Chapter 74 Everyone Searches for Her
There was no one in front of her. There was no donkey cart or driver, not even a few planks of wood. Dai Li felt a wave of despair wash over her.
"I can't give up, there's no turning back," she murmured.
There was no vehicle at the entrance to the mountain road leading to Ganquan Temple, so Dai Li walked out directly.
Leaving the mountain path near the temple, they headed towards the ferry crossing and the main road outside the city. The time spent along this route completely depleted the savings Dai Li had accumulated from her direct descent down the mountain, and even resulted in some additional expenses.
Fortunately, after walking for a while, Dai Li encountered other vehicles heading to the ferry.
That was a donkey cart.
The most ordinary donkey cart had a small donkey harnessed to the front, pulling a two-wheeled cart without even a canopy. The cart was piled with goods in sacks, and an old man sat on the sacks, occasionally cracking a small leather whip.
Without hesitation, Dai Li ran up and stopped the donkey cart. "Old man, I need to go to the ferry. Could you please give me a ride? I won't ride for free; I'll pay you."
Unexpectedly, the old man was able to earn money for free on this trip, so he readily accepted it. He said with a smile, "Of course, but my donkey is old and can't walk fast. If you don't mind, please get on."
Dai Li certainly didn't mind. After thanking them, she nimbly boarded the car and sat on a pile of bulging sacks.
The moment she sat down, the invisible thread binding her heart seemed to loosen a little. Dai Li took two deep breaths, trying to calm the excessive pounding in her chest.
But it didn't help much; her blood was still boiling with anxiety.
Dai Li couldn't help but look back. The ancient temple, surrounded by verdant mountains, gradually receded into the distance as the donkey trotted forward, and was further obscured by the surrounding greenery due to the angle. Then, slowly, it disappeared from sight completely.
The old man driving the carriage was probably bored while driving, so he struck up a conversation with Dai Li, "Young lady, are you going to the ferry to pick someone up or for a long journey? If you're picking someone up, there's really no need. There are carriages at the ferry, and they can take them into the city on their own."
Dai Li: "A long journey."
“You didn’t bring any luggage. It’s not convenient to travel far. Are you going to Jiulu County next door?” The old man was a talkative man and said, “Jiulu County is the closest. It only takes half a day to get there by boat. It’s 1-3 PM now. If we rest on the boat for the night, we will arrive the next morning.”
Dai Li asked calmly, "What about further east of Jiulu County?"
"A little further east, that's Xia Valley. Xia Valley is larger, and there are more merchants coming and going. Oh, you're going to Xia Valley, right..."
When Dai Li heard that the scale was large, a glint of light flashed in her eyes.
A large scale means more post stations and more places to hide things, and it is also relatively convenient to get to.
“No, I’m going to Jiulu County,” Dai Li said.
*
Ganquan Temple.
Halfway through the ceremony, a man suddenly rushed to the embroiderer's side and whispered to her, "Embroiderer, the guards in the West Garden have caught a man who sneaked into that room."
The embroiderer was shocked: "Who dares to act so presumptuously in the temple? And during the ceremony no less!"
The messenger reported: "The man claimed to be a subordinate of the Third Young Master, saying that he was sent by his master to deliver gifts and had no malicious intent."
The embroiderer's face was grim.
Dai Li bears undeniable responsibility for getting involved with Xie Yuanxiu. If she hadn't inadvertently forgotten her master's instructions that day, Madam Dai wouldn't have gone to the garden.
However, the next moment, what the newcomer said made the embroiderer's pupils constrict, and she was so shocked that she almost cried out.
“Embroiderer, that woman is not in the room. She has disappeared without a trace, and the two maids in the room are both unconscious.”
"Is this really true?" The embroiderer couldn't control her voice.
The man in front, Di Ting, turned his head upon hearing the sound and took in the embroiderer's drastically changed expression and the person next to her. His gaze darkened.
The embroiderer bit her lip hard. "I need to go back. Go and tell Yuping to come and take my place. Go now!"
The man accepted the order and withdrew.
As he retreated, the embroiderer also withdrew from her position.
She had originally stood on the high platform with the other members of the Qinglian Sect, arranged in a V-shape like geese. However, compared to Di Ting, who stood at the very front and in the core, the embroiderer's position was much further back.
