The Mystery of the Inner Demon

Chapter 241 Asking for help
Dust swirled slowly in the old room as Zhong Kui's voice continued, "It's already warm around the time of Qingming Festival. If you suddenly find yourself missing a piece of clothing for the season, what could be the reason for throwing it away without a trace?"

Feng Yongfu was in a daze. He couldn't understand how, in just one morning, his younger brother had gone from being missing to being murdered, and now, it seemed, he was going from being a victim to something else entirely.

Qi Fei understood Zhong Kui's meaning even more clearly; the events of that night could almost be pieced together from various points.

Twenty-seven years ago, on a spring night, like other residents of Sanwu Town, the Feng family of four went to sleep early.

No, it should be said that there were three people.

One person was still awake. Feng Yongshou, the clever and skillful youngest son of the Feng family, left his room when no one noticed.

That night, no one knew what happened; the killings occurred silently in the quiet town late at night.

The neglected corpse was dragged into the kiln by Feng Yongshou. He knew that this kiln would be used to fire a new batch of jars tomorrow. He also knew that once the kiln was lit, the temperature of one thousand degrees Celsius would be enough to turn any flesh and blood into ashes.

However, the night could not conceal so much evil. Even as dawn broke, the black claws continued to gnaw at his heart, refusing to let go of a single evil.

Black smoke that shouldn't have been coming out of the kiln billowed out, and the perfectly good jar was burned with all sorts of strange patterns, as if they were curses from the underworld, urging him to go and confess his sins.

He desperately tried to hide his panic and was the first to rush into the still-warm furnace to check for problems.

Fortunately, the body had vanished without a trace; without a dead person, there is no murderer. Thus, no one in this world will ever discover his sins.

However, while he could conceal it, his hands did not lie; every jar that left his hands became a defective product.

The thing artisans fear most is being restless.

His family's relentless questioning day and night left him with nowhere to hide.

He knew that his parents and brother, with whom he spent every day, would not believe the lies he made up.

Only a story that is both true and false can fool them. This is a story about murder, except that the murderer is not Feng Yongshou, but Huang Daxian, who is worshipped by everyone in Sanwu Town.

He wasn't the one who killed anyone; it was never him.

Even he himself believed this absurd claim.

The light reading materials on his bedside table gave him inspiration. It was a "brilliant" idea: a mysterious man named Dong Nansheng could distract his family.

The lie was like a mirage, an oasis, and he became the innocent Feng Yongshou again, focusing on making the family heirloom urn. That Dong family urn, never to be claimed, was the secret artifact he buried. He poured all his knowledge into creating the most perfect work of his life, unaware that it would be his swan song.

because………

Qi Fei's train of thought went awry at this point.

"I can't understand why he went to Nancheng?" He looked through the back window at the oddly shaped kiln in the courtyard below and murmured to himself.

“Interesting. It seems Feng Yongshou has been trying to ask you for help all along,” Zhong Kui said, turning to Feng Yongfu.

"A call for help?" Feng Yongfu was puzzled.

“He didn’t have to reveal the death. There are many ways to fabricate a lie, and he chose the one closest to the truth,” Zhong Kui said. “But the most obvious thing is that he suddenly told you he wanted to go to his aunt’s house in Nancheng. There’s a clear flaw in this: his aunt had already passed away when he said that. He knew this, and you knew it too. Either Feng Yongshou is mentally unstable, or his subconscious wants his murder to be discovered, and he also wants someone to know that he’s about to go to Nancheng.”

A person's lies often carry more of their own intentions and can sometimes reveal a person's true thoughts better than the truth.

I suspect that when he told you he wanted to go to his aunt's house in Nancheng, he had already planned to go there. What's strange is that he wanted to go to Nancheng, but he also sensed some kind of deadly danger.

His deceased aunt is a contradictory figure. On one hand, she represents warmth; she cared for him, reflecting a close relationship. On the other hand, she represents death; his trip to Nancheng is a journey to death.

As Zhong Kui spoke, she gave Qi Fei a meaningful look.

Feng Yongshou died in his family garden and was buried by his mother, Xi Ziyun. What is the connection between Nancheng, a hundred miles away, and Feng Yongshou's hidden sins? And who is the victim who vanished without a trace?
Qi Fei's gaze inexplicably fell upon the old magazine once again, and the image of the woman dressed as a man on the cover came into view once more.

“Kui, you said that a person’s lies can reveal their true intentions more. So what about this ‘Dong Nansheng’ that Feng Yongshou fabricated? With so many magazines and so many stories, why would he choose this fictional character to deceive his own family?” Qi Fei asked seriously, feeling as if there was a spider web in his mind, with fragile threads appearing and disappearing in the darkness, leading him into the depths of darkness.

Zhong Kui's lips curled up slightly, as always, as if she had been waiting there for Qi Fei to walk towards her.

“This might be similar to my aunt’s family in Nancheng. My aunt and this Dong Nansheng are both women, but Feng Yongshou has hidden them both. One was hidden by death, and the other by the disguise of gender. If we have to interpret it, in Nancheng, there is a woman he is attached to, and for some reason, he has to hide this woman and this feeling.” Zhong Kui kept looking at Qi Fei as she spoke, as if she wanted to watch over the person in front of her with her eyes. She knew what these words meant to Qi Fei.

Sure enough, these words deeply pierced Qi Fei's heart—the white bones under the maple tree made his beloved mother a murder suspect, and now, Zhong Kui's analysis of Feng Yongshou clearly implied that the woman Feng Yongshou secretly loved was his mother, Xi Ziyun.

Qi Fei saw his mother busy in the kitchen wearing a patchwork apron. As usual, the scene was bathed in warm golden sunlight. But this time, when his mother turned to look at him, her kind smile was somehow tinged with a cold, sinister aura. Her gentle face overlapped with another face with similar features.

The sound of glass beads hitting the ground with a "clatter, clatter" rang in his ears. He knew whose face that other one was—it was Xi He, his laughter filled with sinister ambition, as if to say that kidnapping Qi Dongjun was just the beginning…