Jiang Zhan was startled: “The corpse?”
He wasn’t surprised that a corpse could leave footprints, but rather by his Fourth Sister’s casual tone when discussing the body.
However, Jiang Zhan quickly recovered and pointed at the footprints on the ground in disbelief: “Wait, that’s not right. A corpse can’t walk, so how could it leave footprints?”
Jiang Si pointed to the pair of footprints Jiang Zhan had discovered: “Second Brother, haven’t you noticed that these footprints are different from normal ones?”
Jiang Zhan bent down, almost pressing his eyes to the ground: “The size of the footprints isn’t unusual.”
Long Dan and Old Qin exchanged glances.
Jiang Si reminded him: “The left and right footprints are side by side, not staggered.”
Jiang Zhan was puzzled: “You’re right, but how could someone walk like that?”
“They weren’t walking,” Long Dan interjected.
Jiang Zhan looked at him.
Long Dan stretched both hands forward and hopped twice.
Jiang Zhan’s eyes widened, and he said with a twitching mouth: “What are you doing? Pretending to be a zombie?”
Long Dan stopped, bent slightly to look directly at the half-squatting Jiang Zhan, and gave an eerie smile: “Exactly, like a zombie.”
Jiang Zhan kicked out at him.
Caught off guard, Long Dan was kicked in the knee and fell to the ground.
Jiang Zhan angrily said: “Damn you, why are you trying to scare people for no reason?”
Long Dan rubbed his backside as he got up, looking aggrieved: “Second Young Master, how could I joke around in such a serious, solemn, and eerie situation?”
Jiang Zhan was taken aback and looked towards Jiang Si.
In Jiang Zhan’s heart, his younger sister was naturally the most pure and reliable.
Jiang Si nodded, her face calm: “It should have been left that way.”
“Fourth… Fourth Sister—” Jiang Zhan licked his lips. “Are you saying the corpse hopped away on its own?”
“Saying it hopped away on its own isn’t accurate. It was probably driven by someone,” Jiang Si said, then added with a sigh, “It might have been that young man who took Second Brother away.”
An image of a somewhat ugly young face immediately appeared in Jiang Zhan’s mind.
Calling him somewhat ugly was being polite. In Jiang Zhan’s opinion, that guy was quite ugly…
“He followed us to the inn. That’s quite persistent,” Jiang Zhan shook his head, thinking of the strange youth.
Long Dan asked Yujin: “Master, what should we do now?”
Yujin pondered: “That young man probably doesn’t have ill intentions. Let’s follow these footprints first and see which direction they went.”
The group searched by the light of the oil lamp, following the trail until it disappeared on the stone-paved road.
Yujin stood facing the wind, and after a moment said: “Let’s go back to the inn.”
“Master, what if trouble arises if we don’t find the body?” Long Dan asked.
Yujin raised his chin: “It’s almost dawn. We’ll return to the inn, pack up, and head north. Even if there’s trouble, it won’t catch up to us so quickly.”
With the body vanishing, staying to search aimlessly would be a waste of time. The best course of action was to leave.
Jiang Zhan rubbed his nose, thinking to himself that the Prince acted much more impulsively than he did. How come he got beaten by his father for such behavior, while the Prince faced no consequences?
As Yujin had predicted, the Xuemiao Clan was in chaos, so much so that they couldn’t even focus on extinguishing the spreading fire.
The Clan Leader was dead, and it felt like half the sky had fallen. Cries and wails could be heard everywhere.
Amid this chaos, a figure entered the fire with a very strange gait.
The houses were on fire, and people were gathered in front, either crying or trying to put out the fire. No one noticed the figure that entered the fire from behind the houses.
“Put out the fire first! If we don’t extinguish it soon, the entire village will burn down!” shouted an elder who was second only to the Xuemiao Clan Leader.
The crying stopped, and more people joined in fighting the fire, making the scene even more chaotic.
In this confusion, a thin young man quietly slipped away.
The fire was finally extinguished. Some people began to clean up the aftermath, while others gathered around the Xuemiao Clan Leader’s body, weeping bitterly.
The elder carefully examined the Clan Leader’s body and said with a pained expression: “There are no external wounds on the Clan Leader’s body.”
The absence of external wounds suggested a higher possibility of accidental death.
“Not even on the neck?” someone asked.
The elder shook his head: “The Clan Leader died in the fire. If there were strangulation marks, they’d be hard to detect unless—”
“Unless what?”
The elder hesitated, then said: “Unless we use a sharp tool to peel back the skin and flesh of the neck to check for damage to the throat bone…”
This statement immediately caused an uproar.
Both in Great Zhou and among these tribes, there was general respect for the dead, and bodies were not to be casually damaged.
Finally, the Xuemiao Clan Leader’s son gritted his teeth and said: “Elder, please examine thoroughly. We can’t let my father die in vain.”