Chapter 21

“Young Master, after our intelligence gathering over the past two days, we’ve discovered that the rouge and powder shops in the Capital City love goods from Jiangnan City. But preferences vary—for instance, with perfumes, peach blossom scent is the richest, yet jasmine sells best and fetches the highest prices. We looked into it carefully and realized February and March are peak peach blossom season in Jiangnan, making that perfume dirt cheap. Jasmine blooms from June through August, so right now it’s a rare luxury scent that noble ladies in the capital are snapping up. That’s why we stocked up on extra jasmine perfume this time… And there’s plenty of nuance in selecting silks and satins too…”

Linghu Xiao and the other players proved remarkably dutiful. After assembling the cargo, they didn’t just bid Ruan Xuezong farewell—they laid out their entire decision-making process in detail, leaving him to oversee things at Heart Washing Manor while they set off in triumph.

Ruan Xuezong clapped one of them on the shoulder and offered a few words of warm encouragement.

The players’ faces glowed with enthusiasm as they mounted up and galloped down the mountain path with a clatter of hooves. They had no inkling of the fate awaiting them if they took a loss: a stint working in a brothel to pay off the debt.

The teahouses there were famous for their chatting services. An hour of conversation with a guest could earn you a tael of silver. As team leader, Linghu Xiao would need to chat up patrons for a full hundred hours to break even if this trading run went south. Of course, if he mastered the legendary feat of “three lines to coax a hundred taels from a customer’s pocket,” that would be another story altogether.

The coroner profession, on the other hand, seemed like a real niche choice.

It was just that players on the forums had proclaimed back during the main storyline, with absolute conviction, that coroner was bound to be a brand-new profession in the game Rivers and Lakes. That was why System 007 had rolled it out.

Heart Washing Manor lacked a guiding NPC, so aspiring coroners had no choice but to head to the Jiangnan City Yamen for work. The old coroner there would hand each one a copy of the Record of Washing Away Wrongs, stressing that it was the essential guide to examining corpses and wounds. No one could start interning until they’d memorized it and learned to apply it flexibly.

The players approached it with iron-willed determination, committing the Record of Washing Away Wrongs to memory and scraping by as lowly assistants to the old coroner, slowly building experience.

One day, they encountered a body.

The players buzzed with excitement. Donning white gloves and masks, they prepared to examine it. “Male victim, aged sixty to sixty-five. Death by drowning. The calluses on his hands suggest years of manual labor, probably wielding poles or sticks…”

“You’re spot on,” the old coroner said with a satisfied nod. “He used to work the mill, then became a ferryman at the docks, rowing tourists across.”

When these hot-headed youngsters first showed up begging to apprentice under him, he’d been furious. Who wouldn’t assume a pack of young heroes barging into the yamen, demanding to become coroners, were out to steal his rice bowl?

But they truly meant it, and their aptitude wasn’t half bad. The old coroner grew increasingly delighted as he taught them, as if he’d finally acquired a band of students he could mold.

He rapped the table. “And? Keep going.” His praise never exceeded two sentences—he didn’t want to spoil the youngsters.

The players stripped the body and scrutinized the mouth, tongue, nostrils, and skin. Then they declared, “No signs of struggle on the body, no bruises from impacts or fights beforehand. He must have taken his own life…”

But the more they examined him, the more familiar the drowned old man’s swollen features seemed.

The old coroner nodded again and sighed. “Correct again. Suicide it was. Near the drowning site, a stone pinned down a suicide note with two baffling lines: ‘All who deserved to die are dead—and that includes me,’ and ‘It was all my fault back then.’ With that note, Lord Jiang ruled it a deliberate act and closed the case.”

“I pocketed the note to test your skills at determining cause of death. The neighbors and locals already claimed the body. They said he was Old Bai from the West Bridge Tofu Stall. He’d run up debts in his youth and had a daughter, though she hasn’t been seen lately. Folks around West Bridge keep asking after her family’s tofu—say they just don’t feel right without it.” The coroner produced the note as he spoke.

The players froze. West Bridge Tofu Stall, an old man surnamed Bai, former ferryman, with a daughter—it hit them like a bolt.

They pulled back the white sheet over the corpse once more.

Sure enough, in that face, they recognized the shadow of the silent, aged boatman from that night on the Wu Peng Boat, lit dimly by red lanterns.

That evening, the players all sought out Ruan Xuezong to talk it over.

“Young Master, who would’ve thought Bai Miaoshuang—that Demonic Cult witch—might be rotten in temperament but didn’t lie at the start after all. She really did have a debt-ridden father, and she really did step into the spotlight for his sake. But her secret role was masterminding the Linglong Treasure Ship, and her father ferried guests to its destined owners. How does it all fit…?” The players frowned in confusion, stumbling over their words, at a loss to describe the turmoil. In their minds, the Demonic Sects were supposed to be sly villains spinning nothing but lies.

“This Rivers and Lakes isn’t black-and-white. Read this, young heroes, and you might understand.”

Ruan Xuezong was in his study. He cleared his throat twice, fetched a fresh scroll from the shelf, and handed it over.

The players took it. The title read: “The gambling wastrel Old Bai racked up massive debts in his youth. He had one daughter, a beauty like a flower in bloom, and the two depended on each other. By chance, Old Bai acquired a mask and a Flower Note. In a haze of temptation, he took his daughter aboard the ship.”