Now that she has withdrawn, she is not conspicuous, especially since all the believers below have their eyes closed and are prostrate on the ground.
The embroiderer hurried down from the high platform and entered a hidden passage on the side, taking a few followers with her along the way. The group took the shortest route and rushed to the West Garden.
As they approached the West Garden, still some distance away, the embroiderer saw a person bound tightly, with two armored guards standing beside him.
She jogged over, so fast she was out of breath, but the embroiderer didn't have time to rest and quickly entered the room.
The house was wide open and in complete disarray. Tables and chairs were overturned on the floor, vases in the corner were smashed to pieces, and a plump, oval-shaped incense burner had rolled to the side of the door, unattended.
Judging from the scene, it's clear that the guards likely came after hearing the noise and then fought with the intruders inside the house.
In the outer room, on a soft chair by the window, the maid Meixiang was sleeping peacefully with her eyes closed.
"Wake her up," the embroiderer said before heading inside.
Upon entering the inner room, one saw the two outer window shutters wide open, revealing a person lying quietly on the couch. The person was covered with a smoky purple dress, a small portion of which had slipped down to the foot of the bed. The peony-patterned hem reflected the sunlight streaming through the window, shimmering with an aura of considerable value.
The tatami mat smelled of grass.
More accurately, it's the scent of grass after its outer layer has been removed.
The embroiderer stepped forward and patted Cao Xiang's face. Seeing that she didn't react, she pinched her philtrum hard.
The scent of grass remained unchanged.
"The embroiderer doesn't seem to have been knocked unconscious; she looks more like she's taken a sleeping pill." Someone nearby asked, "Did you give that person a sleeping pill?"
"No, how could I give her something like that?!" the embroiderer denied immediately.
Qi Yu had only asked casually, and he didn't really think the embroiderer would be so careless. However, there was another possibility: "Have you stored the sleeping pills properly? Is there any possibility that they were stolen?"
“I always keep it in the cupboard, and she has never seen it…” The embroiderer, who was checking the herb’s pulse, suddenly stopped midway through her sentence.
She suddenly remembered that Dai Li had seen the bottle containing the sleeping pills.
On the ship, when they were intercepted by officials, Madam Dai had to hide, and not only hide, but she also had to remain silent. Out of desperation, they gave Madam Dai a sleeping pill.
She watched her pour out that sleeping pill; the other person had seen the bottle before!
The embroiderer withdrew her hand from taking Xiangcao's pulse and stood up directly. "Come with me."
Leaving only these words behind, she quickly left Dai Li's house and returned to her own room. She took out a medicine bottle from a small cabinet. "These are waking pills. Take them and give them to them. I have some questions for them after they wake up."
Qi Yu took the medicine and turned to leave, but was stopped by the embroiderer. The embroiderer said, "Qi Yu, send a team to search the mountain."
Qi Yu was a messenger within the sect, not a marginal figure. "Now that the ceremony is halfway through, she might have already descended the mountain. Why not send someone directly to the city... By the way, has she sent a message?"
The embroiderer remained silent for a moment before finally managing to squeeze out the word "yes".
Qi Yu sighed, “What are you doing? How can you give her this message! There’s a rumor that she can enter the city and take a boat from the ferry. If she leaves Sizhou by boat, it will be inconvenient to find her.”
“You should tell the master that Zhang Chuan was personally instructed by Di Ting to be sent to her.” The embroiderer said coldly, “Let’s search the mountain first, maybe she’s still in the mountains. There’s a piece of her dress next door, cut some off and let the hunting dogs sniff it out to see where she went.”
Qi Yu was speechless after being choked by her previous words, and finally just said, "Alright, I will arrange the search of the mountain."
After he left, the embroiderer turned her gaze back to the cabinet, her eyes filled with unresolved doubt.
That day, when Madam Dai appeared in her room, she was probably there to steal the sleeping pills; the plush rabbit was just a decoy. But she clearly checked the medicine bottle, and not just one, but the entire cabinet; it was full of sleeping pills, not a single one missing.
How could this be?
Where did Lady Dai's sleeping pills come from?
Undeterred, the embroiderer took out all the small bottles containing sleeping pills, opened them all, and counted them again.
