Seeing that Daoist Gong had also posed the question, Li Yan noted that it had only been half an hour since Qin Chengyi's capture. The area had clearly been sealed off by Daoist Gong long ago, as no one had come here for a long time. The news of Qin Chengyi's capture would not spread for a while.
Daoist Gong was clearly eager to know the reason, but Qin Chengyi deliberately remained silent. Li Yan had no choice but to quicken his pace of speech. "By now, we all know that the person Fellow Daoist Qin intended to kill in the main hall was Fellow Daoist Luo, and no one else. You both know the reason. First, when he saw Fellow Daoist Luo also enter the hall to offer incense, he went in as well. Fellow Daoist Kong, however, was unaware that his own entry had brought him to the gates of hell. To say he was lucky not to have chosen the poisoned incense would be less accurate than saying Fellow Daoist Qin's calculations were flawless."
"As the cultivators of the Xuanqing Temple know, the center of the main hall holds the statues of the Three Pure Ones, while the sides are lined with the spirit tablets of the Great Emperors, the Six Sovereigns, and the Five Directional Elders. The first incense of the morning for the Three Pure Ones is always offered by the Foundation Establishment cultivators of the temple, while the other immortal tablets on the sides are for the disciples. This way, the target for the poison was narrowed down to the nine incense sticks for the Three Pure Ones. But here, just as Sect Master Gong said, how could he guarantee that only Fellow Daoist Luo would take those three incense sticks? If Fellow Daoist Luo and Fellow Daoist Kong had first chosen sticks without poison, wouldn't he have harmed himself? At that time, only the three of them were of high seniority in the hall. Even if Fellow Daoist Qin found a reason to switch the incense, doing so on the spot would arouse suspicion. And what would he do with the incense he switched out, in front of so many people? At the same time, he had to ensure that Fellow Daoist Kong would not take the poisoned incense, otherwise his plan would fail."
"At first, I was also stumped. But later, after inquiring about the usual interactions and habits of the three deceased Daoists, it dawned on me. The problem, again, was one of human nature."
"Fellow Daoist Luo was known as 'Third Master.' As for why he was called that, I believe you two know better than I. He claimed to have an affinity with the number three in all matters. With that, Fellow Daoist Qin had his plan. He only needed to apply the poison to the three incense sticks in front of the Way and its Virtue Heaven-Honored One. I have to say, although it was a plan, Fellow Daoist Qin was also gambling—gambling on his insight into human nature."
"The Three Pure Ones are the Primordial Heaven-Honored One, the Numinous Treasure Heaven-Honored One, and the Way and its Virtue Heaven-Honored One. The Way and its Virtue Heaven-Honored One is the third of the 'Three Pure Honored Ones' and cultivated the 'Three Cavern Scriptures,' a heaven-piercing divine art. All of this implicitly contains the number 'three.' From any perspective, Fellow Daoist Luo would be the first to snatch those three incense sticks. I imagine that ordinarily, unless Sect Master Gong was present, he would get first pick. In front of his other martial brothers, Fellow Daoist Luo would never yield under any circumstances. He would naturally be the first to step forward. Fellow Daoist Qin, of course, would not step forward to compete, and Fellow Daoist Kong should also be aware of Fellow Daoist Luo's habit. Everything fell into place. As for Fellow Daoist Luo's Storage Pouch, since no one noticed when he died and there were many people coming and going, and you were intentionally looking for an opportunity, you only had to pretend to casually walk past him, and you could snatch it away when no one was looking. Then, you could walk over to a side window, perhaps even cast a small spell, and flick it out the window into the ground below with ease."
As Li Yan said this, a look of enlightenment dawned on Daoist Gong's face, but a deeper chill settled in his heart. His gaze toward Qin Chengyi now held a hint of fear. A person who could calculate human nature to such an extent... he was certain that this Qin Chengyi had long since figured out his own daily habits. If this plot had been aimed at him, would he have been able to escape this deadly trap?
Without waiting for either of them to speak, Li Yan promptly continued, as he and Daoist Gong both wished to conclude matters here quickly.
"It was precisely this move by Fellow Daoist Qin that made my suspicion return to you. Of the three murders, you were at the scene for two, and for one, you had an alibi. You were the prime suspect for the first and third. All I needed to do was solve the matter of you killing someone for the second time. As I carefully recalled the events surrounding Fellow Daoist Song's death, I suddenly remembered something. When you raised your cup to me at the window, your arm movement seemed to stutter for a moment. I didn't think the movement was strange at the time; I just assumed you were thinking about something. But thinking back on it now, your movement in that moment seemed stiff."
"With that, I thought of a possibility—a puppet. And this brought me back to a suspicious point I raised at the very beginning: how was the 'Attacker's Tear' poison placed into the Spirit Stone? You must have used a puppet, controlled by your Divine Sense, to place the 'Attacker's Tear' poison into the Spirit Stone. I had previously considered whether you used a magical treasure like a spirit sword to place the poison, but I later dismissed these guesses. Spirit artifacts and spirit treasures like spirit swords also need to be activated by Spirit Power. If so, the 'Attacker's Tear' poison would have followed the Spirit Power upward, which wouldn't work. A puppet, however, is different. It can be driven by Spirit Stones and doesn't require an external user to activate it with Spirit Power. What it lacks is precise control, which you could achieve through your Divine Sense."
"When you used the puppet to insert the 'Attacker's Tear' poison, no matter how exquisitely you controlled it, a tiny amount of poison would inevitably spread along the puppet's Spirit Power. Although you ultimately found a way to force this poison back into the Spirit Stone, the puppet's internal formations had already been damaged by the poison. This is why it had to be a puppet; if it were a person, they would have been dead long ago."
