Lu Bu, the Thunder General, is my adoptive father in Genshin Impact.

Xiao Yi didn't know what she was going to do, but he chose to let her do as she pleased. He had a premonition that the mystery would soon be solved.

A slightly panicked soldier ran in to report: "Sir, that green-haired girl, she..."

"Calm down, calm down, don't act like a rookie." Xiao Yi shrugged. "Since she can solve cases, just follow her lead."

Xiao Yi knew in his heart that Jiuqi Ren was different from Yidou and would not do anything drastic or confusing, so there was no need to make a fuss.

After hearing Xiao Yi's order, the soldiers had no choice but to agree and quickly left the warehouse.

Not long after, shouts from soldiers came from outside, followed by someone loudly proclaiming, "Lord Narukami has ordered that no one should interfere with the investigation!"

Xiao Yi and Yi Dou were both puzzled: What exactly was Miss Ren (A Ren) doing?

Not long after, the green-haired girl rushed into the warehouse, followed by a giant, bouncy water slime that was even taller than her, hopping and chasing after her.

"Boss, Thor's adopted son, get out of the way!"

Xiao Yi and Yi Dou quickly retreated.

Kuki Shinobu ran to the box, and the slime leaped high to try to devour her. The girl nimbly dodged, and the water slime burrowed into the wooden box. It was not only shaped into the shape of the box, but the minerals inside also merged into its body.

Because it was covered in a lot of ore, the slime's movements became sluggish, and it was unable to crawl out of the wooden box for a while.

“My guess is that the culprit manipulated the monster in some way, using the properties of the water slime to envelop the crystallized bone marrow, and then silently had the slime transport it away,” Shinobu Hisaki explained. “This way, it wouldn’t require a lot of manpower, and it wouldn’t make any noise. Besides, what would a patrolling soldier do if he saw a water slime passing by?”

Ichidou finally showed some wit and answered quickly: "The soldiers of the Heavenly Territory Envoy are all cowards, and so are the Nine Tengu. They have always refused my duel invitations—so the monsters don't provoke the soldiers, and the soldiers don't provoke the monsters either. But it's different for me!"

Hisaki Shinobu's guess was indeed flawless, but Xiao Yi thought of something else.

The ability to manipulate water slimes at will seems to be something only the priestess of the Coral Palace can achieve.

Chapter 204 Bone Marrow Wasted

After some deduction, Hisagi Shinobu came to the conclusion that the culprit had used a slime to transport the crystallized bone marrow. She then led Xiao Yi and Yi Dou outside to the other side of the wall.

Xiao Yi squatted down to examine the soil. Although the moisture had been evaporated by the sun, some grass still had a crystal-clear liquid clinging to it, which felt sticky to the touch.

He took the liquid and pinched it between his index finger and thumb. Its stickiness created a stringy effect. He brought it close to his nose and smelled it. The extremely familiar smell and impression flooded his mind.

"Slime slime," Xiao Yi deduced.

As we all know, slimes are a variety of elemental creatures, including lightning, grass, wind, fire, water, rock, and ice. However, all slimes have one thing in common: they are all formed by combining these elements from slime as a base.

In other words, this special slime is the lifeblood of slimes. Regardless of their type, slimes will drop slime when defeated.

Of course, monsters excrete mucus during their daily activities through metabolism, but never in such large quantities.

As for why Xiao Yi could identify slime just by smelling it, it was because before returning to Inazuma, he visited Brother Guoba. At that time, Xiangling was trying to make a wonderful new dish—fire slime stewed with water slime, which Xiao Yi was fortunate enough to enjoy.

That taste was unforgettable for him.

Back to the present, Xiao Yi told Jiuqi Ren his analysis.

Shinobu added, "Normally, there wouldn't be such a large amount of slime metabolism, but it's hard to say about an injured slime. And the injury isn't necessarily external damage from a sword or blade; it could be internal damage caused from the inside out. So the truth is quite obvious..."

Xiao Yi nodded in agreement.

Araki Ichito looked at the two of them with a puzzled expression; he was the only one who still didn't understand the situation.

"What? What's so obvious? I don't understand at all!" he said bluntly.

"That means Miss Shinobu's guess is completely correct!" Xiao Yi patted Ichidou on the shoulder and explained his and Shinobu's deductions to him, "The slime was controlled by the thief. At the same time, it carried a large amount of crystallized bone marrow in its body and had to perform actions such as climbing over spikes, which caused the slime in the damaged parts of its internal structure to leak out."

