Cat 264: Choked on Smoke

Chapter 264: Choked on Smoke

Yan Jiyun was gambling on just how much Ouyang Jing meant to Master Zuo.

The music room was utterly silent, and no one appeared.

After her initial fright, Ouyang Jing made no move to struggle—she was only surprised by their sudden intrusion, showing no real fear. In fact, she seemed to know something about the events in question.

“Miss Ouyang from forty years ago. Back then, you should have had a child with Wei Liu, didn’t you?” Yan Jiyun said. “Miss Ouyang, after the death of your child, you turned everyone in Jiangnan into paper people, didn’t you? But tell me—do you realize the grandchild you’ve watched grow up is not your real granddaughter?”

At these words, the others in the room looked puzzled, not understanding.

Yan Jiyun was always the master of deduction—what information had led him to this new conclusion, and would it be enough to draw Master Zuo out?

In fact, it was.

The former Miss Ouyang, so fond of secret passages, stepped out from behind a two-meter-long painting in the music room.

She was not dressed in the black robe, but wore a long, all-black dress, appearing about twenty-five or six. This was her true appearance. A deep hollow scarred her left eye; she was blind on that side. Yan Jiyun had guessed her vision was damaged from her consistently inaccurate archery; on careful review, he realized only one person he’d met fit that description. On the first day, when escorting Ouyang Jing home with Liu Jingxi, he’d glimpsed a middle-aged woman with a blank, chilling eye—she’d given him quite a fright.

Ouyang Jing looked as if she was seeing the true Miss Ouyang for the first time. “Aunt…”

Miss Ouyang said to her, “Actually, you should call me grandmother.”

Yan Jiyun moved his knife away from Ouyang Jing’s throat. “What should we call you, Miss Ouyang?”

At a moment like this, Master Zuo had no need to hide her identity.

Jiangnan town would be swallowed by fire within hours. With nowhere for anyone to run, all would perish with her—she did not mind.

On the verge of death, one’s words grow honest.

“It’s been so long since anyone called me by name.” She wore a look of remembrance, her empty eye as hollow as ever—a testament to some great torment before her death. She, too, had once been a sheltered young lady, untouched by suffering.

Yan Jiyun had memorized her name investigating police records.

“If I recall correctly, you’re called Ouyang Pei. Your father was Ouyang Nu. When you went missing, he reported it to the police.”

Ouyang Pei gave a soft, bitter laugh. “Yes, and it’s been a very long time since anyone remembered my father’s name.”

Yan Jiyun continued, “That map was truly drawn by Wei Liu, wasn’t it? He killed you and that tutor back then.”

Ouyang Pei found herself a chair and sat down. “I was blind to his true nature. Back then, I thought Wei Liu was a man I could rely on, so I brought him to my father. I was his only daughter, and he wanted a son-in-law. Wei Liu, putting on a grand show, readily agreed. But all along, he only wanted the Ouyang family fortune. We were married less than a year before he started slipping up. Not only was he deceitful, but repulsive. He tricked me into hiring a tutor under the pretense of teaching me foreign languages to expand our business. I was naive and believed him. But then, rumors began to swirl, even my father suggested I keep my distance from that tutor. I thought nothing of it, never realizing it was all his design.”

The Ouyang butler brought tea for them all.

Ouyang Pei held her cup but didn’t drink, as if she knew that, now the truth was out, the reality of Jiangnan town would soon be revealed for all to see.

Time ticked by, but Yan Jiyun showed no sign of haste, asking, “And then?” One had to hear the whole story.

Ouyang Pei said, “You should know the rest. Before Wei Liu married me, his family was on the verge of bankruptcy. After marrying in, he followed my father and transferred a fair share of the family business to his own name. When I discovered his schemes and prepared to confront my father, he found out and bound me—and my language tutor as well.”

Yan Jiyun: “Then you disappeared, your remains buried beneath the main dance hall and the Liu family’s restaurant?”

Ouyang Pei did not answer directly.

Yan Jiyun pressed, “You didn’t die?”

She snorted. “Heaven showed me a way. He kept me and my tutor locked in the Chen family’s basement; who could have thought an old book of mysterious techniques would be left down there? At first, my tutor and I had a chance to escape, but the Chen family’s servant caught us. Wei Liu tried to kill us both. My tutor, a good man, fought desperately and died buying me time. I tumbled into another tomb passageway near the Chen family’s back mountain and barely escaped with my life. I dared not go home—Wei Liu spent a year buying off everyone in my household. If I’d returned, it would have meant certain death.”

Gu Wenzhu said, “So you began to study the techniques in that book.”

Ouyang Pei nodded. “Yes. I succeeded in transferring my soul into another body. I was wounded in the left eye while being hunted; without timely treatment, it became infected, and I nearly died. Later they found and buried both my body and tutor’s together. To gloat over winning the Ouyang fortune, Wei Liu secretly created a treasure map as a trophy—little did he know I’d borrowed a Chen family body to survive.”

He Yuanle said, “You then took care of Wei Liu, right? The Wei Liu grave at the Chen family’s tomb is his real corpse.”

Ouyang Pei laughed. “People thought it was just an honorary grave built by the Chen family for a friend; in fact, it’s Wei Liu underneath. He got what he deserved.”

Indeed he did.

Yan Jiyun asked, “But why did you turn the whole town into a town of paper people?”

