Chapter 3: Reasoning in the Fairy World

That’s a question that no one can answer.

Li Yuchun said, “What is the reason why the demonic creature robbed the tax silver?”

Prefect Chen pondered a little, “Demons never ask questions about what they do, they do whatever they want, and pursuing the reasons is just asking for trouble.”

The yellow-skirted girl had a different opinion, “Isn’t human meat more delicious ….. Well, you guys wait a bit, I’ll finish my bun first.”

She ‘whimpered’ and finished the two large meat buns, her own face turning into a small dumpling, and struggled to swallow and take a sip of tea, which allowed her to continue the conversation from earlier, so she could speak freely about human flesh:

“Demons have no scruples in what they do, and silver may not be as tantalizing to them as a living human being. Even if they want silver, stealing or robbing is safer than just robbing the tax silver.”

It’s too risky to rob tax money in the street in Daebung Kyoto.

Prefect Chen nodded his head, “That’s a good point, we can’t rule out being instructed by someone.”

Li Yuchun narrowed his eyes, ”Then who would instruct the demons to steal the tax money? What was the reasoning? Why does it have to be this batch of tax silver, it has to be 150,000 taels.”

“We can think of it this way, the mastermind behind the scenes needs a huge sum of money, but can’t make too much noise …. To be precise, one cannot amass money recklessly.” Prefect Chen’s heart stirred.

“So it’s on to the tax money?” The yellow-skirted girl pursed her brightly colored lips.

“The tax and silver escort path was randomized and decided on an ad hoc basis by Xu Pingzhi, a Hundredth Household of the Imperial Sword Guards, whereas the demons were able to ambush them in the river ahead of time …. It is highly likely that there is an insider in the escorting team.” Li Yuchun said, glancing at Chen Fu Yin:

“Go to the Cloud Deer Academy and find a high Confucianist to ask your heart?”

The yellow-skirted girl slanted a glance at him, “Are you looking down on our Sitian Supervisor’s lookout technique? I’ve already said that the pawns present to escort the tax silver are all uninformed.”

Thoughts stuck again, and there was a moment of silence from the trio.

The air was quiet for a moment.

Li Yuchun lowered his head to read the dossier carefully, and Chen Fuyin took a long breath. The yellow-skirted girl fiddled with the feng shui disk on her waist, thinking that she had to leave the Jingzhao Mansion before sunset and go into the palace to find the eldest princess to rub a meal.

The craftsmanship of the palace cooks is top-notch in the world!

Compared to them, the yellow-skirted girl named Caiwei acted more as a guest secretary to aid in the case.

She was unofficial, and although she was one of the people in charge of the case, she didn’t have to carry much responsibility.

Chen Prefect’s eyes moved slightly, and he said tentatively, “Right now the case is progressing slowly, while time is running out, it’s really urgent. Lord Li, why not, go and consult Duke Wei?”

The middle-aged man slanted a glance at him and grunted coldly, “You civil officials have a Beijing inspection, so do we watchmen. To tell you the truth, this is the test that Lord Wei gave me.”

Prefect Chen smiled bitterly, “If this case cannot be solved, I’m afraid that I won’t be able to keep my position under my ass. The court is watching us.”

The two men stared at each other in silence, the atmosphere heavy.

……

“If it’s a demonic creature at work, then there’s nothing I can do about it!” Xu Qi’an’s face turned white, feeling the deep malice of the heavens.

There are demons in this world, and the demon race has existed since ancient times, hunting and devouring each other with humans.

In the 100,000 mountains of the Southern Border, there was a Ten Thousand Demon Country, which was the largest settlement of the Demon Race.

Five hundred years ago, the western countries, under the leadership of the Buddha Sect, declared war on the Southern Border Ten Thousand Demon Kingdom, and fought a war for a year before and after the war, and finally swept away the Demon Kingdom.

The history books named this battle as ‘Koshi Swinging Demon’.

Since then, the demon race’s luck is damaged, gradually decline. And the buddhist sect has since soared to the heavens, and the buddhist way has flourished.

Using Xu Qi’an’s latter-day knowledge to understand, mankind was victorious in this battle for the top of the food chain.

If the tax silver was the work of a demon, then the only way he could save himself and the Xu family was to recover the silver.

As an unyielding Silver at the peak of Essence Refining, Xu Qi’an felt that there was no way for him to flip out.

The weather was wet and cold in the fall season, and Xu Qi’an seeped out in a cold sweat.

He’s scared!

Having fused the original owner’s memories, he knew that it was impossible for him to break out of prison, and even more so, he knew that human rights were too weak in this society where the imperial power reigned supreme.

Life and death are at the mercy of others.

In the past, he also fantasized about wearing back to ancient times to copy poems and pretend, and felt very cool, the reality ruthlessly slapped him in the face.

Crossing over and getting beaten up by society.

“No, it’s just a guess, it’s just a guess from the government offices in the capital, I can’t be influenced by their guesses, I’ll do it myself, I’ll analyze it myself ….. It can still be salvaged, it can still be salvaged ….”

The strong desire to survive made him quickly calm down, and his logic became rigorous and clear again.

“Why do demons steal tax silver, doesn’t human flesh smell good ….. Even if there is a lack of silver, there is no need to stare at the tax silver ….. I’ve heard in books that the demon women of the demon race are all charming and exquisite ….. I wonder if there are any cat ladies and dog ladies ….”

“Pah!” Xu Qi’an slapped himself, “Re-reasoning!”

The most important part of reasoning is subtracting, listing the clues one by one and sorting them out.

Otherwise it’s a woolly mess that just gets messier the more you think about it.

The two most obvious clues in the tax and silver case:

One: Demon Wind!

Two: Taxed silver explodes when it falls into a river!

