Chapter 20: I swear this happened and I can prove who killed me.
Earlier, within the Inner Halls of the Zhen Clan compound
“Come on. Where is it, where is it?,” Jin Fang muttered to herself as she tore through Moka’s room, “I know that bastard uses those kind of arrows, now where are they?”
Nepherage kept watch at the door as Jin Fang began to turn Moka’s room upside down.
Nepherage, initially, was going to look through the room while Jin Fang kept watch, but that plan went the window when Jin Fang broke into the room first and started tearing the place apart.
“Maybe he has a secret compartment?,” Nepherage suggested, “Are you sure no one is going to notice we’re here?”
“There’s a funeral going on, I highly doubt-”
*Thunk*
“Huh?”
Jin Fang paused as she heard a strange hollow sound echo beneath her feet. She tapped her foot against the floor a few more times to confirm that there was a hollow sound.
“Interesting…,” Jin Fang muttered to herself. Circulating her aether into her leg, Jin Fang decidedly stomped through the wooden floor.
*CRACK!*
A resounding crack echoed through the room as Jin Fang’s foot broke through the wooden planks and into a hidden compartment in the ground.
“What was that?!”
“It came from Moka’s room?”
“Uh oh,” Jin Fang hissed, “Nepherage we gotta- where’d you go?”
Nepherage had unexpectedly and unknowingly disappeared the moment those two voices echoed down the hall, leaving Jin Fang to fend for herself…or so she thought.
“What are you doing?,” Nepherage voice emanated out of nowhere, “Stop standing around and hide.”
Jin Fang wanted to figure out how Nepherage managed to disappear out of sight like that, but changed her mind when she heard a pair of footsteps getting closer.
Thinking fast, she got her leg out of the hole and rolled to hide underneath Moka’s bed.
From her new hiding spot, Jin Fang could see a pair of noble-looking shoes enter the room.
“What happened?”
“I don’t kno-wait…what the hell is this?”
“Oh,” Jin Fang quietly said.
[My lord, we found the evidence.]
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It was actually surprisingly easy getting from Stone Claw to the Jade Forest. Probably due to our group being relatively small.
It was a group of five composed of me, three footmen who were willing to go along on this endeavor and a guide I had hired on our way out.
It took us a few days in order to get to the Jade Forest, but it was relatively fine all things considered.
The weather was fair, for a desert, no aether beasts tried to eat us and no bandits had tried to attack us either.
Everything was going so smoothly that I couldn’t help but think that maybe, just maybe, heaven itself wanted us to go find this wandering ruin.
Until disaster struck.
We arrived at the periphery of the Jade Forest and we were just about to enter, when an arrow pierced through the throat of the guide.
I didn’t know him personally, but the sight of blood shooting out of his neck combined with the awful gurgling sound he made will haunt me for the rest of my life.
“We’re under attack!”
“Defensive formation: Armadillo Guard!”
“Protect the Young Master!”
The footmen I had brought immediately took up a defensive formation, preparing to fight off the would-be assailant. Instead, we got slaughtered.
Arrows came from every direction, from weird angles and pierced through our defenses like paper.
One guy lost his arm to one arrow before another arrow skewered his heart.
Another had their lungs pierced and legs torn.
The last guy had this stomach punctured, his guts spilled onto the desert floor.
As for myself? A splitting headache, literally.
When things were going south at around the second guy, I was told to run as fast I could and hide. I didn’t make it far though.
I got hit with an arrow right between the eyes.
One would think that such a sensation would be painless and I would lose consciousness immediately, but nah, I felt everything.
The arrow pierced my flesh and tore the skin, broke through my skull and then I felt it get lodged into my brain.
I fell into a darkness, feeling my blood flow out of my head and dye the sand beneath me red. I was pretty sure I was going to die that day.
But then I didn’t.
_________________________________________________
“Next thing I know, I’m waking up in the middle of nowhere with my wounds patched up and this neat little souvenir as the only lead to my…near death experience.”
As Zhen Liu said all this, he made sure to hold the arrowhead in-between his fingers and gesture with it dramatically. While part of this was to drag out time so that Nepherage and Jin Fang could come back with the evidence, he did this to also throw Moka off of his game.
“If it worked for Sherlock Holmes, it’ll work for me,” Zhen Liu thought to himself.
Unsurprisingly, Moka maintained a rather tough poker face throughout Zhen Liu’s spiel. Zhen Liu’s uncles on the other hand looked rather perplexed at the story.
This did not escape Zhen Liu’s notice, an itchy feeling building up in his stomach.
It couldn’t be that easy…could it?
Zhen Liu paused to take a breath after telling his story, only to get ready for part two of his performance.
“But yes, as you can clearly see, I am alive, well and mildly pissed off at having to crash my own funeral,” Zhen Liu exclaimed with indignation, “So I have to ask…who said I was dead in the first place?”
The moment he posed this question, the crowd began to stir with the sound of people asking each other this same question.
Eventually, the crowd slowly parted as a well-dressed middle aged man was left standing exposed, surrounded by clansmen and guests alike. Even the six elders stood off to the side, not exactly sure how to approach this situation either.
The man left exposed was none other than Moka, and right now, he was presenting a very strong poker face.
If Zhen Liu could read his inner thoughts, he would be able to see the sheer amount of bloodlust he had towards him at this moment.
“So,” Zhen Liu began to ask as he purposely held up the arrowhead for all to see, “Know anything about this being jammed into my skull?”
Moka let out a deep snort before giving his answer.
“I do not know, but you are a very convincing fa-”
“MOKA! WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?!”
