A Mistaken Marriage Match – The Pirate’s Daughter - Volume 1 - Chapter 23

Volume 1  Chapter 23   Seed of Doubt   Part 1

“Ah Wu!”

A figure wildly rushing anxiously, the shout was filled with grief, dashing from the distant place; the crowd quickly gets out of the way. Yi Dang Jiade saw the lying body on the ground facing upward, covered in blood, the blood from the whole body drained away; his youngest son pale and lifeless, eyes were red. He picked up the dead body from the ground, hugged him and stared at everyone around and loudly exclaimed, ” Who?! Who killed Ah Wu?!”

This roaring have startled the birds in the woods and flew away to escape, that shout of murderous anger, let alone the birds, even people only few could bear it, even the crowd that gathered around couldn’t bear and have to step back several steps, there was no doubt if the killer appeared in front of him, the body of that person will surely be torn apart.

As the scene was playing, that of father and son affection. Followed behind Yi Dang Jiade was Yi Hu , his eyes has  a streak of cold light beamed with ruthless and tyrannical pleasure. It dissipated quickly but Su Su caught it and turned her head towards Sang Nuan, only to find that she was like yesterday. She retreated away from the crowd’s ’ periphery for a long while ago, half of her body leaning on the tree, like watching an episode of a travesty, seeing no one. Sang Leng was also on her side, they were in the appearance of staying out of the matter.

 Yi Hu stood silent in one side, Su Su thought that yesterday Wu Mu ‘s death, he seemed to care and now  it was his younger brother who died, he has an indifferent appearance. Apparently, it seems that  Yi Dang Jia’s few children were not getting along entirely well.  Yi Dang Jiahugged the dead body and not willing to let go, finally it was Xiang Erye who goes forward to urge,” Yi Dang Jiade, you must restrain your grief. Now is the most important time, you grieve but not the time to be angry, put your effort to find that murderer. You said that Lao Yue has people that infiltrated the island, first they maybe send an assassin to take us  one by one, after waiting for the fog to be lifted, then at one fell swoop they will attack.”  He listened to Xiang Erye favorably , Yi Dang Jia show off some changes in his countenance and secretly sighed, finally put down his youngest son’s body then turned to ask him, “What do you think?”

Xiang Erye looked behind,  Yi Hu beside him was Ye Lie and Mo Yuan beside him was Su Su, he paused to consider twice what he was about to say. “ In my opinion, the people who was in the island less than two months are highly suspicious, especially … …Ye Lie and Xiaoshu in particular. They are likely not the average people, they are outsiders and recently they can take a walk around the island and standby anywhere at will. “    

He paused then looked at his master’s face, he has guessed his meaning secretly and to continue saying that ,” At present no one knows the murderer, and find  who is the next victim, better yet we locked them up, find the murderer , if not we might put them out too late.”

Having said these, Xiang Erye obviously still dreaded Mo Yuan and hurried to add,  ” Lord Mo feel relieved that we will provide contingencies, we will not make it difficult for Xiaoshu.”  When Xiang Erye mentioned Ye Lie at that time, Yi Hu was offended at heart but looking at Yi Meng’s state at that moment; he decided not to aggravate nor challenged but decided to hold it in.  Xiang Erye continued to speak but the response of Mo Yuan was not what the people had anticipated, they understood from the night before, he made it clear that Xiaoshu was under his wings and no one can touch this young fellow, at this moment hearing Xiang Erye that she will be placed  in prison, he did not show a temper, on the contrary he was full of enthusiasm and support to put them away without delay however all throughout the discussion his gaze  never left the corpse.  

 Xiang Erye’s spoken advice and opinion, Su Su heard them all, word for word, Mo Yuan hid the indifference and bullish mood by playing cool and she also completely felt that, she definitely does not want to be imprisoned, according to her assessment, the murderer also will certainly continue to kill, but she already have some clues. Su Su went to Yi Dang Jia and said earnestly, “I can help you find the murderer, but you must give me some time.”   “Can you find the murderer?”Yi Dang Jiastared at the small youth that stands only up  to his own chest, the face under red copper mask he cannot see clearly but actually gives people a feeling of assurance. YiDang Jia’s pair of tiger eyes stared at her blankly. Su Su straightened her back, confident and calmly looked at him. After some time, Yi Dang Jia  and the crowd out of anticipation said, “Good, I give you three days of time, in three days you, if cannot find the murderer,  you will stay in prison!”

 After she got the answer she wished for, Su Su turned around, returned next to the corpse looking intently.

