Seek treatment for a while, then hide sickness for fear of treatment.
The cold wind sent faint screams and shouts. Mo Li finally remembered something he forgot.
——Liu Chang is still in that house.
With so many people dead, things have become a big deal.
Missus Xue’s wish to send Liu Chang away is probably going to fail. Such a homicide case would surely alarm the county government. Liu Chang can completely describe this incident as someone assassinating a court official, making another excuse to stay in Ma County and put pressure on the county government.
This isn’t the most troublesome. When they report this homicide case to PingZhou Prefecture, they’d know that the JinYiWei they sent to Ma County all died, while Liu Chang and his men, who stayed there that night, lived.
What else can they do? Investigate Liu Chang!
As long as someone checks, they can quickly discover that Liu Chang went to Ma County because of a former fiancee who’s actually the daughter of Ghost Poison Vulture. Needless to say, JinYiWei must think that the murderer was Magistrate Xue or Missus Xue.
In this situation, they should have followed Liu Chang, waiting for the opportunity to kill him and eliminate this trouble.
Mountains are everywhere in Ma County, and the corpse can be thrown into a remote ravine. Once the snow covered it up, this person would disappear. When the spring flowers bloom in the coming year, only a few pieces of bones and clothing can be retrieved from the ravine, because the corpses should have been eaten by wild wolves. Ma County would insist that they fell into the ravine and died, and this would become an unsolvable case.
Unexpectedly, the residence where Liu Chang stayed was the stronghold of JinYiWei’s secret operations.
Master Xue, who sneaked inside, suddenly discovered the unusual surroundings. It’s an unknown force tracking the treasures of the previous dynasty, so he immediately changed his mind. Instead of killing Liu Chang, he killed all the servants in the house. Then he entered the study and restrained Kun Qi (the thin man) and forced Gan Wu (the landlord) to explain his origins.
Greedy for life and afraid of death, Gan Wu betrayed JinYiWei. Kun Qi then used a pear flower needle to kill him, and because he’s afraid of Master Xue’s methods, he directly committed suicide. So Master Xue didn’t find the people behind these forces and became worried. He might have let Liu Chang live so that he could mess things up and catch the people behind the scenes.
——the above speculation is reasonable and combined with the traces left in the study, it’s even more conclusive.
Mo Li’s face sank, then he turned and ran to the mansion.
A gust of wind rushed by his ears, and the corner of Mo Li’s eyes caught that brown shadow again.
“Physician, please stay.”
“I have something to do.” Mo Li kept walking and instantly arrived at the courtyard walls. He then climbed up.
On this cold night, Liu Chang and the others rushed to the backyard carrying lanterns.
Two figures flashed by the courtyard walls under the snow, so fast it’s like an illusion.
The leading soldier instinctively widened his eyes, but only saw the pine branches in the yard swaying in the cold wind. Shadows appeared as the people carrying the lanterns entered the yard.
The trees’ shadow overlapped with the shadow cast by the eaves. At first glance, someone seemed to be hiding in the dark. Suddenly, it turned into a ghost with its claws stretching out to them.
“Ah!”
The soldiers fiercely retreated, staring at the shadow on the ground in horror.
“What happened?” Everyone quickly raised the swords in their hands and vigilantly looked around.
The soldier who screamed found that he was frightened by a shadow. He couldn’t lose face and admit it, so he could only casually stretch out his hand and say some nonsense: “I thought I saw a figure there just now.”
“What?”
Liu Chang stared at the opposite roof, his face slightly twisted.
The soldier hurriedly withdrew his hand, why did he blindly point to the roof? Who can stand on the roof with such thick snow? He was about to admit his mistake when Liu Chang already ordered: “Go and see if there are any footprints on it!”
Everyone was daunted, obviously not daring to approach.
They just saw the servants’ bodies and knew that the murderer is a martial arts expert.
——he killed people like killing chickens by breaking the neck in one move, who’d dare provoke such a murderer?
“Go!” Liu Chang sharply said.
He felt pain in his chest again. Because of his body, he didn’t have enough energy to act as the leader like before, and could only stand among the crowd.
Dissatisfied, the soldiers dragged themselves under the eaves. They looked carefully, finding no fallen snow and seeing no footprints.
“Replying to Officer, no one’s here!”
Hearing that, Liu Chang glared at the soldier who had initially shouted, then continued to take his men to the backyard.
At this time in the study, Mo Li inspected both corpses, then took out a small bamboo tube meant for sending messages from the thin man’s arms. He also found half the word ‘Xue’ written in blood on the corner beside the corpse of the landlord.
Physician Mo erased this mark with a calm face.
Standing in front of the window, Meng Qi saw the lantern lights getting closer and closer to the study. He slowly raised his hand.
Seeing the lanterns go out at the same time shocked Liu Chang and the others.
“Someone’s here!”
In a panic, the soldier’s blades collided with each other.
They couldn’t tell if it was the enemy or their own. Still, thinking that someone attacked, they waved their swords to block. They pushed, punched, and kicked each other, messing things up.
Meng Qi calmly made an inviting gesture to Mo Li.
Mo Li: “…”
The two passed through the chaotic crowd in tandem, their statures flexible and not touching anyone, like an invisible wind. After they were far away, the soldiers were still beating each other indiscriminately. Liu Chang leaned against the wall without being caught, his eyes fixed on the direction where Mo Li left.
Liu Chang saw two figures.
Two seemingly young men. He’s unable to see their faces but their martial arts was unbelievably high. They floated over the roof and disappeared in the wind and snow.
“Since I helped Physician solve a problem, can this be counted as a favor that Physician owes me?”
