I, the transmigrated villain, please wait, gentle master.

Chapter 178 Dream of a Millet Dream and the Sound of Rain (7)

Li Tingyun ran home as fast as he could, only to find a large crowd gathered about five zhang (approximately 10 meters) outside his door. Some were surprised, some were sighing, and some were cracking melon seeds, all chattering and discussing the raging fire that was still burning.

"The fire started last night and it's still burning so fiercely! Oh my, look at that fiery dragon shooting into the sky! It's out again!"

"Brilliant! More spectacular than a juggling act! By the way, with thunder and rain last night, and the house dripping damp inside and out, how did his house still manage to catch fire?"

"May our ancestors protect us! This is the spirit of the Yuan family ancestors! Who told that brat to burn down our ancestral hall and dig up our ancestral graves? It's no wonder that his whole family was burned to death! The brighter the fire burns, the better!"

"Are all three of them inside? I heard that Ji Cizhang sold his wife and children to..."

"The magistrate is here! The magistrate is here!"

A loud shout drowned out all the murmurs, "Everyone, come and pay your respects to Lord Yuan!"

Li Tingyun, who was hiding in the haystack, crouched down and pushed aside a few weeds in front of him. Sure enough, he saw three or five yamen runners clearing the way, and County Magistrate Yuan Hong riding a horse, followed by more than a dozen clerks in black boots.

Yuan Hong was neither dressed in the official robes of a county magistrate nor in the long gown of a scholar; instead, he was dressed in the martial arts attire of a warrior. He dismounted his horse with great agility, waved his hand to signal everyone not to kneel, and sternly questioned, "Such a huge fire, are you all blind? Instead of going to put out the fire, what are you arguing about?!"

No sooner had he finished speaking than the dozen or so minor officials and laborers who had come with him sprang into action, searching for water, buckets, and tools to put out the fire. However, their efforts were futile, as the fire was too large and too intense. Anyone who got too close was blinded by the heat. A full bucket of cold water, before it could even be poured out, boiled over and turned into steam, disappearing completely.

"Sir, don't waste your time, it's no use! This fire is no ordinary fire. It was raining last night, and it had already started! Look, the house is already burned down, and the fire is only getting bigger. In my opinion, this is divine retribution, and ordinary water can't save it!"

"Where is he?!" Yuan Hong looked at the villagers of Yuanjia Village with a worried and anxious expression. "Was his whole family inside last night?"

"This...how would we know? Ji Cizhang is probably at home; that drunkard of his is definitely drinking at home tonight! As for his wife and children...Lord Yuan, you should know better than us where they are..."

Yuan Hong gripped the riding whip tightly, his brows furrowed. "I don't know either!"

He genuinely didn't know.

Yesterday, he brought Liu Qingxu back to the manor, treated her well with good food and drink, and didn't bully her son. He even had his most trusted advisor escort the boy home. But unexpectedly, Liu Qingxu ran away overnight!

She ran away!

Why is she running away?!

Wasn't he already being kind and righteous enough?

Why avoid him like the plague?

Yuan Hong couldn't understand it even if he pried his head open. The Ji family was so rotten, why would Liu Qingxu still throw herself at them?

Can't she have any ambition? Can't she have any taste? Can't she have any aspirations?!

A good bird chooses a good tree to perch on; why demean yourself?

But now it's too late to say anything. Yuan Hong dragged out the coroner, pointed at the fire, and asked, "Can we still perform an autopsy after the fire is extinguished?"

The coroner said tremblingly, "Sir, please don't joke. I also thought that this fire was no ordinary fire. It could burn even bricks and tiles to ashes. The person must have already turned into a handful of fine ash. What's the point of examining the body? Just sweep it up with a broom, put it in a jar, and bury it."

Yuan Hong didn't believe it. Turning to the onlookers, he insisted on getting to the bottom of it, "Did anyone see how his house caught fire last night? Before that, did anyone see any strange people or strange things? Does anyone know what exactly happened in their house last night?!"

"Sir, to tell you the truth, no one saw it! This family lives in a rather remote place, with few neighbors around. Last night, the thunder was so loud and the rain was so heavy that everyone in the village stayed indoors. It was only when someone saw the fire that they started beating drums and gongs to wake everyone up. They rushed over to take a look, and wow! The fire was burning so fiercely! Anyone who got close would have their face roasted. Nobody dared to go near it."

Li Tingyun lay prone in the haystack, holding wildflowers in his hands to shield his face, thinking to himself, "This fire is really strange!"

As luck would have it, the fire destroyed all the evidence of his "parricide and matricide"...

From villagers to coroners to county magistrates, everyone—whether they were there or not, whether they saw it with their own eyes or heard it from others—believed without a doubt that his parents had been burned to death in the fire!

Just then, someone suggested, "Lord Yuan, where is your advisor? He's a highly accomplished master! Why don't you call him over and have him do some divination? He'll figure everything out!"

Unexpectedly, Yuan Hong waved his hand and said, "There's no hope, he's dead!"

"Dead?!" Everyone exclaimed in unison, incredulous.

Li Tingyun also received a share.

After being surprised, she quickly covered her mouth.

