Chapter 34: A Leap in the Plot, Unraveling the Mystery

Gu Qiu, who had expected nothing, was surprised once again by Ji Yao.

His calm face betrayed a rare hint of helplessness as he looked at the handfuls of tattered beast skins Ji Yao had pressed into his hands.

“It’s best to take them all back,” Ji Yao dusted off her hands and stood up, kicking the scattered scraps of beast skin into a pile.

Gu Qiu thought that Ji Yao hardly looked like a cultivator at this moment—she could have done all this with a single spell.

Ji Yao looked up and caught Gu Qiu’s gaze, watching her form the pile with earnest attention.

Believing herself to understand, Ji Yao hurriedly said, “Uncle Gu, please wait a moment, I’ll help you pack everything together.”

She reached for the beast skin on the low table, but Gu Qiu stopped her immediately.

“Wait!” he said, pausing for a moment with some embarrassment. “Sister Ji, do you have a spare storage pouch?”

Ji Yao quickly emptied a pouch that had held clothing and handed it to Gu Qiu.

He took it, and with a gentle twirl of his fingers, the scraps flew into the pouch.

Repeating the gesture, he gathered all the beast skins in the room.

“Sister Ji, since you’ve picked these out, why not piece them together?”

Ji Yao shivered at the suggestion—please don’t ask her to do a puzzle!

It wasn’t the piecing together that troubled her, but the patterns and characters on the skins. Though she’d only glanced at them once, her intuition warned her they were nothing good; best not to get involved.

“Uncle Gu, that’s not a joke I can take lightly.”

With that single sentence, Gu Qiu understood Ji Yao’s meaning. No matter how much one tried to avoid involvement, it was no longer easy to extricate oneself now.

After sending Gu Qiu off, Ji Yao stood at her courtyard gate for a long while, her gaze chilly as she swept over the crowd still lingering outside. She said not a word.

The noisy surroundings gradually quieted; some sensed the shift in atmosphere and drifted away in small groups.

Ji Yao cast one last glance at the two female disciples across the courtyard, then turned and walked back. The defenses of the small courtyard activated fully, blocking all prying eyes.

In truth, Ji Yao still had many questions about today’s events. But she couldn’t rely entirely on the Disciplinary Hall to uncover the truth; that would be far too passive. In the world of cultivation, if one couldn’t seize initiative, then immortality was not worth pursuing at all.

Since the affair entangled her, it wasn’t in her nature to sit and wait for others to resolve it.

Why did Li Fanghua die—and so mysteriously? Clearly not an accident; there must be a culprit.

The killer, within moments of Li Fanghua’s corpse being discovered, manipulated public opinion to turn all eyes toward her—could it really be just because she and Li Fanghua had a minor conflict?

Ji Yao rejected that notion outright.

If that were the reason, it didn’t explain the deliberately engineered gap in her timeline three days prior.

That alone proved the killer’s actions were premeditated.

Premeditated murder of Li Fanghua, and premeditated framing of Ji Yao—the motives surely weren’t so simple.

Another point: after killing Li Fanghua, why leave the body to be found? Even if wounded in the struggle, surely a simple fireball could have destroyed the evidence.

Moreover, the beast claw wounds on Li Fanghua’s body seemed almost deliberately conspicuous. There was time enough to obliterate the corpse.

It couldn’t be that the body was left on purpose, to incriminate Ji Yao for Li Fanghua’s death, could it?

Ji Yao believed that even without a corpse, the murderer would have found other ways to implicate her.

Lining up the questions, Ji Yao realized this might not be merely a simple murder case. No wonder the Disciplinary Hall forbade rumors from spreading.

And then, why did the female disciple from Crimson Flame Peak disappear? That couldn’t be explained away.

She played a role similar to Chen Shaohua’s in the affair, unless she knew more than Chen Shaohua, or the plan went awry at her part.

Thinking carefully, the disciple’s disappearance happened just as Ji Yao was taken by the Disciplinary Hall. What happened at that moment to risk exposure and necessitate her vanishing?

Thus three key points emerged: the reason for Ji Yao’s setup, the reason for leaving the corpse, and the reason for the disciple’s disappearance. These must be connected.

Ji Yao entered her space, deep in thought. Si Tu Jing saw her and was not surprised.

“Senior, did you already know everything that happened outside today?”

Si Tu Jing raised her brows—by rights, she wasn’t in Ji Yao’s body but in the space; unless she deliberately investigated, news from outside wouldn’t reach her.

Ji Yao’s question revealed she’d noticed something.

“What do you want to ask?” Si Tu Jing was curious; she hadn’t mentioned any related topic yesterday.

“Did you notice something yesterday when I entered the space, and handle it?” Ji Yao pursed her lips, recalling a detail she’d previously overlooked.

“How did you figure it out?” Si Tu Jing decided to drop any pretense and ask directly.

“I remembered just now—when that female disciple tried to trip me yesterday, she kept trying to get me close to her, though I didn’t let her succeed.

When I returned, she brought a herb with soil to Ling Ru, and suddenly tripped in front of us. I didn’t think much at the time, just happened to stand before Ling Ru, and the dirt splashed onto me.”

“Now it strikes me—there must have been something in that soil that couldn’t be purified by cleansing magic, right?”

Only Si Tu Jing could answer that, so Ji Yao had never mentioned it.

“It’s rare that you’ve pieced together so much,” Si Tu Jing said, gratified. “What landed on you was a demonic insect called a Tracking Gu.”

“A Tracking Gu, once commanded, immediately transforms into an invisible mark when it lands on its target, burrowing into their body…”

After Si Tu Jing explained everything about the Tracking Gu, Ji Yao realized that her space was set with a demon-repelling formation. The Tracking Gu was sealed when she entered the space.

Si Tu Jing’s sound technique, imbued with a strand of sword energy, later traced and annihilated the mark after Ji Yao left the space and followed the Disciplinary Hall’s disciples.

The Gu’s death alerted its master, who believed the Hall had discovered something, prompting the disappearance of the female disciple.

Ji Yao sighed—there was no clear blame; the demonic insect had to be eliminated, or she’d forever be tracked, and next time, her own life might be forfeit.

“So, now there are just two problems left to solve.” Ji Yao finally exhaled a breath of frustration.

Si Tu Jing guided her, “Why not consider where your only intersection with Li Fanghua lies?”

Ji Yao was reluctant to think about it.

“It’s that beast skin, isn’t it?”