Chapter 1166: Ding Wei's Counterattack

Niu Youdao's death had actually become entangled with something this serious. Xuan Yao now realized he had brought Ding Wei enormous trouble.

Would anyone believe that Xuan Yao alone dared involve himself in something of this scale? Would anyone believe that he alone had the ability to plant an inside traitor in Wuliang Garden?

If they were told Ding Wei had not ordered it from behind the scenes, who would believe them?

Since Xuan Yao had already resolved to protect Ding Wei in exchange for having his affairs settled after death, he naturally had to help clear him of suspicion.

He hurriedly said, "Sacred Venerable Lü, this lowly one happened to learn that the Demon Fox Bureau's routine sweep would end that day. I knew Niu Youdao would have to go to the Desolate Marsh Deadlands that day."

"Niu Youdao and I had a grudge. The Desolate Marsh Deadlands were the best place to strike. If I killed him there, I could try to place the blame on the Demon Foxes and so on. That was why I chose this occasion to act."

"It truly was a coincidence. Not one word of this is false!"

Lü Wushuang gave a faint laugh as well. She turned toward Yuan Se. "Fatty Yuan, see that? To protect his master, he's desperately working to clear his master of suspicion, even if it means begging for a quicker death himself."

"Your disciple truly knows how to command loyalty from his subordinates."

Yuan Se chuckled and said nothing.

Xuan Yao hurriedly added, "I have a witness! Someone who can prove why I decided to act against Niu Youdao this time!"

A witness?

Yuan Se lifted his eyes slightly from his tea.

He glanced back.

Consort Yuan immediately asked, "What witness? Where is he?"

"He's here in Wentian City!"

After Xuan Yao named the man, the person was quickly dragged out of Wentian City.

It was the subordinate who had once secretly overheard the conversation between Niu Youdao and Qin Guan.

At this point, Xuan Yao could no longer care whether that subordinate lived or died.

To protect Ding Wei, he did not hesitate to drag the man into the disaster with him.

Faced with such a scene, and with Xuan Yao himself questioning him, how could the subordinate dare conceal anything? He immediately recounted the conversation he had overheard.

His testimony proved why Xuan Yao had developed the intention to kill.

It was also meant to prove that the assassination had merely happened to coincide with the affair at Wuliang Garden.

Yet Lü Wushuang remained unmoved. She said indifferently, "You truly prepared everything quite thoroughly to clear yourselves of suspicion."

She looked toward Yuan Se. "Fatty Yuan, do you believe it?"

Yuan Se only smiled and remained silent.

Ding Wei said heavily, "Sacred Venerable Lü, why must you insist on driving me to my death?"

Lü Wushuang looked at him from the corner of her eye. "Drive you to your death? Are you even worth it? If I weren't giving Fatty Yuan face, do you think I would sit here wasting words with you?"

Ding Wei said angrily, "The facts are all here, yet you refuse to believe them. If that is not an attempt to drive me to my death, then what is it?"

Lü Wushuang replied calmly, "I told you already. Niu Youdao dared force his way into Wuliang Garden to obtain evidence because he had already mastered certain clues."

"Don't you want to know what clues he possessed?"

"Or is the reason you have not asked because you already know perfectly well?"

"What do you mean, know perfectly well?" Ding Wei angrily cupped his hands. "I do not know what clues he had. Please enlighten me!"

Lü Wushuang said, "I encountered the inspectors at Wuliang Garden and personally questioned Niu Youdao on the spot. I asked whom those supposed clues made him suspect."

"Niu Youdao gave me a name."

"Ding Wei!"

Ding Wei's face changed drastically.

At last he understood why his master had laid a net around him and waited.

He immediately cupped his hands toward Yuan Se. "Master, Lü Wushuang is framing this disciple! I beg Master to judge clearly!"

Yuan Se's smile did not change.

He still said nothing and simply let the two argue.

Lü Wushuang said, "What are you, that I would need to frame you?"

Ding Wei replied, "I do not know why you wish to frame me. Perhaps you deliberately want to sow discord between the master and disciple of Dayuan Sacred Land, or perhaps you harbor some other unspeakable purpose. In any case, Niu Youdao could not possibly have said such a thing."

This was not merely an excuse.

Ding Wei genuinely believed Niu Youdao could not possibly have said it.

He genuinely believed Lü Wushuang was framing him.