All the major cultivation systems, except Wufu, possess the ability to scrape demonic winds, so ‘Clue 1’ can only be used as corroboration that there are ‘cultivators’ involved, and cannot give more detailed targets.

The suspicion of the second uncle, who is a martial artist, is mitigated, although it is not ruled out that he conspired with others.

The explosion in clue 2 is an unreasonable suspicion, it is normal for high level practitioners to fight and trigger an explosion. However, there was no forceful sparring in this case of missing tax money, so the explosion was not reasonable.

“Unless it had to explode!” Xu Qi’an muttered.

“What are the professions in the major cultivation systems that require explosions to accomplish their goals?”

Xu Qi’an thought for a few moments without arriving at a clue, and then was shocked to realize that he had made the same mistake as the capital city.

The Kyosho’s thinking went wrong from the start, judging the killer to be a demon based on the most obvious clues in the case, and then running wildly down that road, never to return.

There’s nothing wrong with that; the problem is that the judgment was too hasty.

Although Xu Qi’an had fused his memories, he was still dominated by a modern mindset, with his previous life’s experience as the main focus, and he preferred to pull the threads out of the dossier to chew on the details that were not easily noticeable before jumping to conclusions.

“I can’t figure out this path for the moment, so let’s change our thoughts and break through from somewhere else. I’ll first rule out a demonic disturbance and assume that this is an elaborate, man-made event.”

“Then he’s bound to leave a break in the case.”

“Rockall’s law of material exchange tells us that whenever a crime is committed, it is bound to leave direct or indirect traces at the scene ….

Shapes and colors of traces can be divided into two main categories, the specific memory is not too clear, it should be hand and foot prints, fingerprints, car and horse traces, tool and instrument traces and so on.”

“The break is not in the two most conspicuous clues, but in these shapely traces …..”

Based on the description of the dossier, Xu Qi’an replayed the process of Second Uncle’s transportation of the tax silver in his mind.

Adrenaline is secreted wildly and brain cells are highly active. If pheromones could be mimicked, they would be like koi carp in a pool, frantically fighting for food as the water boiled.

Over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over.

The various information and clues on the dossier converged, and his brain was like a CPU running at high speed.

As various pieces of information are pieced together, the case becomes clearer.

Unconsciously, Xu Qi’an felt that he had entered a certain state, and his soul flew lightly, breaking through his physical mortal body, breaking through the building, and coming over Kyoto.

Time seems to flow backward, the east is slightly Xi, the sun is about to rise, Xu Pingzhi led a group of hardwearing armor, escorting the tax silver to the Ministry of households.

At this time, it is dawning two moments …… line to Guangnan Street, suddenly a demon wind blew, the horse was frightened, rushed into the river.

Boom!

The river exploded and the turbid waves emptied into the air.

The explosion seemed to resound in Xu Qi’an’s heart as well, and he reflexively stomped his legs to come to his senses.

The eyes were tired, but full of exhilaration and ecstasy.

“I got it, I got it, hahaha, I solved the puzzle!!!”

Xu Qi’an laughed maniacally and pounded on the fence, “Someone come, someone come, someone come.”

The jailer in charge of the guard was startled, and carrying a fire stick, he scolded, “Make a lot of noise, you want to live a long life, don’t you.”

Knock on the fence with force to scare Xu Qi’an.

Xu Qi’an took a step back, loosening his grip on the fence lest he be knocked off his fingers, and he said in a deep voice, “I want to see the prefect.”

“A prisoner of the rank, see the prefect …. Doesn’t take a piss and look at himself either.” The jailer laughed in anger and stuck his fire stick into the fence to stab Xu Qi’an.

Xu Qi’an stepped back to avoid it again.

“How dare you hide?” The jailer touched the key on his waist and laughed fiercely, “I’ll break your legs today.”

“I have important clues about the tax silver robbery case, I want to see the prefect, you’ll be responsible for delaying the case.” Xu Qi’an stared at him.

The jailer blanched.

……

In the inner sanctum, the young girl who had finished her meat loaf continued to nibble on the sugar cane, occasionally fumbling a few candied fruits out of her buckskin pouch to go with it.

One side is sad and heartless.

“His Majesty has ordered us to solve the case within five days, and this is because if we delay too long, the tax money will likely never be recovered.” Prefect Chen paced back and forth in the hall, he couldn’t sit still:

“But time is so short, we can’t do anything about it.” It takes time to solve a case.

Lord Prefect ‘snapped’ his palm and said in a deep voice, “I will personally beg Lord Wei to give me the dossier.”

Li Yuchun hesitated, “I’ll go with you.”

The yellow-skirted girl glanced at him and said sweetly, “That’s not bad, with this great power hand of our Great Feng stepping in, you two won’t have to be held accountable by His Majesty.”

“However, losing points in Wei Gong’s heart is much more serious than being held accountable by His Majesty.” She smiled, revealing two small, glistening white tiger teeth.

The middle-aged man’s face sank.

A yamen in soap clothes with a lowered head, came in at a brisk pace and bowed, “Lord Prefect, the jailer reported that Xu Pingzhi’s nephew, Xu Qi’an, had just said that there were important clues about the tax silver robbery case, and wanted to meet with His Excellency.”

The gazes of the three men stared at the same time.

Xu Qi An …. If I remember correctly, this was just a fringe character who had nothing to do with the case, and after the initial interrogation and torture, it was recognized as an idle person who had nothing to do with the case.

Prefect Chen pondered for a moment and said, “Bring the man up here.”

In a few moments, Xu Qi’an, who was wearing a prison uniform with traces of dried blood on his body, was brought up by the magistrates, and the handcuffs and shackles clattered as he walked.

PS: As an eighteen year old, first book newbie, I’m feeling apprehensive.

No more today, just three chapters.