Although slimes usually maintain their size and magical balance by preying on beautiful girls... no, by preying on insects and small animals, hundreds of pounds of stone are still too heavy for them and they cannot digest it, so it is normal for it to cause internal damage.

Clearly, simple-minded creatures, driven by survival instincts, would never willingly commit such a self-destructive act; they are highly likely to be manipulated.

They followed the trail of slime until they were about 400 or 500 meters away from the military camp, when they came to a small grove of trees. One of them, Dou, and the other Ma took the lead and went inside.

"Wow!" A surprised voice came from the woods.

Xiao Yi and Jiu Qiren caught up and found the demon youth staring at the ground ahead, where there was a large puddle of sticky liquid, as if an adventurer had destroyed a giant slime but hadn't taken the dropped materials.

“The slime that stole the crystallized bone marrow died here—or rather, was killed.” Xiao Yi observed the surrounding environment. “There are no stolen ores lying nearby, which confirms Ren’s conjecture that the guy who controlled the slime has already taken the stones away.”

Because this place is far from the military camp and warehouse, and the trees provide sound insulation and block the view, the soldiers will not notice no matter what method the thieves use to move the goods.

Xiao Yi guessed that the thief manipulated the water slime to enter the warehouse, wrap the ore in the box, and make it bypass the soldiers to come to this forest. Later, the slime was on the verge of its limit or the thief manually killed it and left with the ore.

"What a bunch of idiots," Xiao Yi commented.

“That’s right, they actually dared to steal Brother Xiao’s things…” Araki Ichito chimed in.

"No, that's not the problem." Xiao Yi shook his hand and pointed to the ground ahead. "They used handcarts to transport the ore, and they didn't even cover up the wheel tracks."

Following Xiao Yi's instructions, Jiuqi Ren squatted down and finally saw the blurry wheel mark. He couldn't help but marvel at how terrifying the eyesight and observational ability of those who were close to the gods were.

"As expected of you, you have excellent eyesight!" Ichidou didn't think that much about it.

The three continued forward following the trail.

……

In the military camp, a group of samurai surrounded the leaping water slime, but they hesitated to step forward and swing their swords.

This slime was brought here by Shinobu Hisaki as a demonstration. After Xiao Yi and the others finished using it, they forgot about it and it is currently running around the military camp.

However, it had also devoured too much hard ore. The samurai were all sword lovers and were afraid of accidentally hitting the ore inside the monster and breaking their swords, so no one wanted to be the first to go.

A cold front approached from afar, immobilizing the slime and freezing it into a giant ice ball.

Ayaka Kamisato slowly walked to the frozen water slime and asked, "What happened? Where did my adopted son go?"

The soldiers described Xiao Yi and Ichidou Kuki Shinobu's direction of action, but they didn't know exactly what their master intended to do.

Linghua walked helplessly toward the grove.

……

The group continued walking along the cart's tracks until they reached the beach, where, sure enough, they found the missing crystallized bone marrow.

A simple wooden cart was parked on the beach, containing many crystallized bone marrows. However, Xiao Yi estimated with his eyes that the total amount was only half of the missing amount.

Next to the cart was a campfire and cleaned-out roasted chicken bones. Further ahead, two soldiers in Coral Palace uniforms stood on the beach.

They had piles of crystallized bone marrow slices at their feet and kept throwing them into the sea, having a great time.

Xiao Yi was starting to get confused.

Two soldiers from the Coral Palace stole the crystallized marrow from Narukami Island. Not only did they not use this precious material for production or to summon evil spirits for power, but they also didn't immediately leave the scene of the crime after stealing it...

Instead, he went to the beach, roasted a chicken, ate and drank his fill, then sliced ​​off half of the crystallized bone marrow and happily skipped it across the water!

Human behavior is truly baffling. For a moment, Xiao Yi couldn't help but wonder if these two amazing soldiers came from Mondstadt and truly embodied the spirit of freedom!

(Xiao Yi: Miss Ying, did you see that? Your rice-growing people are so strange!)

(Shadow: I cannot control the behavior of my subjects; their behavior does not represent the divine.)

(Xiao Yi: I didn't expect you to say something so PR-savvy.)

(Shadow: The divine child taught me.)

