“My Lord, my Lord!”
The next morning, as dawn broke.
As Zhong Li stirred from her slumber, shouts from outside her door could be heard.
She quickly sat up and noticed Lu Wuxie, frowning and half-risen, looking with impatience at the closed door opposite them.
When she had returned yesterday, the room had been empty. Lu Wuxie had been nowhere to be seen until midnight. In the hour of Chou, she vaguely sensed movement beside her. By the time she realized what was happening, Lu Wuxie had already shed his clothes and gone to sleep in the outer room.
Therefore, it was understandable that the "master" sleeping on the floor had such a sullen expression, with someone calling from outside before the rooster had even crowed.
“Coming,” Zhong Li replied, slipping on her footwear and putting on her outer garment.
As the door opened, Tian Lianxue’s delicate and pitiable face appeared outside.
“Miss Lianxue,” Zhong Li cleared her throat and said.
Tian Lianxue scrutinized Zhong Li from head to toe, noticing her neat attire. She then cast an inadvertent glance at the room, asking, “Where is my Lord?”
Just as Zhong Li was formulating an excuse to send Tian Lianxue away, Lu Wuxie’s voice echoed from within: “Come in.”
Following the sound, she quickly turned back, only to see Lu Wuxie, who had apparently dressed and was now sitting at the table, holding a cup and sipping it intermittently. The bedding on the floor had vanished without a trace.
Zhong Li raised an eyebrow and moved aside, yielding the doorway.
Seeing this, Tian Lianxue quickly entered, holding up her skirt.
“My Lord, something terrible…”
“Lianxue,” Lu Wuxie interrupted before Tian Lianxue could finish, “This is a place of Buddha. Men and women are separate. For you to barge into a man’s quarters like this is improper.”
Tian Lianxue was taken aback. She hadn’t expected that the first words Lu Wuxie would say to her after not seeing each other for several days would be this.
“What was it you were looking for this Lord for earlier?” Lu Wuxie asked, looking at Tian Lianxue’s bewildered face.
Called out by him, Tian Lianxue finally reacted. Her expression returned to its previous urgency as she said, “My Lord, it’s not good. Master Liao Chen is gone.”
Chaos erupted outside Ling Shan Temple. All the monks in the entire temple had been mobilized, searching every corner for any trace of Liao Chen.
In the abbot’s chamber, Zhong Li asked Wu Hui, “Master Wu Hui, at what time did you last see Master Liao Chen?”
Wu Hui pondered for a moment. “Master retired early yesterday. He entered his chamber around Shen Shi. Afterward, he said he was tired and instructed his disciples not to disturb him.”
“And then, when you entered this morning, the Master was gone?” Zhong Li finished his sentence.
“Yes!” Wu Hui replied, his gaze falling on the bolt on the nearby door. “A short while ago, I knocked on Master’s door, but there was no answer. I found the door locked from the inside and thought Master was still resting, so I didn’t disturb him. Then, just now, I knocked again, and there was still no answer. That’s when I had people pry the door open and found that Master was not here.”
So, Liao Chen had disappeared from a locked room?
Zhong Li mused, following Wu Hui’s gaze to the door bolt. Just as she was about to examine it, Wu Hui added, “There’s a problem with the door to the abbot’s chamber.”
Zhong Li turned, waiting for Wu Hui to continue.
Wu Hui walked to the door and closed it forcefully. With a ‘click,’ the bolt hanging on the door knob swayed twice and then fell limply.
“The bolt on the abbot’s chamber door is loose. With a slight push, it does this,” Wu Hui explained.
“Then why wasn’t it repaired?” Zhong Li asked.
“I had intended to repair it, but Master said that only he entered and exited the abbot’s chamber, and he could be a little more careful. He told us not to bother with it,” Wu Hui replied.
“If that’s the case, could Master Liao Chen have gone outside as well?” Zhong Li said, her gaze sweeping over the monks searching outside the abbot’s chamber. Seeing their anxious expressions, they clearly hadn’t found anything yet.
Seeing that Zhong Li had no immediate answers, Wu Hui bowed to her and turned to leave.
Now, only she and Lu Wuxie remained in the room.
Lu Wuxie sat on the cushion as he had when he arrived, dozing.
Seeing how truly tired he was, and considering he had been sleeping on the floor for the past few days, Zhong Li was about to ask him to go back and catch up on sleep when her gaze inadvertently fell upon the cups on the table – two cups of clear tea?
Someone else had been to Liao Chen’s room, and this person was familiar with Liao Chen?
“Have you found any clues?” Zhong Li’s thoughts were interrupted by Lu Wuxie’s languid voice, accompanied by a few sleepy yawns.
Zhong Li picked up the two cups from the table, examining them one by one in her hands. The water levels were the same, and the tea in both tasted the same. Yet, she felt she was overlooking something, or perhaps she was just being overly suspicious.
Just as she was about to place the cups back, Lu Wuxie suddenly stood up. Zhong Li, not holding the cups steady, spilled all the tea onto the table.
Her reaction was swift. She tossed the empty cups aside and pulled out a handkerchief from her bosom, preparing to wipe it clean.
“Wait!” Lu Wuxie, looking at the cups Zhong Li had casually placed on the table, seemed to see something peculiar. He grabbed Zhong Li’s busy arm, stopping her from wiping the table, and stared intently at the water on the table, lost in thought.
Zhong Li knew Lu Wuxie well. Although he usually appeared flippant, he was never careless when it came to important matters.
Watching him pick up two more cups and examine them carefully, until his furrowed brow slightly relaxed, she asked, “Have you discovered something?”
Lu Wuxie smiled faintly and showed Zhong Li the bottoms of the two cups, saying, “See if you can find anything.”
Zhong Li took them from his hand, bringing her gaze close to the bottoms of the cups to examine them carefully. “One of them has a small hole. Does my Lord know what this is for?”
Lu Wuxie did not answer. He took the cup with the small hole from Zhong Li’s hand, gave a mysterious smile, and circled the room with his hand covered, stopping beside a flower stand in the chamber.
He moved the potted plant from the flower stand and placed the cup in his hand on it.
“The teapot,” he commanded faintly.
Zhong Li picked up the unfinished clear tea from the table.
As the clear tea was slowly poured into the cup, the quiet room was suddenly filled with a ‘creak’ sound.
Both of them looked towards the sound. A ground hole, large enough for one person to enter, inexplicably appeared at the entrance of the abbot’s chamber.
“My Lord!” Zhong Li exclaimed, looking at Lu Wuxie in surprise.
Lu Wuxie’s smile widened. He lifted the hem of his robe and walked towards the ground hole.
Zhong Li glanced at the cup on the flower stand, picked it up, and gave it a look. A knowing smile touched her lips. She then glanced at the ground hole at the entrance, casually picked up a candlestick nearby, and stepped in as well.
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