Yuan Hong keenly sensed movement in the bushes and, without saying a word, gestured to his men to go and investigate.

Li Tingyun slipped away and made a hasty escape.

Yuan Hong swiftly dodged and caught him, throwing him to the ground whereupon someone subdued him.

"It's you?! You didn't survive the fire?" The magistrate didn't waste any words and went straight to the interrogation, "Weren't you home last night?"

Li Tingyun struggled, but the two constables held him down tightly, so he had no choice but to say:

"I had a fight with my dad last night and ran away. I haven't come back all night!"

"Where are your parents? Did they go out looking for you, but they're not home either?"

"I have no idea!"

"Then do you know who set the fire?"

"I already told you, I didn't come home all night, I don't know!"

"Sir! Don't believe him!" Suddenly, someone stepped forward—none other than Zihan's ever-present parents. The couple pointed at Li Tingyun, accusing him:

"This kid has demonic magic; he might have started the fire himself!"

"The last time our Yuan clan's ancestral hall was burned down, it was his doing! With this as proof, there's only one truth—"

Zihan's father stroked his chin thoughtfully: "Last night, the father and son had an argument. In a fit of rage, the son set fire to the house, burning his own parents to death, and escaped alone."

"The murderer always liked to return to the scene after committing the crime, either to destroy evidence or to confirm the situation. He was no exception; sure enough, he returned the next day and furtively hid in the bushes, observing..."

"I never expected to be caught red-handed by our wise and mighty magistrate!"

Zihan's mother, following her husband's lead, concluded definitively: "My lord, this boy is vicious and cruel; we absolutely cannot let him live!"

With motive, prior conviction, ability, and all the right conditions, everyone believed this explanation.

They all echoed, "This child must not be allowed to live! This child must not be allowed to live!"

Li Tingyun: "..."

Actually, aside from the fact that he didn't start the fire, there's really nothing to argue about.

Murder, crime, killer, returning to the scene, confirming the situation, acting suspiciously.

All right.

Surprisingly, Yuan Hong was the first to jump out and deny it: "Impossible. It was definitely not him who set the fire and harmed people."

Li Tingyun: "???"

The villagers were all asking, "Why?"

"First, he's too young. Second, how could such a young child possibly harm his own parents? Your claims are utterly absurd!"

Yuan Hong said righteously, “I don’t care what grudges you have had in the past. Even if he is now an orphan with no one to rely on, you can neither, nor should, pin such heinous crimes as patricide and matricide on a child like him.”

"..." Li Tingyun scoffed. No one has even set the stage yet, and he's already starting to sing. Is it really necessary to be so pretentious?

"What are you laughing at? Your parents are dead, how can you still laugh?"

Yuan Hong gave a low rebuke, then sighed, "Forget it, at your age, you probably don't even understand the meaning of 'life and death'."

I admire you, I admire you. Li Tingyun was genuinely impressed and wanted to laugh out loud.

He put on such a convincing act of being a righteous and aloof person, it was incredibly convincing!

Anyone could tell at a glance that he firmly believed in the saying "human nature is inherently good," that he had never done anything wrong, that he was upright and had nothing to hide, and that he must be a filial son, a loyal minister, and a good person who had nothing to be ashamed of before heaven and earth.

To sum it up in one sentence: The face is nowhere to be found!

He and the sorcerer couldn't even look alike.

Li Tingyun had laughed enough and wanted to curse, but he had nothing to say to him.

Being moved by the scenery only accounts for half of this kind of weird stuff!

"Sir...Master, is the clerk really dead? When did he die? How did he die?"

In comparison, this news was more surprising, and the focus of people's discussions began to shift:

"The advisor was such a kind man. I used to see him strolling around the streets, giving money to the poor and alms to beggars. He said, 'If an official doesn't serve the people, he might as well go home and sell sweet potatoes...'"

"With his death, every single person in the city must wear mourning clothes and kneel by the roadside to hold his funeral, respectfully sending the immortal off to the west, in order to do justice to his benevolent heart that loved the people like his own children!"

"It's strange, how could so many things have happened in just one night? I also heard that the old Ji family mansion in the city has completely collapsed... Could this really not be divine retribution?"

Yuan Hong revealed the inside story: "The Taoist priest was struck to death by a bolt of lightning. Although I did not witness the earth-shattering scene, I found a letter in his residence that said he was facing a tribulation of lightning and that last night was his death day."

Another person said, "The advisor is truly a master! He foresaw everything, even matters of life and death, and was so open-minded about them. He left a will early on, and then drifted away without saying goodbye. He is truly a celestial being banished from the world!"

Upon hearing this, Li Tingyun uttered only two words: "Bullshit!"

His intuition told him that the sorcerer wasn't dead, but rather—

He faked his death!

He was caught by members of the immortal sect for poaching spiritual roots, and he decisively chose to disappear without a trace. He probably won't show his face again for a long time.

But Li Tingyun was still very worried.

Did the sorcerer fail to silence him that night? Did he leave a trap before faking his death, perhaps setting a pretext to take his life?

The most obvious thing is that the Yuan family and the evil Taoist are in cahoots. Wouldn't the Yuan family help the evil Taoist continue to capture and hunt him down?

