Wen Chaosheng was like a cold, calculating machine, constantly trying to fathom the thoughts of those people.
"These people are involved with assassination organizations in the Jianghu. Liu Jinshi is just a minor county magistrate in a remote border region, with no one at his disposal. He shouldn't have much connection with the Jianghu, and his life or death is of no importance to those people in the Jianghu."
"Therefore, the pressure Chun Qiong and his group are facing doesn't come from the Jianghu, but from the imperial court."
"Their preservation of Liu Jinshi's body can indirectly confirm this point."
"This body should ultimately be handed over."
As he spoke, a hint of doubt entered his tone, and he looked sideways towards the world beyond the wind and snow.
In that vast, chaotic expanse, there was an invisible, deathly silence.
"What's truly interesting is that a person like Liu Jinshi is also a tiny speck of dust to the royal family of Qi, no more noble than me. Logically speaking, even if someone high up in Qi really wanted to investigate this matter, they would never put so much pressure on Chun Qiong and his group. It would simply follow a normal process: investigate, conclude, and report the case file."
"All these anomalies indicate that there's something about Liu Jinshi that we don't know, and this matter is of great importance."
Listening to Wen Chaosheng's description, A Shui weakly opened one eye.
"The more you talk, the more mysterious it gets."
"Ku Hai County is such a tiny place, where would so many secrets come from?"
Wen Chaosheng countered,
"Want to bet?"
Under the firelight, A Shui's chest and abdomen rose and fell gently, already stabilizing. She looked at Wen Chaosheng for a long moment, then said,
"What's there to bet on?"
"What I want, you can't give me."
"What you want, I can't give you either."
Wen Chaosheng brought his hands close to the flames, feeling their heat.
"You know what I want?"
A Shui smiled,
"What a person lacks, they will desire."
"A person like you, with such deep thoughts and sharp eyes, but such a poor fate, will inevitably want to stand above countless others in the future, to ascend to the Azure Clouds once, and to look down upon your mortal world."
"But money and power, these two things, I cannot give you."
The flames flickered on Wen Chaosheng's face and in his pupils, making him alternately bright and dim, his shadow sometimes real, sometimes false.
He did not refute A Shui, silent as a stone. As the firewood was almost spent, Wen Chaosheng got up again and went to the firewood pile at the dilapidated temple to get more. However, as soon as he carried the firewood back, he encountered a white-clothed man wearing a bamboo hat. The man's clothes blended with the heavy snow outside, looking more like a night-traveling suit from the spring and autumn seasons.
Such clothes were not warm, but the man stood at the entrance of the dilapidated temple, his back to the bone-chilling wind and snow, his body not trembling in the slightest.
In his hand was a dark iron longsword with a red tassel, and his earlobes were slightly large and red from the cold.
The moment he saw this person, Wen Chaosheng did not hesitate, directly throwing the knife on his body to A Shui's side.
Although A Shui was severely injured, she was still not someone he could compare to. This person appearing in the dilapidated temple outside the county at this time was likely not here for good. If a conflict truly occurred, they could only rely on A Shui to get through the difficulty.
"I'm not here to cause trouble."
The man's tone was indifferent, though powerful, like an emotionless machine.
A pendant hung from his waist, a black cord connected to a miniature black iron ghost mask, swaying back and forth with the cold wind.
He glanced at Wen Chaosheng, his gaze seemingly carrying a special scrutiny, then he frowned slightly, shook his head, passed by Wen Chaosheng, and walked directly to the bonfire.
"A smart move."
The white-clothed man said faintly, his back to Wen Chaosheng.
His words were clearly praise, yet his tone carried a strong disdain, inadvertently expressing extreme mockery.
"However, if I were truly here to cause trouble, you wouldn't even have had a chance to throw your knife."
He didn't even spare Wen Chaosheng another glance. He came to the bonfire, stared at A Shui, who was sitting against the stone statue, and asked,
"Are you from Feng City?"
A Shui lowered her head, not bothering to pick up the knife, not even bothering to lift her eyelids.
"State your business."
"Otherwise, get lost."
Unlike the gentle tone she used when speaking to Wen Chaosheng, A Shui had not an ounce of patience for the white-clothed man. Even though the other party appeared to be someone extremely difficult to provoke, she showed him no mercy whatsoever.
The white-clothed man tightened his grip on the sword. A hint of displeasure appeared in his eyes, and his voice was contemptuous:
"I thought that your current situation was like a dog fallen into water. I've already said I'm not here to cause trouble, which means I might be able to help you. If you want to survive, you should at least show me some respect."
A Shui said indifferently,
"The word 'respect' coming from your mouth is truly acrimonious."
"Moreover, whether I am a dog fallen into water or not, what does it have to do with you?"
"Which eye of yours saw that I needed your help?"
Under A Shui's sharp and stubborn retort, a barely perceptible hint of anger appeared on the white-clothed man's face. He gripped the longsword tightly, but ultimately restrained himself, then said in an extremely provocative tone:
"Do you know?"
"You and those people from Feng City, it's precisely because of your stubbornness that you've fallen to your current state."
"A single fire, how many people did it kill? Have you counted?"
As soon as his words fell, a wisp of cold wind blowing through the rock cracks was suddenly cut off. The cleaver, which had been lying horizontally on the ground, was now, at some unknown moment, in A Shui's hand.
The moonlight was obscured by the flying snow. In a flash of lightning, sword and knife had already clashed.
Too fast.
Wen Chaosheng couldn't see clearly, and no one could.
When the sound of shattering metal rang out, crimson had already spread across the white-clothed man's shoulder.
The cleaver in A Shui's hand had slashed diagonally from his neck down to his spine, nearly cutting the white-clothed man in half!
The sword in the latter's hand was completely broken. The white-clothed man's eyes widened as he stared at A Shui in front of him, blood foam constantly flowing from the corners of his mouth.
He hadn't expected a severely injured person to be able to use such a fast, powerful knife!
A Shui watched the light gradually fade from the white-clothed man's eyes. She said in an extremely cold voice,
"If you weren't here to cause trouble, then you shouldn't have provoked me."
"If you were here to cause trouble, you shouldn't have gotten so close to me."
"The corpse guard I met in the Ku Hai County Magistrate's office today was much smarter than you."
PS: One more update to be written in the early hours of the morning.