Chapter 104 Inside the Pagoda 2

Despite this, I still hoped He Yu would put the knife down, but he refused, saying he felt more at ease “interrogating” with the blade already in place. People in this line of work really love waving weapons around, and I couldn’t talk him out of it at all.

So as soon as Tian Xiaoqi regained even a shred of consciousness, He Yu pinned her shoulder with one hand, the sharp blade of the combat knife resting against the fabric of her collar, a technique used to prevent accidental injury.

Just as I expected, Tian Xiaoqi was startled by the knife at her throat the moment she opened her eyes. She looked around at us in a daze. “What are you doing?”

“Relax,” He Yu said, nudging his bag on the floor with his foot as he leaned over to pull out the last bottle of mineral water. “Here, have some water to clear your head. I have a few questions for you, but it’s nothing major.”

Tian Xiaoqi took the water but didn’t drink. Instead, she looked at me. “I saved you, and this is how you let your friend repay me?”

Her words made me feel guilty, and for a moment, I didn’t know how to respond. I opened my mouth to speak, but He Yu smoothly took over. “Miss Tian, that’s not the right way to look at it. Let’s straighten out these relationships. His grievance with you is between the two of you. Right now, I’m the one asking questions, so this is between us. Understand?”

Tian Xiaoqi clearly didn’t want to deal with He Yu. He Yu chuckled and continued, “Besides, when you were unconscious from the poison, it was this little fool of a brother of mine who carried you into the pagoda on his back, even with a crippled leg. If it had been anyone else, your head would be severed from your body by now. Who owes whom? You two are even now, got it?”

“Enough nonsense,” Lu Ayao, who had been standing quietly beside me, suddenly grew impatient. He stared at Tian Xiaoqi and asked sharply, “Who sent you?”

His sudden confrontation was a bit much for even He Yu and me to handle. He Yu had clearly just been trying to scare her with a lighthearted tone, but Lu Ayao’s words made it obvious he wouldn’t stop until he got answers.

Seeing this, He Yu quickly angled the blade outward, fearing he might accidentally injure her before getting any useful information. A cut to the carotid artery in a place like this was no joke. I also took a step forward, mostly afraid that Lu Ayao might impulsively snatch the knife and cut her down.

He Yu used to tell me that people from the Lu Clan were mentally unstable and neurotic. Today, I was finally seeing it for myself, and I didn’t dare ignore his warnings.

Regardless of her usual composure, Tian Xiaoqi was still young, and she was clearly frightened. She stammered, “N-No one sent me. I paid out of my own pocket to buy this information.”

Obviously, this wasn’t the answer Lu Ayao wanted. Before I could stop him, he suddenly reached out and snatched the combat knife from He Yu’s hand.

I lunged forward to grab him. A cold flash of light flickered, and the tip of the knife stopped right against Tian Xiaoqi’s throat. If I hadn’t pulled him back, another half-step forward and she would have been killed on the spot.

Holy crap! This guy is for real!

Tian Xiaoqi was completely terrified. Staring down at the combat knife pointed at her, she pressed herself against the stairs, not daring to move an inch. It was only when He Yu pulled her aside that she managed to dodge the blade.

I shielded Tian Xiaoqi with half my body, trying to grab Lu Ayao and pull him away, but the guy stood there as firm as a pine tree. I couldn’t budge him no matter how hard I pulled.

I lowered my voice and said to him, “What are you doing? Are you really going to kill her if she doesn’t talk?”

Lu Ayao glanced at me. “The Tian Family is the most devious of them all. If she won’t talk, it’s better to end it with one stroke than waste time listening to her lies and excuses.”

Tian Xiaoqi heard every word. She probably hadn’t expected Lu Ayao to be so ruthless. Realizing he truly intended to kill her, she suddenly wailed from behind me, tears and snot streaming down her face as she sobbed uncontrollably.

He Yu hurriedly tried to comfort her. “Hey, girl, are you a human faucet or something? How can you just start crying like that, like a dam opening its floodgates?”

Lu Ayao was also stunned by this. I took the opportunity to snatch the combat knife from his hand and said, “Of all the Tian Family members you’ve met, have any of them been this afraid of dying?”

“You’re the one afraid of dying! Your whole family is afraid of dying! I’m not crying because I’m afraid of death, okay?” Tian Xiaoqi cursed while wiping her tears. “Do you think I actually want to be in this dump? I haven’t showered in three or four days!”

I squatted down to comfort her, telling her that her Brother Lu was just scaring her. “Good sister, stop crying. The three of us are all upstanding, law-abiding citizens. Who would dare to actually kill you in this day and age? Tell us your troubles. Wouldn’t it be faster to have more people helping you than trying to solve it alone?”

As soon as I finished, Tian Xiaoqi pushed my hand away, still weeping piteously. “Who wants help from you stinky men? I’m here to find my Great-Grandfather. This has nothing to do with your families anyway, and you wouldn’t help me find him.”

“Your Great-Grandfather?” I picked up on the sensitive key phrase in her words.

My family was famous for having very few members, so I wasn’t good at calculating generations. I ran the numbers in my head several times, but I still couldn’t figure out which generation this Great-Grandfather belonged to. I turned to look at He Yu.

He was calculating too, but he was much faster than me. Once he worked it out, he slapped his thigh. “Your logic doesn’t add up, Miss Xiaoqi. Isn’t Tian Xiao your Great-Grandfather? If you’re looking for him, you should go back to the Tian Family home. What are you looking for him here for?”

