They just happened to be in the underworld, so it was particularly easy to summon the faithful crow. Yun Cuo himself had the privilege of being the Young Immortal Lord of the Nine Continents, personally recognized by Yun Yan—no matter where he went, others would consciously view him as a Young Immortal Lord, so this summoning took no effort.
Yun Cuo heard the conversation between Xue Huai and Panguan Bi. He struggled to get up and investigate the matter personally, but was hypnotized by Xue Huai.
A wave of drowsiness came over Yun Cuo. He tried to clear his mind and fight against Xue Huai’s magic anxiously, but was gently held down by Xue Huai’s hand.
Xue Huai leaned over and whispered in his ear, “Take good care of your injuries. Be good. I’m here, and I won’t go far. If there’s anything, wait until you’re well again, then talk.”
After hearing the second half of his words, Yun Cuo finally closed his eyes and let himself fall into a deep sleep.
Last time, Xue Huai borrowed the faithful crow to investigate the death of his mother, Murong Mi. This time he summoned it again, and he clearly remembered the rules of the faithful crow of the underworld.
These gods transformed from the mortal realm’s judicial officials flapped their black wings, quacking and moving around each other, forming a black ocean. The eerie and cold voice seemed to penetrate every corner of the world: “Regular customers Regular customers, Young Master Xue Huai, each industry has its own rules, and each sect has its own regulations. Without further ado, please go ahead.”
The faithful crows of the underworld must not move without permission.
They see through all the truths of the six realms, but they cannot reveal the truth in every situation. They focus on “collecting evidence” rather than “revealing”.
If Xue Huai had not suspected that Mrs. Liu was related to Murong Mi’s death, they would not have gone to Xue Huai’s mother’s coffin to verify; in other words, if Xue Huai had not thought about this beforehand, the crows would have had no way of investigating either.
They are used to collect chains of evidence and verify existing conjectures, but they cannot provide him with new information.
Xue Huai asked directly: “Someone wants to kill me, right?”
The faithful crow cackles, “Yes, Young Master Xue, you finally found it. If you had asked us to help you check the arrowhead last time instead of calling Young Lord Yun, what happened today might not have happened.”
Xue Huai then remembered that when he picked up the arrowhead, he was afraid that Yun Cuo would worry, so he did not tell him his guess, he only asked him to help check it out.
They had a quarrel right after that, and Yun Cuo must have forgotten about it.
Xue Huai remained calm, pondered for a moment, and then continued to ask, “Is it the same person who wanted to kill me these three times?”
The faithful crow’s tone sounded a bit gloating: “Yes, Young Master Xue——”
It didn’t even finish its sentence before it was drowned by a pair of sharp fangs. The gluttonous ghost gurgled in its throat, showed its claws, and swallowed the speaking crow into its stomach with a slurp.
“Ah! Here comes the gluttonous! Here comes the gluttonous! And it’s a gluttonous ghost! Killing birds, ahhhhh!”
The flock of crows suddenly went into an uproar, screaming and flying around.
Xue Huai reached out and held the gluttonous ghost in his arms, touched its head soothingly, and coughed lightly.
The flock of crows fell silent in an instant, and hundreds of pairs of black eyes stared at him.
Xue Huai said, “Please continue. I want to ask, who is the murderer?”
An old faithful crow stretched out its claws and said, “Young Master Xue, your question is beyond the scope of our answer. Sorry, we cannot answer it.”
Xue Huai decided to ask them in a different way: “Is that person someone I usually hang out with?”
This time the faithful crow answered quickly: “Yes.”
Xue Huai was slightly startled.
The whole range has been reduced a lot.
Xue Huai asked, “Is it one of the people who has a crush on Yun Cuo? The classmate who competed with me for the first place in medicine cultivation? They don’t seem to have such a big grudge against me, right?”
The faithful crow shook its down-covered head and sighed, “Why bother, Young Master Xue? You are already making wild guesses. Even if you try the names of everyone around you one by one to trick us, it will also be useless.”