The quantity is correct; not a single one is missing.
However, Cao Xiang and Mei Xiang outside were unconscious. Could it be that they did not take sleeping pills, but took other drugs instead?
Could it be that someone from the north came and, during the break in the celebration, secretly took Lady Dai away?
But the two guards are still alive. If Caoxiang and Meixiang in the room saw a stranger, there's no reason why the two women wouldn't call for the guards. Besides, if they really are from the north, the lady wouldn't need to take off her gorgeous dress...
The embroiderer felt shrouded in mystery, unable to discern where the problem lay.
She didn't know how much time had passed before she was brought back to her senses.
"They've woken up, go and ask them quickly."
Cao Xiang and Mei Xiang had woken up. The two women looked at the people in the room and heard them asking when Dai Li had disappeared. They were so frightened that they almost lost their souls.
"I...I don't know. After drinking the lady's cooling soup, I inexplicably felt drowsy and fell asleep without realizing it. When I woke up again, I was like this..."
"Yes, the cooling soup. I also fell asleep after drinking the cooling soup."
The table in the room was overturned, and the pot that had been placed on it was also broken into pieces.
The embroiderer squatted down, picked out a larger piece from a pile of pot shards, and dipped her finger in a little of the soup from the inner wall.
The moment her fingertip touched the ground, the embroiderer's confusion deepened. She murmured, "It tastes like sleeping pills. There's medicine in the pot."
“Impossible, Madam drank it too, she even drank two bowls in a row,” Meixiang said subconsciously.
"Did she drink it too? Did she drink it earlier or later?" the embroiderer asked.
Cao Xiang then said, "After the cooling soup was cooked, the lady drank two bowls in one go. Later, she ordered us to take two bowls out to the two guards. After these four bowls were scooped out, the remaining two bowls were given to us."
Qi Yu's expression was grave. "Where did she get the medicine? Who gave it to her?"
There was something he didn't say aloud: Could there be a traitor within the sect?
The embroiderer understood the unspoken meaning in his eyes and immediately shook her head. "No one can give it to her. She stayed on the ship for almost half a month, and I took care of her personally. Apart from me, she didn't talk much to anyone else."
Qi Yu pressed further, "And then what happened after we arrived in Sweetwater County?"
The embroiderer continued, "Besides me, Caoxiang and Meixiang also took care of her personally. During these days at the mansion, she only went out for a stroll once a day. We followed her the whole time, and she did not come into contact with anyone else, nor did she show any unusual behavior."
"That's strange, where did she get the medicine?" Qi Yu muttered.
When he joined the sect, Xiu Niang was already there. She was more senior than him and had always been highly regarded and trusted. Otherwise, he would have suspected that Xiu Niang had defected to the enemy.
The embroiderer pursed her lips, not telling him about Dai Li's past solo visits to her room.
Qi Yu was just her subordinate; there was no need to explain this matter to him.
The embroiderer asked Caoxiang, "When was that pot of cooling soup brought over?"
Cao Xiang answered without hesitation, “Noon, when the celebration has just begun.”
The embroiderer quickly calculated that the soup had just been prepared at noon, and the time to drink it would definitely not exceed half an hour. In other words, it had been about an hour and a half since Madam Dai left.
An hour and a half is more than enough time for her to get down the mountain...
"Knock knock knock—"
Suddenly, a bell rang out.
Both of them were startled.
The celebration begins and ends with the tolling of bells. However, the original plan was for the celebration to conclude more than two quarters of an hour later, not now.
It seems this matter has alarmed Di Ting.
About fifteen minutes later, Di Ting, dressed in a white Taoist robe and wearing a silver mask, hurriedly arrived.
He had a premonition that something big had happened when he arrived; otherwise, given the embroiderer's calm nature, she would never have spoken up during the ceremony, on the high platform.
"...She's gone?" Di Ting's voice suddenly rose.
That is to say, he is still wearing the silver mask, otherwise his outburst would be seen by others.
"Tell me everything, no matter how small." Di Ting's voice lacked its usual composure.
Cao Xiang and Mei Xiang started from the beginning, saying that Dai Li went out for a stroll this morning and came back saying that the summer heat was hard to dispel, so she asked them to stew a pot of ginseng and poria cocos soup. They shared the soup, and after drinking it, the two of them lost consciousness.
