Wang Er glanced at Xiaowu who was still in deep sleep and said nothing.

Xiaowu was already awake when Li Erfa woke up. He lay in bed with his eyes closed as he pretended to eavesdrop on their conversation in the hope of gathering useful intel.

Sure enough, he got what he wanted.

Xiaowu didn’t move a muscle and even pretended to snore. However, his secret guard instincts were telling him something was coming towards him.

Judging from the source of this sound, it was most likely Wang Er.

Xiaowu felt worried. Everything was fine between them up till this morning. Was Wang Er finally going to kill him?

Xiaowu quietly placed his hand on the soft sword at his waist. If Wang Er wanted to do anything to him, he could swiftly unsheathe his sword and arrest him.

Xiaowu tightened his grip on his soft sword as the man approached him.

Before long, Xiaowu could sense Wang Er’s hands reaching for his neck only to gently tuck Xiaowu in.

Xiaowu let go of his soft sword handle as he snored loudly.

“What’s up with you? Why aren’t you saying anything?”

Li Erfa felt displeased as he asked Wang Er reprovingly.

“Keep it down. Xiaowu is still sleeping.”

Wang Er wasn’t afraid of Li Erfa. He deliberately lowered his voice and reminded Li Erfa, “Anyway, Ming Zi always stays out every month on this date. He has probably gone to Piao Xiang Brothel.”

Li Erfa didn’t really care about Ming Zi’s whereabouts. Instead, he teased Wang Er, “Now do you think Xiaowu is our brother?”

“In the past, you were suspicious of Xiaowu. Now that I have insisted on keeping him around, we have finally found a new brother.”

Xiaowu kept pretending to sleep as he eavesdropped on their conversation. He could not help feeling anxious when they stopped talking about Ming Zi.

Why were they talking about him? Couldn’t they talk about something else?

“I was simply being careful,” Wang Er went quiet for a long time before he finally replied to Li Erfa’s stupid question.

Li Erfa knew exactly what Wang Er was talking about. He stopped sitting on the bed and climbed towards Wang Er and patted his shoulder.

“Now you know Xiaowu isn’t like them.”

“I know…” Wang Er sounded sad as though he was thinking about something terrible.

“Sometimes I really hate you.”

Li Erfa saw Wang Er sitting there with his head lowered, so he sat beside Wang Er.

“Did you know? I was actually trying to trip you the other day.”

Li Erfa came clean to Wang Er about his true intentions the other night. Xiaowu recalled Wang Er almost died that night and felt shocked by Li Erfa’s confession.

How could Li Erfa tell the truth? Wasn’t he afraid Wang Er might seek revenge on him?

Instead, Wang Er didn’t take it to heart. He lowered his head as he said in a stifled tone, “I know. I checked the place and realized you did it.”

“I know that you know the truth.” Li Erfa laughed in self-ridicule as he lowered his head like Wang Er. “Although I am rash and uneducated, I am not entirely stupid.”

Wang Er didn’t reply. Li Erfa didn’t care about his reaction either. All Li Erfa wanted to do was to speak his mind and get things off his chest.

“Do you know why I did it?” Li Erfa suddenly raised his head and looked at Wang Er penetratingly. “Wang Er, you must know, right?”

Li Erfa suddenly felt emotional. “Wang Er, I really hate you, but I hate myself even more for killing Qian Jin…”

“Stop talking about it.”

Wang Er lowered his head and sounded imploring.

Now that Li Erfa finally had the opportunity to speak his mind, he refused to stop.

“Why? Aren’t you afraid? Aren’t you afraid Qian Jin might look for us?”

Who was Qian Jin?

Was he the man whom Wang Er mentioned last night who made trouble for him?

Xiaowu didn’t expect them not to speak after he made Wang Er and Li Erfa drink so much last night. Xiaowu felt he might need more time to squeeze the truth out of them.

Xiaowu even thought about making them drink in a few days, but they unexpectedly talked about something so important while he was asleep.

Wang Er quickly raised his head and shouted at Li Erfa like he was crazy, “Afraid? Why should I be afraid?”

Wang Er was particularly agitated as he pointed at Li Erfa and scolded him deeply.

“Well, I certainly am.” Li Erfa’s eyes were filled with fear as his voice trembled. “I have nightmares every night. All I can see every night is Qian Jin’s bloody face while he is coming for us!”

“Don’t be stupid! He insisted on breaking the rules with those idiots!”

Wang Er stopped scolding Li Erfa and gradually calmed down. His voice stopped sounding as strange.

“If he did not take the lead to steal the precious objects from the unmarked burial site, he would not have died!”

“But we did it too!” Li Erfa seemed unable to accept Qian Jin’s death and wanted to explain, “We have done it secretly as well and happened to bump into them. Did we have to kill them?”

“They forced our hand! Heh. If we did not kill them, they would’ve finished us off!”

A bloodthirsty light radiated from Wang Er’s eyes. “If we didn’t discover the truth about them pretending to be ghosts, they would have just continued lying to us!”

“No. Qian Jian would never do that!”