Just like the day before, Su Su started to touch the body, examined, finally she also crouched by the corpse and stared at the foot of the corpse. When she did not say anything for sometime , Yi Hu grew very impatient, pretending to look deep, scoffed at her,  ” What are you looking at, is not Wu Mu dies exactly the same?”

Su Su shook her head, “” It is a little different.”

 “Where is the difference?”

She  pointed to the foot that was bare, Su Su replied, ” He did not wear shoes.”

 Yi Hu  grunted with disdain, ” It was likely that he was chased down by the murderer and hurriedly ran and he couldn’t put on shoes, there’s not enough time.”

Su Su got up and withdrew two steps, ” If he were chased down by the murderer and in a flurry run in this piece of jungle I do not know that,  I only knew that he rushed in this stretch of grove to  lie down and die here, breath his last but definitely he was  wearing shoes for sometime.”

   “How do you know?”

 Su Su just shrugs, confidently answered, ” I can naturally see.”

Look only and saw it?! The people now look at her with panic and horror.

Su Su’s corner of the eye twitched under the mask, there was silence and then sweeping eyes of the people wonder if the mask was used as a device for something? Su Su pointed to the corpse’s feet and explained, “Carefully look at his feet. Two days ago there was a storm and piece of jungle must be heavy with moist but at his feet, it looks like the shoes wasn’t worn properly, it were not all stuck in, looking at his feet, the soil has spread and obviously came up but still there was no mud in between the gaps of his toes, considering the distance from the jungle to here, it was not near, if he walked barefoot, how is it that his feet doesn’t have a trace of branches or scratches, even injury caused by rough stones?”

 The people carefully looked that truly as Su Su had said that although the foot of Yi Wu was covered entirely of mud, but the toes seam and on the nail seam were clean, and the foot was smooth and doesn’t have any traces of  injuries  and even people  wanted to refute her opinion, it would be very difficult.

 “Let’s looks at this again.” Su Su went to the right rear of the body, stood outside the scope of pool of blood, crouched down and pointed at the bloodstain in middle of the shallow depression saying that, ” in Wu Mu’s house the floor was different, here the blood was seeped into the ground, therefore you should be able to see, this slightly depressed place, obviously was not a footprint, but a shoe impression.”

Along the  direction Su Su’s  finger was a large tract of bloodstain such as the trace of foot wear impression size, but was too shallow, if she did not pointed it out  it was very difficult to note its existence.

 On Yi Wu wearing a shoes at this point nobody has any objection, some people around watching cannot bear it finally, the rustling sound of discussion and one of them said, ” You  are saying that the murderer took away his shoes.”

 ” I guess ……”, Ye Lie one of the suspect, suddenly came beside Su Su and said, “On shoes should have any clue, that will expose the murderer, it was too late for the murderer to deal with the shoes and simply took it away.”

  Su Su glanced at Ye Lie and he winked at her unexpectedly, and gaving her the ‘I was right’ look. Someone has said the words that she wanted to say, Su Su come easy with it and just nodded.

After hearing Ye Lie’s the words,  Yi Dang Jiade  roared to the crowed immediately, “Quick, sent to his room to search .”

 Yesterday Wu Mu died, he was only gloomy, but now he was but actually pouring his temper, obviously Yi DangJia valued his youngest son. 

Su Su blocked the people who was just to leave and said that, “I thought that it was better to divide in two groups, one group go to the log cabin and another group stay to look around.”

 “Are you saying the shoes were only around here?” Yi Hu asked with facial appearance of disbelief.

 “His body was not yet stiff, he probably died an hour ago, it was day time already at that time, if the murderer was walking, it is uncommon to walk holding a pair of muddy shoes, that will be certainly attract attention, therefore I guess that he might buried the shoes.”

 “Find it quickly!” Yi Dang Jia  rough voice loudly giving a command, ” Everyone help me to find and the first one who turned the shoes will be rewarded with 200 ounces of gold!”

  “Wait!” This were bandits after all, after hearing the reward of 200 gold their mulberry eyes were shining  with greed  and  wished they could to dig three feet right away. Su Su quickly said in a  loud voice, “You look at the places with weeds and stones,  look for traces of movement of the ground, that will be a suspicious place, gently dig to have a look, if there’s the shoes shouted really immediately that do not dig casually, do not destroy the surroundings. Understood?”

 “Understood!”  The crowed now proceeded to their previous activity, the hundreds of people encircled around the corpse immediate fled towards the surrounding woods, for fear of getting there one step late and missed the 200 rewards .

 Half an hour, from the body of more than 30 ten feet places there came a few shouts, “It’s here, here! Found! I found it!”