"The puppet's hands, in particular, would have been the most exposed to the 'Attacker's Tear' poison. This would cause the mechanisms and formations within its body to become sluggish. A second-tier puppet cannot be repaired so easily. And from your planning to accompanying them to the trading city to place bets, and then to the murder, it was only a few days. There was no time to repair the puppet. Therefore, when the puppet raised its cup to me, its movements lost their coordination."
"With this deduction, I went with Sect Master Gong to Fellow Daoist Liu's courtyard first. We found that the Spirit Stone powder in one of the courtyard's Spirit Stone slots was different from the others, which confirmed the presence of the 'Attacker's Tear' poison."
"Next was to find the motive for this murder. After some analysis, while the possibility of a revenge killing existed, the most suspicious thing was the missing Storage Pouch. We eventually deduced that the killer took the Storage Pouch in search of something, or perhaps something that several people had in common. And Fellow Daoist Liu and Fellow Daoist Luo had something very important from the Xuanqing Temple in their storage pouches: the two halves of the Wind Chime that opens the 'Daojing Hall.' Only with both halves in hand could this place be opened. This was your reason for killing the two of them."
"I must say, Fellow Daoist Song's death and the loss of his Storage Pouch were just a little trick of yours. Because of this, Sect Master Gong and I wasted a lot of time. Even when we finally came here to the 'Daojing Hall' to set an ambush, we still weren't completely sure. The reason was that we didn't know why Fellow Daoist Song had died. Now it seems you did it just to divert everyone's attention and simultaneously prove your own alibi."
Li Yan finished the rest of his explanation in one breath. Daoist Gong was left dumbfounded, while Qin Chengyi's eyes shone with a peculiar brilliance.
At this point, Li Yan curled his finger and made a grasping motion in the air. The puppet on the ground rose in response. Staring at the levitating puppet, Li Yan gently tapped its arms with his left hand. The puppet's arms blurred for a moment, and then formation fluctuations slowly appeared, followed by Spirit Power flowing across them. The light from Li Yan's left hand intensified, and his Spirit Power grew stronger. The flow of Spirit Power on the puppet's arms quickened, but whenever it reached below the elbows, it would stagnate, as if obstructed.
"This is the damage the puppet sustained when you used it to insert the 'Attacker's Tear' poison, causing the internal formations to run poorly. When you controlled this puppet with your Divine Sense to drink by the window, it was hard to notice at first because the movements were too small. But when you raised the cup to me in a toast, you raised your arm higher, exposing this flaw. Am I right or wrong? It's just that at the time, I thought Brother Qin had something on his mind, which was why your movements were somewhat hesitant," Li Yan said, slowly retracting the Spirit Power from his left hand. The puppet returned to its dim state.
"Hehehe, Fellow Daoist Li's cunning earns my admiration. You even easily saw through my ploy of killing Senior Brother Song to distract everyone and decided to set an ambush here. Fellow Daoist Li, you're probably not a Bloodleaf Sect cultivator, are you? It's possible even your cultivation level is fake. It's not unheard of for a cultivator from a third-rate sect to be gifted and intelligent, but that kind of composure and insight... they are incapable of it." Qin Chengyi didn't answer Li Yan's question. Instead, he chuckled and asked one of his own.
Li Yan looked at Qin Chengyi. This man's intellect was demonic. He, too, did not answer Qin Chengyi's question, instead turning his gaze to Daoist Gong.
By now, Daoist Gong fully understood the methods Qin Chengyi had used to kill several people. Though he was shocked, his face had long since regained its calm. He looked up at the sky, then spoke to Qin Chengyi in a voice as cold as ice.
"You should be able to tell us where and with whom you were supposed to rendezvous, shouldn't you?"
Hearing this, Qin Chengyi just shook his head and closed his eyes. Seeing this, Daoist Gong's expression changed. His patience over the past two days had reached its limit. His eyes turned cold, and without another word, he waved his hand. A massive shield of light enveloped Qin Chengyi where he stood. With his other hand, he formed a seal, and a beam of black light shot out from his fingertips. In the next moment, it was upon Qin Chengyi. With his feet gone and his magic sealed, Qin Chengyi had no ability to even dodge. The black light flashed and entered the space between his eyebrows. Immediately, Qin Chengyi's mouth flew open, and the veins on his forehead bulged like ferocious little green serpents, writhing constantly.
His originally fair neck suddenly swelled as if being inflated with air. More tangled, knotted veins bulged high on his neck, looking as if they might burst at any moment.
At the same time, his body began to twist continuously, each movement contorting his body to an impossible angle. His leg stumps thrashed on the ground. The wounds, which had been sealed and had stopped bleeding, now gushed copious amounts of blood with his thrashing, like springs, leaving thick, intersecting rivers of blood on the ground.
Yet, Qin Chengyi seemed not to feel the pain in his legs. His face was still extremely contorted, no longer recognizable as a human face, let alone the handsome face it once was. He howled ceaselessly, his stumps thrashing so hard that chunks of flesh began to be ground away.
His hands were fiercely clutching his neck, which had swelled to several times its normal size, as if trying to hold down the bulging veins to keep them from bursting, or perhaps as if trying to strangle himself.
But all of this was only visible; not a sound could be heard. His voice was isolated within the protective shield by Daoist Gong. Only Qin Chengyi himself could hear anything. The gore within the light shield and the tranquility outside it formed a bizarre scene, chilling one to the bone.
Daoist Gong stood there, motionless, his face expressionless, coldly watching it all. Li Yan sighed inwardly, walked to the side, and began to observe the surrounding scenery.