He had never done such a thing in the first place. If this was not a frame-up, what else could it be?

Lü Wushuang said, "So what you mean is that if I am not framing you, then Niu Youdao was spouting nonsense to frame you?"

"Niu Youdao bore a grudge against me. It is not impossible that he tried to frame me."

"How could he speak nonsense about something like this? Could nonsense have allowed him to escape? Or are you saying he somehow knew in advance that someone would assassinate him, yet neither hid nor avoided it, and thought that since he was going to die anyway he might as well frame you once before death?"

Ding Wei noticed that his master's smile had grown deep and strangely inscrutable.

A chill ran through his heart.

He immediately counterattacked. "Sacred Venerable Lü, if you knew Niu Youdao possessed such an important clue, why did you still allow him to go to the Desolate Marsh Deadlands?"

Lü Wushuang said, "I did not know he was going to the Desolate Marsh Deadlands. I had already instructed him to return to Wentian City as quickly as possible. The other seven sects can testify to that."

Ding Wei asked in a heavy voice, "Sacred Venerable Lü means to say that Niu Youdao dared defy your sacred decree?"

That question made Lü Wushuang pause.

In truth, she herself had wondered afterward why Niu Youdao had ignored her instruction and gone to the Desolate Marsh Deadlands instead.

Yuan Se glanced sideways at Lü Wushuang from the corner of his eye and gave another soft chuckle.

Lü Wushuang said, "According to the personnel of the other seven sects, Niu Youdao feared something might happen to the testimony they had collected, so he had the eight sects act separately. Each group carried a portion of the testimony back to Wentian City."

"Testimony?" Ding Wei asked. "In other words, Niu Youdao himself was carrying a portion?"

"According to the other seven sects, yes."

"Then where is the testimony Niu Youdao carried?"

Ding Wei continued before she could answer. "The Demon Fox Bureau saw the pursuit clearly. Because its people arrived in time, the assassins had no opportunity to take anything from Niu Youdao's body. The people your Wushuang Sacred Land placed in the Demon Fox Bureau can testify to that as well."

"So where did the testimony go?"

Lü Wushuang raised her brows. "You're asking me? Do you think I took it?"

Ding Wei ignored the sarcasm. "If the material was not on Niu Youdao, then it may have been on his three subordinates."

"But neither the assassins nor the Demon Fox Bureau personnel saw those three men. At the same time, one large flying mount also disappeared."

"I am not mistaken about that, am I?"

Lü Wushuang said, "All of that happened afterward. No one knows whether your men had already killed those three before the Demon Fox Bureau witnessed the pursuit."

Ding Wei said, "That can be determined later by interrogating the other assassins."

"There were fifteen assassins in all. The consequences of killing one Niu Youdao or killing four inspectors are no different. The same crime hangs over all of them."

"Knowing they cannot escape disaster, are all fifteen really willing to endure every kind of suffering merely to conceal the truth?"

"I do not believe that once Wushuang Sacred Land's interrogation methods have clear targets and a known result, you could question that many people and still fail to obtain the truth."

"Nor does Xuan Yao have any reason to conceal this from me anymore. If he says he never saw the other three, then he never saw them."

Lü Wushuang said, "No need for you to worry about that. As long as Fatty Yuan drags the people out, someone will naturally interrogate them."

Ding Wei continued, "Another question for Sacred Venerable Lü. You say Niu Youdao told you that I, Ding Wei, was the suspect. When he said this, did anyone else hear him?"

Lü Wushuang's gaze flickered as she weighed the purpose behind that question.

Ding Wei pressed, "Don't tell me Sacred Venerable Lü was the only person who heard Niu Youdao accuse me."

Lü Wushuang slowly replied, "I was indeed the only one who heard it. Before he had sorted out concrete evidence, Niu Youdao did not dare make reckless accusations. Many people present can testify to that."

"I forced him to answer. That was why he had no choice but to name the person he suspected."

"Oh. So Sacred Venerable Lü forced the answer out of him." Ding Wei said.

"In other words, apart from Sacred Venerable Lü, no one else knows what he said."

"Now Sacred Venerable Lü may accuse anyone you please, including me, Ding Wei. No matter whom you name, the dead cannot testify against you. Is that not so?"

Lü Wushuang said, "If you insist on twisting things that way, then twist them however you like."

