame him? His son's martial arts are ruined. Qingque Sect would never let anything else happen to him, so why send Guangtianmen people here at all?"
He shook his head and walked on.
Once he was out of earshot, Fan Xingjia said, "Sect Leader Song has every right to be furious. Three sons, and the third was always the best of them. Xiuzhi's gifts were ordinary. Maozhi's temper is... let's not discuss it. And the talented one got placed in the sect, and now his martial arts are gone. When Sect Leader Song arrives, I think there will be a very loud argument with Master."
Chang Ning's smile was genuine despite himself. "The sword acted without the sect's intent to harm Song Shaoxia. I hope Sect Leader Song doesn't hold a grudge against Sect Leader Qi."
Fan Xingjia sighed. "I hope you're right."
They reached Qingjingzhai as the sky brightened fully.
Before leaving, Fan Xingjia squeezed Cai Zhao's arm, making an effort at warmth. "Don't worry too much, Junior Sister. Your father probably had something urgent and had to move fast. Wait it out. Master will have an explanation."
Cai Zhao said nothing. Chang Ning smiled a polite thank-you, and the moment the door closed behind Fan Xingjia, the smile was gone.
"Zhao Zhao. Rest during the day. Eat when the others eat tonight. Then we go down the mountain."
Cai Zhao looked at him. "Down the mountain? We only just came up. The inn has been searched, there are no clues. Why would we go down?"
Chang Ning studied her face, that calm sweetness over something harder underneath, and felt his impatience sharpen. "Can't you see it? Something is wrong with this sect. I feel it. The sooner we leave, the better. We can investigate your father's whereabouts once we're clear."
Cai Zhao sat down slowly and poured herself a cup of cold tea. "Didn't you hear them say he may have left on his own?"
Chang Ning watched her for a moment. "Are you suspicious of me?"
She looked at him steadily.
He exhaled. "I would never harm you or your family."
She turned back to the window. "You're right. I can't suspect everyone."
A beat of quiet. Then she set the cup down. "So let me ask you. Do you really believe my father left on his own?"
Chang Ning's mouth curved, dismissive. "If Cai Guzhu left on his own, then who cleaned that entire room."
"Someone who wanted us to think he left voluntarily," she said. "But they were stupid about it. If you want to fake a clean departure, you leave half a bedsheet rumpled, half a cup of tea. You don't scrub it until it gleams. That kind of cleanliness announces itself."
Chang Ning raised an eyebrow. "What are you saying."
Cai Zhao spoke without rushing.
"I usually follow your lead. This time, please follow mine."
He settled back. "I'm listening."
"First." She set down her teacup. "I do not believe my father encountered something urgent and ran. In our family, only my aunt burned with that kind of urgency. My mother carried perhaps half of it. My father? Two or three points at most. Only for the people closest to him, and only for old friends."
"My mother and Xiaoyao are hidden and safe. I am here at Qingque Sect with everything I need. My father had nothing urgent to act on. And even if the entire martial world collapsed and Luoying Valley burned to ash, he would not leave without a word to me. If you tell me something drew him away, like a lead on the Chang family murders, and he said nothing before he went, I will tell you that is impossible."
Chang Ning's thoughts moved quickly. "So something happened to Cai Guzhu that he didn't see coming."
"Is there anyone alive who could render my father helpless without a fight?"
Chang Ning answered at once. "I've seen his skill. He may not have crossed into the realm of transformation, but there are very few enemies in this world who could match him. To kill or wound him in open combat, perhaps. But to take him without him landing a single blow? Not even if Nie Hengcheng himself came back from the dead."
"Yes." Cai Zhao turned to look at the thin bars of light coming through the window cracks. "So only one explanation holds. Someone your father knows well. Someone he trusted. They waited for his guard to drop and took him by surprise."
Chang Ning glanced at her sideways, voice wry. "Your father knows a wide number of people, and I'm afraid if I name one, you'll turn on me. So I've been saying nothing."
"Say it."
"I watched these past two festival days carefully. Your father was cool and distant with nearly everyone. Respectful but not close with Sect Leader Qi. Only with Sect Master Zhou did he lower that reserve completely. Like brothers."
Cai Zhao thought about it. "That's natural. My father grew up in Peiqiong Villa. Uncle Zhou is essentially his older brother." A pause. "But wasn't Uncle Zhou badly injured?"
"Not seeing someone in person doesn't mean the injury isn't a smokescreen."
Cai Zhao almost smiled, and the subject shifted under her. "Did you notice a very faint fragrance in the Tianzi room?"
Chang Ning frowned.
"Luoying Valley is all flowers and leaves. My mother has always loved making incense. I've been smelling it since I was small." She paused. "The fragrance in that room was so light I almost missed it myself. Which means it didn't matter how well my father knew the person or how much he trusted them. They only needed to quietly release something into the air while they talked. He'd never notice until it was too late."
"When he finally realized, he was already falling. But before he lost consciousness, he managed to throw over the teapot, the brazier, the stove. Made a mess of everything. That forced them to clean the entire room so nothing pointed back to them. They were in a hurry, afraid of complications, so they didn't think about leaving behind traces of an ordinary overnight stay."
