Ning Dao Covered with Snow

Chapter 141 The Mandarin Duck Thief
Xiao Wang placed his left hand on the handrail of the stairs, and the foot he stepped forward stopped in mid-air.

He looked down at Yan Ciwan.

Wujiu is his courtesy name, and only people close to him, such as his family and master, would call him that. But at this moment, Yan Ciwan called him Xiao Wujiu in front of everyone.

This was tantamount to announcing in public how close their relationship was.

Xiao Wang felt hot in his heart and his Adam's apple moved slightly.

Yan Ciwan realized after he called him that calling him like that seemed overly intimate and not in accordance with the rules.

But she had no time to think about it at this moment, and said anxiously: "There is a trap hidden on this staircase, don't come down yet."

Xiao Wang retracted his foot and stood there obediently.

Yan Ci Wan walked quickly to the entrance of the stairs on the right. The staircase was built very narrow, just enough for one person to pass through. When the Lian brothers and sisters went upstairs, they were carrying a bunch of tools needed for the puppet show. Whether it was to save time or to facilitate the transportation of tools, they would go up the stairs on the left and right separately.

As for how they chose the left and right stairs, it was a random event, just like Yan Ci Wan and Fu Xue drinking mutton soup.

Yan Ciwan walked up the stairs, carefully checking the steps under his feet before taking each step.

Xiao Wang stood on the second floor, watching her approaching him step by step.

When she was two-thirds of the way up the stairs, she suddenly said, "There's something wrong with this piece of wood!"

Xiao Wang walked down the stairs and came straight to her.

The two men squatted on the stairs, head to head, reached out and grabbed the wooden board and pulled it gently, and the already loose wooden board was immediately pulled out.

Du Lingzhou couldn't contain his curiosity, so he quickly walked up the stairs and stretched his neck to look at the wooden board.

Yan Ci Wan and Xiao Wang ignored him and searched around the loose wooden board. They soon found several protruding wooden splinters, one of which had a little blood on it.

"It seems that when Lian Bantian fell, his finger happened to press on this wooden thorn." Yan Ciwan said in a deep voice.

Xiao Wang took out the hand towel he carried with him, pulled out the bloody wooden splinter, carefully wrapped it up along with the other clean wooden splinters, and handed it to Du Lingzhou, who was following Yan Ciwan to watch the fun, and said.

"Take it to Chao Er Niang to check and see if it's poisonous?"

Du Lingzhou was very unconvinced: "Why should I do whatever you tell me to do? I'm not your slave!"

Xiao Wang was too lazy to argue with him and said directly: "Then you go down and let Chao Erniang come up instead."

Du Lingzhou said proudly: "If you ask me to go down, I won't go down!"

Yan Ciwan turned around and said to him, "If it weren't for us, you and Huaiyan would still be sick now. Even if you don't want to repay us, you shouldn't cause us trouble here, right?"

Du Lingzhou was so embarrassed by what she said that he deliberately showed a disdainful expression and snorted.

"Isn't it just handing something over? Here!"

He snatched the evidence from Xiao Wang's hand, turned around, strode downstairs, and handed it to Chao Lu.

Yan Ciwan inserted the wooden board back, and the two walked up the stairs. This place was about ten feet above the first floor, and looking down from here, one could have a panoramic view of the entire first floor.

Xiao Wang pointed to a pile of tools on the ground and said, "These are all used for puppet shows. I have just checked them and found nothing unusual."

Yan Ciwan glanced at Lian Zhuifang below, and then spoke in a low voice.

"I discovered that Lian Zhuifang's identity is not simple. She claimed that she and her brother traveled around the world and made a living by performing puppet shows. But her skin was fair, and she didn't look like she had been exposed to the wind and sun for many years. The material of the clothes she wore was not something that ordinary street performers could afford. Most importantly, the gold bracelet on her wrist was a tribute from Persia!"

Even if ordinary people have money, they cannot buy tribute from foreign countries. The gold bracelet on Lian Zhuifang's hand must have come from an illegal source.

Xiao Wang frowned, "I have traveled around in the past few years and heard that a pair of thieves appeared in the martial arts world. Because they were a man and a woman, they were nicknamed the Mandarin Duck Thieves. They had stolen many times and even attacked a convoy carrying tribute. The court issued a warrant to arrest them, but no trace of them has been found so far."

Yan Ciwan was shocked: "Could it be that the Lian brothers and sisters are the rumored mandarin duck thieves?"

Xiao Wang couldn't give a definite answer. He pondered, "Assuming that the Lian brothers and sisters are the Manor Thieves, then the Chu Manor Master who is on good terms with them must not be a simple person either. Does he also have another identity?"

"If we can find out their true identities, maybe we can know what happened in Lingdie Temple twenty years ago?" Yan Ciwan had a plan in mind, and she immediately walked towards the stairs on the left.

Xiao Wang followed closely behind, and the two returned to the first floor.

At this time, Chaolu had finished examining the splinters. She said, "All of these splinters are coated with aconite, and this splinter is exactly the same as the wound on Lian Bantian's finger."

In this way, the entire incident process becomes very clear.

Lian Bantian was carrying tools upstairs when he stepped on a loose wooden board. After falling, his left index finger happened to press on a wooden thorn coated with a highly toxic substance. At that time, Lian Bantian did not realize that he had been poisoned. He just thought it was a small accident. When the puppet show was halfway through, the poison of the aconite took effect and Lian Bantian died.

Yan Ciwan said: "The murderer loosened the wooden board in advance, making it easy for people to fall when they stepped on it, and then made several wooden thorns nearby, and the surface of each wooden thorn was coated with poison."

Lian Zhuifang's eyes were filled with hatred: "Who did it?"

In order to save face, Du Lingzhou took the initiative to analyze.

"There were a lot of people here yesterday, and you and your sister came early this morning, so the murderer had no chance to set up a trap in advance, either yesterday or this morning. His only chance was last night. Everyone was asleep at that time, and there was no one in Guanhai Pavilion. The murderer could have set up a trap here without any worries. We just need to check if anyone went out last night, and we can know who the murderer is."

Yan Ci Wan and Xiao Wang looked at each other, and they both chose to remain silent tacitly.

In fact, Du Lingzhou's analysis was correct. Last night was indeed the best time for the murderer to act, but it was not so easy to find out who had sneaked out last night.

To take a step back, even if someone is really stupid enough to reveal that he or she has sneaked out in the middle of the night, it does not mean that he or she has definitely been to Guanhai Pavilion.

But none of this matters.

Yan Ciwan and Xiao Wang thought it would be a good idea to let Du Lingzhou make a fuss. They could take the opportunity to check all the guests to see if they were hiding other identities like the Lian brothers and sisters?
Lian Zhuifang's eyes were burning with fire, and she was getting closer and closer to finding the real culprit.

She stood up and urged impatiently, "What are you waiting for? Call them over and interrogate them one by one!"

Yan Ciwan said calmly, "It would be a waste of time to wait for everyone to gather together, and if everyone gathers together, they will have the opportunity to collude with others. Why don't we go find them?"

(End of this chapter)