HTCYH Ch 33

Chapter 33: Li Chun’er

After bickering with Wuming for a bit, Tu Si’s tense nerves eased, and he asked: “Captain, how did you know the problem was inside that pile of jars?”

Wuming was startled at first, then asked in turn: “You didn’t know where the problem was? Then how did you coordinate with me so perfectly?”

Tu Si blinked and said: “Wasn’t it just because you suddenly started acting, so I had to cooperate with your act?”

Wuming looked at Tu Si in silence for quite a while before he said: “So you can distinguish when I’m acting and when I’m not?”

Tu Si slanted his eyes at him with a look of disdain: “Do you ever not act? Always faking the demeanor of some refined gentleman—don’t you find it exhausting? Every time your persona collapses, isn’t that just your way of reminding me to play along with your act? Or am I misunderstanding?”

Wuming gave a low laugh and said: “I thought you had already discovered something yesterday when you turned over that pile of jars, but it turns out you just stumbled upon it by accident. Looks like we really have a tacit understanding and are well-suited for cooperation.”

Tu Si shrugged: “You humans and your twists and turns are too many. I may have lived long, but whenever I try to play mind games with humans, I lose without a sound. Human schemes run too deep—it’d be better for a grass spirit like me to retreat back into the deep forest. Yesterday when I overturned the jars, I did feel there was something wrong with them, but I also thought it was related to that crying and wailing noise. How did you realize there was a problem?”

Wuming nodded and explained: “Think about it normally—when you cook, under what circumstances would you prepare an extra set of ingredients?”

Tu Si was taken aback: “When there isn’t enough food? Or when you’re afraid you might fail cooking?”

Wuming nodded: “Exactly, prepare more in case of shortage, or to prevent failure. But quite obviously, Liang Tiancai’s Kuman Thong did not fail. That means he must have also prepared other Kuman Thong. So in that pile of jars, there must be remains of children that had not yet been used. And the crying noises? Those were clearly the most common kind of psychic attack by immature spirits that had not fully formed.”

Tu Si suddenly understood: “So why would Liang Tiancai make so many Kuman Thong? To sell them for money?”

Wuming looked at Tu Si with narrowed eyes and a smile: “So in the end, you never even listened to what everyone discussed later, did you? What were you daydreaming about then?”

Tu Si was indeed spacing out, but when Wuming pointed it out, he did not feel guilty. Instead, he replied: “Daydreaming about you always laying hands all over me and behaving like a lecher. Once we get out, I’m going to write a report of complaint, saying you as my superior sexually harassed your intern! Hmph! Hurry up and tell me your summary, then I’ll consider concealing your crime.”

Wuming let out a helpless laugh and said: “And you claim humans are the ones whose thoughts are convoluted. You as a grass spirit have no shortage of twists yourself. The main conclusions are two.

First: It comes down to time. The timelines in which Fang Xia and Xu Jinyan played Li Chun’er and Yang Chengji are set around when Liang Tiancai was about fifteen years old. Ke Xian’s timeline, though, is during Liang Tiancai’s university years. And Ailin’s timeline is set after Liang Tiancai’s death. So from this, it can be deduced that these three time periods represent the most important turning points of Liang Tiancai’s life.

Second: Ke Xian checked the accounts and indeed found no problems. But he forgot about cash transactions. In a remote mountain area like this, money is usually exchanged in cash. It’s normal that nothing could be traced, but he mistakenly thought Liang Tiancai was digging financial holes. That’s not the case. Cao Jiang’s existence wasn’t so he could take the fall; Liang Tiancai was using him for publicity. And Ke Xian helping Cao Jiang win the lottery only further proved the miraculous power of the Kuman Thong, thus luring in Li Chun’er and Yang Chengji.”

After hearing this, Tu Si looked like a confused kitten, tilting his head as if he couldn’t make sense of any of it; “Huh?”

Wuming continued explaining patiently: “Liang Tiancai owned a Kuman Thong, guaranteeing him victory in gambling. But he did not rely on gambling to make a living. His daily expenses all came from legitimate income. That’s why Ailin, in her role as his girlfriend Cui Ruxue, could not uncover anything improper. The funds for gambling and other illicit income mostly circulated in cash connected with this village. Liang Tiancai separated his city identity from his village identity completely. It was a kind of black-and-white dual life—each without overlap. Extremely safe and clever.”