Listening closely, he asked a question the embroiderer had asked before: When was the soup served?
After receiving the reply, Di Ting remained silent for a moment, then said, "An hour and a half. That's enough time for her to get down the mountain. If she's lucky enough to run into a carriage, it'll be enough time for her to get into the city or reach the ferry."
"Sir!" Someone rushed in from outside.
The person in the lead was the one Qi Yu had previously sent to search.
"We've searched the area around Ganquan Temple, but we haven't found Madam Dai," the leader said.
The embroiderer, unwilling to give up, asked, "What about that mountain behind us?"
The leader replied, "We took the hunting dogs there, but they didn't react at the back of the mountain. Instead, they kept disappearing into the bushes and heading straight down the mountain."
Di Ting closed his eyes briefly. "She's gone down the mountain."
Not only did we descend the mountain, but we also took a straight path, which saved us a lot of time compared to following the mountain road.
The young man suddenly opened his eyes and, under everyone's gaze, walked up to the bound gift-giver.
A flash of cold light startled the man, who turned pale and cried out, "Don't kill me! I'm the Third Young Master's man! I'm just following orders!"
However, the excruciating pain he expected did not come; instead, the ropes binding him suddenly loosened.
The man was stunned.
Di Ting sheathed his sword, helped him up, and straightened his clothes: "Please pass on a few words to Xie San for me. It is true that my elder sister got married, but I only told half the story. My brother-in-law has died, and she is all alone now. If you can help me find my elder sister who ran away from home in a tantrum, I, as her younger brother, will not object to her making another friend."
The other party nodded repeatedly.
After the man left, Di Ting turned to Qi Yu and said, "Immediately take your men and ride at full speed to the ferry crossing. Stop all the boats you see. Stop all the donkey carts that are stopped at the crossing or returning home, and ask them if they have taken a lone woman to the crossing. If so, use both kindness and force to make them tell you the details."
Then he pointed to someone: "Fan Yin, go back to the city immediately and find Lao Zeng. Tell him to keep a close eye on the movements of the 'He Hua' document. Anyone who uses it to check into the post station should be immediately taken into custody."
After a series of orders were issued in an orderly manner, a group of people withdrew from the small courtyard.
Di Ting looked at the embroiderer and said, "She has only been in contact with a few of you these days, and among you, only you have the Sleep Pill."
This matter must be thoroughly investigated, as it concerns whether there are any internal collaborators within the sect.
His gaze gradually sharpened, and the embroiderer dared not hide it as before. She had no choice but to tell him that Dai Li had entered her room one day, but she had checked carefully later and said that the sleeping pills in the cabinet were not missing.
Di Ting remained silent for a moment after hearing this, then walked towards her room; he needed to see for himself.
The embroiderer immediately followed.
After returning to her room, she took out all the bottles of sleeping pills from the cabinet and placed them all on the table.
Di Ting asked her to bring several dishes to divide the sleeping pills. One dish after another, the small dishes filled the table, and at a glance, the number of small black pills in each dish was clear.
Looking at it this way, it is indeed not a bit less.
But Di Ting didn't let the embroiderer put them back immediately. He picked up a small dish, and with his slender fingers, he pinched each pill and examined them carefully.
The room was silent; no one spoke, except for the occasional soft clatter of a ceramic dish being set down.
Suddenly, Di Ting let out a questioning, rising tone. He crushed it forcefully, and the small black ball between his fingers shattered, leaving a noticeable black stain on the man's fair fingertip.
The embroiderer's expression changed drastically.
Di Ting, however, revealed a relieved smile.
Very good, this shows that the church is clean and there are no traitors within.
*
ferry.
Dai Li got off the donkey cart, and just as she was about to pay the fare, a few bells rang out in the distance.
The sound of the bell reached the ferry crossing, but it had become faint, and many pedestrians ignored it.
But to Dai Li, the sound was like a mountain collapsing or a massive tsunami, shaking her to her core and turning her face ashen. "How could this be..."
The celebration has ended.
The celebration ended early, which means that someone must have discovered she had left halfway through.
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Author's Note: If only there was a button to end the story with one click! I could just type it all out myself! [crying emoji][crying emoji]
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