Meng Qi’s voice was still very clear in the howling cold wind, his right hand placed behind him, and his expression leisurely.
Mo Li didn’t buy it and vetoed: “Anyone can do the trick of extinguishing the lanterns. You didn’t help.”
Then he heard a soft laugh, inexplicably surprising him.
“…Physician, avoiding the important and dwelling on the trivial is not a good habit. The only masters in Ma County are Xue Ting and Qin Lu, but they don’t have the youthful appearance of you and me. Suddenly, two more unknown masters appeared and muddied the waters. This disrupts the tracker’s thinking…what I’m talking about is that you let Officer Liu see suspicious people in the Mansion with his own eyes. If there’s no me and you’re all alone, it’d be easy for others to think of your true identity. No matter how good you are, you can’t split into two.”
Mo Li calmly said: “The sky is dark and the lantern went out. Although there’s a faint light reflected by the snow, they suddenly fell from bright to dark. Officer Liu is an ordinary person, how can he see me and you?”
“But this ordinary person you mentioned avoided all the soldiers’ accidental swings in the dark.”
Meng Qi followed behind Mo Li, his voice gradually becoming dull and hoarse, “Anyone who has eaten the treasures of heaven and materials of the earth will get some benefits. The ability to see things in the dark is one of them.”
Mo Li instinctively stopped and stared at Meng Qi.
Sure enough, it wasn’t an illusion. Meng Qi wasn’t right. The temperament between his brows changed, and the corners of his lips wore an ironic smile.
“Meng Qi?”
Mo Li tentatively called out, and the latter raised his brows. Although he’s dressed in a wide robe with big sleeves and a wooden hairpin, he’s no longer has that lofty and unsullied appearance, but rather the opposite and more like an arrogant noble young master. He arrogantly said: “You’re the Physician ‘I’ got? Funny, I’m not sick.”
“…”
Physician Mo blankly thought that he’s indeed a troublesome patient.
Chasing after him for a while to seek medical treatment, then avoiding treatment and refusing to admit to having an illness.
According to the medical notes written by Elder Qin back then, the disease is unnamed and can barely be regarded as a unique kind of resignation syndrome. The cause of the disease is either great sorrow or great joy. These patients often have two mindsets in their dealings with the world. The main difference lies in their treatment of foreign entities, but no difference to their bodies. They would not think that they’re a fisherman the first moment and say that they’re a singer a moment later. People with mild illness will remember their abnormal behavior; in severe cases, the memory is blurred and confused, and they wouldn’t admit that they’d done such an abnormal thing.
It’s a difficult disease and very difficult to treat.
Qin Lu encountered it twice while traveling the world, and in both cases, he used the same prescription and tried his best to treat them, but with different results.
Mo Li deeply looked at Meng Qi then tentatively said: “Are you very interested in elixirs?”
“Who’s interested in things that can be grown?” Although Meng Qi is smiling, his tone was indescribably cold, “The people in this world want immortality or ascend to the heavens or increase their innate potential…ha, even the poor and ignorant mountain people are thinking of digging up an elixir to sell it for money.”
Although Mo Li didn’t like humans digging elixirs, he also knew that in their eyes, those spiritual herbs are just dead things.
——chickens and ducks can cry out, cattle and horses can run, but vegetation can’t speak or move, and can only suffer from this big loss.
“Liu Chang did take an elixir, but it should be a coincidence.” Mo Li said that, but he still felt heartache.
“It’s naturally a coincidence…if he had taken the elixir I planted, he’d now be in a different place.” With killing intent in Meng Qi’s eyes, Mo Li took a step back out of vigilance, causing the other man to laugh and walk away.
Physician Mo looked in the direction Meng Qi left. Only after making sure it didn’t lead to Zhushan County did he feel relieved.
He stretched out his hand to take out the letter-passing bamboo tube found from the thin man, and carefully opened it.
This kind of bamboo tube is tied to pigeon’s legs. He called it a bamboo tube, but it’s more like a thinner bamboo pipe, so the things that can be put inside are also very limited. Spread-out, the note spanned less than the width of one’s fingertips.
“Zhushan County, Qin Lu…orphan of the former Chu?”
Mo Li understood the first two words. It’s the skinny man telling the news that the Silver Fox Doctor appeared in Zhushan County, but the last words…
The current country’s name was Qi, but the former dynasty was called Chu.
Since he wrote “the orphan of the former Chu”, he probably meant a descendant of the former Imperial family. Did he suspect that Xiao Tang has the blood of the former dynasty? Mo Li found it unbelievable. This is nonsense. Not to mention, the current Emperor beheaded most of the former imperial clan in the Imperial Palace in XianYang, the Great Capital. The leftover kings settled in Jiangnan, 100,000 miles away from Pingzhou. Xiao Tang is not even ten years old this year, and the previous dynasty has been destroyed for fifteen years, isn’t this treasonous charge unreasonable?
Mo Li shook his head then shook the bamboo tube and paper into powder.
“Otherwise, you go back and ask?”
The sudden sound made Mo Li almost attack in surprise.
He glared at Meng Qi, who was standing not far behind, and the other party looked calm and leisurely again. Needless to say, a certain someone walked halfway before turning around to eagerly seek medical treatment.
Meng Qi didn’t show any embarrassment and frankly admitted: “Sorry, you looked at the note for too long and I happened to see it. Since the matter is related to the Silver Fox Doctor, why don’t you ask him?”
Mo Li didn’t speak.
“Don’t be so nervous. In fact, I came back because I saw an unexpected guest.” Meng Qi gestured to Mo Li and motioned him to listen.
The sound of hoofbeats approached, from far to near, and running towards the Mansion.