It doesn't matter what the lord is.

At that time, Naru suddenly discovered that the young lady, who had always been carefree and often blushed and got excited when others teased her, lowered her head shyly.

So, as a gentleman, Naru finally let go of his long-standing worries and felt sincerely happy that this young lady who was out of tune with the world could find her own happiness.

36. Ended in Fire

When Naru said this, there was still a smile on his face.

But then, he quickly came out of that beautiful memory, the smile on his face slowly faded, and he continued to tell the rest of the story.

Carissa's parents were deeply saddened by this incident, and their relationship with Carissa suddenly became distant. However, Carissa's parents did not continue to make things difficult for the ill-fated couple, and still held a not-so-grand wedding for them.

Since the two were married, the young man officially became a son-in-law of the Yoshihirata family. The family bought him a few nice clothes and also provided him with some housekeepers and maids.

Seeing that the young man would not have a high position in the future, the famous housekeepers in the mansion were reluctant to follow him. The Yoshihirata family also did not like this kid who came from nowhere, and were unwilling to give him more and better resources, so they finally chose Naru, who had no fame and no ability.

Only then did Naru figure out the young man's name.

Liu Shi, 18 years old, is a blacksmith from a poor family.

He was once an apprentice to a famous blacksmith in the village, but was kicked out before he had completed two years. Before he met Carissa, he basically lived a life of hunger. Naru didn't know what the eldest lady liked about him, but from the moment Ryuishi entered the Yoshihirata family, Naru never looked down on him, but did his best to fulfill his duties as a butler.

He also witnessed the changes in the eldest lady.

After getting married, the eldest daughter suddenly became much more disciplined. She no longer dressed fashionably and boldly, and she no longer kept in touch with those young blacksmiths outside. Most of the time, she tied her hair and followed Liushi, helping him deliver various forging materials. When Liushi was hammering the steel, Carissa sat beside him, holding her cheek, humming a song, and watching with sparkling eyes.

Naru didn't understand forging, but he knew that the eldest lady was really happy at that time.

Later, Liushi and Carissa had a baby girl. Naru remembered clearly that Liushi was not there on the day the baby was born. He seemed to have been inspired and was completing his art regardless of anything else. Carissa did not send anyone to look for him either. She endured all the pain by herself, and was strong enough not to be a spoiled young lady.

Carissa named her daughter Marian, nicknamed Amo.

After Amo was born, the family's life did not change much. It was just that the forging room had changed from two people to three people. Carissa often held her daughter to watch her husband forge various weapons and armors. Amo in her arms also opened her big eyes with curiosity, biting her fingers while watching the red-hot molten iron being poured into the mold, watching the ferocious flames refining the bones of the beasts, and watching the sparks crackling like fireworks in midsummer.

Everything is so normal, so peaceful and harmonious.

Naru couldn't tell when this life changed. It wasn't a sudden change, but more of a process. Liushi was still as obsessed with forging as before, but for some reason, the weapons he made often had various faults. Many times, Liushi himself was injured because of forging failures, and blood flowed everywhere.

It was from that time that Carissa began to go out for unknown reasons again, secretly meeting with those young blacksmiths, and no one knew what she was doing.

That's when the atmosphere became strange.

Naru didn't know what was bothering Liushi, nor why Carissa, who had such a good relationship with him before, would repeat her pre-marital promiscuous life. But the truth cannot be hidden. Not long after the news of Liushi's injury came out, someone saw Carissa, who was already a wife, going in and out of the weapon shop with other male forgers, and the gossip material that had been out of fashion for a while was revived again.

Even when Amo walked in Yoshihirata's house, people would maliciously ask her:

——"Amo, Amo, do you know who your father is?"

Amo blinked and replied:

——"Amo knows, it's Ryuishi's father!"

The other party would smile meaningfully, lean close to her ear and say:

——"No, Amo. You are just a bastard who came from nowhere."

——"You know what? Your mother has been with many men and is now having fun in someone else's bed."

——"How pitiful! He doesn't even know who his biological father is..."

There were countless malicious words like this. At first, Ah Mo didn't understand them very well, but as more people kept repeating them, she finally understood. When she understood, she started to cry, crying heartbreakingly. But those who lived in a large family seemed to have a cruel sense of humor. The harder she cried, the happier people laughed.

So Naru remembered that during that period he spent most of his time coaxing Amo.

During this period, Liushi often fell into a frenzy, using everything for forging, including his own blood. His eyes became scary, and he often didn't eat, drink, or sleep. He went to the toilet in the forging room. He smelled of decay and had dark circles under his eyes. Except for occasionally talking to Carissa, who had returned, he was always alone, forging iron.

Therefore, Naru didn't dare to let Amo go to find him, for fear that the Flowing Stone in that state would scare Amo.

And then, that day came.

Naru was playing with Amo in the yard, telling her some old jokes, when suddenly a shrill voice of "someone was killed" was heard. Then there was chaos in the mansion, and Naru hurriedly settled Amo and ran with the crowd, and finally saw Liushi tied up and unconscious in the backyard.

