Chapter Four: Plum Blossoms Weeping Blood Chapter Thirty-Four: Unveiling the Eight Trigrams

“Wait! Let me think! I seem to remember that County Magistrate Cai said at the time, ‘The leader eight years ago seemed to have the surname Jiang!?’ Yes, that's it!” Happy recalled carefully and then nodded with certainty, “That's right. He did say the surname was Jiang!”

“Jiang?” Yu Bing and Zhang Huai exchanged another look. They too remembered that regarding the death of the Prefect eight years ago, there was such a record in the case files:

Investigating the Prefect's friends and neighbors, one finds a fellow from Central Province. Their friendship began in childhood, sealed with the gift of a jade thumb ring. Jiang Sanyuan was a classmate, and they promised to serve in court together after passing the exams!

“It must be referring to the Prefect’s hometown friend, the Chief Administrator of Central Province from eight years ago. The very same classmate surnamed Jiang who once gave him a jade ring to seal their friendship and who achieved top honors!” Zhang Huai had also noticed this!

This man named Jiang was not only the investigator in the Plum Blossom Case, but also the deceased Prefect’s friend from eight years ago! He was the key to the entire case!

“What is his full name?” Yu Bing immediately turned to ask Happy. “Where does he live?”

“Jiang Shenyang! He lives in Jiangjia Market outside Yanzhou City!”

“We're not going back for now! Turn around and head to Jiangjia Market!”

On the third morning, at Jiangjia Market.

“Ma’am, excuse me, I’m looking for someone!” As soon as they reached the marketplace, Zhang Huai hurried over to a vegetable stall and asked the middle-aged woman arranging her produce, “Do you know Jiang Shenyang?”

She shook her head and kept sorting her vegetables without even looking up. Zhang Huai, unwilling to give up, pressed on, “He was the Chief Administrator of Central Province eight years ago, the highest official in this area! Do you know which household he lives in?”

“Young man, if you’re not buying vegetables, don’t stand here blocking my business!” the woman finally snapped, raising her head and bluntly telling him to leave.

“You!” Seeing her fearless attitude, Zhang Huai knew he couldn’t just deal with her by force, so he had no choice but to retreat in frustration. “Yu Bing, what’s wrong with these people? They’re so unhelpful!”

“Heh! There’s an art to asking questions!” Happy laughed and turned toward another stall selling sugar figurines.

“There’s an art to asking questions? Hmph! These people don’t seem to welcome outsiders—what method could possibly work?” Zhang Huai grumbled, watching Happy try her luck.

But before he had finished complaining, Happy was already returning with a knowing look, as if she’d found the answer!

“How did she manage that?” Zhang Huai couldn’t figure it out.

“She bought a sugar figurine!” Yu Bing explained with a smile.

“That simple?” Zhang Huai was skeptical.

“That simple!” Happy added as she came closer, “You’re overthinking it!” Then she turned to Yu Bing, “Sister Bing, I’ve got the information! It’s just ahead, take the third left, but…” Happy hesitated.

“But what?” Yu Bing was curious at her reluctance.

“The old man selling sugar figurines said that Jiang Shenyang has been out of his mind for years! I’m afraid we might come away empty-handed again,” Happy said, dousing Yu Bing’s hopes with a dose of reality.

“Out of his mind?” Yu Bing’s lips twitched as she hesitated, unsure whether it was still worth seeking him out in such a state.

“Let’s take a look anyway!” Zhang Huai seemed unfazed. “We’re already here; it won’t hurt to check. Don’t you agree?” He looked to Yu Bing for her decision.

“Yes! Let’s go see first!” With a flick of her reins, she led the way, and the others quickly mounted their horses to follow.

What stood in front of them was less a house and more a dilapidated temple. As they approached the entrance, a pungent stench of rot and mold wafted out, making Happy wave her hand in vain—it only seemed to burrow deeper into their nostrils.

Inside, there was no monk, but a decrepit old man clutching a wooden fish, kneeling beside a tattered meditation mat and muttering under his breath. His hair was in wild disarray, resembling a bird’s nest, with even a few clumps of dried bird droppings stuck in it. His expression was foolish, eyes unfocused, drool trickling from the corner of his mouth—a truly revolting sight.

“Sister Bing, are you sure this is the man we’re looking for?” Happy pointed at the filthy figure inside, unable to believe it. “We didn’t come to the wrong place?”

“He seems completely incoherent,” Zhang Huai shook his head regretfully. “We probably won’t get anything out of him.”

Seeing this, Yu Bing knew their trip was probably in vain. They turned to leave, but she was not one to give up so easily.

She reached out to a cedar at the doorway, plucked a fresh green pine needle, and flicked it with her finger at his head…

“Let’s go!” Without a backward glance at the trembling pine needle atop his head, Yu Bing strode away.

They left the ruined temple, leading their horses down the main street. Once again they’d failed to find answers, and with Yu Bing silent ahead, no one quite knew what to say.