Ding Wei asked again, "When the inspectors from the eight sects were investigating Wuliang Garden, why did Sacred Venerable Lü happen to arrive there?"

"I merely happened to be passing by."

"That is rather too coincidental. You happened to pass by and happened to encounter the eight sects investigating Wuliang Garden. Sacred Venerable Lü certainly knows how to choose the right day."

Yuan Se's smile remained unchanged.

He slowly toyed with the teacup in his hand, but Ding Wei's words drew a faintly meaningful curve at the corner of his mouth.

A cold light entered Lü Wushuang's eyes. "What are you trying to say?"

Ding Wei ignored her.

Instead, he cupped his hands toward Yuan Se. "Master, if you happened to pass Wuliang Garden, would you necessarily stop there and go inside for a look?"

Yuan Se chuckled. "It is possible."

"If Master says so, then this disciple has nothing more to say. Sacred Venerable Lü just happening to descend upon Wuliang Garden and encounter the inspection truly could have been a coincidence."

Yuan Se laughed softly. "Ding Wei, if you have something to say, then say it clearly. Don't twist around in circles and speak with hidden barbs."

Lü Wushuang had already risen to her feet.

She stared coldly at Ding Wei. "What do you mean?"

Ding Wei said, "I mean nothing. I merely find everything far too coincidental."

"More importantly, even when facing Sacred Venerable Lü, Niu Youdao supposedly did not dare reveal the clue he possessed. He only spoke because Sacred Venerable Lü forced the answer out of him."

"Yet Sacred Venerable Lü also says that she alone heard Niu Youdao name me, Ding Wei, as the suspect."

"Once Niu Youdao died, Sacred Venerable Lü could name anyone she pleased."

"Perhaps Niu Youdao never accused anyone at all. Perhaps he said something completely different. But now the dead cannot testify. Who could possibly know what Niu Youdao really said?"

"And Niu Youdao, while supposedly holding crucial evidence, actually dared ignore Sacred Venerable Lü's words. He did not return to Wentian City in time, nor did he travel back together with the eight sects."

"Wouldn't it have been safer for the eight sects to return together, united and numerous?"

"Niu Youdao must have seen someone and realized danger was approaching. Or perhaps he realized the opposing power was simply too great. That was why he ordered the eight sects to split up, hoping to avoid the possible danger."

He turned once more toward Yuan Se and cupped his hands.

"Master, faced with an affair of such magnitude, anyone would treat the matter already in hand as the priority."

"Especially given Niu Youdao's status, was it truly necessary for him personally to appear simply because the Demon Fox Bureau's routine sweep had ended?"

"With such a major incident already underway, Niu Youdao could not possibly have abandoned the matter in his hands without reason."

"For him to insist on going to meet the Demon Fox Bureau under those circumstances is highly abnormal."

"It can only explain one thing."

"He feared there would be danger on the road back to Wentian City and did not dare return directly. If he could let personnel from all Nine Sacred Lands know what had happened, he might become safe."

"Thus the Demon Fox Bureau personnel sweeping the Desolate Marsh Deadlands became one of his possible choices."

"He chose the Demon Fox Bureau because he was familiar with it and had a certain degree of confidence there."

"He simply never imagined Xuan Yao, driven by a private grudge, would already be lying in ambush in the Desolate Marsh Deadlands to assassinate him. And that was how he died at Xuan Yao's hands."

"That also explains why the other three have never returned and why not even the slightest word has been heard from them."

"They were very likely intercepted by someone wielding enormous power and can never return. The testimony they carried can never see daylight again either."

"Master!"

"Niu Youdao was probably trying to make matters even safer. After splitting the eight sects apart, he separated from his own three subordinates as well."

"That alone shows just how cautious he had become!"

"The person who intercepted them stopped the three men riding that large flying mount, but did not expect Niu Youdao himself to be absent. They did not expect him to have gone to the Desolate Marsh Deadlands."

"Niu Youdao has always acted with exceptional cunning. This is entirely consistent with his style!"

Lü Wushuang's expression had turned frosty. "Are you saying I killed Niu Youdao's three subordinates?"

Ding Wei replied, "I am not Sacred Venerable Lü. Without evidence, I would not dare bite down on one person and declare them guilty."

"I am merely analyzing the facts as they stand!"

[End of Chapter 1166]