223: Chapter 223 Demon or Human?

"How troublesome. I still have to find that hollow cylinder first."

Jiang Xiaoyun flicked her sleeves, but before she had taken two steps, a shrill scream rang out.

"Ah! —"

"There's an assassin! Quick! Someone, hurry and intercept that thief!"

Jiang Xiaoyun whipped her head around and looked toward Master Wang's bridal chamber.

That voice belonged to her father.

She crouched halfway down and touched the soles of her shoes.

After a blue light appeared, her original cloth shoes had transformed into a pair of skate shoes.

With a forceful push from her feet, she arrived at the bridal chamber in an instant.

"Father! What happened?!"

Jiang Xiaoyun shoved the door open. Before she could clearly see inside the room, a pungent smell of blood instantly flooded her nostrils.

She covered her mouth and couldn't help but cough twice.

Opening her eyes again, she saw her father with a gash cut into the arm of his bright red wedding attire.

Right beside her father lay a blood-stained dagger.

Jiang Xiaoyun stepped over the threshold and helped her father up.

She had intended to place him on the bridal bed nearby.

But as she approached the pink curtains, the smell of blood became even more intense.

"Could it be…?"

Jiang Xiaoyun pulled back the curtain, and what met her eyes was the naked corpse of a woman!

The corpse's state of death was extremely gruesome; her body was covered in knife wounds, and a black-red intestine had been pulled out and was hanging over the woman's face.

The end of the intestine had even been stuffed into her mouth!

Jiang Xiaoyun fought back her nausea and prioritized getting her father out of the room.

At this moment, Steward Xiao Li and a group of maidservants rushed in.

They asked, "Eldest Miss, what happened?!"

"Why did we hear Master Wang's scream?"

"The bride has been murdered. My father says a thief entered the residence. Quickly, notify the Dali Temple!"

"What?!" Upon hearing this, the steward's heart jumped into his throat.

Seeing the gash on his master's arm, he became even more anxious and hurriedly ran out of the Wang family estate to notify the Dali Temple.

"Miss… this… what should we do?!" The maidservants were all showing signs of Fear.

Jiang Xiaoyun pinched her nose, returned to the room, and waved her hand, saying, "Help me stall for time. Before the people from the Dali Temple arrive, no one is allowed to enter this room."

"Understood!" the maidservants replied in unison.

With no outsiders interfering, Jiang Xiaoyun closed the door.

She let out a breath and touched her cheek.

Olivia's mask underwent a transformation, blocking Jiang Xiaoyun's nostrils.

The pungent smell of blood finally vanished.

Jiang Xiaoyun rested her chin on her hand and returned to the bride's corpse.

She examined the body carefully from top to bottom.

She soon discovered an abnormality.

With a wave of her hand, she gripped a scalpel equipped with a collection vial and threw it toward the bride's corpse.

It pierced the body, and the blade automatically collected a blood sample.

Jiang Xiaoyun grabbed the scalpel and automatically analyzed the composition.

"Why is there preservative inside this corpse?"

"In other words… this bride was actually dead long ago; she didn't just die."

Making a mental note, Jiang Xiaoyun moved over to the dagger that had attacked her father and picked it up with a white cloth.

This was a Fish-Gut Sword, a weapon used by certain ancient female martial artists; although short, it was sharp.

This type of blade was easy to carry and could be hidden within a woman's undergarments.

Some female agents, when executing secret missions, might hide such a knife on their person, waiting for that pot-bellied corrupt official to get close to them.

Pull out the knife and kill with a single strike!

"Could it be… that because Master Wang did something to harm the common people, he provoked some intelligence agency?"

"And they came to kill him in the middle of the night?"

"That doesn't add up, though. They didn't manage to kill the target, just slashed him once and left, yet ended up killing the innocent young bride."

"That's just too ridiculous."

Jiang Xiaoyun overturned her own deduction.

She then moved to the windowsill to look at the window her father had mentioned—the one facing the door through which the thief had escaped.