“Yu Bing, are you sure the jade ring is in the Ghost Court?” Zhang Huai was the first to break the silence, quickening his pace to walk beside her. “We turned that place upside down—even unearthed the eight-year-old bones! But there was no sign of the jade ring. Could the information be wrong?”

“No, the jade ring is definitely hidden in those few lines. I just haven’t deciphered them yet,” Yu Bing shook her head, mounting her horse and pulling the reins with conviction. “There’s no rush—we’ll get there. Since Lord Chang’s whole family was murdered, the coroner must have been killed too. Let’s check the coroner’s grave. Maybe we’ll make an unexpected discovery.”

“All right, that’s our best option for now!” Zhang Huai replied, mounting up and turning to follow Yu Bing at a gallop.

“Hey! Wait for me!” Happy and the others quickly mounted and raced after them, following the trail of hoofprints.

At dawn, outside Yanzhou City, at the Bai family burial ground.

Led by the village head, Yu Bing and her companions soon located the old coroner’s grave from eight years ago.

Following Yu Bing’s instructions, Happy had the village head ask several people to help: someone to boil water; someone to fetch a sieve; someone to find a clean cloth; and others to bring atractylodes, soap beans, ginger, and sesame oil from home. When everything was ready,

Yu Bing lit the atractylodes and soap beans. Without further words, Zhang Huai expertly directed the helpers to dig open the grave. The decayed coffin was opened, revealing a skeleton bleached white by years of burial. Only scattered bones remained; everything else had turned to powder.

Yu Bing took up the skull, washed it clean, and set it in a sieve lined with clean cloth. She poured boiling water through the crown of the skull, waited a quarter of an hour, then lifted it out. Sure enough, there was some grit on the cloth in the sieve!

“So he really drowned?” Happy had followed Yu Bing for some time and could recognize some basic forensic findings.

“No,” Yu Bing picked up a tiny grain of sand, set it on her thumb, and examined it in the sunlight. “He didn’t drown.”

“But there’s grit in the skull’s crevices?” Happy was puzzled. “Didn’t you tell me that when a person drowns, after the body decomposes, pouring boiling water through the skull will wash out the sand and mud they inhaled before death?”

“Didn’t you notice something odd about this sand?” Yu Bing held her hand out for Happy to take a closer look.

“Isn’t it just ordinary sand?” Happy muttered, unconvinced. But as soon as she looked closely, she noticed the difference: “No! The color and shape are wrong!”

“Exactly! Because this isn’t river sand,” Yu Bing said, seeing that Happy had spotted the clue. “It’s something you see at home all the time!”

“It’s tile dust!” Zhang Huai couldn’t help but reveal the answer. “It’s fine powder ground from fragments of tile!”

“Precisely. The killer forced a mixture of crushed tile and mud into his mouth just as he was dying,” Yu Bing said sympathetically, glancing at the bones in the coffin. She, too, thought the murderer had been cruel.

“What? So Xiaoyu didn’t drown by accident?” the village head was stunned.

“What? He wasn’t drowned, he was suffocated to death?” The crowd around them burst into chatter.

“Do you think the killer is connected to the Plum Blossom Blood Case?”

“That goes without saying—it must be the same person! Who else could be so cruel?”

“Exactly! It’s just too cruel!”

Yu Bing gazed at the improvised autopsy table, the truth behind each death flashing before her eyes:

…

After leaving the Bai burial ground, while eating at a small roadside inn, a group of children playing at the door caught her attention:

“The nine-square grid should be filled like this!”

“No, no! Teacher said the nine-square grid isn’t just for numbers—if you add the Eight Trigrams diagram, you can tell directions! Look, like this! Here, this should be the northwest!”

“Wow! So you can use the nine-square grid for calculations like this!”

Nine-square grid! Eight Trigrams! Not just for numbers, but for directions too!? An idea struck Yu Bing. She dipped her chopsticks in oil and began sketching quickly on the tabletop.

“Sister Bing?” Happy was startled by her sudden action.

“Don’t!” Zhang Huai quickly pulled Happy back and whispered, “She must have figured out those lines—don’t interrupt her!”

If those phrases represent both numbers and directions, then it all makes sense:

Hai stands for the tenth month; Jingzhe for the first month; Juan means subtract! Ten minus one is nine. In the Eight Trigrams, nine is the extreme number, representing the south.

Si is the fourth month; Guyu is the third month; Ji means add! Four plus three is seven. Seven stands for the west.

If Xu stands for the ninth month, Dongzhi for the twelfth; Lei means add! Nine plus twelve is twenty-one.

The last line, “Song of Circling the City,” should mean the autumn wind hasn’t entered the city yet—in other words, the item is outside the city.

South? West? Southwest? West, south! Southwest!

Putting it all together: the item lies twenty-one paces southwest of the city!