Long fingers picked up a piece of coarse pottery that had fallen into the grass.
Black coarse pottery, not smooth, with some pores on it.
This kind of flawed container couldn’t hold water; it was mostly made in rural earth kilns and sold cheaply due to its defects.
“Strange.”
Meng Qi muttered to himself as he bent down and picked up something that looked like the bottom of a bottle.
Piecing the fragments together, it vaguely resembled a fist-sized stone bottle.
Although it wasn’t made of stone, common folk used to call such ugly and crude items stone bottles or earth bottles. Even if they broke, no one felt bad.
During the several decades of the Chu dynasty’s prosperity, Meng Qi had seen many fine objects. He could identify porcelain from famous kilns and appreciate calligraphy and paintings. However, the study of stone bottles was beyond research and tracing their origins. There were many small earth kilns among the common folk, some very small, with no shops, no business, and no records. Even if the kiln owner was found, the buyer couldn’t be traced.
Meng Qi frowned and carefully smelled the bottom of the bottle.
Besides the smell of grass and soil, there was the scent of herbs.
It seemed the bottle originally contained medicine. Meng Qi searched the ground around but didn’t find a single pill.
Instead, he found many drag and kick marks, as if a dozen people had rolled on the ground fighting over gold.
Even the thorn bushes were affected. Meng Qi saw many cloth strips, all black, but putting them together made more than one garment; there were five or six sleeves alone, clearly not left by a single swordsman.
Considering the things the swordsman had hidden in the thorns, Meng Qi thoughtfully looked at the stone bottle in his hand.
—Could it be the medicine Piaoping Pavilion used to control assassins?
This time, splitting up might have been a mistake, Meng Qi thought. He couldn’t tell what medicine was originally in the bottle by its smell.
The smell was strong, with a faint stench.
An antidote?
If it wasn’t medicine to alleviate poison, why would the swordsman be in such a hurry to discard it?
Meng Qi discarded the extra pieces of coarse pottery, keeping only the bottom piece, wrapped it with a cloth strip, and followed the tracks on the ground to track the Piaoping Pavilion assassins.
These assassins were very cautious. The previous chaotic rolling seemed to be a sudden loss of control, and they hurried to leave, so they didn’t clear their tracks.
The further Meng Qi tracked, the fewer clues there were.
There were no brambles or grass leaves sticking to their shoe soles, and no footprints were left on the ground. Meng Qi focused on the short trees and higher stones, looking for fallen moss or wild plants.
It was a painstaking task, but fortunately, Meng Qi’s lightness skills were excellent, and he wasn’t chasing just one person.
To Meng Qi’s surprise, this group of assassins was very fast, with long strides but unstable landings. One assassin slipped badly on moss and fell directly.
Could such a person be an assassin?
Meng Qi was puzzled.
As the trees thinned and the terrain gradually leveled out, the official road could already be seen in the distance.
At the same time, Meng Qi encountered his first problem: the assassins had scattered.
There were only a dozen people, yet they split into seven different paths, disregarding the direction they came from, truly covering all directions without missing any. This tactic was undeniably clever; Meng Qi did not have the ability to clone himself, nor did he have enough companions to track these Piaoping Pavilion assassins in all directions.
Especially in densely populated areas, the traces left by the Piaoping Pavilion assassins could not last as long as moss peeled off tree trunks and large stones.
There was only one chance, he could only choose one direction to follow.
Meng Qi stopped in his tracks.
In fact, this place was already far from where he and Mo Li had parted ways. Meng Qi recalled the behavior of the swordsman when he was fleeing for his life and concluded that although the guy circled around the mountain, dodging left and right to try to shake off his pursuers, he was generally heading west.
So Meng Qi unhesitatingly chose the east direction.
—To promptly deliver the antidote to his subordinates, the swordsman took great risks. Then the master of Piaoping Pavilion, the person whom the swordsman spoke of with gratitude, must be someone the swordsman would protect even more.
The place where the assassins hid was a secret of Piaoping Pavilion; it involved both the “benefactor” and the safety of the “subordinates.” What kind of decision would the swordsman make?
