Chapter 43

Chapter 43

The woman’s eyes flickered as she looked at the paper-cut he had tossed back onto the stall. “It’s not that I don’t have larger ones, but as for the price…”

Chu Yue understood. “Give me a price, and I’ll see if it’s reasonable.”

Since he put it that way, the woman didn’t hold back. She opened her mouth and asked for a hundred copper coins.

Chu Yue raised an eyebrow. Before he could agree or refuse, the man next to her leaned over. “She got it wrong. It’s one tael of silver. We won’t sell for anything less; that paper-cut is worth the price.”

With a simple flick of his tongue, he had marked the price up tenfold.

Guan Doujin crossed his arms. “Are you two husband and wife?”

“No.”

“Heh,” Guan Doujin let out a short laugh. “If you aren’t married, why are you minding her business? Did you two set up your stalls together just to drive up each other’s prices?”

The man’s expression remained unchanged. “You must be joking, guest. We’re just small-time traders with clearly marked prices. Competition is fierce; why would we help each other hike prices? It’s simply that the paper-cut is truly worth it. I just couldn’t bear to see this lady sell it for a pittance.”

“Well, aren’t you just a saint,” Guan Doujin mocked.

Chu Yue didn’t bother arguing with them. He reached into his robes and pulled out a piece of broken silver.

He didn’t actually know how much a tael of silver was worth, but as soon as he put the money out, Shen Yubi snatched it back.

Shen Yubi tucked the silver into his own sleeve and said flatly, “Spendthrift. This is at least two taels. Even a mountain of gold and silver wouldn’t survive your squandering.”

He then tossed out a smaller corner of silver. “Here is the money. Bring the goods out for inspection first so we can see if it’s worth it.”

Shen Yubi hadn’t seen the paper-cut Chu Yue had been looking at earlier-the pattern was unfamiliar-but that didn’t stop him from following Chu Yue’s lead.

Judging by the way these two were pricing things, there was clearly something fishy going on.

He watched the woman, his eyes narrowing involuntarily as she crouched down to rummage beneath the stall.

A moment later, the woman pulled out a folded paper-cut.

It was quite large. Chu Yue took it and handed it to Shen Yubi, then gestured to Guan Doujin. “You two hold this up. Let me take a closer look.”

It was a paper-cut roughly two meters long. Once Shen Yubi and Guan Doujin stretched it out, Chu Yue inspected it inch by inch before giving the woman a definitive answer. “We’ll take this one.”

The woman immediately beamed, unable to hide her delight. “You certainly have an eye for quality, guest! I have others here; would you like to take a look?”

“No-”

“Actually, we should take a look,” Shen Yubi interrupted.

“Wonderful, wonderful.” The woman grew even more excited. “They’re all here. Please, feel free to pick any style you like.”

Chu Yue looked at Shen Yubi, silently put away the paper-cut he was holding, and said nothing.

Shen Yubi kept his eyes lowered, flipping through the paper-cuts with a casual, disinterested air.

Then, as if a thought had just occurred to him, he asked nonchalantly, “Why are they all like this? Don’t you sell figures at your stall? I heard there’s a Paper-Cut Goddess in your town. Don’t you make paper-cuts of her?”

Chu Yue looked up just in time to see the woman’s face pale, while the man beside her took on an unnatural expression.

She gave a forced laugh. “We do sell figures, but we haven’t cut any these past few days.”

Guan Doujin didn’t give her a chance to dodge the question and asked again, “What about the Paper-Cut Goddess?”

“Haha, that one isn’t for sale. After all, nobody knows what she looks like. It’s enough for everyone to respect her in their hearts.”

“Is that so?” Shen Yubi looked at the two of them with a faint, knowing smile. Their faces changed at the simplest question; they didn’t act like stall-keepers, but more like actors in a play.

“If you don’t have it, then never mind. Let’s go.”

The way back was the same path they had taken before. The skin of the dead girl was long gone, and there were no bloodstains left on the ground.
However, as he passed by the building, he couldn’t help but look up.

It was the same window from yesterday. The window was cracked open slightly, and Chu Yue couldn’t quite see what was happening inside at first glance. When he tried to look again, the window snapped shut.

He withdrew his gaze. Logically, there shouldn’t be anyone in that room.

Perhaps members of another team were searching for clues.

After returning to the Inn and eating lunch, the three of them headed upstairs. As they walked down the hallway and passed the room where the person had died, Chu Yue couldn’t resist stealing another glance.

The door was closed, and there was no sound coming from inside. He wasn’t sure if the person he saw earlier was still there.

Once they were inside their own room and the door was shut, Guan Doujin sat down at the table and poured three cups of water. “Can you tell us now? What’s the point of buying that paper-cut?”

Chu Yue raised his teacup to his lips. “Don’t you think this paper-cut looks a bit familiar?”

“No,” Guan Doujin replied.

“I didn’t notice anything either,” Shen Yubi added.

Chu Yue turned and pointed to the bed behind them.

The two of them understood instantly. “You mean this is what’s pasted on the canopy of the bed in the dead person’s room?”

Since arriving at the Inn, they hadn’t been anywhere else besides their own room and the room where the death occurred. Since this wasn’t the decoration in their room, it had to be from that one.

“Exactly.”

Chu Yue had a vivid memory of the rabbit paper-cut he saw yesterday.

Compared to the ones in their room, that rabbit hadn’t seemed special in any way. Initially, Chu Yue hadn’t paid it much mind.

After all, based on what they saw that night, the thing had entered the room from the outside to kill the victim; it didn’t seem to have anything to do with the paper-cuts on the bed canopy.

However, seeing a paper-cut with the same pattern on the stall today made him feel like something was off.

If he said they were different, the patterns seemed identical. But if he said they were the same, he felt a nagging discomfort. That strange intuition told him he had overlooked something.

Still, he had only caught a casual glimpse back then. He would only know for sure what the difference was after a direct comparison.

“That’s easy then.” Guan Doujin set his cup down. “Let’s go take a look right now.”

Chu Yue mentioned what he had seen earlier.

“It’s been quite a while; they should be gone by now,” Shen Yubi said, standing up. “Let’s go.”

The door to that room wasn’t locked, and no one was inside. A faint scent of blood still lingered in the air.

Walking to the bedside, the three of them looked up. Sure enough, they saw a paper-cut that looked exactly like the one Chu Yue had bought.

“Tsk,” Guan Doujin remarked. “It’s really unfair. Our place is full of those creepy little figures, so why do they get a Big Rabbit? If it comes to life in the middle of the night, is it going to smother someone to death with its belly fur?”

Shen Yubi glanced at him and ruthlessly called him out. “Who chose the rooms?”

Guan Doujin: “…Me.”

Fine, he’d just shut up, okay?

After another look at the bed, he ran over to open the windows.

The afternoon sun was just right. Once both shutters were thrown open, the room became much brighter.

Chu Yue leaned over to observe for a long time before whispering, “The eyes.”

Shen Yubi looked over.

Chu Yue pointed to where the eyes of the rabbit on the bed canopy should be. “The rabbit here has no eyes.”

It was a paper-cut, after all, and a rabbit at that. It wasn’t strange for it to have only the outline of eyes without pupils, which was why he hadn’t noticed anything wrong at the time.

But when the two paper-cuts were placed side-by-side for comparison, the difference became clear.