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Chapter 159. Slinging Dirty Water

Jiang Jianxin stared at the little girl, a sense of familiarity washing over him.

She remembered the monster-like little girl she had seen on the corner upstairs the night before when she was playing the scary old lady.

At that time, her eyeballs bulged out of their sockets, her bluish-purple tongue licked her rotting fingers, and her face was ferocious and terrifying, but one could vaguely recognize that her facial features were similar to those of the girl in front of her.

—Has the monster girl come knocking on our door?
A strange look flashed across Jiang Jianxin's face, but he quickly regained his composure and said gently:

"Of course, please come in."

The girl walked in, one hand in front of her mouth, licking her fingers with her tongue, and occasionally licking the corner of her mouth.

Jiang Jianxin could almost see the glistening water on those little hands.

"Sit here."

Jiang Jianxin gently pulled out a chair for her, the wooden legs making a soft dragging sound on the floor.

The little girl slowly climbed up, her red skirt soaking wet, whether from water or something else, it was hard to tell.

She kept sucking on her fingers, her tongue nimbly swirling around them, making a soft, watery sound. Her focused expression suggested she was savoring some secret delicacy.

Jiang Jianxin lowered his eyes to arrange the tarot cards, and the crystal ball cast a faint purple light on the table.

She deliberately ignored the girl's strange behavior, her voice as calm as if she were speaking to any ordinary customer: "Little sister, what would you like to have your fortune told?"

The girl suddenly released her wet fingers, raised her small face, her dark pupils reflecting no light, but a sweet smile bloomed on her lips:

"Sister, can you tell me? Grandma Li lives on the third floor..."

The child's voice suddenly lowered, like a razor blade covered in icing:
"Where did they go?"

Jiang Jianxin stared into those eyes that shouldn't belong to a child. Beneath the wrinkles of that innocent smile lay a viscous malice.

—Grandma Li on the third floor?
Jiang Jianxin's first thought was of the terrifying old woman he had killed the night before.

If anyone else were confronted with such a direct questioning about their crimes, they might have panicked or even glared at the perpetrator.

But Jiang Jianxin's mind raced, and instead of rushing to reply, he began to analyze the situation.

Last night, when she was fighting with her grandmother, the noise was loud, but no one came to the scene.

When someone came to check on the situation, she quickly came up with a plan and pretended to be an old woman, walking out the door.

At least in the eyes of outsiders, Yin Qingyue's house was not the last place the old lady appeared in.

The girl's words might just be a test; she doesn't need to panic.

Therefore, Jiang Jianxin simply replied calmly:
"Let me do a fortune telling for you."

Jiang Jianxin spread out the tarot cards and placed them in front of the girl, then slowly said:

"You can draw a card now."

The girl closed her eyes, and three tarot cards seemed to be drawn by an invisible force, leaping out of the deck on their own.

Jiang Jianxin picked up the three cards of fate with his slender fingertips, his fingertips gently tracing the winding black lines on the cards.

She lowered her eyes and stared at the interwoven lines, mentally conceiving the most perfect interpretation.

The girl stopped playing with her fingers and instead squinted her eyes slightly, licking the corner of her lips with her tongue.

“Please look at these three cards.”

The fortune teller turned the cards towards her, his voice flowing like a clear spring.

"The Wheel of Fortune reversed, The Tower, Death upright—these three revelations all point to the same fact: the Grandma Li you inquired about is probably already deceased." The girl stared intently at Jiang Jianxin and asked:

"Then...who killed her?"

Under the girl's intense gaze, Jiang Jianxin calmly said:
"The person who killed her was a man who had recently been involved in a verbal dispute, and whose name contained the character for water."

Jiang Jianxin made up a story about the wriggling black lines:

"The divination results indicate that he killed Grandma Li last night."

She knew absolutely nothing about Western divination, but she understood Eastern fortune telling. When the girl asked her a divination question, she used fortune telling methods to answer, and she had to be extremely careful.

If the old lady hadn't died, people might have doubted her abilities and thus her identity—after all, the old lady was dead.

If you directly say that the old lady died, the girl will definitely ask who killed her.

Faced with the choice between answering "I don't know" and blaming others, Jiang Jianxin resolutely chose to blame others.

Because you don't know if you might be suspected, the risk of being smeared is not that high.

The pitiful person she chose to be splashed on was naturally "Chi Lichuan" across the street.

That guy's overall demeanor was very unpleasant, and since he was also there to find the lost item from the fourth playthrough, he was essentially a hidden rival—Jiang Jianxin naturally wanted to treat him like a Japanese person and make trouble for him.

She watched as the girl licked her lips, glancing at her with a mixture of disbelief and skepticism.

Jiang Jianxin knew that the child had indeed been testing her, but she had acted too calmly and spoke with too much certainty, making her seem like a truly skilled diviner. As a result, she was now wavering.

Jiang Jianxin blinked, and to make the girl completely believe him, he added:

"Besides divination, I can also provide you with some other information."

"...Actually, I heard some noises last night, a very intense fight, coming from across the hall."

Jiang Jianxin blatantly lied:
"I was too scared to go out and see, so I didn't know how it ended."

The girl's pupils contracted slightly.

She also heard fighting downstairs last night, but she was busy upstairs making friends with her newly found tenants, so she didn't go down to check.

She vaguely remembered that Grandma Li had passed by her once, but she had a bad memory and forgot the order in which the fighting sounds and Grandma Li appeared.

The girl subconsciously felt that the fighting sounds must have occurred after Grandma Li appeared.

So she bit her finger, and after a long pause, a sinister smile appeared on her face:

"So that's it."

The girl averted her gaze and instead cast a malicious look at the door of Chi Lichuan's house.

Jiang Jianxin smiled faintly where she couldn't see; she knew her plan to smear her had succeeded.

The little girl monster she lured away, plus the monster whose persona collapsed and whose identity was questioned.

Jiang Jianxin couldn't imagine how lively Chi Lichuan's house would be tonight.

The girl across the divination table stood up, a finger in her mouth, and smiled at Jiang Jianxin:

"Thank you, sister."

She watched the little girl skip and hop out the door, and stood staring at Chi Lichuan's door for a long time before leaving.

Thank you Chu Xin and ⊙⊙410 for the monthly tickets, and thank you everyone for your support!
I was going to update early today, but I'm late again (╥_╥) I promise to update early tomorrow (╥_╥)