At this, Tian Xiaoqi stopped responding and simply continued to sob. When I offered her a tissue, she angrily turned her head away, refusing to accept it. It seemed that after what just happened, this girl was determined to dig her heels in with me to the end.

Lu Ayao had been standing beside me for a long time. Only now did he crouch down, take the tissue from my hand, and offer it to Tian Xiaoqi. “You suspect that the one in the main Tian Family home isn’t your Great-Grandfather.”

When he said that, Tian Xiaoqi looked up in surprise. Her eyes were a bit swollen, but her tears had stopped. She looked at Lu Ayao in astonishment. “Could it be that you knew all along?!”

“W-What the heck?” He Yu and I looked at each other in perfect sync. He immediately leaned in and asked, “What do you mean the one in the main Tian Family home isn’t your Great-Grandfather? Translated, does that mean Tian Xiao isn’t Tian Xiao? Great-Grandfather isn’t Tian Xiao, and Tian Xiao isn’t Great-Grandfather? Bah, bah, bah! What kind of nonsense is this?”

I was confused too. I understood the words Lu Ayao said, but I didn’t truly grasp their meaning. It was like doing math problems as a kid: all the characters in the prompt were words I recognized, but when asked which answer was correct, I had no idea.

But Tian Xiaoqi clearly understood, and her words were heavy with meaning. That left only He Yu and me staring blankly at each other, still unable to figure out what was going on, which made me feel rather uneasy.

“Wait, weren’t you out for blood just a moment ago?” I said with a dark expression, giving Lu Ayao a push. “Now the two of you are trading secret codes. Can you stop playing riddles and speak clearly?”

Lu Ayao looked at me somewhat innocently and said, “I haven’t had much contact with Tian Xiao. This has always just been a suspicion of mine.”

He turned back to Tian Xiaoqi. “But since you’ve come all the way here specifically for this, it seems my initial guess was likely close to the mark.”

Tian Xiaoqi nodded and wiped her eyes dry with the tissue. “I should be the one to tell this story.”

Another story to listen to. I sighed silently, pulled He Yu down to sit cross-legged, and the four of us formed a circle to listen.

I had mentioned many times in the earlier parts of these records that the Tian Family was a large clan with many members and numerous complicated rules. I later had the “fortune” of experiencing their convoluted ways firsthand, and they certainly put me through the wringer.

Even in this family full of “feudal remnants^[1],” the main branch and the side branches remained strictly divided, and Tian Xiaoqi was the only one who had broken through this barrier.

Tian Xiaoqi’s parents belonged to a side branch that lived quite poorly, working in the mines as a younger branch of the Tian Family that hadn’t fared well. Less than a month after Tian Xiaoqi was born, a mining accident occurred where her parents worked. Medical conditions back then were terrible; by the time people were dug out from the rocks with crude tools, most were already cold corpses.

None of the side branches in the Tian Family were willing to adopt a girl with a different surname, so Tian Xiaoqi was passed around like a hot potato. This almost led to a brawl during a family meeting, which finally alerted Tian Xiaoqi’s Great-Grandfather—Tian Xiao, who was the head of the Tian Family at the time.

It is said that Master Xiao reached his thumb, adorned with a jade ring, into the swaddling clothes and stroked the little girl’s face. For some reason, he changed his mind and insisted on taking her back to raise as his own granddaughter. At first, no one took it seriously, thinking the old man had never had a daughter and was just talking off the cuff.

To everyone’s surprise, Tian Xiao actually registered Tian Xiaoqi under his household, changed her surname, and brought her home. He treated her even better than a real grandfather would, leaving the entire Tian Family dumbfounded.

Tian Xiao had always been in poor health. He kept a dedicated room for his medicines, and whenever he felt unwell, he would take his own pulse and brew a couple of remedies to balance his system. Since childhood, Tian Xiaoqi loved spending time in there, so she gained a thorough understanding of traditional Chinese medicine.

Later, as Tian Xiaoqi spent more time working on projects with Tian Yuqing, Tian Xiao preferred to stay cooped up in his room even more. The two saw less and less of each other, until a year ago when Tian Xiaoqi reached adulthood, and Tian Xiao reluctantly attended a meal with them.

But it was during that very meal that Tian Xiaoqi first had the thought: “Tian Xiao is not Tian Xiao.”

Hearing this, He Yu scratched his head. “So, what exactly was wrong?”

“Everything was just off!” Tian Xiaoqi tilted her head, thinking. “For example, my great-grandfather would never call me ‘Xiao Qi.’ He only ever called me ‘Seventh Girl.’ And even though his nickname is Master Xiao, he actually doesn’t like to smile at all! This person looks like him, but in terms of behavior and mannerisms, there isn’t a single similarity!”

He Yu and I exchanged a glance, and I asked Xiao Qi, “None of those details are conclusive. As a person ages and their state of mind changes, it’s normal for their words and actions to differ from when they were younger. That’s plausible. I imagine there must be another reason that made you certain he isn’t your great-grandfather?”

Tian Xiaoqi looked at me and nodded. She bit her lip and said, “You’re right. What truly made me notice the problem wasn’t those things. It was…”

“That man doesn’t understand medicine at all. He doesn’t know the first thing about it.”