Huo Xiao Di blinked in surprise. “But Ge Yun Fei is already dead, isn’t he?”
Zhan Ri Fei replied meaningfully, “Sometimes, even the dead can speak.”
Huo Xiao Di stared at him, his mouth slightly agape, as if he had just realized that the composed, scholarly man in front of him was suddenly spouting nonsense. His curiosity was piqued. “So what exactly did this dead man say to you?”
Zhan Ri Fei smiled faintly. “Before he died, he did, in fact, hint at the secret of Xing Yun Manor.”
Huo Xiao Di was even more baffled. “Him? When did he hint at that secret? I was right there beside him—how did I miss it?”
Zhan Ri Fei said, “Ge Yun Fei’s actions before his death were very unusual. Brother Huo, do you remember what he was doing in his final moments?”
Huo Xiao Di’s face reddened slightly in the dim light, and he retorted sulkily, “Wasn’t he trying to kill that boy? What’s so unusual about that? If the Tang Clan’s poison hadn’t acted so quickly and I hadn’t reached him in time, that boy would’ve already been his next victim!”
Zhan Ri Fei’s smile deepened. He then asked Huo Xiao Di a peculiar question—one that left him momentarily speechless.
“If he intended to harm the boy, then after wounding him with the first stab, why didn’t he immediately deliver a second blow? Why did he pull the boy toward himself instead?”
Huo Xiao Di froze.
The events from the previous day at the inn on Little Hammer Mountain seemed to replay vividly in his mind.
—The splattering of fresh blood.
—The boy’s frail, freckled face contorted with the pain of his injury. The silent agony of his inability to speak. The helplessness.
—His own desperate leap forward to stop Ge Yun Fei from striking a second time.
Yet no second blow had ever come.
What he remembered most clearly was Ge Yun Fei’s rough, mud-stained hand gripping the boy’s bleeding arm with an unrelenting grasp.
—The way Ge Yun Fei’s eyes were wide open, even in death.
—The way his hand refused to let go.
—His head hung over the boy’s arm.
Could it be—could it really be—
Huo Xiao Di stared at Zhan Ri Fei in disbelief. “Are you saying that Ge Yun Fei’s ‘hint’ was this boy?”
—“The treasure the Tang Clan killed so many people to find is actually this boy?”
—“The one Xing Yun Manor risked their lives to escort is also this boy?”
—“The one the Matriarch of Han Shui Palace dreams of day and night is still this boy?”
Zhan Ri Fei smiled faintly as he stood up slowly. Gazing through the broken temple window at the infinite night sky, he said softly yet firmly, “Exactly. The treasure both the Tang Clan and Xing Yun Manor sought is indeed this boy. The difference is that only Ge Yun Fei knew this truth, while the others remained ignorant. Han Shui Palace, however, knows the full story.”
Huo Xiao Di suddenly found his earlier wild speculations laughable. “This boy is weak, mute, and unremarkable, aside from a faint herbal fragrance. Even if you’re right—if he really is the treasure both the Tang Clan and Xing Yun Manor desperately want—why would Ge Yun Fei try to kill him before he died?”
—“Could it be that Ge Yun Fei knew if Xing Yun Manor couldn’t have him, then neither should the Tang Clan?”
Zhan Ri Fei turned back, his expression calm, and spoke deliberately, enunciating each word: “Ge Yun Fei knew the real secret: the boy himself. The stab to the boy’s arm wasn’t meant to kill him—it was to save his own life!”
—“When Ge Yun Fei wounded the boy’s arm, just like all those who had harmed him before, it was to drink his fresh blood.”
—“An innocent man with a treasure becomes guilty of possessing it. This boy is the Han Shui Palace’s legendary treasure—the Chang Hong Bi!”
—“It is said in ancient lore that the Han Shui Palace has guarded a rare treasure, the Chang Hong Bi, for over a century. Born by the waters and exuding a faint fragrance, it is nurtured with the ‘Three Lives Water of Jade Flame’ and never shown to outsiders.”
—“The treasure’s value lies in its miraculous ability to neutralize all poisons. But who would have imagined that the Chang Hong Bi isn’t a jade pendant but a living person?”
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