The two had traveled for over a week, and the mountains were finally in sight. They elected to stop in the nearby city of Shanlu to rest and resupply one last time. While Bai Guo set out during the day, the senior had decided to enter the city at night to minimize attention.
As Bai Guo was finalizing their accommodations at the local inn, he heard a man calling his name.
"Bai Guo! Is that you?"
His heart sinking, Bai Guo turned to face the man. The older man - tall, skinny, and well dressed in white and blue - regarded him with a smile. A short goatee protruded down from his chin, eternally warped into a curl by the man's habit to wrap it around his finger.
It took Bai Guo a moment to recognize his father's sworn brother. "Uncle Jin?"
Uncle Jin spread his arms wide, and the two shared a hug. "It's been so long since I've seen you! But why are you here? Where is your uncle Zhong? I should go greet him too."
"Uncle Zhong isn't here..." Bai Guo muttered.
"You came here all the way from Ningde alone?" Uncle Jin's eyes widened as he asked. "And your uncle allowed this?"
Bai Guo briefly hesitated before proudly puffing out his chest. "Uncle Jin, in every man's life there comes a time when he feels compelled to wander the jianghu."
Uncle Jin regarded him with a suspicious smile as he began to thumb at his goatee. "You ran away, didn't you, you little rascal? And you're really wandering around alone? Or were you the victim of a bad influence? Let me guess - is it a woman?"
Bai Guo pretended to be offended. "Is this Investigator Hou Jin speaking, uncle?"
Uncle Jin laughed. "That's right, young man! And you're lucky that Investigator Jin is too busy with a case to drag you back to Ningde by the ear!"
Bai Guo pounced on the opportunity to change the subject. "What are you investigating, uncle Jin?"
Fortunately for him, Uncle Jin was always eager to talk about his work. "A murder case most gnarly and peculiar, Guo'er. You must have seen the wreckage down the road on your way here."
"I don't believe I did..." As Bai Guo had not been following any roads to get here, he had no clue what his uncle was talking about.
"Really? I thought you came in from the eastern road. Now I'm even more curious about what you've been up to, Guo'er."
"Uncle, so what's this about wreckage?"
"A carriage of the Xiong clan had been attacked, and the patriarch, his wife, and his bodyguards and servants had all met bizarre deaths." Uncle Jin outlined the grizzly matter with great enthusiasm.
"Bizarre how?"
"Ah!" Uncle Jin exclaimed and waved his hand. "It is too gruesome to be talked about in public, I'm afraid. Are you interested? Is this perhaps the budding Investigator Bai Guo speaking right now?"
"Uncle Jin, you know how I feel about joining the Investigative Bureau... Or more importantly, how Senior Investigator Long feels about it."
"Well, of course." Uncle Jin said, and then lowered his voice to a whisper. "But remember that Senior Investigator Long is in his twilight years will not continue to work forever, and unlike him, I personally consider aptitude for detective work to be more valuable than one's aptitude for martial arts in this field of work. And don't think I had forgotten just how much you contributed to catching your father's killer."
Bai Guo once again felt compelled to change the subject. The matter of his father's early death brought him nothing but misery. "...A man like senior Long just might outlive us both with how seriously he takes his cultivation."
"Or, more likely, that man will outlast us both by sheer bitterness alone."
They both exchanged a laugh.
Uncle Jin continued. "If you would like to become a little braver and maybe learn something new, aspiring young hero of jianghu, then I can take you to the crime scene."
"Is that allowed?" Bai Guo had found his sense of curiosity incited by his uncle's infectious enthusiasm. And if, as his uncle said, it was a chance to prove his value as a potential candidate for the Jianghu Investigative Bureau, then all the better.
"That's up to the investigator in charge." Uncle Jin closed his eyes with a smile on his face. "And the investigator in charge would like to show his nephew the scene."
Moreover, uncle Jin's company was a welcome change of pace compared to his unpredictable master-to-be.
They ventured beyond Shanlu's walls; the pebbled stone road split to one of dirt, down which they walked. They soon arrived at a set of barricades surrounding a considerable area guarded by people dressed in white and blue. Uncle Jin greeted one of them, and they handed him something.