His thoughts were seen through, but Xue Huai said nothing.
He thought silently, “Who would hate me so much that they must kill me?”
He frowned and asked a different question: “What about Mrs. Liu and Xue He? Are they dead?”
The old crow said respectfully, “Dead, Young Master Xue.”
Xue Huai added, “Then the Liu family’s…”
“Don’t worry about this, Young Master Xue. The Liu family relies on love spells and has no tradition of helping each other. Moreover, the woman you are thinking of had almost severed her ties with her family when she married into Dongzhou. She was driven back to her parents’ home by you last time, and she suffered humiliation instead.” The faithful crow said.
Xue Huai’s interpersonal relationships in this life are simple, and he can’t imagine what kind of enemies he might make.
The most troublesome thing is that this life is different from the previous one. In this life, he is with Yun Cuo, and he makes an enemy secretly. Similarly, in this life, he comes to Murong Mountain Sect to practice, and it may be an old grudge of Murong Jinchuan from his previous life or even a business rival of Xue Zong… There are so many connections, and it is seemingly true because everything is different from the previous life, and Xue Huai himself cannot tell the difference.
Just when he was distracted by his thoughts, the old crow suddenly moved—the black smoke that made up its body floated vaguely, and all the crows behind it merged into one.
Hundreds of faithful crows merged into a slightly larger, single faithful crow, which raised its eyes and looked at Xue Huai as if it had something to say.
Xue Huai lowered his eyes, looked at it, and suddenly felt a little familiar: “You…”
“Yes, Young Master Xue, last time I was also the one, and that’s how I give you the return situation.” It tilted its head, “I promised to give you a chance and answer a question beyond your ability—I will tell you everything I know. Do you want to use this opportunity now?”
“……” Xue Huai lowered his eyes and thought for a moment, then hesitated for a long time.
He asked softly, “If I ask you right now who that person is, can you also tell me too?”
“Yes, but only the name at birth. As for his current identity or his previous identities, motives, etc., we cannot answer.” The faithful crow said, “Our answer is just an answer for you. A standard answer cannot provide any explanation.”
Xue Huai was keenly aware of one thing: “That is to say, if this person disguises himself or changes his name, I will most likely still not know who he is. Is that right? If you tell me his original name and I can’t find out who he is, will it have the same effect no matter who you tell me?”
“That’s right.” The faithful crow flapped its wings and bowed to him.
As a result, Xue Huai became even more cautious.
He has never been someone who likes to take a gamble. Whenever he encounters something, he always makes sure he is at least eighty percent sure before he is willing to do it.
This is also the reason why he can only be the left protector and military advisor to Yun Cuo—he is good at planning, and Yun Cuo is good at making decisions. Except when he deliberately goes against him, most of the time he will choose the best plan.
Finally, he decided to keep this opportunity: “Forget it, I’ll investigate first.”
“We are always here for you if you need anything.” The faithful crow bowed to him again, then flapped its wings and flew away.
Xue Huai stayed awake all night.
He stayed by Yun Cuo’s bed, his heart in turmoil, and he carefully reviewed everything that had happened since his rebirth.
There are two things that make him suspicious:
The first thing was the cold arrow shot at him.
Xue Huai will always remember the malice and hatred contained in the sound of the wind when it shot towards him. Although there was thick fog at the time, he could still clearly remember the strange feeling, as if he were being stared at by a poisonous snake.
The feeling was so strong that he immediately remembered the cause of death in his previous life—an arrow pierced the back of the head, killing him instantly.
The strange thing about this matter is that it seems… closely related to his previous life.
Xue Huai was reborn, and he had never had such strong intuition about anything as he did about this matter—it was related to his previous life, as if he were meeting an old friend again.
Is there anyone else who has been reborn besides him?
Could it be that the person who harmed him in his previous life has followed him in this life and is determined to kill him?
Xue Huai felt a chill down his spine.
He picked up the brush and wrote the four words “arrow and previous life” on the paper.
Now comes the second thing.