The players’ eyes widened. This old coot had planned to sell his daughter at first, right?

They’d witnessed parents peddling children for coin aboard that ship themselves. But the twist: Bai Miaoshuang, beautiful and ruthless, caught the previous Treasure Ship master’s eye. She flipped from merchandise on the block to heir of the Linglong Treasure Ship.

Old Bai’s days likely soured from then on. Night after night, winter or summer, he hung a red lantern and became a mute ferryman—whether from his own unspoken remorse or his daughter’s torment, none could say.

“…” Finishing the tale left the players with complicated feelings. They posted the intel on Bai Miaoshuang to the game forums, sparking an instant frenzy of discussion.

Ruan Xuezong pretended not to notice. The players stood before him like obedient posts, but their minds had long since tabbed out to the forums. The thread on the Demonic Cult witch’s storyline shot up hundreds more floors.

No one under that man Huo Chonglou was ever normal anyway. The players would see for themselves in time.

Ruan Xuezong languidly raised his hand, preparing to pen a reply.

The imperial post stations originally ferried official documents and intelligence. As a persistent drain on the treasury, they’d gradually opened to civilian letters too.

Over these days, he’d received several letters piecemeal from Hua Bailian.

At first, they came signed “Famous Sword Villa” ahead of the name, alerting Ruan Xuezong to another lost sword somewhere. Meanwhile, the Heart Washing Manor shipment sabotage had made waves not just in Jiangnan but as far as Golden Mound. Ruan Xuezong surely had his hands full—no time or energy to trek afar and steal blades. Junior Brother Lan’s suspicions fully evaporated.

Later letters dropped the formality for a friend’s tone: snippets of news, like their ongoing, fruitless hunt for the Pure Shadow Sword nearing despair, so they’d tour en route to the banquet at Peacock Manor on Yanghe Mountain; or amusing escapades Hero Hua and his buddies had amid their hu wanderings.

Not for nothing the protagonist—friends everywhere.

Even a Demonic Sect figure like him, a shut-in at Heart Washing Manor, could dredge up topics.

The latest letter puzzled him, though.

With spring warming yet still nippy by turns, it wished him good health—a standard pleasantry. Then: nothing urgent, just chatting.

As he sent it, he’d spotted a lone plum blossom clinging to a branch amid the Central Plains villa and suddenly wanted to share. Unfolding the missive, a sprig of white plum drifted into Ruan Xuezong’s slender pale palm, trailing a chill fragrance.

Ruan Xuezong, considering it from the perspective of a nobleman, saw it as a subtle gesture of goodwill. Gentlemen form bonds as light as water; a response was indeed appropriate.

With that, he plucked a fresh green willow sprig—early spring’s gift from March—and attached a verse: “Jiangnan offers naught but this slight branch of spring.”

Sichuan Pepper Little Bunny moistened his ink brush, attending obediently at his side. Watching the exchange, she screamed internally: Holy crap, were interactions this bromantic back then!? Not a single “I miss you,” yet a hundred times gayer than blurting it out!

She shrieked in her mind while keeping a perfectly cute, compliant face.

Ruan Xuezong tapped a player to dispatch the letter. With half a month left, it was time to head out for that old codger’s sixtieth birthday.

[System 007: […Old codger? That’s how you greet your father-in-law?]]

Ruan Xuezong arched a brow. “Calling him an old codger is polite. Don’t think I don’t know what schemes that father-daughter pair are cooking up behind my back.”

Without the sixtieth birthday—a pinnacle celebration for a world-famous martial artist—he had no intention of attending as a junior, let alone gifting a single copper.

System 007 fell silent.

Ruan Xuezong rummaged the storehouse, cobbling together flashy but worthless trinkets. He ordered the servants to pack them into crates, wrapped extravagantly in the finest red silk. No one would guess such grand boxes held only junk.

Players had turned in some dried water weeds from Smoky Water Stronghold, apparently along with a tiger pelt. He wasn’t fond of it—toss it in.

The dried fish and such they’d submitted? Worthless, but as Jiangnan specialties, another crate.

Thus prepared, Ruan Xuezong set forth.

He donned his most opulent robes, affixed his mask, lifted the carriage curtain, and settled into the servant-prepared coach. A baggage wagon trailed behind for the gifts.

On departure day, the martial artists settled in Jiangnan turned out to gawk. After five years of manor fire, retainer exodus, and business woes, they’d figured Heart Washing Manor long past its glory. Yet here was the Young Master, far from home for the first time in years, departing with such fanfare.

Luxury carriage and horses led, the curtain fluttering to reveal a refined, handsome silhouette. Behind followed hundreds, maybe thousands of “retainers”—some lightfooting it, others on red-maned steeds. They kicked up miles of dust in pursuit, jostling ahead and hollering: “Zongzong, wait for me! Don’t leave me behind at the manor!”

“Damn it, Zongzong’s off to Peacock Manor—why didn’t anyone call me?”

“You beasts, all scheming to hog Zongzong and sneak through the main quest solo?”

The martial artists couldn’t parse it but marveled all the same: What a spectacle from Heart Washing Manor! Even an Imperial Prince’s procession from the capital might pale in comparison!