Tu Si reasoned: “So he left his legal income, even his inheritance, to his girlfriend. That means he intended to fake his death and then live extravagantly off his black money from gambling?”

Wuming asked back: “If that was the case, then what was the point of establishing the city identity in the first place?”

Suddenly enlightened, Tu Si said: “Because his city identity got exposed! He was threatened! The ones threatening him were Li Chun’er and Yang Chengji!”

Wuming nodded, then shook his head: “That’s right—in his university years, his identity was exposed. So he had to return to the village to calculate against Li Chun’er and Yang Chengji. Cao Jiang played a role in this. After he succeeded, he went back to the city to continue concealing his identity, then found a partner, seeking a stable life.”

Tu Si frowned: “But if he already resolved it, then why would he still write a suicide note?”

Wuming gave a small shake of his head, and after a pause said: “This is my analysis, but there’s no absolute proof. That is to say, Liang Tiancai might actually be the victim. The death of his family might not be at all like what we’ve reasoned. Because all the things we discovered about Liang Tiancai tell us that his supposed evil deeds don’t align with his nature. He was a man of vengeance, but after vengeance is fulfilled, it’s hard to go back to a normal life. There’s a possibility he mentally broke down, feared bringing disaster to his girlfriend, and therefore chose suicide.”

“But, but if that’s the case, then the story of the child bride is, is completely overturned!” Tu Si was now in turmoil, the clues scrambled and tangled, the identities of good and evil blurred, contradictions everywhere.

Wuming gently loosened Tu Si’s knotted long hair, patting his head softly: “Don’t entangle yourself too much. Now the clues are all scattered. First sort out the contradictory points, then proceed with logical deduction.”

Tu Si nodded: “I get it. Also, I just realized something that always struck me as odd—why are there no people left in the village? Because I was influenced by the last game, I subconsciously felt it was normal for this game to have no living NPCs. But in Marriage, the empty city was because the bride wiped everyone out. So maybe the absence of villagers here is also Liang Tiancai’s doing? If that’s the case, then analyzing that his family were victims and that he was the one taking revenge against the village doesn’t sound so far-fetched anymore. With such a grand scheme, planned meticulously, the image of Liang Tiancai as described by the child bride becomes completely contradictory. Ah! Right now I feel like a blade of grass swaying on the wall, unsure where to lean.”

Wuming chuckled lowly: “That’s the essence of human nature—being like a blade of grass on the wall, swaying with the wind. Isn’t ‘going along with the crowd’ born of just that? The truth is often much less interesting than the stories we weave. Besides, have you not noticed—the child bride has yet to appear?”

Hearing this, Tu Si turned to look below the ancestral shrine, and saw that the urn of ashes belonging to the child bride had vanished. Puzzled, he turned to Wuming.

Wuming smiled and asked: “Do you know why I chose to put on an act in front of the child bride?”

Tu Si replied uncertainly: “Because there’s something wrong with her. Many of her words are contradictory. When she heard that Liang Tiancai left his will to his current girlfriend, she reacted with jealousy. When she saw the two of us acting intimate, she showed envy. If she really underwent the kind of suffering she described as a child bride, then upon seeing displays of intimacy she should either be repulsed or fearful. A girl long subjected to sexual abuse is unlikely to still embrace expectation or yearning for intimacy.”

Wuming smiled: “Exactly. And besides, a teenage girl growing up in a village like this—how could she be an immaculate blank slate? In places where girls as young as twelve or thirteen can give birth, how could she be so naïve as to believe she might give birth to a cat? In such a situation, either she was extremely well protected, or she had intellectual issues. That’s why I suspect she isn’t the child bride at all. And Xu Jinyan’s description of the child bride confirmed it further—that the so-called child bride was in fact Li Chun’er pretending. So she was imitating the carefree innocence of the real child bride, but her logical inconsistencies made her performance collapse into a contradictory fool.”

Tu Si’s pupils trembled violently: “Li Chun’er! Then! Then! What is she after? Trying to imitate while failing? To steal the place of another? Or is there a deeper scheme at hand?”