(Xiao Yi: It's been days, and you're still sitting there drinking tea!)

Meanwhile, Araki Kazuto walked over to the two thieves who were having a great time.

Xiao Yi thought it was good to let Yi Dou handle this matter, and by the way, he could use his power to award Yi Dou and Shinobu, who was in charge of the deduction, a "Good Samaritan Award" to salvage the reputation of the Arataki Faction.

Unexpectedly, the reality was far beyond his imagination. He thought that Yi Dou was going to reprimand or arrest the two people, but he greatly underestimated the thought process of the young ghost.

Yi Dou approached the two men and said righteously, "Your technique for skipping stones is wrong. Come on, let me demonstrate for you."

Chapter 205 Opponents of the Adopted Son

The last time Xiao Yi was so shocked was the last time.

It's already quite bizarre that someone like Ichidou would spend most of the night lurking in the warehouse to catch a strong Oni-beetle. However, no matter how much the Oni youth wanted to catch the insect, he did it with good manners, waiting patiently in place instead of taking the ore away.

Although the two people in front of them took away the precious crystallized bone marrow, they neither used it to sell for money nor did they use it for evil; they simply used it to... throw money away.

Literally, it means to slice the crystallized bone marrow into pieces and throw them into the sea.

Xiao Yi couldn't help but sigh, wondering how this year's Inazuma criminals could be so bizarre.

The two who stole the crystallized bone marrow were wearing the uniforms of soldiers from the Coral Palace of Haizhi Island. One looked relatively young and had a pretty face, while the other had a mustache and looked to be in his thirties, probably the younger man's senior.

Unaware of the approaching force from behind, they continued happily skipping stones with their bone marrow.

"Hey, your technique is wrong. Come on, let me show you."

Instead of stopping them, Yi Dou happily joined in, which made Xiao Yi, watching from afar, want to rub his forehead.

Hisaki Shinobu also sighed and said:

"Because our reasoning process was too complicated, the boss didn't listen carefully at all. Besides, the boss didn't know what crystallized bone marrow looked like, so he didn't realize that the two were the thieves. He probably even wanted to go up and get close to them to ask for clues..."

"After spending so much time together, I've gotten used to the boss's style," she said helplessly. "Even so, I still have to complain when the time comes."

"I'm already used to it," Xiao Yi said helplessly.

Upon noticing that Arataki Ichito was taking the initiative to befriend him, the two Sangokumiya soldiers were slightly nervous, but they relaxed again once they saw what he looked like.

They thought to themselves: No matter how you look at it, this guy doesn't seem like a samurai or a spy from the Heavenly Territory; he's more like a petty thug that you can find anywhere in Inazuma City. He's nothing to be afraid of!

The young, effeminate man immediately retorted, "Do you think we're wasting time? We're holding a very solemn ceremony, not playing around. All irrelevant people, get out of the way!"

The man with the mustache stopped the young, aggressive man and apologized, saying, "My junior colleague has a bit of a temper, I'm sorry, but we are indeed doing serious business, not playing around. If you don't want to get involved in any misfortune, please stay away from him as soon as possible."

ceremony?!

Xiao Yi and Jiu Qiren, who were not far away, looked at each other in surprise. They hadn't expected that Yi Dou's foolishness would have such an unexpected effect in getting information out of him, and that they would have obtained some incredible news.

Xiao Yi couldn't help but ponder: the crystallized bone marrow was formed from the remains of the giant serpent Orobas. The giant serpent was once a deity of Haiqi Island, and the direction in which they threw the bone marrow was also towards Haiqi Island. Could it be that they were really performing some ancient and mysterious operation...?

Ichidou tilted his head in confusion: "A ritual? I think you're just wasting your time!"

As soon as he finished speaking, he bent down, picked up a slice of crystallized bone marrow, and threw it into the sea.

Xiao Yi was shocked. He had just praised Yi Dou (the boss) for bringing unexpected gains in his heart when he started to do something stupid and anger the two of them. It seemed that it was impossible to continue trying to get information out of them. He could only beat them up and take them back to the military camp for slow interrogation.

As expected, Ichidou's rash move stirred up the two of them. While the man with the mustache was still trying to control his emotions, the younger man had already lost his temper and was ready to explode.

"I told you to leave, are you deliberately picking a fight?!" the pretty boy shouted angrily.