Chapter 122

Chapter 122

Chapter 122: The Song Family Case

“He is the Song family’s son-in-law.”

By the time daylight fully arrived, Bai Zhengliu and Mei Yinghan didn’t even need to make a special trip to the yamen. The neighbors, unable to tolerate the continuous stench from the courtyard, had already come to knock on the door.

But opening the door were not the familiar gloomy son-in-law—they were two young men the neighbors had never seen before.

They claimed to be passing martial artists who sensed something was wrong while traveling through the area, so they came to investigate. And this “investigation” uncovered a huge mess!

By noon, the townsfolk, entrusted by Bai and Mei to report to the authorities, hurried back, followed by the local magistrate who had been alerted by the news of the “entire courtyard dead,” along with coroner and yamen clerks.

Even prepared mentally, the magistrate nearly fainted when he saw the scene. The triennial evaluation was approaching, and such a brutal case in his jurisdiction could get him reassigned to an even more remote post if the higher-ups learned of it.

Just thinking of this made his face grim. But Tianshan disciples were not people to be dealt with casually, so he gathered his wits and approached Mei Yinghan to understand the situation.

After learning that Bai and Mei had seen a suspected culprit, the magistrate immediately called out: “Bring ink and brushes!” He also summoned the coroner who had been examining the bodies.

Seeing the puzzled expressions on Bai and Mei’s faces, the magistrate explained: “Our coroner has a special skill. As long as you two heroes can describe the suspect’s appearance, he can draw it!”

Bai and Mei finally understood. Looking at the coroner beside them, he was plain-looking, unremarkable. Who would have thought he could do this?

They began to describe carefully: “A long face, still fairly handsome. The eyebrows are… the eyes are…”

As they spoke, they supplemented each other’s descriptions. Soon, the coroner presented a drawing.

He explained to Bai and Mei: “From your description, the man seemed so thin that no flesh clung to his face. But if that were true, he probably wouldn’t survive. I’ve added a few strokes to make him look like a living person. Take a look—is it like this?”

Bai and Mei examined the drawing. It had to be said, the coroner’s skill was excellent. With just a few strokes, he vividly captured a face.

Nearby townsfolk also peeked in. The yamen clerks noticed and were about to shoo them away, but a townsman spoke up, shouting a major revelation:

“What?”

Everyone present—the officials and martial artists—turned their attention. More than ten pairs of eyes focused on him. The townsman shrank back slightly.

“Don’t panic,” the magistrate said kindly as he folded the paper. “Who did you say is on this drawing?”

The townsman hesitated, then spoke. His voice was quieter than before, but still clear enough: “It’s the Song family’s son-in-law! I definitely did not make a mistake.” He paused, then poured out more information like beans from a bamboo tube: “You all probably don’t know, but the Song family is well-known here! The master of the house used to do big business years ago, but later, for some reason, he moved here… When he arrived, he bought up all the surrounding courtyards.”“That was many years ago, right? Back then, no one around here had ever seen such a scene, everyone just froze in place. The Song family, however, remained calm and even posted job recruitment notices. The wages offered—who wouldn’t be tempted?”

“By all rights, a family like that should have been respected by everyone. But… within two years of their arrival, rumors started spreading…”

The townsman’s voice dropped as he spoke. Bai Zhengliu and Mei Yinghan could still catch some of it, but the magistrate and clerks couldn’t make out a word.

The magistrate asked again: “What rumors?”

The townsman muttered: “Out of respect for the dead, I feel uneasy speaking ill… Anyway, they said the Song family attracted some unclean thing. At their previous residence, people kept dying—maids, servants, children—every few days someone would be gone. The master of the Song family got scared, so he sold off his property and brought his daughter and son-in-law here. But it didn’t help; shortly after arriving, the master fell ill. And later… people just disappeared!”

Hearing this, the magistrate glanced at the coroner.

The coroner stepped forward and asked the townsman: “The master you mentioned—what did he look like?”

The townsman hesitated, stammering a little, but gave an answer. It wasn’t as precise as Bai and Mei’s earlier descriptions, so the coroner adjusted the drawing for a while before presenting a version suitable for everyone to see.

Looking at the figure in the drawing, the townsman was astonished: “It really looks like him. Master, have you ever seen Lord Song before?”

He didn’t know the coroner’s exact position; he just assumed that since he came with the officials, he was also a “lord.”

Having repeated this several times, the townsman stumbled slightly over his words.

Fortunately, no one present paid much attention.