Jiang Xiaoyun carefully inspected the entire window and then looked out toward the outside.

She discovered that there was no ground outside the window, only a pond.

The pond was shaped like a figure-eight, composed of two circular ponds, one above and one below.

Each circle had a diameter of approximately 10 meters.

And right in the center of the pond near the window, an arched wooden bridge had been built.

In other words…

If someone escaped from here, they would normally jump into this pond and then, soaking wet, climb onto that wooden bridge erected in the middle of the pond.

Because a normal person, man or woman, standing on the window frame and jumping out…

…would subconsciously jump forward; they wouldn't think to jump left or right.

This jump would be a distance of about 3 meters.

At this point, it was only 2 meters from the wooden bridge.

But it was still 5 meters away from the banks on either side.

Jiang Xiaoyun immediately pushed open the wooden door, went around to the back of the house, and arrived at the pond.

Sure enough, she saw a set of footprints formed by water stains on the bridge.

There was a trail of footprints that started from the middle of the bridge, walked forward a few steps, and then ran off toward the right side of the bridge, disappearing at the courtyard wall.

She simulated the criminal route.

It meant someone jumped in from the window, swam in the pool to the wooden bridge in the middle, grabbed the wooden bridge with both hands, and climbed onto the railing of the wooden bridge.

Then climbed over the railing and landed on the surface of the wooden bridge.

Then they ran forward off the bridge, where they would face two different paths.

They chose the path on the right, ran wildly all the way to the courtyard wall, and climbed over it.

The entire route was covered in flower beds and gravel paths, which made it difficult to leave footprints.

These water stains would likely evaporate and disappear soon.

[Main quest updated: Find the true culprit who killed the bride]

"Hmm?"

"Isn't this the same quest as Chen Mo's? Did I not choose the easiest dungeon?" Jiang Xiaoyun felt a sense of being deceived.

Meanwhile, Chen Mo, sitting in the monitoring room, for some reason…

…felt a little bit satisfied seeing her look shocked, hehe.

"The murder weapon was a Fish-Gut Sword, the culprit's escape route, Father's reaction, the water stains…"

Jiang Xiaoyun rested her chin on her hand, organizing her thoughts in her mind, and quickly reached a conclusion.

At this time, having received the news, the county committee rushed in with their men.

They interviewed everyone in the Wang family estate one by one.

They questioned Master Wang.

"Master Wang, please describe the situation you saw at that time!"

Master Wang was still shaken, his face pale as he described it.

"At that time, my bride and I were just preparing to… uh… you know!"

Several subordinates wearing black turbans with swords hanging at their waists looked at each other and raised their eyebrows upon hearing this.

"After that, we had just taken off our clothes and pulled the curtain, just about to get into the swing of things, when we saw a figure standing outside the curtain."

"This guy must have been hiding in this bridal chamber for a long time!"

"Because I was lying on the bed and my wife was lying on top of me, I could clearly see a dark shadow standing outside."

"That dark shadow was holding a knife and instantly stabbed into my wife's throat. I watched helplessly as a large hole was opened in my wife's throat."

"The gleaming white knife pierced right through from inside."

"I was just about to call for help, but that dark shadow grabbed my hair, threw me to the ground, and then, I don't know what they were holding, but they covered my mouth."

"I fainted at that time. When I woke up again, I saw that dark shadow holding a knife, stabbing my wife one knife after another."

"I was thinking… perhaps my wife provoked someone she shouldn't have, and someone has come to claim her life!"

"I was too scared to make a sound, wanting to continue pretending to be unconscious, but I was still discovered by that thief!"

"This time, I cried out, and that thief wanted to kill me too."

"But just then, a servant happened to pass by outside, so he panicked and fled, only slashing a gash on my arm."

Jiang Xiaoyun stood in the distance, chewing on a jade rice ball, listening to the whole thing.

She thought silently to herself, "Is there really a monster, or is Father lying?"