The more I thought about it, the more I felt that Yuan Hong was hypocritical, just like the evil Taoist priest, and that he was too good at acting.

Li Tingyun felt a pang of regret; he shouldn't have come back. Coming back was like walking into a trap.

If he had chosen to run away earlier, he might have already crossed several mountains by now, and the world would be vast enough for him to roam freely!

Why did I have to be caught and put on the hot seat like this?

Just as he was about to swear, another exclamation erupted from the crowd: "Taoist Master?"

A Taoist priest? The evil Taoist priest didn't "die"? He's back?!

Li Tingyun's heart leaped into her throat.

This is fucking insane!

However, the newcomer was wearing an exceptionally rare Xiangfei-colored Taoist robe—if Li Tingyun hadn't seen this person before, he would never have believed that there were male cultivators in the cultivation world who liked to wear light pink—the robe faintly emitted a glow, and any girl who loved beauty would definitely not be able to blink when she saw it, and would definitely have to chase after him to ask which shop he bought it from.

Li Tingyun swallowed her heart back down.

This Daoist Master is not that Daoist Master.

No matter how disgusting a sorcerer is, he wouldn't dress like this to appear in public.

Moreover, this person was not holding a whisk, but rather a scroll of books, resembling both a Taoist immortal who had transcended the world and a scholar who had entered the world, seemingly worldly yet not so, elegant and unrestrained.

He walked with an air of nonchalance, never swaying wildly, his posture elegant, yet somehow deliberate, as if he were meticulously calculating the next step with every stride, exuding his damnably unrestrained and frivolous charm from head to toe.

Looking further up, his face wasn't particularly young; there were fine wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, making him look like an ordinary person in their thirties or forties. But strangely, his skin was smooth and fair, and despite his age, he didn't grow a beard; instead, he... he even put on powder on his face.

The Taoist priest walked by gracefully, leaving behind a trail of fragrance.

Li Tingyun was caught off guard and smelled a perfume scent on an old man.

It's worse than swallowing a fly.

No, he's a grown man, and he smells so good all over, it just makes him look disgusting, okay?

It wasn't just this little kid who thought this way. The villagers of Lingxi Village were generally quite conservative. They hadn't seen much of the world, and this man, with his face powdered and perfumed, already looked incredibly strange to them. Then, he appeared in a Taoist robe, making him even more eerie and bizarre. It gave them goosebumps.

Therefore, he exclaimed in surprise: "This fragrant Taoist priest... where did you come from, and where are you going?"

With two sharp "snap" sounds, Xiandao tapped his palm with the bamboo slip and said slowly, "Hmm, I know I smell very nice, but please don't say it out loud. Just enjoy the fragrance quietly. Don't you think that saying something like that would ruin the mood?"

He cleared his throat. "This humble Taoist comes from the East and is on my way to the West. Today, I passed by this blessed land and saw flames shooting into the sky. I had a bad feeling, so I came to see what happened... Oh my, what a huge fire! Did I put on my makeup?"

He suddenly asked Yuan Hong a question, taking two steps closer to get a better look. Yuan Hong was startled and almost lashed out at him with the horsewhip in his hand. He immediately retreated three zhang away and shouted, "Daoist Master, I can't see clearly, I can't see clearly!"

The Taoist snorted coldly, "Forget it, ignorant mortals, making a fuss over nothing."

Then, opening his scroll, one could see that each bamboo slip was made of divine wood, surrounded by celestial energy. Even through the eyes of an ordinary person, one could clearly see the greenish-blue spiritual energy flowing within it.

The green bamboo and wormwood cover the mountains, a refreshing color that doesn't suit him personally, but it does fit his taste—an old cow pretending to be young.

The Taoist shook the scroll, and several colorful butterflies fell from it. They circled and fluttered around him a few times, and guess what? One by one, the butterflies landed and transformed into a series of curvaceous women, each a different color from the other—the Seven Fairies were all gathered!

The women swarmed around the Taoist priest, surrounding him like stars around the moon, crying, "Good husband, you've finally let us out!"

"Come, come, let's see one by one. Has my makeup come off? Oh dear, don't squeeze, let's show Xiao Hong first..."

"..." All the villagers of Lingxi Village were stunned.

Enough! The bees and butterflies fluttering about, the vibrant colors, the fragrance spreading for miles—enough already!

Yuan Hong shouted, "Who exactly are you? State your name!"

The Taoist priest, with women on his left and right, took a moment to answer him: "Me? My surname is Yun, Yun Songhe. Song as in pine posture and crane bones, He as in crane bones and pine posture."

"What?! You're Yun Songhe?!"

"Do you perhaps recognize me?"

"That's not it."

"..."

Yun Songhe pulled himself out of the group of concubines and asked, "So what are you surprised about?"

Yuan Hong: "First answer me, what is that thing on the ground?"

He knew perfectly well that he was an advisor.

That was clearly a silkworm.

Its surface gleams with a golden luster; if you don't look closely, you might mistake it for a gold ingot.

Golden Silkworm Gu!

It fell out of the Taoist's scroll!

Li Tingyun's eyes widened.