Nine Chapters of Strange Cases

Chapter 258 The earthworm shakes the tree
From the moment Chen Jiyuan embarked on his perilous journey through the Lost City, Bai Shisan Niang had already planned everything for today.

She was all alone, like an ant trying to shake a tree; all she had was her own life.

Gambling with human lives is a gamble that could lead to the collapse of a mountain or the fall of a tree.

It is the rebirth of the child who is connected to her by blood.

"A person's back view is a person to humans and a ghost to ghosts."

Bai Shisan Niang and Chen Jiyuan were both subordinates of the remnant of the previous dynasty, Gongzi Yu, so she knew that someone would come to investigate after Chen Jiyuan left Chang'an.

She painted two pieces of silk, one of which was Chen Jiyuan's last letter. The other was the painting that hung in her room. She and Chen Jiyuan were very close, and it was impossible to hide it from her adoptive father; Baihualou would also be searched.

Why wasn't Chen Jiyuan's suicide note found? The Chen family's belongings were only briefly searched, because Bai Shisan Niang used herself as bait.

The bait was the painting in the study.

Zhou Zhao did not mention his adoptive father, since Su Changying was still a spy planted in the Northern Army by his adoptive father.

There might still be a mole within the Court of Justice, and she didn't want to involve Su Changying in front of Min Zangzhi.

Min Zangzhi never trusted Su Changying in the first place.

As Zhou Zhao spoke, he felt a deep sense of sorrow. "Bai Shisan Niang knew who would be searching. It was someone she knew from Baihualou. If I'm not mistaken, that person was the one in charge of this spy network. The people of Baihualou had absolutely no courage to resist her."

This person must be a close confidant of the adoptive father and harbor special feelings for him. That's why Bai Shisan Niang deliberately set up this deadly trap.

She deliberately had the portrait found, misleading people into believing that the owner of the jade hairpin was Niannian's biological father.

The woman who had been keeping an eye on Su Changying, Yin Yan, the owner of the roasted mutton shop, had developed different feelings for her adoptive father, hadn't she?
A woman confined to a cage of life and death is easily drawn to a mysterious and powerful man, even if that man is the one who caused her tragic fate.

"That's why, as a noblewoman's kept canary outside, Bai Shisan Niang would secretly keep such a painting in her room."

The painting clearly depicts a family of three, especially Bai Shisan Niang, who is smiling happily with her hand on her lower abdomen and holding a longevity lock in her hand.

Because they saw Chen Jiyuan's belongings, they assumed that it was Chen Jiyuan.

But what about others?
Who was the person the murderer saw?

Zhou Zhao had his suspicions; that person might be openly keeping Bai Shisan Niang as a mistress.

From Su Changying's momentary lapse in concentration, she guessed that the person wearing the jade hairpin whose face was obscured must be her godfather, who had been hiding his true identity.

"Chen Jiyuan's belongings were not exposed, and Li Youdao is not a spy for the Court of Justice. Then how did the people at Baihualou know about the handkerchief? The handkerchief had been missing for more than a day or two without being found, so why did they know immediately after Chen Jiyuan's death?"

Because Bai Shisan Niang deliberately let someone discover it by accident.

The scene that might have happened that night was almost vividly clear in Zhou Zhao's mind.

In the dead of night at the White Flower Pavilion, Thirteen Sister gently teased Nian Nian, her fingertips tapping on the iron box, making a crisp sound.

Her eyes held a lingering affection, and perhaps the shyness of a young girl experiencing first love lingered on her face as she opened a corner of the tin box, revealing a corner of a blue handkerchief inside.

Thirteen Sister pointed to the newly finished painting and proudly told the innocent infant, "That is your father."

She added in her mind, "That's the enemy who killed your father."

Understanding and manipulating people's hearts was a daily lesson her adoptive father taught them, and now she was using everything she had learned from him to deal with him. Her heart trembled; after all, what she was doing was like dancing on the edge of a cliff. If the thief who had secretly come to investigate suddenly attacked, snatched the iron box, and killed her and her cousin, she would be completely powerless to fight back.

She's gambling.

They were betting that a routine search wouldn't uncover any powerful figures. They wouldn't know who the person in the painting was, much less that their high-ranking godfather had had a blue handkerchief he always carried with him stolen.

She won her gamble. Those people quietly retreated and reported everything they had discovered during the night in detail.

It started to rain in Chang'an, just as she had imagined.

She knew that in the nearby Lost City, everything about Chen Jiyuan had been washed away by the heavy rain.

They knew neither where they came from nor where they were going.

But they were also living, breathing human beings. Chen Jiyuan shouldn't have died so helplessly in the Lost City, and she shouldn't have rotted away in the White Fragrance Pavilion, becoming a withered skeleton. They still had years ahead of them.

If the adoptive father doesn't die, how can we talk about new life every year?

She only regretted that she knew so little about that person.

So little that all her plans seemed utterly ridiculous.

It was like an ant trying to shake a tree; that was all she had.

“If Niannian were Chen Jiyuan’s child, he could be trained as a new spy. If he were a nobleman’s child, he could be used as a bargaining chip. But what if he were the child of some powerful figure from the previous dynasty, secretly born to Bai Shisan Niang? Bai Shisan Niang deliberately made that person think that way.”

Zhou Zhao spoke calmly.

“Nian Nian couldn’t have sent the letter to the Chen family yesterday, because he had to die. If he had gone there, he would have brought disaster upon the Chen family. Thirteen Niang didn’t dare to send him away casually either, because she had no other trustworthy person to entrust him to. Who knows what fate awaited the child if he were sent elsewhere?”

So she entrusted the child to me.

Zhou Zhao thought that after those people left, Bai Shisan Niang knew she would die. She had made preparations long before Chen Jiyuan went to the Lost City.

"She asked Chen Jiyuan to leave behind the shoes she made herself at the Tingwei Temple, as well as the sachet that symbolized rising step by step. She also specifically asked Chen's parents to come and hug the child after I arrived at the crime scene. One of their purposes was to maintain our old relationship."

Neither Min Zangzhi nor Su Changying spoke. They had both heard clearly what the two elders of the Chen family had said earlier, one openly and the other secretly.

They truly had feelings for Chen Jiyuan and were kind-hearted people, so every word they said was sincere.

Chen Jiyuan must have spoken to Bai Shisan Niang about her, about the Chen family, and about his colleagues at the Court of Justice.

“It’s just a handkerchief, what kind of evidence is that? Most of them can’t even be identified. But Bai Shisan Niang knows that we have Min Zangzhi, a master of incense, in our Left Courtyard. Perhaps you can find that person by following this fragrance.”

As Min Zangzhi listened, his heart suddenly felt heavy.

He pursed his lips. "I will try to recreate this fragrance, but now that the handkerchief incident has been exposed, even the dumbest person would know to change the fragrance."

"As for the other purposes, one was to hand me the will on the spot so that I could immediately compare it with the one in Baihualou and find the differences. The second was the sachet that symbolized rising to higher positions."

As Zhou Zhao spoke, he looked at the fourth picture in Chen Jiyuan's will. In the picture, a child was wrapped in a snake, with only a corner of the swaddling clothes showing.

"Have you ever thought that before I arrived, the embroiderer Cao Qin and the brothers from the Northern Army had already opened the door and discovered the crime scene, but they were not attacked by the snake?"

As I arrived, the serpent swooped out…