He would instinctively avoid it.
Because the swordsman knew that the people behind him posed the greatest threat, and the swordsman was a straightforward person who wouldn’t play tricks like “predicting the enemy’s thoughts and doing the opposite.”
A faint smile appeared on Meng Qi’s lips. He flicked his sleeve with a graceful and unhurried ease.
Once you see through people’s hearts, everything is within your grasp.
***
“Achoo.”
The swordsman sneezed repeatedly in distress.
It wasn’t because he was exposed to the cold; on the contrary, he was stuffed into a large cloth bag, being carried by the old monk.
The cloth bag belonged to Monk Yuan Zhi, originally not meant for holding people but for holding grain.
Yuan Zhi occasionally went to the Stone Mill Village to bring urgently needed salt and grain to the villagers there.
Because Yuan Zhi himself was poor and the people of Stone Mill Village were used to hardship and not picky, the bag was filled with low-priced grain, even with the husks still on. The bag was made of very rough and sturdy material, but the downside was that it was hard to clean thoroughly, causing the swordsman to choke on dust and husks.
“Let his head out,” Mo Li suggested.
Sneezing too violently could cause the body to shake. The swordsman now had dislocated joints, and a sneeze could cause him immense pain, let alone a series of them.
“This…”
Monk Yuan Zhi hesitated.
An old monk carrying a bag with a person in it was already quite unseemly. Exposing the head, especially a face full of scars like a fierce ghost, would it not scare passersby to death?
Monk Yuan Zhi and Mo Li didn’t have the ability to extract the secrets of Piaoping Pavilion from the swordsman. Although there was no argument or even spoken words, both parties knew what the other was thinking: Mo Li wanted to wait for Meng Qi to return, while Yuan Zhi intended to hand this person over to Fengxing Pavilion.
However, even hateful people have pitiable aspects. Seeing the swordsman’s scarred appearance, Yuan Zhi bowed his head and began to recite sutras.
All beings suffer; a single thought can turn into a demon.
If it had been in the past, Monk Yuan Zhi would have recited sutras and preached Buddhism day and night in front of the swordsman. He didn’t expect the other party to lay down his butcher’s knife, but doing so would trap the swordsman, reducing the number of killing machines controlled by others in the world.
Xuan Chuan Pass was as precarious as a pile of eggs; it was hard to say when the Tianshou King would march his army to the city. Yuan Zhi didn’t have much time to waste.
“Sigh.”
The old monk sighed heavily and hurried along the road, not forgetting to ramble, “Benefactor, being grateful to others and following their orders is cause and effect. Others pay you to kill, that is also cause and effect. You repaid that person’s kindness, but what about those you killed? Where should their cause and effect be sought?”
“The dead don’t deserve cause and effect.”
The swordsman, coughing, showed no gratitude and coldly sneered at the back of Yuan Zhi’s head, “Once dead, there’s nothing left.”
Mo Li frowned slightly.
Yuan Zhi didn’t argue about reincarnation or the suffering of hell with the swordsman. He set the cloth bag down and looked at the swordsman steadily, saying, “Those causes and effects are not on the people you killed; they are in your heart.”
The swordsman showed no expression, not even bothering to retort.
People who walk in darkness do not believe in such things.
Mo Li, however, seemed thoughtful.
A physician can see many things. While Mo Li couldn’t unravel the mysteries of Piaoping Pavilion, he could clearly see the swordsman’s personal secrets.
This person was born with congenital deficiencies and should have died in the womb. However, he unexpectedly received a nourishing spirit, allowing him to be born smoothly.
The swordsman himself couldn’t actively absorb external spiritual energy; he was purely human, not a demon.
The spiritual energy obtained through consuming heavenly materials and earthly treasures wouldn’t be like this. This spiritual energy wasn’t a consumable; it filled the congenital deficiencies. Likewise, once the spiritual energy was withdrawn, the swordsman would quickly die from internal organ failure.
Thus, the source of this spiritual energy became clear. It was a good medicine and a gift.
