From bone collectors to the supreme ruler of humanity

Zhou Dahu raised the torch high and looked around.

There was nothing on the open ground except his own shadow, which was stretched long by the firelight.

"come out!"

He roared, "Lin Yan, I know it's you! Come out here!"

Lin Yan walked out of the woods.

He didn't carry a torch; he simply emerged from the darkness, as if he had grown out of the ground.

When Zhou Dahu saw him, he was taken aback at first, and then took two steps back.

"You...how could you..."

"Master Zhou," Lin Yan said, standing opposite him at a distance of about ten steps, "You were looking for me?"

Zhou Dahu swallowed hard.

He noticed a dark red mark on Lin Yan's wood-chopping knife.

It's not blood, it's tree sap.

But he was already panicking.

"Lin Yan, did you throw that brocade pouch in my house?"

"What secret plan?" Lin Yan tilted his head. "I don't know."

"Stop pretending!" Zhou Dahu roared. "Manager Zhao lost something, and it was found at my house. Did you do it?"

Lin Yan didn't speak, she just looked at him.

Zhou Dahu felt uneasy under his gaze and took another step back.

"Lin Yan, tell me honestly, where is the thing? Hand it over, and I'll guarantee you're safe."

"Master Zhou," Lin Yan suddenly laughed, "Do you think I believe that?"

Zhou Dahu's face stiffened.

"Your grain should last you a while," Lin Yan said. "But do you think Steward Zhao will let you go just because of a brocade pouch?"

Zhou Dahu's hands began to tremble.

"What do you mean?"

"What I mean is," Lin Yan took a step forward, "you're in trouble yourself now, Master Zhou."

Looking into Lin Yan's eyes, Zhou Dahu suddenly understood something.

"You...you did it on purpose...you threw the brocade pouch in my house, letting Steward Zhao trace it back to me...you..."

"Master Zhou, you're overthinking it," Lin Yan said. "I'm just a bone collector; I don't have that kind of skill."

He paused.

"But then again, you know perfectly well how much donation you've collected and how many people you've driven to their deaths over the years. Now that people are causing you trouble, isn't that retribution?"

Zhou Dahu's face turned a deep liver color.

"You fucking—"

He raised the torch and threw it at Lin Yan, then turned and ran.

Lin Yan dodged the torch to the side, took a step forward, and caught up with Zhou Dahu in three or four steps.

He kicked Zhou Dahu in the back of the knee.

Zhou Dahu suddenly knelt on the ground, his knees hitting the stone, causing him to scream in pain.

Lin Yan grabbed him from behind by the back of the neck and forced him to the ground.

"Master Zhou, stop running."

"Lin Yan! Lin Yan, let me go!" Zhou Dahu's face was pressed into the rubble, his mouth was cut and bleeding, "I promise I won't cause you any trouble! I promise!"

Lin Yan didn't say anything, but increased the pressure on his hand.

Zhou Dahu felt like his neck was about to be snapped.

"I don't want the grain! I don't want the silver either! You can have it all! You can have it all!"

"Master Zhou," Lin Yan leaned down and whispered in his ear, "Do you think I'd believe that?"

Zhou Dahu froze.

Lin Yan released his grip and stood up.

Zhou Dahu lay on the ground, panting heavily.

"You can leave now," Lin Yan said.

Zhou Dahu was taken aback and looked up at him.

"You're not going to kill me?"

"If I kill you, Steward Zhao will come after me even more." Lin Yan turned and walked into the woods. "Go back and tell Steward Zhao that I know nothing about the brocade pouch. Let him investigate himself."

Zhou Dahu got up and stumbled down the mountain.

He ran a few steps, then looked back again.

Lin Yan had already disappeared into the darkness.

Zhou Dahu scrambled back to town; it was almost dawn.

He went directly to Qingfengxiang, knocked on the back door, and met Zhao Yuanlang.