Li Erfa did not want to think about the incident at all. He shook his head agitatedly as though he could toss the memory to the back of his head by doing so.

“He already knows what we do at the unmarked burial site, so he pretended to be a ghost and scare us.”

Wang Er refused to stop and kept going on. “Stop acting like you are some innocent soul. We wouldn’t have gone to steal more things if you didn’t complain about how unfair the split was.”

“I didn’t know… I didn’t know Qian Jin and the others have been doing it all along…”

Li Erfa was incapable of thinking straight. He kept retorting Wang Er as he gasped breathlessly.

“Even if you didn’t know about it, didn’t you end up doing it? Have you forgotten you were the one who killed Qian Jin?”

“No! Stop saying it! I will never bring it up again. I will stop talking about it.”

Wang Er stabbed Li Erfa where it hurt and Li Erfa hugged his head and screamed, “Yes, I killed him! Stop talking about it.”

The more upset Li Erfa became, the more composed Wang Er got.

“Enough. Stop thinking about it. I don’t blame you for hating me, but It is all in the past and we are doing pretty well now.”

He patted Li Erfa’s back and did his best to console him.

Li Erfa gradually calmed down, but he remained in a daze.

Xiaowu noticed they had stopped talking, so he thought about Wang Er and Li Erfa’s conversation.

He connected all the dots and gradually made some headway with the case.

Xiaowu boldly speculated. Since Wang Er and the others had killed Qian Jin and his team, that could provide some explanation for a portion of the missing burial workers.

However, he was not sure when they did it.

Also, what about those other missing people? Did they just happen to go missing?

Xiaowu felt a headache coming on as he thought about these questions.

From the looks of it, he had to go back to Prince Jing’s residence and seek Chu Yunshen’s advice.

When Xiaowu heard Wang Er and Li Erfa breathing consistently, he felt it was a good time to leave. He stopped snoring, slowly turned over, and pretended that he had just woken up.

Wang Er noticed Xiaowu awake, so he squeezed a smile. “Are you up?”

Xiaowu acted groggy and stunned. He turned to look in Wang Er’s direction when he finally woke up. “Er, are you two up already?”

He scratched his head awkwardly as he spoke and seemed even more silly.

After some time, Wang Er’s smile became more natural. “It’s okay. We just woke up too.”

Xiaowu spat in his heart. Those liars! If he wasn’t pretending to be asleep he would have bought it.

Xiaowu certainly did not display his disdain. He was anxious to head back to Prince Jing’s residence to report his findings, so he said to Wang Er enthusiastically, “I want to pawn my stuff so that I can pay my debt as soon as possible.”

Wang Er knew how urgent Xiaowu’s situation was, so he urged Xiaowu to leave without hesitation, “Go to Yongxin and tell them you are my friend and they will give you a better deal.”

Well done. He even figured out which pawnshop they went to.

He was definitely going to catch them this time!

“Thanks! See you! I am worried they might close if I go too late,” said Xiaowu before putting on his worn-out clothes and retrieving his shoes from beneath the bed.

Before he left, he said to Li Erfa “Er, Erfa, help say goodbye to Zi. See you at midnight at Uncle Gen’s place.”

“Go on and cut the jabber!” Li Erfa chased Xiaowu to leave as he joked to Wang Er, “See how silly he is?”

Wang Er burst out laughing as well.

They had no clue that the stupid kid they were talking about was flying over walls and running across the roof in the darkness.

Xiaowu didn’t have time to get changed and clean up before he went to see Chu Yunshen.

Since matters were urgent, he swiftly entered Chu Yunshen’s room dressed in his worn-out outfit.

Wan Xia had gone back to her quarters at sunset, so only Chu Yunshen was in the room.

Cheng Xiaoxiao was teaching the baby bird how to fly as usual.

What was this smell?

Why was it so smelly?

Shortly after Xiaowu entered the door, the cold wind spread his stench throughout the warm room.

Since the windows were closed, Xiaowu’s stench became even stronger in the charcoal-heated room.

Cheng Xiaoxiao felt as though she was about to suffocate and her eyes stung from the stink.

Was he a walking gas bomb?

Cheng Xiaoxiao quietly did her utmost to keep her distance from Xiaowu as she rolled her eyes at him.

Xiaowu didn’t realize how smelly he was. He was beaten up by Tingzhu and the others yesterday afternoon. Last night, he sweated a lot when he worked at the unmarked burial gravesite. After work, he drank with Wang Er and the others before sleeping on a communal bed all night. It was impossible for him to smell civilized now.

Xiaowu was accustomed to the lion cat’s mood swings. He was not in the mood to fight with her either. He quickly walked straight up to Chu Yunshen and updated him about his investigations.

Chu Yunshen naturally smelled Xiaowu as well. He could not help frowning as he placed his right index finger under his nose. He contemplated before putting his hand down.

“Based on my investigations, the burial workers are in the habit of reselling stolen items. They steal from the dead and sell their loot to a regular pawn shop.”

Xiaowu’s head was lowered, so he failed to notice Chu Yunshen’s actions.

“Uh huh. Go on.”