SES Chapter 183 Part 1

Chapter 183

Luo Ren had been waiting for Zheng Mingshan’s call the whole time, restless and unable to sit still. Time dragged on at an unhurried pace. All he could do here was wait in vain—but elsewhere, many things might already be happening.

What if Mu Dai had gotten into trouble during this very window of time?

When the phone finally rang, Luo Ren picked it up almost instantly—then felt a wave of disappointment. It wasn’t Zheng Mingshan; it was Wan Fenghuo.

Luo Ren wasn’t in the mood for chit-chat and told him to get to the point. “Anything important?”

His tone wasn’t great. Wan Fenghuo, being tactful, replied, “Just some bits and pieces. If you want to hear it, I’ll talk. If you’re busy, I can have someone call you later.”

Wan Fenghuo was still, more or less, a “boss,” and now and then he liked to put on airs through his subordinates.

“Go ahead.”

“I found out that the generation of Leopard’s ancestors who went down to Southeast Asia dates back to the mid–Ming Dynasty. And remember how we’ve always found it strange? Most people who went south came from Guangdong, Guangxi, or Fujian—places that had long been prosperous. People from Zhejiang, which was also relatively well-off, rarely left their homes.”

Luo Ren gave a brief “Mm.” “So?”

“They didn’t leave of their own accord. They killed someone, the case came to light, and they ran.”

Luo Ren was a little surprised. “Go on.”

Hearing it in his voice, Wan Fenghuo knew Luo Ren was interested now, and he felt a surge of satisfaction himself. “It starts with the river in that town. The river flows in from outside and gathers at the eastern end of town into a large pond. These days it’s called Xiacheng Pond, but according to the older generation, it used to be called Seven-Person Pond.”

Luo Ren’s heart jolted.

Seven. He was extremely sensitive to that number now.

“Back then, for some inexplicable reason, seven people drowned in that pond one after another within a short period of time. The whole town was thrown into panic. Adults and children alike didn’t dare go near it. The yamen suspected someone in the town was responsible, but they couldn’t find any evidence.”

Something in Luo Ren’s mind seemed to start connecting. “The killer was Leopard’s ancestor?”

“Yes. He was unlucky in a way. He was never actually caught when he committed the crimes, but that year, for some reason, four or five outsiders came to town. They were probably from the underworld—bold, meticulous, and skilled in martial arts. They flushed him out. The clan locked him in the ancestral hall, probably planning to deal with him according to family law on an auspicious day. Who knew he’d seize the chance to escape? He ran off and never came back.”

So that was it. And he ran far—straight down to Southeast Asia.

“Later on, when the town built a bridge, this case was carved into the stepping stones as a warning to future generations. Thanks to that, the story was passed down, and some of the elderly still remember it.”

Luo Ren thought for a moment, then asked, “Can you find out anything about those four or five outsiders?”

“That’s hard. According to what’s been passed down, they ‘spoke with northern accents and pretended to be flower peddlers when they entered the town.’”

After hanging up, Luo Ren’s heart was pounding.

Yi Wan San still hadn’t come back. Luo Ren called Cao Yanhua and Yan Hongsha over to a corner to talk. In the distance, Qingmu glanced at them but didn’t come over—he had his own brand of pride: If you don’t invite me, I don’t care to listen.

Luo Ren summarized what he’d learned and asked them, “Any thoughts? Does it sound familiar?”

Yan Hongsha stared with her mouth half open for a long moment before saying, “It does. Listening to it now, it suddenly feels like… the Ming Dynasty version of the five of us.”

Luo Ren nodded. “It’s been several hundred years. Stories that get passed down this long may not be entirely accurate, but they’re still worth referencing. Wan Fenghuo said, ‘four or five outsiders.’ I’m inclined to assume a definite number—not four or five, but five.”

Five—matching metal, wood, water, fire, and earth. Just like the little team they’d formed on a whim.

Cao Yanhua chimed in, “Leopard’s ancestor kind of feels like Yafeng, doesn’t he?”

Exactly. Back then, they’d obtained the murderous slips from Qing Shan and Yafeng, but didn’t know what to do with either of them. After weighing their options, they’d let them go. Applied to that old town, those five people in the Ming Dynasty might also have obtained the murderous slips and handed the culprit over to the clan elders to deal with—never expecting him to seize the chance to escape.

Luo Ren said, “Before, I didn’t know the exact era when the murderous slip appeared in that Zhejiang town. I just assumed it was transferred from the town to Wuzhu Village because the imagery matched the giant seabed mural there. Now it seems the situation is more complicated than I thought.”

More complicated still? Yan Hongsha’s brain was starting to short-circuit.

Luo Ren smiled slightly. “Maybe, hundreds of years ago, something similar to what we’re dealing with now already happened. There were another five people, just like us, tracking down the murderous slips.”

He gestured for Yan Hongsha to hand him the order pad and pen tucked into the server’s apron. Flipping the pad over, he drew two Big Dippers—one vertical, one horizontal—and roughly outlined a map of China around them.

Pointing to the vertical one, he said, “This represents the distribution of murderous slips on our current journey.”

Then he pointed to the horizontal one. “And this likely represents how the locations of the murderous slips evolved hundreds of years ago.”

Back then, centuries ago, were the murderous slips already wreaking havoc? And were there really another five people, just like them, subduing them?

The similarities and connections stretching across vast spans of time and space sent a faint shiver rippling up Yan Hongsha’s arms.

Cao Yanhua asked timidly, “Then… did they succeed?”

“It’s hard to say,” Luo Ren replied. “Maybe they did, but afterward, for some reason, the Phoenix-Luan clasp was undone again. Or maybe they never succeeded, and the murderous slips continued to migrate, eventually forming the pattern we see today.”

Cao Yanhua sucked in a sharp breath. After a moment, he muttered, “Leopard’s already this formidable. With the murderous slips added in, she’s way more trouble than Yafeng ever was.”

Luo Ren said, “Not just more trouble—much, much more. Haven’t you noticed there’s one particularly obvious difference between this case and the ones we’ve encountered before?”

“There is?” Cao Yanhua guessed wildly. “Because he went down to Southeast Asia? Left the country?”

Luo Ren lowered his voice. “It’s because of Seven-Person Pond. Over a period of time, seven people drowned there—seven murders.”