After confirming the townsman’s identification, the coroner turned and, in a voice only the magistrate, Bai, and Mei could hear, said: “Sir, the bones of the person I saw earlier are right over there.”

He gestured with his chin toward the corner of the room.

Everyone looked in the direction he indicated, but all they saw was an ordinary set of bones. Buried for so long, the flesh had long decayed, leaving only stark white bones.

Bai and Mei were slightly surprised by the coroner’s confident identification; the magistrate, however, was unsurprised. Hearing the coroner, he said directly: “If the household elder is dead, shouldn’t there have been a proper burial? How could Lord Song appear here?”

The townsman replied: “Burial… yes, there was a proper burial! The Song family held a grand funeral for their master; anyone on the street could have known.”

The magistrate pondered. The townsman pressed on: “After Lord Song passed, the rest of the family started having troubles. Even their household helpers couldn’t escape! Within a few months, no one dared to work for them anymore. Only the daughter and son-in-law remained, along with their child. With so few people, all the surrounding courtyards were useless. The son-in-law sold off the extra courtyards and kept just one residence to live in.”

Hearing this, Bai Zhengliu couldn’t help but glance around the surrounding courtyards. The high walls blocked much of the view, but he quickly noticed something wrong.

Yin energy.

It spread outward from the burial site, lingering across the entire street.In other households, the yin energy wasn’t as dense as in the Song residence, but it was still hard to ignore. Staying there for long, even if one didn’t lose their life, still…

While thinking this, Bai Zhengliu heard the “wah wah” of a crying child again. It was the child next door, crying with their throat stretched, though the sound wasn’t loud. At night, it hadn’t been very noticeable, but now it sounded almost like a cat meowing.

The blade-wielding man furrowed his brows and turned to the townsman, asking, “In the houses they sold, did anything else happen?”

The townsman was momentarily stunned.

Compared to the power and influence of the Song family, the neighboring households were just ordinary families, nothing as eye-catching as Lord Song’s daughter and son-in-law. Especially when the son-in-law had sold off each courtyard, the prices had been extremely low. Back then, the townspeople had only felt lucky, but now, hearing the blade-wielder’s question, the townsman shivered belatedly.

“Nothing major happened,” he hesitated, “but…”

“But?” Bai Zhengliu didn’t need to ask; everyone else noticed the townsman’s hesitation and sensed there was more behind it. They pressed further, several voices overlapping, which startled the townsman.

“It’s just that people always say,” the townsman continued, “when they get lucky in one matter, they have to make up for it in others. Buying those large courtyards was good, but the people who paid for them later found their offspring were never numerous.”

The magistrate, the coroner, and others didn’t know about the sinister disturbances, so their initial expectations turned to confusion. Bai and Mei, however, grew even more solemn.

Even when the townsman added, “After today, the nearby courtyards probably won’t sell for a good price anymore,” Bai and Mei didn’t react. But the magistrate and coroner did respond quietly when the townsman asked, “Lords, is it really the Song son-in-law who killed so many?”

Their answer was only: “Why are you still here? This is a site for official investigation. Idle people, leave at once.”

The townsman: “…”

The magistrate and coroner looked sternly at him. The townsman felt a surge of tension and, glancing at the Song family’s scattered bones behind them, his anxiety turned to outright fear.

Overcome with panic, he ran off in a flash, leaving the wandering knights and the magistrate behind. The magistrate was about to speak again, but Bai Zhengliu interrupted.

“Sir,” he said after a moment’s thought, but not to the magistrate; he addressed the coroner instead, “Can you draw me another portrait?”

The coroner was taken aback.

Bai Zhengliu explained: “This drawing isn’t related to the case. I just remembered someone I saw before.”

The coroner glanced at the magistrate, who nodded.

“Very well.” With his superior’s approval, the coroner agreed and smiled slightly: “This skill isn’t anything extraordinary. Seeing enough human bodies and skeletons makes you gradually familiar with these features. Please describe the person, hero.”

With that, he took out paper and brush.

Bai Zhengliu began to describe the blurred facial features of the shadowy figure he and Mei Yinghan had seen in the forest on the night they had pursued Cheng Yaoniang.

At that time, the person’s face had been shrouded in yin energy, twisted and terrifying. Bai Zhengliu remembered how the eyes and nose were shaped, but couldn’t recall the full face.Until now.

A complete face took shape under the coroner’s brush.

It truly was a set of features completely unrelated to the Song family case. The more the coroner painted, the more at ease he felt.

When he finished, Bai and Mei lowered their eyes and held their breath simultaneously.

Author’s note:

Here it comes!

See you tomorrow (night)!