I Can Devour Spirits

After Duan Rong left the Yizhuang, he rushed to the ruined temple on the outskirts of Tongbai County that night to meet with Ximen Kankan and Liu Shushan.

In the ruined temple, Liu Shushan had already heard Ximen Kankan recount Duan Rong’s plan once, but there were still many parts that Ximen Kankan didn’t understand. However, he had a good memory and managed to recount it to Liu Shushan without missing much.

Liu Shushan naturally found it quite confusing as well.

But the fact that Shen Yanliu had been rescued was undeniable.

Moreover, it’s now Tang Wanhong who is conducting the search and investigation in Ruyang Prefecture, which is also an undeniable fact.

Although it was unclear how exactly Duan Rong accomplished it, there was no doubt that he completed an almost impossible task by luring the old fox Chen Xun into an enchanting array he had set up.

Although this ruined temple was in a remote part of the wilderness, they didn’t light any fires at night to stay concealed. Instead, Ximen Kankan and Liu Shushan took turns keeping watch.

Liu Shushan sat at the entrance of the ruined temple, keeping watch while contemplating the situation. Outside, the occasional gentle night breeze stirred through the wilderness, creating a rustling sound.

Under the dim light of the stars and moon, suddenly a shadow flickered in.

Liu Shushan’s heart skipped a beat, and just as he was about to make a move, he heard a familiar voice say, ”Shushan, it’s me.”

Liu Shushan’s heart relaxed—it was Duan Rong’s voice.

In the darkness, he looked at the blurry figure at the entrance. Over the past few days, he realized that Duan Rong had already thoroughly captivated him.

In these past few months, though Duan Rong had repeatedly solved extraordinary cases, those were ultimately battles of wits with crafty people in the Jianghu, the underworld. But in Shen Yanliu’s case, Duan Rong actually set such a grand scheme under the nose of Mansion Master Chen Xun.

That Chen Xun himself was the number one old fox, and he had a group of followers under him, yet not a single one of them could see through the scheme.

Truly, it’s about thinking where others wouldn’t and doing the seemingly impossible!

The prison clothes that Shen Yanliu originally wore had already been burned by Ximen Kankan. They dressed him in burlap clothing, and with his haggard face and disheveled hair, he truly resembled an old farmer suffering from a severe illness.

Duan Rong, Ximen Kankan, and Liu Shushan only stayed in the ruined temple for another day before Shen Mizi and Xiao Yu arrived after burying the two coffins at the Yizhuang.

Duan Rong used his Divine Sense to probe carefully and found no secret agents following Xiao Yu and Shen Mizi.

It seems that after Shen Yanliu’s supposed execution, Chen Xun had given up on trailing Shen Mizi. After all, he had plenty of things to worry about, and in his eyes now, Shen Mizi probably no longer had any surveillance value.

The group didn’t stay long inside the ruined temple.

After some discussion, they decided to let Ximen Kankan and Liu Shushan take Shen Yanliu to a Ximen Family’s private residence in Yuanyang Prefecture to recuperate.

Though Shen Yanliu was once the County Magistrate of Xianggu County, he had hardly ever shown his face in Yuanyang Prefecture. Besides, he would shut himself in to heal, and in the government records he’s already considered dead. Unless someone personally brought him to Chen Xun, the whole affair couldn’t be exposed.

Duan Rong, Xiao Yu, and Shen Mizi stood side by side on the official road, watching as the carriage receded into the distance.

Shen Mizi naturally felt reluctant, but since Shen Yanliu’s case was still fresh, her identity was somewhat sensitive, making it inconvenient for her to accompany them. She could only wait for things to cool down before going to Yuanyang Prefecture to fulfill her filial duties.

”Let’s go!”

Seeing the carriage turn into a black dot, Duan Rong softly said.

Shen Mizi acknowledged with a hum, and the three of them turned their horses to take another road at the crossroads, heading in a different direction.

They had been delayed here for more than half a month, and it was high time they returned to the sect’s contact point to report on their assigned tasks.

Riding swiftly on the official road, the lush wilderness retreated on either side, filling Duan Rong with a sense of satisfaction. He silently recalled the origin of this plan within himself.

It was after investigating the dungeon in Prefecture City; that night, as he lay half asleep on his bed, something suddenly sparked like a flash of light.

It was just an inspiration or just an initial thought. Duan Rong then expanded upon that thought.

In retrospect, that thought and the subsequent deductions weren’t baseless.

In his previous life, he had read a detective novel that left a deep impression on him.

That was Keigo Higashino’s ”The Devotion of Suspect X.” He had to admit that his initial thought and inspiration came from this novel.

The protagonist of the novel, Ishigami, was a mathematician who set up a scenario using a nearly perfect plan to lead the police investigating the case into a fog.

To solve a problem, you must first be able to see it.

If you never see a problem in the first place, how can you solve it?

In a conversation in the novel, Ishigami asks his friend, a physicist named Tang Chuan, ”You once asked me a question: Which is more difficult, designing an intractable problem or solving it? Do you remember?”

Tang Chuan replied, ”I remember. My answer is that designing the problem is more difficult. I’ve always believed that the solver should respect the designer.”

In Ruyang Prefecture, he almost did the same thing as Ishigami—he simply wouldn’t let Chen Xun see a problem.

If what you see is originally a false problem, a labyrinth designed by someone else, then you lost the moment you started, and there’s absolutely no chance of a comeback, because you were never at the gambling table in the first place! No matter how good your gambling skills are, no matter how much stake you have, it’s all in vain.