He fell in the newly built open-air forge, and in front of him was a high-temperature forging pit where the flames had gone out. In the pit was a body that was unrecognizable, with flesh and blood burnt black, but the Jipingtian family heirloom jade pendant on his body could reveal the identity of the deceased.

Liu Shi was awakened by someone pouring cold water on him. At first, he looked around blankly, until he was scolded as a "murderer", then he looked towards the fire pit.

When he saw the body, Liushi's eyes suddenly changed. He rushed forward and fell into the fire pit, searching in the fire pit like crazy. Finally, in the ashes, he found a sword, a sword with a dark red glow. When he saw the sword, Liushi's demeanor collapsed for a time, shouting "I, I killed her -", and kept hitting the ground with his head, bleeding all over the floor.

He tried to commit suicide several times out of fear of punishment, but failed, and was finally exiled forever.

……

The story ends here. Naru took out a handkerchief from his jacket pocket and wiped his tears.

In fact, when he talked about Carissa finding a man outside again, his voice choked up several times.

The wife cheated, the husband took revenge, and the family fell apart. This is probably the story.

However, after listening to it in its entirety, I frowned deeply.

37. A test

"Some Problems."

I got straight to the point.

"First of all, from your description, Liushi and Carissa should have lived in love for many years. Why did Carissa throw herself into the arms of another blacksmith when Liushi needed her the most? If she wanted to have an affair, wouldn't she always have the opportunity after marriage?"

Naru shook his head:

"I'm sorry, Lord Mayor, I can't answer because I don't have an answer. But during that time, there were many rumors about Miss Carissa. Those people said... maybe she never loved Lord Liushi at all, but just liked talented blacksmiths. At first, she chose Lord Liushi because he completely met her needs, but when his forging also started to go wrong, her love for him came to an end."

I thought about this answer and asked a second question:

"Secondly, how can we be sure that the body is Carissa, and how can we be sure that this person was killed by Liushi?"

Naru thought for a moment and replied:

"I still can't confirm the identity of the body. Because she was wearing a jade heirloom, it can be confirmed to be Miss Carissa. And according to others, when they arrived at the scene, only Master Liushi was there."

"That is to say, no one saw Liushi push Carissa into the fire pit from beginning to end, right?"

Naru said:

"Yes."

I asked a third question:

"According to your account, Liushi was found unconscious on the spot. There were so many people present at the time, didn't anyone find it odd?"

Naru replied:

"We thought so at first. But Lord Liushi often faints while forging. Lord City Lord hasn't seen it yet, but I have seen it too many times... He may faint due to excessive blood loss, hunger, lack of sleep, excessive excitement, or a huge gap. According to the family, the people who just arrived at the scene found a smell of burnt meat in the air, and Liushi fell to the ground. They tied him up to prevent him from escaping."

Naru sighed deeply and said to me:

"Lord City Lord, Lord Liushi and I have been wandering outside for three years. During these three years, I have been missing Miss and Miss Amo all the time, and thinking about the situation at that time. But the biggest problem is that before the family put pressure on him, Lord Liushi had already admitted that he had killed Miss Carissa. Including these years, Lord Liushi has been taciturn, and often kneels down facing the bright moon in the sleepless night, crying alone. If it weren't for the desire to complete the research he had been doing to commemorate Lady Carissa, Lord Liushi might have already collapsed..."

really.

After all, the problem still lies with Liushi.

The process described by Naru can be simply understood as the story of a wife having an affair with someone else without telling her husband, and the husband pushing his wife into the fire pit while unconscious. Compared with the version circulated by the outside world, it only adds a reason before the result. But the key evidence is still missing.

No one witnessed Liushi pushing Carissa into the fire pit, and there was no concrete evidence that the body was Carissa.

However, despite many doubts, Liu Shi himself admitted that it was true.

As for why he would admit this, I don't have an answer yet. I can only understand it as Naru said -

"Because he remembered that he killed Carissa."

Naru sorted out the healing items and put them in the bag he was carrying. Then he said to me:

"That incident happened three years ago. Even if there was any evidence, it has been erased. Lord Liushi's story has spread all over the world, and the title of "Shame of Blacksmiths" has been firmly branded on him. This is not something that the Lord City Lord can change. Moreover, Lord Liushi has always been unwilling to talk about what happened at that time. I really hope that Lord Liushi can clear his name, but after so many years, both Lord Liushi and I have become accustomed to this kind of life. For us, as long as we have a place to stay, it will be enough. The Lord City Lord has done more than enough for us."

He took off his hat very gentlemanly and bowed to me.

I looked at him deeply, did not accept his thanks, and just left.

If I don't want to help them, even a bowl of porridge or a meal is an extra treat. If I want to help, it's far from enough now.

What happened three years ago has indeed been buried in the dustbin of history. Even if there was any evidence, it is probably gone now. It is basically impossible to clear Liu Shi's name.

Regardless of whether he did it or not, his identity as a villain has already been established. Evil always spreads faster than good, and even if there is some insignificant evidence to prove his innocence, the news will not spread at all, unless it is promoted with some more explosive news, otherwise it will not cause any waves.

But if you don't force yourself to prove it to the world, there are still ways to test it.

