In the Zhang family’s old house. In the small courtyard.

Even now, Li Hao trembled in fear. His time at the Inspection office had turned out to be fruitful, to say the least. If he was still a student of the Silver City Ancient Academy, he wouldn’t have been able to compose himself and put on an act while sweating in panic.

“Hurry up, Black Panther,” said Li Hao. “We have to find it fast and leave before they get back!”

Li Hao intended to use Black Panther for now. He was familiar with the Zhang family house but the dog had a more sensitive nose.

Black Panther raised its head and looked at Li Hao. He looked around and lowered his voice. “Look around,” he said, pointing to his chest. “There should be something similar to this. You have a sharp nose, go search for it.”

Li Hao’s best hope was Black Panther. It might actually find what he was looking for. The dog had been very excited and eager when it saw the jade pendant. Li Hao wondered if that was why the dog had hung around in the first place. Had it sensed his jade pendant even before Li Hao got familiar with it?

Perhaps Black Panther could smell the stone too!

Zhang’s family had lived in this house for a very long time. If the saber-shaped stone was to be found, it would be here.

The Black Panther was excited. He eagerly wagged its tail and ran around. It could only smell the stone from a close distance. If it didn’t know better, it could miss it!

Black Panther’s nose twitched. Its legs crouched. Its nose touched the ground and sniffed.

Li Hao thought that if he found the stone, he might get more benefits out of it. While Black Panther sniffed and searched, Li Hao didn’t stay idle. He began to explore the courtyard.

 The corners, the ground, the tree…

The people who controlled the red shadow might have already searched these places and found nothing. But Li Hao knew what the stone looked like, they didn’t. They might not even know that the Zhang family’s saber was actually a stone.

If Li hao told anyone that the jade pendant he wore around his neck was actually the Starry Sky Sword of the Li family, no one would believe him.

The way the song mentions the weapons in the Li and Zhang family, anybody would assume they are real swords which might have been passed down from generations. The imagination definitely painted them as fierce and domineering weapons.

Who could even guess that the Li family’s sword was a small jade pendant and the Zhang family’s saber was just an unremarkable piece of stone?

…

Twenty minutes had passed. Li Hao was getting anxious. What if he couldn’t find it?

Had they already taken the stone? Or was it lost?

Even Black Panther was still sniffing around. If it was here, the dog should have been able to smell it by now.

Li Hao couldn’t stay here forever. He had scared away his watchers for now, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t be back. He couldn’t keep searching here. He would be discovered sooner or later.

He stood in the middle of the courtyard and looked at the master bedroom and the second bedroom. ‘If I were Zhang Yuan’s father, where would I keep the stone?’ Li Hao asked himself. ‘That day, I am not sure if Uncle Zhang picked the stone up after he threw it to the ground. But even after that, I never saw it again when I came to this house. If it was still around, I would have seen it.’

‘It didn’t mean much to Uncle Zhang, that was for sure,’ Li Hao ascertained. ‘Otherwise, he wouldn’t have thrown it around with that kind of attitude.’

 He tried to recall the incident and the days after. ‘After Zhang Yuan was beaten up by his father, he had refused to come out and play with me for three days. Did Uncle Zhang take the stone somewhere else?’

‘What would he do with a mere stone?’ wondered Li Hao. ‘All I know is, the stone disappeared during that period. Otherwise, I would have seen it again.’

Li Hao sighed in frustration. He had been too young. He couldn’t remember properly. What had happened in those three days?

If the stone was really lost, there would be no way to find it.

‘Even Black Panther can’t smell it. Is it too far away or is its sense of smell being interfered with?’ wondered Li Hao. His eyes widened. There were two places where there were too many smells of things: The kitchen and the latrine pit.

Old houses like these were built with a latrine pit in the old days instead of a toilet. Li Hao remembered that the latrine pit and the kitchen were in the process of being repaired on that day. There was a possibility!

‘Uncle Zhang… did you fix the kitchen first or the latrine pit?’ wondered Li Hao.

Li Hao determined that if the stone was in this house, it was most probably in one of those two places!