Someone, or more directly, a dragon vein encountered a woman who was about to have a stillbirth and gave her a spiritual energy to ensure the child’s birth.
Because the child possessed it before birth, the spiritual energy became the legendary innate energy, allowing it to remain stable in the swordsman’s body without dissipating.
A child destined to die became extraordinary at birth.
In a story, this would be a legend where the child would achieve great things and be remembered in history.
But real life doesn’t follow story plots. The spiritual energy given casually by the dragon vein allowed a child who should have died to be born, but the world greeted him with misfortune and pain. Mo Li didn’t know what happened to the child’s parents or what the child experienced after turning seven. The scars indicated torture, beatings, and even a life not lived as a human.
Eventually, the child escaped and began to train in martial arts.
Maybe this was the kindness he spoke of, someone who helped him escape his suffering and gave him the chance to learn martial arts, the master of Piaoping Pavilion.
If this was the swordsman’s life and the reason he served Piaoping Pavilion, then the way he looked now didn’t surprise Mo Li at all.
Whether in childhood or as an assassin of Piaoping Pavilion, the swordsman had only seen darkness and killing. He wasn’t devoid of a sense of right and wrong; he simply had never seen good. This was exactly what Monk Yuan Zhi meant by saying that cause and effect lay in the heart.
A person without a sense of right and wrong wouldn’t feel the weight of their mistakes.
What would happen if one day he came to realize this? The people he had killed and the things he had done would surge up from his heart like sharp blades and shackles, binding him tightly while stirring him fiercely.
Mo Li moved his lips but ultimately said nothing.
Monk Yuan Zhi didn’t know what Mo Li was thinking. He put his palms together and continued to persuade the swordsman, “Benefactor, you are not a person of extreme evil.”
“You pity me because of these scars on my body,” the swordsman sneered sarcastically, “If I didn’t have these, you’d have already smashed my head with your staff. I wish I could kill all of you who fear and pity me.”
The swordsman exuded a killing aura, genuinely meaning what he said.
Yuan Zhi began chanting sutras again.
The swordsman impatiently said, “I won’t tell you anything you want to know. Don’t waste your time; just do it.”
Mo Li suddenly spoke, “You want to kill those who see your face, but you didn’t. You chose not to let others see it.”
The swordsman was stunned.
“Your mask is specially made, only revealing your eyes. You also wear a hat on top of it. Although it’s not raining, you wear a raincoat over your already fully covered clothes. Your attire is different from other Piaoping Pavilion assassins.”
Mo Li’s last words stopped the swordsman from retorting that all assassins cover their faces.
Mo Li continued, “You have many subordinates, but you didn’t bring them up the mountain. When the master broke through the realm, it startled the birds and beasts, so you knew there was a master above.”
“……”
“You wanted to retrieve the ledgers from the Si family rice shop, so you must have gathered information. You knew the four gangs and twelve associations of Yuzhou were recently gathered here and were aware of all the recent events. You should also know how skilled Elder Cai of the Dragon Head Association is. So, facing at least two martial arts experts, why didn’t you bring your subordinates? A dozen lives equipped with Thunder Hall’s firearms could have leveled the place, solving both the enemy and destroying the ledger. Wasn’t that a perfect plan? But you didn’t do it. You cherished your subordinates’ lives and didn’t want to send them to their deaths.”
The swordsman’s lips twitched; he felt he had misjudged.
It wasn’t just the man in the pink robe who was terrifying; his companion also had the ability to see through people.
What was this, birds of a feather flock together, and monsters are good friends with monsters?
What bothered the swordsman more was, where was the man in pink? Where had he gone?
“What do you want?” the swordsman asked, trying to hide his unease.
Mo Li paused, then asked seriously, “Where were you born? Are there mountains nearby?”
The swordsman: “……”
Author’s Note:
Swordsman: Old monk, weren’t you going to sell me to Fengxing Pavilion? Hurry up and sell me! I can’t take this nonsense. You think he wants to kill you, but he wants to treat your illness forcibly. You think he wants to interrogate you, but he’s just concerned about whether there are mountains near your home! Argh!