"Is this normal?" Bai Guo asked. "Why was such a big area walled off?"
Uncle Jin approached his nephew and handed him a damp cloth, his eyes wandering around the cordoned area as he pondered his question for longer than he needed to. "Ah, no. It isn't normal at all."
When Bai Guo received the damp cloth, he was more than a little confused.
Uncle Jin continued. "It has to do with the murder method. Cover your mouth and nose with this, and breathe only through it."
"...What exactly is going on here, uncle Jin? And what is this?"
"It's a cloth soaked in some medicine. Just a slight precaution. It's almost certainly overzealous, but it's better to be safe."
They walked past the barricades. It took them a few minutes of walking for Bai Guo to finally catch a glimpse of the wrecked carriage. But what drew his attention was not the vehicle itself, but the round patch of barren dirt that surrounded it, sticking out in what was otherwise a lush green field. Already, the young man could feel a sense of foreboding.
Within that patch of dirt were the black, rotten remains of shrubs and trees, and four black, rotten corpses, one of a horse and three of men. Even their clothes had decayed into rags.
"What do you think happened here, Guo'er?" Uncle Jin preempted the young man's question.
"It's like a bomb went off here..." Bai Guo muttered.
"Did it really?" Uncle Jin goaded him on.
"Well, no, not literally..."
The two approached closer. Uncle Jin grabbed his nephew by the shoulder.
"Look closely, but do not touch anything here. After you've taken a look around, I want you to take a few guesses as to what happened here." Uncle Jin said.
Bai Guo nodded, and began to inspect the scene. A question quickly sprang to mind.
"How many people were attending the Xiongs?"
"Two bodyguards and one servant."
"So then why are there only 3 corpses here?"
"Xiong clan attendants came by when they realized that their master was running late. They brought the bodies of the husband and wife back to their estate." Uncle Jin explained. "The servants that brought them back grew deathly ill within the hour, and passed away three days later. They did not carry back the rest."
Bai Guo began to feel lightheaded. "...Is it really safe to be here?"
"We've made a few rounds already. As long as you don't touch anything and breathe through the cloth, there's nothing to be afraid of."
"Then this must be the work of poison... But it's like an entire barrel's been emptied out here."
Bai Guo's uncle said nothing. The young man found that next to two of the corpses was a weapon. One of them died beside a sword, the other, beside a club.
"These must be the bodyguards." Bai Guo muttered. The corpses were so thoroughly ravaged by poison that little to no flesh remained on their bones, and what little was left was pitch black. Remarkably, they smelled of nothing, not even when Bai Guo took the medicinal cloth away from his nose for a brief moment.
Bai Guo found these corpses easier to observe than the ones back at the slaughtered village, though he struggled to put the reason into words. Perhaps it was because these bodies did not even look human in their current state.
The two bodyguards were spread far apart from each other, while the third corpse, most likely that of the servant, was right next to the carriage. The corpse in front of the cart was lying next to a strange round indent in the dead soil. On closer inspection, the swordsman's leg had been cut cleanly in two below the knee.
"They were fighting somebody. This man's leg has been cut off. The other one must have tried to run away, but didn't make it. There's no obvious wound on the other bodies, so maybe they died from the poison." Bai Guo pointed at the indention. "What is this circle...? Is this where the bodies of the wife and husband were found?"
"No, they were next to the carriage." Uncle Jin said.
"Then what is it? It's like something was lying here. Maybe a big rock, or a barrel? But... right next to the bodyguard?" Bai Guo looked at the sliced bone that made up what was left of the man's leg. "The angle of the slash is low and awkward. What if the attacker cut his leg off... while sitting down here..?"
"Is that right?" Uncle Jin said. "Do you think you could kill a man sitting down, Guo'er?"
Bai Guo shook his head. "Sorry, uncle Jin, but I really don't know what could have done this. If the man was sitting here, then he'd be in the very center of this withered field. I think we're short a corpse."
"You're sure it was a man, not an object?"