Xue Zong.
Xue Huai was no longer angry about what happened back then. What he cared about was the reason why Xue Zong was mad at him.
If he was impulsive at first and refused to understand Xue Zong’s intentions out of anger, then after Yun Cuo confessed his mistake a few days ago and handed over the letter he missed, he became more clear about one thing—
Xue Zong was investigating what was going on behind Mrs. Liu’s back. Maybe it was aimed at him and the entire Xue family. Maybe he is the person Xue Huai is looking for.
So when did Xue Zong discover that something was wrong, and what methods did he use to do further investigation?
According to the inscription on Murong Mi’s tombstone, Xue Huai knew that when his father was thirteen or fourteen years old—a few years after Mrs. Liu entered the family, he opened an autopsy and discovered the cause of Murong Mi’s death. From then on, he was wary of Mrs. Liu.
If he noticed something was wrong with Mrs. Liu so early, then why didn’t he notice it in his previous life?
In the previous life, Mrs. Liu’s replacement of the marriage certificate and even Xue Zong himself being tricked cannot be explained by the two words “forbearance”—Xue Zong was on guard but still got tricked, and even his son’s marriage was swindled, this doesn’t make sense.
The only reason is that Xue Zong didn’t know it in his previous life, but he knows it in this life.
What was different about this life that could cause his father to change so much?
Xue Huai couldn’t understand.
He rubbed his temples. The gluttonous ghost rushed in from the door, climbed onto the bed, nudged his belly, and urged him to rest.
“Xiao Tao, be good.” Xue Huai patted its head. He glanced at the brightening sky and realized that he really needed to sleep, so he got up and washed up.
He replaced the pot of medicine on the stove with a new one and kept it warm with magic, then went to the window and carefully changed the medicine for Yun Cuo.
The scar was so horrifying that it caused him to also feel a sharp pain in his heart.
After doing all this, he turned over on the bed, snuggled into Yun Cuo’s arms, and fell asleep peacefully.
He was extremely sleepy and tired, but he had nightmares when he slept. He forgot what he dreamed about, but he only remembered waking up once. He looked up at Yun Cuo to make sure he was there.
He woke up again, looked at him again, and fell asleep again. He was extremely sleepy.
Later, Yun Cuo woke up and realized that he didn’t sleep well, so he patted his back again and again and coaxed him in a gentle voice: “I’m here, Xue Huai.”
“Brother gluttonous, let’s make a deal. How about you spit out the little crow you just ate? You are already a ghost anyway, and you can’t digest it. It will be lonely for a bird like it to be in your stomach.”
Outside the yard, an old crow was arguing with the gluttonous ghost, trying to dig its companion out of the gluttonous ghost’s stomach but failing.
The gluttonous ghost howled fiercely, blocking the doors of Xue Huai and Yun Cuo, looking at them vigilantly.
The old crow rubbed over to the gluttonous ghost in a flattering way, nudging its tail. “Should I exchange some information about your master with you? You can’t talk anyway, so it’s useless to tell you. But if you know this, you can protect him in the future, right?”
The gluttonous ghost stared at it, relaxed a little, but still watched with eager eyes.
The old crow cleared his throat: “Then I will say it now—”
It whispered in the gluttonous ghost’s ear, “Your master is smart enough. He has discovered the two doubts in this life, but he didn’t discover the biggest one.”
“He could even think of his own father, so why didn’t he realize that the biggest variable in his life was actually the lover beside him? He could be reborn, so why didn’t he think that Young Immortal Lord who is not affected by cause and effect, could also be a reborn?”
The author has something to say: Xiao Tao: #￥%……&*——+
(ps: Xiao Tao has a prototype. The author’s Weibo 动动码字机 has a reference picture of Xiao Tao. In fact, it is not ugly. Although it is bald, but it is really not ugly.)
T/N: Help, whenever Xiao Tao was mentioned I can’t help but think of a bulldog lmao so I run to Weibo as soon as I saw this but sadly the account no longer exists TT