Chang Ning half-smiled, half-doubted. "You speak as if you watched it happen."
"There's more." Cai Zhao's voice was even. "Not only did my father's captors know the inn, the innkeeper knew them too."
Chang Ning straightened.
"The wall behind the front desk," she said. "Remember the red-string bamboo tiles hanging there?"
He did. He had seen them when they walked in.
"That's a system every inn uses. Each room has its own bamboo tile hung on the wall, marked with the room's name. Rent a room, flip the tile. At a glance, anyone can see which rooms are free and which are taken."
Chang Ning's attention sharpened. "Yesterday, the tile for your father's room hadn't been flipped. Was something wrong with that?"
"No. The owner was just lazy."
Chang Ning went still.
"A proper bamboo tile like that takes real work," she continued. "Sun-dried, shade-dried, oiled, shade-dried again. Then hung in a spot where the scent of the oil slowly repels dampness and mold over time. The owner of that inn did it right. His tiles would last years without cracking."
Chang Ning smiled despite himself. "How do you know all this."
"When I was eight years old, I intended to open an inn."
"I thought you wanted to open a restaurant."
"That was at six. Later I realized an inn was better. You eat and sleep under one roof."
Chang Ning had no response to that.
"A tile made that way won't break easily," she said, returning to the point. "So when I was sitting at the brazier, pretending to burn whatever was on the ground, I was counting." Her eyes lit for a moment. "One tile was missing."
Chang Ning held his breath. "Which room."
"Moon Room 3."
A touch of color came back to the girl's pale face.
"The owner numbered his rooms with no pattern, but he never skipped numbers. Moon Room 1 was there. Room 2 was there. Room 4 was there. Room 3 was gone. The owner threw it into the brazier himself, before he died."
Chang Ning turned the pieces over. "Moon... 3... What does that mean?"
Cai Zhao dipped her finger in the cold tea and wrote the character for "three" on the tabletop. Then she drew "moon" beneath it.
"March?" He was thinking aloud. "A name? A birthday tied to March? Or..." Then it hit him. "A blood letter. The mark on the ground. That's what the owner was writing!"
She nodded.
Then she drew a short vertical stroke through the middle of the character for "three."
The resulting shape was unmistakable.
"Qing."
Chang Ning's expression darkened with something cold and intent. "A member of Qingque Sect."
Cai Zhao let the silence settle. Then, quietly: "Do you remember what Dai Fengchi's man said this morning? He said whoever attacked started inside the room and killed their way out to the door."
"He was half right. Someone did kill their way out from the door of the Tianzi room. It just wasn't my father. It was the killers."
She looked at nothing, ordering the night's events in her mind.
"Shortly after we left yesterday, it got dark. My father once told me the innkeeper had suffered bad internal injuries when he was young. He was always cold. Kept a fire every night without fail. He would have lit the brazier early, same as always."
"Around midnight, the innkeeper checked the basket and saw two pieces of charcoal left. He figured it was late enough and was ready to go to sleep. Then guests arrived. People from the sect, people he recognized. He had no choice but to stay up and receive them."
"One of those people went upstairs to my father's room. And he wasn't alone. He had help waiting."
"He couldn't kill the innkeeper first. My father would have heard it and been on guard."
"Whatever happened in that room made noise. The innkeeper came to the foot of the stairs to listen. One of the others caught him and held him. Then the man on the second floor opened the door and came out right at the threshold, and he killed the innkeeper face to face."
Chang Ning said quietly: "That's why all the wounds tilted slightly upward."
"Yes. Picking Flowers and Leaves can split a person precisely in a real fight. But if the man and the innkeeper were both constrained, then any technique with enough force to break through bone would work at that angle. Master Chen's Great Compassion, Master Ouyang's Diamond Fingers. Either one."
She poured the rest of the cold tea onto the table and let the puddle spread.
"The innkeeper had survived worse than this. When he saw the man on the second floor go down, he knew he was finished. So he tore the Moon Room 3 tile from the wall and threw it in the brazier while he still could. Then in the struggle, he knocked over the counter, the ledger, the pen case, the rest of the tiles on the wall."
"They killed the attendant. They killed the cook who came running from the back. Finally they took the innkeeper and broke his limbs and dragged him out from the front of the inn, or perhaps from the back. He used what little remained to draw a short mark on the ground with his last breath. They saw it and thought it was just the convulsions of a dying man. They left it alone."
A long pause.
"That's everything."
Cai Zhao stood. Her eyes were steady and without apology.
"So I will not be leaving Jiuli Mountain. There is nothing you can say that will change that. I know what I'm here to do."
She could have run back to Luoying Valley. She could have sent word in every direction, waited somewhere safe, let others move.
But no.
When Cai Pingshu was fifteen, his name was already known throughout the world.
At fifteen, she had wanted only to keep her family whole.
Until today, every choice in her life had been made by her parents or her aunt.
This was only the second time she had chosen her own path.
"My aunt would approve." She tilted her face upward slightly, as if the ceiling had given way to open sky. "My aunt is blessing me from wherever she is."