After I returned, I approved a document for Liu Shi, allowing him to obtain some high-quality steel from the northern industrial base every month.

This is also the first time that this batch of steel has been used outside of Lingwu.

But this time, I didn't let him go alone as originally planned. Instead, I got up early the next day and took Liu Shi with me. After all, it was his first time here, and the people in the Northern Industrial Base probably didn't know him. Although I had the documents approved by me, it would save a lot of trouble if I brought him here in person.

The Northern Industrial Base is now the most confidential area in Yuxi City. It is not only an area that is under the key supervision of the Anbu Organization, but also patrolled day and night. There are also troops stationed around it, and generally speaking, not even a fly can fly in.

Because the steel sent to Lingwu Territory was secretly discounted, there was indeed a lot left. I was not stingy and took Liushi with me to take half of the truck back. On the way, Liushi began to hold the steel lovingly and asked me about the smelting technology. But this question is still a secret of Yuxi City, so I naturally kept silent about it.

When he returned to the forging room and placed the square block of iron in his hand on the anvil, Liu Shi's eyes were no longer lifeless, but full of concentration and seriousness.

He raised the hammer in his hand and carefully struck the iron block with the first blow.

The clear sound is as pleasant as string music.

From this moment on, his entire attention was focused on forging, and he completely ignored me in the room.

I also calmly moved a chair and sat down not far from him, watching his every move.

38. Take her life to fill

My impression of Ryusei can be summarized as "a gloomy person".

I have heard a lot of rumors about him, some of which I think are reliable, but some of which I cannot fully believe.

The most difficult thing to guess in this world is the human heart. It is not that it is impossible, but it is very troublesome. A person's external performance, including personality, way of speaking, style of doing things, etc., can indeed be used as a basis to infer his inner activities and way of thinking. But if you only rely on these things to make a conclusion about a person, it is too arrogant.

Everyone does things that they don't even understand why they do them, and everyone has experienced many times of being dizzy and overwhelmed. If you really want to test a person, you should at least put him in the environment he was in at the time and speculate on external factors.

So I need to make Flowstone crazy first.

When he demonstrated his forging ability to me not long after we met, he once cut his arm with a knife and sprinkled blood on the sword to complete the forging. But it was not enough, because he was still able to retain his sanity to a certain extent, which showed that this level of forging was not enough to drive him crazy completely.

Then let's test it with what Liushi has been researching.

When Carissa died, he was doing research on the [Universal Weapon], right?

Now I will recreate this scene and give him another hope of making a breakthrough, and see how far he can go to complete his research.

At the beginning, Liushi behaved normally. He just focused on studying the high-quality steel in front of him, testing the performance of the steel with tools including hammers, files, chainsaws, chisels, etc., and began to carefully select some other materials as alternative materials for forging.

This time I didn't skimp on anything and took out all the high-quality materials that I had accumulated in Yuxi City. Many of the materials were originally collected by me to help Fileta make a staff. I didn't expect to steal some of them when I went to the capital this time, so these materials were left unused. But to be honest, most of these materials are simply not affordable with Liushi's current salary, so it's my investment in him.

After gradually figuring out the various properties of this piece of steel, Liushi dropped his hands and fell into a long period of thought.

This process lasted so long that I almost fell asleep watching it.

When I was half asleep, I was suddenly awakened by a loud noise like thunder.

I looked at Liushi, who had just hit the iron block hard with the hammer in his hand, and the red-hot iron block was deformed by the impact. Liushi stared at the steel on the anvil without blinking, and hammered down quickly like a storm.

The blow was extremely powerful, and the force contained in it even made people wonder whether it came from the skinny Liu Shi.

it has started.

The sadness, gloom and despair on Liushi's face disappeared, but what replaced them was not a normal expression, but another extreme one.

His face flushed, and his breathing was rapid. The wind from swinging the hammer blew his bangs apart, and his messy hair danced in the firelight. His big movements were like some weird dance. At this moment, it seemed as if even his inner self had been replaced. The original flowing stone was gone, replaced by some evil existence that dominated his body.

The materials were thrown into the anvil handful by handful, melted into steel at just the right temperature, and turned into part of the weapon.

Those high-level materials were full of resistance to forging, just like the souls of those monsters making their final struggle. Every material was like dangerous explosives under high temperature, and if you were not careful, you might be blown to pieces.

But from Liushi's fanatical expression, it can be seen that he is not afraid at all.

It was as if he already had a blueprint in his mind, just waiting to be completed. He already had the answers to these questions: what material to use to restrain what material, what material to use to activate what material. If what he showed me last time was the basic skills of a blacksmith, then at this moment he was using his own abilities to climb to the peak of his dream.

There are so many high-level materials in the world, but so few famous weapons.

The souls of the conquered aliens reside in the materials that once made up their bodies. It is probably no easier to refine them and take them for yourself than to conquer them alive. This is something that cannot be solved by fists, and it is one of the reasons why I think humans are nobler than other races.

We can use them, they can only use what they are born with!

Sweat dripped onto the anvil, drying up and turning into fine powder. Sweat also flowed into his eyes, staining his eyes, which refused to close, with a scarlet color.