Nine Chapters of Strange Cases

Chapter 220 Suspicious Lottery
"no!"

Before Zhou Zhao could respond, Li Youdao stood up agitatedly, his eyes bloodshot and swollen.

His eyes were vacant, and he couldn't tell if it was a dream or reality.

In his dream, he had regretted countless times that on the day of Li Youzhi's competition, he hadn't shouted "No!" loudly, and hadn't stopped him from going down that road of no return.

Zhou Zhao looked at Li Youdao and sighed inwardly. She said softly, "Master, I have martial arts skills."

Let alone just a case-solving competition, she'd be willing to brave even the most dangerous places to seize this opportunity for promotion.

Li Youdao snapped out of his half-awake state and turned to look at Zhou Zhao, his eyes filled with worry. He had originally wanted to defuse the situation easily, perhaps by mocking Zhou Zhao for being arrogant and conceited, pointing out that while she was good at solving cases, she wasn't the best martial artist in the world.

For example, he might make a few sarcastic remarks about Li Huaishan, acting as a peacemaker to smooth things over.

But he couldn't say it; all he could see was Li Youzhi's face, the image of him holding a ruler and standing behind the child, ordering him to recite the law.

Back then, there was a persimmon tree outside his window, and the persimmons were just as red as they are now.

Young children are all greedy for food and play, but he hardened his heart and made him memorize his lessons, memorizing day and night, until the persimmons rotted and fell to the ground, until the birds pecked the biggest and tallest one to pieces, and the persimmons never reached Li Youzhi's mouth.

That's how impatient he was; he relentlessly drove Li Youzhi to his doom.

Li Youdao clenched his fist as he recalled the past.

Zhou Zhao cannot be the next Li Youzhi.

Seeing Li Youdao's strange behavior, Li Huaishan looked at him with an unusually gentle expression. "I took this opportunity to serve you, but I have my own selfish reasons. Firstly, these two rising stars are really evenly matched. You've put this difficult problem in my hands, so I have to pass it back to you! Otherwise, wouldn't you old foxes get what you want?"

Li Huaishan looked aggrieved as he spoke, and everyone present couldn't help but laugh.

It's not that what he said was particularly funny, but that your superiors want you to laugh at this time. Anyone who isn't a fool would laugh along.

"Secondly, Jingyi has always been by my side. Although I believe I have acted uprightly and honestly, and I recommend virtuous people without regard to kinship, if Jingyi wins directly because of me, he will inevitably be criticized in the future, which would not be good. Xiao Zhou is also thinking to himself that I am a lousy old man."

As Li Huaishan spoke, he laughed first.

Zhou Zhao looked at him with a smile, her mind racing.

"Your Excellency, how shall this grand competition be conducted?"

Li Huaishan stroked his beard, thought for a moment, and said, "How about we do it the same way as before, drawing up a cold case? But I have a suggestion: this time we'll only draw one case, and two people will handle it."

As Li Huaishan spoke, he looked at the unfamiliar old clerk. The old clerk stood up somewhat slowly, took a dusty divination stick container from a shelf against the wall in the room, and placed it in the center of the table.

Zhou Zhao raised an eyebrow. "Jingyi, you draw."

Zhou Zhao was deliberately testing her. According to the death prophecy, she would die in the Lost City, so this time she would definitely draw the Lost City case in the lottery.

She didn't believe in such coincidences. She had just heard a few people mention the Lost City today, and they just happened to draw the Lost City case from the divination box.

So someone let them draw it.

There are two simplest ways to cheat in the lottery: one is to make all the lots in the lottery box contain the "Mystery City" case, and the other is to mark the lots in advance, in which case the person drawing the lots would be guilty.

Jingyi shook his head, "Young Master Zhou, please draw." As the two were politely declining, Li Youdao suddenly said, "I'll draw."

As he spoke, he stood up and looked at Zhou Zhaotong and Jing Yi, "Is this feasible for you two?"

Zhou Zhao gave Li Youdao a deep look, then gestured for him to proceed, and Jing Yi nodded in agreement.

Li Youdao pursed his lips and picked up the divination stick container with trembling hands.

Zhou Zhao looked around and saw that the lots in the container all looked the same and had no obvious markings.

Li Youdao picked up the bamboo divination tube, shook it a few times, and then reached out and drew one out. As soon as he picked it up, his pupils contracted sharply, and with a thud, the bamboo divination stick in his hand fell onto the table.

Zhou Zhao walked over unhurriedly and, without any surprise, saw the words "Missing Case of Blood Mist in the Lost City" on the bamboo stick.

Was Li Youdao the mole? Or was there some other reason?

As Zhou Zhao was thinking, he saw Li Youdao, as if he had gone mad, pour out all the bamboo skewers from the bamboo tube. He spread the bamboo skewers out and looked at them one by one, saying anxiously as he looked.

"That doesn't count. The Lost City is too far, and this case is so old that the murderer might even be dead. There would be absolutely no clues going there now. I need to draw again!"

The room fell into a deathly silence once again, broken only by the sound of Li Youdao constantly prying open the bamboo skewers.

Zhou Zhao stood there quietly watching. Not all the divination sticks were the Mystery City case; there was only one stick in the divination tube.

At first glance, the bamboo stick in the Lost City case looks no different from the others in terms of length, width, or thickness, and Zhou Zhao did not find any special markings.

So, how did Li Youdao draw this lot?
Zhou Zhao thought for a moment, picked up the bamboo stick, and waved it in his hand. "This will do. We'll set off for the Lost City immediately. I wonder which sir would be willing to supervise Zhou Zhao's exam?"

Li Youdao was about to speak excitedly, but He Tingshi stopped him, "You're clearly unable to calm down, so let me go. I was there during the Lost City case back then, and I'm very familiar with what happened. I can explain it to them beforehand."

I recommended Zhou Zhao, but if she were to supervise the examination, she might be unfair. I will go with Jing Yi.

No sooner had He Tingshi finished speaking than Tao Shangshan, who rarely spoke up, said, "In that case, let me follow Zhou Zhao."

Li Huaishan nodded. "If that's the case, then it's settled. You'll set off for the Lost City first thing tomorrow morning. The Court of Justice still has some business to attend to, so we can't stay there indefinitely. Taking into account the time spent traveling, we'll give you three days."

Li Huaishan held up three fingers. "If the case is not solved in three days, then we will return to Chang'an. The one who finds the most clues will win."

Seeing that Li Huaishan had made a decision, everyone stood up, cupped their hands in agreement, and accepted.

Zhou Zhao quietly raised her eyes, looking at the people in the room. Who was the mole who killed her in the Lost City?

She wasn't bragging, but she could kill everyone present by herself.

How did the traitor kill her?

Li Youdao's lottery draw was suspicious, but he wasn't allowed to go to the Lost City. Could it not be him? Or perhaps there was a mole within the Court of Justice, and not just one?
Zhou Zhao couldn't figure out the answer.

Just like when she went to Tianying City before, she left Chang'an with Liu Huang and headed for the Lost City as the first rays of sunlight rose in the east.

(End of this chapter)