Ouyang Pei: “Because that’s what they deserved. My father never once believed I’d elope, yet the whole town gossiped. Some even danced rumors before my father’s face. Because of it, he was so enraged he coughed blood and soon died. What use was there in keeping such a Jiangnan? Whenever the town suffered, my father was the first to give money, food, and grain; but once our family fell on hard times, those same townsfolk slandered us behind our backs. Leeches, all of them—vermin who deserved to die in that fire.”

Yan Jiyun: “You set the fire.”

Ouyang Pei: “They didn’t deserve to live.”

Yan Jiyun: “Yet you rebuilt a paper people’s town.”

Ouyang Pei: “Dying once was too easy for them. They cost me my father, my family.”

Yan Jiyun: “Actually, in this whole town, Wei Liu never really existed, did he? He and your father alone were never resurrected.”

Ouyang Pei faltered for a moment. “Wei Liu was a villain—turning him into a paper doll was too good for him. As for my father, I couldn’t find his soul. He was a good man—he must have reincarnated. He had to have.”

Yan Jiyun said, “In that fire, someone survived.”

Ouyang Pei: “Impossible.”

Yan Jiyun: “You didn’t know there’s a living person here?”

Ouyang Pei insisted, “There are no living people in this town of paper.”

Yan Jiyun: “But those who know they’re paper people are all aware there’s a living person among them.”

Ouyang Pei: “Who?”

Yan Jiyun: “Ouyang Jing is someone you drew on paper—she became family to you because you missed your lost daughter. Yet you never realized your daughter actually survived and married Cheng Liang.” Seeing Ouyang Pei remain silent, he pressed, “You didn’t recognize your own child?”

Back then, Ouyang Pei had been driven by revenge, unaware her own daughter lived.

Yan Jiyun had suspected as much ever since he’d overheard a doctor at the hospital promise Cheng Xueying his identity would never be revealed.

The dungeon was sprawling; piecing together the tangled stories of each family had been challenging enough, and the Ouyang narrative was especially well buried. Without that treasure map, Yan Jiyun might never have found the truth.

While working through the logic, he’d always thought it odd that Cheng Xueying was the lone living person here—why, if Ouyang Pei had truly destroyed everyone in the fire, was there a survivor? Outsiders couldn’t enter; paper people could not leave; all the townsfolk were creations of Ouyang Pei—she could make as many as she wished, but never a real human. That left one explanation: someone had survived the fire.

Cheng Liang was clearly different from the Cheng family—in fact, going by old man Cheng’s bloodline, it seemed improbable he’d have had a son at all. So maybe Cheng Liang was a living person who later, somehow, became a paper man. Besides, Ouyang Pei had a helper—perhaps he, too, knew the truth.

Yan Jiyun’s deduction seemed to rattle Ouyang Pei’s mind. “You’re lying. Humans and paper people can’t have children.”

Yan Jiyun said, “Perhaps Cheng Liang was also human. Why not ask your helper—the one who masqueraded as Liu Jingxi, guiding us to think he was Wei Liu?”

Ultimately, what mattered was making Ouyang Pei believe Cheng Xueying was her own descendant—the last scion of the Ouyang line.

Yan Jiyun kept pressing, “You nearly killed your own grandson.”

Ouyang Pei looked at Cheng Xueying. “…How could that be?”

When he dressed as a girl, Cheng Xueying was beautiful—there was even some resemblance to the youthful paper-bodied Ouyang Pei. Even he himself felt bewildered by his origins.

“My mother always said my background was strange. She told me I was human and must find a way to leave this town. I knew Liu Jingxi was always trying to help his friends escape, which is why I agreed to marry into the Liu family.”

Ouyang Pei was already on her feet, moving toward Cheng Xueying, regarding him intently as if searching for familiar traces, and then abruptly declared, “Take me to your mother! I’ll help you all leave this town!”

Yan Jiyun flashed a discreet “OK” sign to Ninth Master and the others. Good—they’d won over Ouyang Pei, whose heart was still vulnerable to kinship.

Everyone else, she would have killed, but for kin—even if she didn’t utter thanks, she simply turned and led them out of the Ouyang house.

But as soon as they emerged, they saw Jiangnan town engulfed in fire—the Cheng residence at the heart of the blaze.

Ouyang Pei stood in a daze. “I… I failed my daughter again, unable to save her a second time!”

Ninth Master said coldly, “Then leave town with your grandson—and us.”

Ouyang Pei glanced at the grandson she’d just reclaimed. “Follow me below ground—I’ll take you out of here!”

Suddenly a strong gust blew the flames toward the Ouyang estate, and Ouyang Pei led them into the secret passage below. Everyone entered, Yan Jiyun bringing up the rear. As he closed the secret door behind them, he accidentally inhaled a lungful of dense smoke and, unable to help himself, coughed violently. “Cough, cough, cough!”

Ninth Master paused to wait for him. “Are you all right?”

Yan Jiyun’s airways were always sensitive—choking on the smoke outside and the swirling dust inside the passage sent him into a fit of coughing. Barely able to answer, he said, “I’m… I’m fine.”

He deliberately took up the rear—he’d just spent nearly twenty minutes persuading Ouyang Pei to spare them, and his experience card time was running out, with only twenty minutes left. There was no telling when he’d be forced out of the dungeon—he could become “Caramel” again at any moment.

Ninth Master patted his back gently, sighing as he looked at him. “Let’s hope Caramel is all right too.”

Yan Jiyun: “…”