[To Become a River of Stars] Dong Xiange - Chapter 54

By the afternoon, the shadow guards had sent back their report.

Although the woman in the painting had not yet been found, some traces of her previous movements had been uncovered. Jin Zhan compiled this information into a dossier and presented it to Li Xuanci.

He took the dossier and studied it carefully, moving to the desk where he spread out a sheet of white paper and picked up a wolf-hair brush. Just as he was about to start writing, he noticed Shiliu sprawled over the table, amusing herself with a cloth tiger. She was swinging it so vigorously that the tiny bells on its tail jingled incessantly, creating quite a racket.

Li Xuanci watched as Shiliu wielded the cloth tiger with both hands, pretending to make it fight. His eyebrow twitched slightly, and he called out to her as if summoning a cat or dog, “Come here.”

Shiliu, thoroughly engrossed in her play, ignored him, pretending not to hear as she hunched even lower over the table. The cloth tiger in her hands moved more discreetly, no longer swinging about so wildly.

“If you don’t come, I’ll throw all these things away,” Li Xuanci said, knowing exactly how to handle her.

Shiliu shot upright and threw herself across the table, using her body to shield the pile of snacks and toys like a mother hen protecting her chicks. She glanced back at him slyly, as if weighing the truth of his threat.

Li Xuanci remained impassive. Seeing this, Shiliu knew there was no room for negotiation. Her lips puckered into a pronounced pout, almost enough to hang an oil lamp, before she reluctantly abandoned her treasures and shuffled over.

“Grind the ink,” he commanded.

But Shiliu had no idea what “grinding the ink” meant. She stood there dumbly, her lips still pursed, looking both foolish and ridiculous.

Li Xuanci reached out and pinched her duck-like pout. Though he didn’t use much force, Shiliu’s eyes instantly welled up with tears, sparkling like stars—pitiful yet endearing.

Since the recent incident, Shiliu had developed an inexplicable tendency to act spoiled. She cried if her hand was grabbed, if she was scolded, if she didn’t eat well, if she didn’t get to play enough, and even now, when her “duck beak” was pinched, she cried.

Li Xuanci had held back his strength, knowing she was just being coy and manipulative. Yet, seeing the round, glistening tears in her eyes stirred a faint desire to torment her further.

It was like holding a rabbit with perked ears, feeling the delicate tremor of blood flowing through its thin, long ears—so fragile they would bend with the slightest pressure. Their very fragility made him want to toy with them, to knead and play with those pitiful ears.

His gaze deepened as he spoke words that Shiliu, in her current state, couldn’t possibly understand. “Keep acting foolish, and I’ll resort to other methods.”

Though Shiliu was dim-witted now, she still retained some memory of what he had done the previous night. Coupled with her innate instinct for self-preservation, she shuddered involuntarily. Her pout vanished, and she stared at him obediently, docile and well-behaved.

Only then did Li Xuanci release her, taking her hand to guide her in holding the inkstick and making a circular motion. Shiliu understood immediately and began mimicking the grinding motion.

He first carefully reviewed the compiled reports of recent unusual incidents in the prefectures. While there were one or two cases of madness, most had clear causes, and none involved someone suddenly regressing to a childlike state of mind like Shiliu.

He wanted to investigate other anomalies, but the region was vast, and the trivial matters were numerous. Without a clear direction, it was difficult to make sense of it all.

Next, he picked up the clues reported by the shadow guards. They had uncovered some similar traces.

The issue here wasn’t a lack of clues but an overabundance. Given the short time frame, it was still uncertain whether all these traces belonged to the woman he was searching for, so only the suspected ones had been reported.

He picked up his brush and first sketched a rough outline of the surrounding terrain, then marked the locations in chronological order.

Before he could finish, something furry nudged against him. Looking down, he saw Shiliu had nestled her round head beside him, peering at the drawing.

She looked up at Li Xuanci, embodying the forgetfulness of a fool who remembers food but not lessons. Moments ago, she had been frightened by him, but now she grinned and said, “Little fish! Brother, draw a little fish for Shiliu. Shiliu wants to eat it.”

Her eyes sparkled like black grapes, filled with pure joy and delight, as she waited for her formidable brother to conjure a fish out of paper for her.

Li Xuanci looked into her eyes and fell silent for a moment, inexplicably caught off guard. Then, as if nothing were amiss, he averted his gaze to the paper she claimed had “a little fish” drawn on it.

Under her innocent remark, the scattered and disordered marks gradually began to reveal a pattern to him.

He grabbed the dossier and sorted through the chaotic sequence of appearances, finally identifying the key.

Indeed, the person had doubled back.

It was precisely because she had retraced her steps, combined with the possibility of unrelated traces from lookalikes mixed in, that the path seemed so erratic and illogical.

In reality, she had likely headed south first, then meandered northeast before turning back and retracing her steps along the southwestern route. This created the illusion of two parallel paths that would eventually intersect.

It wasn’t that one person appeared in two places simultaneously, but that she had suddenly decided to turn back for some reason—and they had encountered her during her return journey.

By filtering out the scattered, misleading points, the remaining marks vaguely resembled an unfinished fish.

Only someone as simple-minded and food-obsessed as Shiliu could see it at a glance and associate it with a fish.

Li Xuanci connected the dots, then extended the curve along its arc, weaving it into an unfinished line that intersected with the original path at a specific point—a location already marked, where the woman had appeared before.

This, then, was likely where she would appear next.

It seemed that even though she had suddenly become a fool—turning both delicate and gluttonous—the little idiot wasn’t entirely useless.

At least her eyes were sharp, her body was soft, and the way she called him “brother”… was rather sweet.

Li Xuanci set down his brush, intending to reward her with some small trinket. But when he looked up, he was—for once—momentarily stunned.

Shiliu’s face was now smeared like a calico cat’s, and she remained blissfully unaware as she continued playing with the ink. Noticing his gaze, she grinned at him, her black-stained face contrasting sharply with her white teeth—both bizarre and laughable.

Li Xuanci clenched his jaw, experiencing a long-forgotten sense of “reaping what he sowed.”

Then, without mercy, he seized the calico cat by the scruff of her neck and hauled her off to wash her face.