"Master Zhao! Master Zhao!" Zhou Dahu knelt on the ground, his face covered in blood and mud. "That Lin Yan, he's escaped! He's disappeared!"

Zhao Yuanlang sat in the armchair, looking at him without saying a word.

"I brought eight men to search, and he knocked them all unconscious!" Zhou Dahu became more and more agitated as he spoke. "This kid isn't ordinary; he knows martial arts! He's definitely trained!"

"Has he been trained?" Zhao Yuanlang frowned.

"It's true! Master Zhao, I saw it with my own eyes! He came out of the woods, and he took down all my brothers. I couldn't even outrun him!"

Zhao Yuanlang remained silent for a while.

"What about the brocade pouch? Did he acknowledge it?"

He said he didn't know! He told me to look it up myself!

Zhao Yuanlang stood up and paced around the room.

I've practiced.

He was a wandering bone collector who had practiced martial arts.

This is abnormal in itself.

Moreover, he possessed Black Sand Gang's marked money, and the Crown Prince's brocade pouch appeared in his home.

When these events were pieced together, Zhao Yuanlang felt something was amiss.

"Accountant Su," he called out.

Su Wenyuan came out from behind the screen.

"Have you investigated that Lin Yan?"

"I've checked," Su Wenyuan said. "The family members who collected bones from wandering households were both wandering households and had no background in martial arts."

"Then how come he knows martial arts?"

"I don't know," Su Wenyuan shook his head, "but I found out that he's been in contact with the Black Sand Gang recently."

"The Black Sand Gang?"

"Yes, there's a thug in the Black Sand Gang named Wang Agou who operates in the Black Wind Ridge area. Lin Yan has had contact with him a few times."

Zhao Yuanlang's brows furrowed more and more tightly.

Black Sand Gang.

The Eastern Palace Brocade Pouch.

A bone collector who knows martial arts.

The combination of these things gave him a sense of conspiracy.

"Zhou Dahu." He turned to Zhou Dahu, who was kneeling on the ground, "Are you sure Lin Yan stole the grain from your warehouse?"

"Confirmed!" Zhou Dahu nodded. "Several hundred catties of grain and some loose silver are gone!"

"He only took the grain and silver?"

"Yes, I didn't take anything else."

Zhao Yuanlang remained silent for a long time.

Then he suddenly asked, "Has anything else gone missing from your storeroom?"

Zhou Dahu was taken aback: "Other things? No, all the porcelain vases and bronzes on the shelf are still there."

Zhao Yuanlang's brows relaxed a little.

He recalled what Su Wenyuan had said: the brocade pouch was found under the shelf, not taken down from it.

If Zhou Dahu had taken the brocade pouch, he would have hidden it carefully instead of just throwing it on the ground.

If Zhou Dahu's men had taken the brocade pouch, they wouldn't have only taken the grain and left out the valuable porcelain bottles and bronzeware.

Therefore, the thief's target was never the secret pouch.

It's grain.

The brocade pouch was just tossed aside casually.

The purpose of throwing away the brocade pouch was to frame someone.

Zhao Yuanlang went through all these things in his mind and came to a conclusion.

Lin Yan truly did not know the origin of the brocade pouch.

He just happened to find the brocade pouch, happened to know that it was related to the government, and happened to use it to frame Zhou Dahu.

But there is a problem.

That brocade pouch was lost by Zhao Yuanlang at Black Wind Ridge.

How did Lin Yan, a bone collector, find it?

unless……

Zhao Yuanlang suddenly stood up.

"Tentatives Su, how many times have we searched Black Wind Ridge?"

"Three times," Su Wenyuan said. "Each time they searched very thoroughly."

"Have you found that cave?"

Su Wenyuan was taken aback: "What cave?"

Zhao Yuanlang did not answer.

He remembered something.

That brocade pouch wasn't the one he lost.

The brocade pouch he lost contained a token and a fragment of the breathing exercise manual.

The one Su Wenyuan found was empty.

In other words, there are two brocade pouches in Black Wind Ridge.