Daily life of a cultivation judge Chapter 1515: I don’t care about the why, I need the where (1)

Being given the cue he had been waiting for, Yang Qing wasted no time in fielding and explaining his request.

"I stumbled across a case," he began. "And I suspect it may involve a figure with a slightly complicated background," he continued furtively.

"How complicated?" Veiled Destiny asked.

"It’s not yet certain, but I suspect the figure may be a mythical race," said Yang Qing after a momentary pause, using all the skills in his arsenal to secretly gauge Veiled Destiny’s reaction to the reveal.

A lot of good his honed skills of observation did, because he could tell at all from the secretly observing Veiled Destiny. Not that he could be blamed for the lacking results. The Senior had no face or expression there for him to work with and glean anything from. All he had was a mysterious abyssal-looking fog that looked like it would swallow his soul if he kept gazing into it long enough.

Hearing not much from Veiled Destiny, Yang Qing took it as his cue to continue.

"There’s someone operating a business in Gold Eagle Town called Bai Chen. Not long ago, he and his disciple disappeared. His disciple, Jiang Hao, was the first to disappear, then Bai Chen not long after," Yang Qing explained.

Looking straight into the mystical fog that was Veiled Destiny’s face, wearing a solemn expression, hands interlocked, Yang Qing said, "I suspect the mythical race member may have been the one who kidnapped him."

"Do you have a reason as to why they did it?" Veiled Destiny reasonably asked.

Yang Qing sighed, shaking his head. "No, I don’t," he slowly said as his gaze drifted to his cup. "I have no idea why they did it, but," he paused, his eyes moving back to Veiled Destiny, "I may not entirely be certain about their motives, but at least, from the evidence they left behind and how they operated, I at least know... or rather hope," Yang Qing corrected, "that Bai Chen, his disciple, and the other clients that disappeared with them may be alive. The suspect kidnapper didn’t seem like a bloodthirsty individual, given the various loose ends they left behind."

"A different person would have acted differently," he added after a slight pause, as Wenling’s figure and that of Xie Han floated into his mind. Of those two, Wenling was actually the biggest contributor to the assessment he had of the kidnapper.

The kidnapper had embedded a formation array deep into her soul, effectively controlling the life and death of the Natural Yin Array Cicada. It would have been easy for them to kill her and erase her soul the moment they finished using her to set the trap over that ridge in Azure Sapphire Kingdom.

It made feasible sense to kill her off rather than let her live, even if one wasn’t a bloodthirsty individual. Leaving Wenling alive had no conceivable benefit to the kidnapper. She was nothing but a glaring liability that could link to the kidnapper or, at the very least, shed light on their actions.

So, killing her off made perfect sense. And yet, she lived. And even profited from the disaster with all that Nebulous Yin Qi that had been infused into her soul.

As for Xie Han, that ostracized guest elder from the Huang Family who, unlike Wenling, had actually been an active participant in the kidnapping, even though he didn’t know it was a kidnapping, given how minuscule his role was in it, his being alive was yet more evidence of the kidnapper’s soft-handedness in the handling of their affairs.

Killing off Xie Han would have made sense, not to mention it would not have drawn eyes. Xie Han was a Guest Elder who wasn’t liked much by the Huang Family he was a part of; hence his decision to lurk around alone in that ridge that no one would dare set foot on, given it was the border the Huang Family shared with the Wang Family.

Given how ostracized Xie Han was, if he died or ’disappeared’ on that ridge, the Huang Family would not go out of their way to investigate it, let alone avenge it. If anything, they would likely just treat it as passing wind, or some might even celebrate it, given that not many held much affection for this Guest Elder of theirs.

And yet, just like with Wenling, Xie Han was alive. Not only was he alive, but just as with Wenling, he profited too. He received pointers in his cultivation from that mysterious kidnapper.

All these actions pointed toward someone who seemed to actively avoid taking a life, even when it was convenient to do so.

Yang Qing explained this rationale to Veiled Destiny before moving to take out Bai Chen’s soul lamp.

"This is his soul lamp," he said, gesturing to the lamp, which was still burning with an ominous dark grey flame. Albeit, now that Yang Qing was looking at it, the flame seemed smaller than he had left it. It was not significantly smaller, about a nail’s worth smaller than it had been earlier when he presented the lamp to Ren Shu and Vice Warden Shao An. But small as the change was, it made Yang Qing’s heart lurch slightly when he noticed it.

Driven by urgency, a few more items appeared out of thin air and settled on the table before them.

One of them was a translucent ball with a dark moving cloud enclosed within it, hues of dark grey and white swirling around. Frost markings would appear on the surface of the ball every time the cloud swirled around it. Just gazing at the ball, one could feel the temperature dropping.

Next to the ball was a strand of hair. Right next to the strand of hair was a go tile. And next to the tile were several sheaves of parchment.

"With Senior’s breadth of knowledge, I do not need to explain the origins of this item," Yang Qing said, gesturing to the translucent ball with the ominous swirling dark cloud within it.

"I found this Nebulous Yin Qi infused into the soul of a Natural Yin Array Cicada, whose soul and innate abilities had been used as both a trigger and the node of the formation used to kidnap Jiang Hao. There had also been a relay message embedded into the formation that had been inscribed into her soul.

"I do not know if the Senior will require it or not, but her essence is also within that Nebulous Yin Qi," Yang Qing explained, before moving to the single strand of black hair that looked like it had been spun by a heavenly silkworm.

"This strand of hair belongs to someone who had a run-in with the suspected kidnapper, whom I suspect had been targeted to set this whole thing in motion. That target’s name is Li Gang."

Yang Qing’s gaze flashed briefly with a bit of guilt and embarrassment when it fell on the strand of hair. Li Gang did not know his hair had been taken. Yang Qing did not tell him, and he had taken it without his awareness either, at a great degree of skill as well, given he had to pull it off against a Palace Realm Expert.

Yes, Yang Qing may be stronger than him, given that Li Gang was only at the first stage, but still, this was pulling hair from a Palace Realm Expert. Stealing honey from a wide-awake starved bear was much easier in comparison.

Li Gang being preoccupied at the time with looming Auction Hosting Duties and the succession dispute that had been hanging over him may have contributed to Yang Qing’s ease of success, as he had grabbed that hair when they were in his office that first time, when Yang Qing was looking to get an invitation to the Auction.

Pushing the guilt aside and promising to make it up to Li Gang later, Yang Qing’s finger moved to the go tile.

"That Go tile was something I got at a restaurant called the Velvet Orchid, which is in Hebei Kingdom. It was that restaurant that the kidnapper had asked Bai Chen to go to," Yang Qing explained.

"There was an awakened painting there that had been secretly observing me the whole time I was there. Senior Bu Zhou from Survival and Adaptation Studies can attest to it. He was with me at the time, and he was the one who detected that painting’s spirit spying on me.

That tile," said Yang Qing, gesturing to the tile. " Is something that came from that painting, which I suspect may have ties to the kidnapper in some way or form."

"Bu Zhou?" Veiled Destiny said, with mild surprise in her tone. "He agreed to leave his pond?"