"An object, like a barrel rigged to blow up, maybe?" Bai Guo shook his head again. "Well, it wouldn't have cut this man's leg off."
Uncle Jin nodded his head. "Then where did the corpse go?"
"I don't know. There's nothing in the dirt to make it look like it's been dragged away, or any footprints to indicate that anyone approached this place at all."
"Indeed, it does not."
It was at this point that Bai Guo grew tired of playing the guessing game. "So, what, then, uncle?"
"Well, I don't blame you for getting stuck here, since this is more of a test of one's knowledge of the jianghu's many vicious martial arts. You see, it is not unheard of for a poisoner to be immune to his own poisons. The leading theory is that the attacker spread poisonous smoke, which is what killed the family and devastated the vegetation. After conducting his business, the killer simply left, utilizing a lightness technique to leave no trail in the soil."
"Is this kind of poison common?" Bai Guo was shocked.
"Not at all. Speaking collectively for the entire Investigative Bureau, this is the first time we've seen anything like this. To be more exact, there are some ferocious venoms out there that may be able to cause this much damage on an individual scale, like to a single man perhaps, or to a tree. But gas, so potent and over such a wide area? No..."
"Why didn't they run away when they saw the smoke?" Bai Guo asked. "One of them did run, but since the servant and the Xiongs died right next to the carriage, I think he ran because he saw his friend's leg get cut off."
"Perhaps it's invisible." Uncle Jin grimly stated. The thought sent a chill down Bai Guo's spine. "Now, let's get out of here. The less time spent in this place the better."
On the other side of the barricade, Bai Guo was glad to breathe in fresh, unfiltered air.
"I must say, you did very well, Guo'er. Those were some solid deductions, very close to what we ended up with ourselves. And you have heart. You faced those grizzly corpses head on, hardly even blinked!" Uncle Jin patted the young man on the shoulder.
As they headed back to town, Uncle Jin continued to explain. "We in the Bureau have taken to calling this man the Desolator of Life. The Bureau has been employed by the Wuyi Sect to find this man."
"Can you really defeat someone like that, uncle?" Bai Guo asked, worried.
"Fortunately, we don't have to. After we find and identify the criminal, the Wuyi Sect will have to handle the rest. I don't think even the senior investigators are equipped to deal with this." Uncle Jin shook his head. "This is why I value investigative skills more than martial arts. When we fail, we fail not because we get beaten by the criminals in combat, but because we never find them in the first place."
Uncle Jin crossed his hands behind his back as he continued. "But of course, Senior Investigator Long's point of view is not without merit. There may come a time when, in the pursuit of truth, an investigator needs to defend himself or others. The exemplary investigator must sharpen both his mind and his sword."
"Even so, missing one is enough to make you ineligible." Bai Guo muttered, dejected.
"There is plenty of time for you to prove him wrong, Guo'er. That's why you mustn't slack off in your training or your duties." Uncle Jin turned to him. "That is to say, you should go back to your uncle instead of wasting time and money on women."
"My reason for being here is not unrelated to martial arts!" Bai Guo blurted out.
"Oh? Is that so?" Uncle Jin asked with a smile.
"I may have found a teacher." Bai Guo said vaguely.
"Who is it?"
"The person in question... prefers to maintain their anonymity."
"Sounds like a scam. If you could tell me this would be master's name, I might be able to tell you if you're getting swindled. We handle these kinds of cases all the time."
Bai Guo suspected that even his uncle had no knowledge of the mysterious golden haired senior. Just as he was thinking of a response, his eyes wandered onto a poster depicting said senior's illustration and a description of her crime. He had nearly tripped over his own feet at the sight.
Uncle Jin traced his eyes to the poster, and chuckled. "I know what you're thinking, but they didn't forget to color the hair. Apparently, there's a woman with yellow hair and white eyes running about!" He laughed again. "The Wuyi Sect certainly got played for fools."
"...What do you mean, uncle Jin?"
"Obviously no such person exists. A bad witness must have led them astray. The sect reached out to us too, but what can we do if they blundered at the very first step?"
Bai Guo smiled nervously.
...