Great Dao Lord through Deducing Myriad Arts Chapter 52 - 50: Investigation (Please Continue Reading)

Let analyze this Chinese web novel excerpt to understand its context, style, and key elents.

[Step 1: Contextual Analysis]

Literary genre: This appears to be a wuxia/xianxia web novel with elents of mystery/cri investigation.

Language style: The language is straightforward narrative prose with dialogue, typical of Chinese web novels. It has elents of martial arts world slang and formal investigation.

Tone: Serious but with occasional humor; pragmatic.

Plot keywords: Investigation, cri, martial arts, negotiation, debt collection, information gathering.

Characters:

1. Wu Liangchen (武良辰) - Male protagonist, seems to have recently recovered from illness and gained significant martial prowess

2. Xiaowu (小武) - Seems to be another na for Wu Liangchen, his childhood nickna

3. Liu Dongchuan/Brother Liu (刘东川/刘哥) - Male, appears to be a friend of Wu Liangchen who was kidnapped

4. Cui Qi (崔启) - Male, nicknad "Dibao Tian" (地包天), appears to be a criminal

5. Zhao Hui (赵辉) - Male, seems to be an investigator looking into cris

6. Sister Liu (刘嫂) - Female, Liu Dongchuan’s wife

7. Third Master Liu (刘三爷) - Male, likely Liu Dongchuan’s father or elder relative

8. Third Granny (三奶奶) - Female, elderly relative in Liu family

9. Yang Xiaolian (杨小莲) - Female, ntioned as a popular actress/perforr for whom Wu Liangchen works

Organizations/Locations:

- Dinghai City (定海卫) - The city where the story takes place

- Five Blessings Hall (五福堂) - An organization that seems to have run a carriage business that was burned down

- Heartless Dao (无情道) - Appears to be so kind of criminal organization

- North City (北城) - A district within the story’s setting

- West Garden (西苑) - Likely a theater district

[Step 2: Integrated Translation and Polishing]

Now I’ll translate the text while following all the rules:

The Chapter describes Wu Liangchen (forrly called "Xiaowu") collecting money from a criminal gang, negotiating with their leader Cui Qi to make them his informants instead of collecting the full debt. anwhile, an investigator nad Zhao Hui is searching for soone connected to multiple murders related to a carriage company called Five Blessings Hall that was burned down. The investigator eventually finds information about Wu Liangchen and decides to investigate him despite doubting he could be the killer.

Let translate the text line by line:

Besides the dozen or so silver coins, the box contained only so loose copper coins.

Even adding everything up, it was nowhere near the sixty silver coins Wu Liangchen had demanded.

Seeing this, Wu Liangchen gave the buck-toothed man an ambiguous smile.

"Are you trying to fool ?"

"No!" The buck-toothed man waved his hands in absolute terror. "How would I dare trick you? This is truly all our savings."

"Then what about the rest of the money?" Wu Liangchen first pocketed his ten silver coins, then picked up the box and handed it to Liu Dongchuan.

"Well... how about I write you an IOU, and as soon as we earn enough, we’ll bring it straight to you?" the buck-toothed man suggested cautiously.

Wu Liangchen laughed.

"Write an IOU, and I’d have to wait until you earn enough... Do you think you’re stupid or I’m stupid? Would I believe such nonsense?"

The buck-toothed man shuddered and pleaded: "But we really don’t have any money right now! Please, good sir, give us a few days."

Wu Liangchen shook his head, then walked over to the buck-toothed man and squatted down beside him.

The buck-toothed man’s face turned pale with fear as he looked at Wu Liangchen with terror.

"Actually, there’s another way."

"W-what way?"

"I happen to need so well-inford eyes and ears. You’ve been lurking around Dinghai City for a long ti and surely have your own network of contacts. How about this—you keep watch for , and if there’s any news or movent, notify imdiately. That way, it’ll settle your debt to . How does that sound?"

The buck-toothed man’s eyes lit up, and he nodded frantically, "Yes, yes, that works."

"Good. What’s your na?"

"My na is Cui Qi, good sir!" the buck-toothed man replied obsequiously.

"Is this your base of operations?"

"No, we just find it convenient to lure people here to commit our cris."

"Don’t commit any more cris here from now on. Make this our point of contact. Keep soone stationed here regularly. If I have anything, I’ll co find you. And if you have important information for , send soone to him." Wu Liangchen pointed at Liu Dongchuan.

"Yes, yes, yes! I understand completely." Cui Qi nodded repeatedly.

A mont later, Wu Liangchen led Liu Dongchuan out onto the main street.

Looking at the crowds of people moving back and forth, Liu Dongchuan felt like he had awakened in another world.

But what shocked him even more was how Wu Liangchen had just displayed such incredible power.

He rembered that barely two months ago, Wu Liangchen had been bedridden with illness. How had he developed such abilities in just a few days?

Just then, Wu Liangchen gently patted Liu Dongchuan’s shoulder.

"Brother Liu!"

"Hmm? What is it?"

Liu Dongchuan had wanted to call him Xiaowu, but swallowed the words before they left his mouth.

After all, the Xiaowu in his mory was no longer the shy young man he rembered—hadn’t the thugs who tied him up been calling this man "good sir" repeatedly?

Sensing Liu Dongchuan’s fear and uneasiness, Wu Liangchen smiled.

"You’d better think of an excuse quickly, or your wife will raise hell when we get back."

Hearing Wu Liangchen’s words, Liu Dongchuan’s face showed embarrassnt.

"Right!"

Soon, the two returned ho.

When the Liu family saw that Liu Dongchuan was safe and sound, they were overjoyed.

"Xiaowu, we really can’t thank you enough," Sister Liu said with tears of excitent in her eyes.

"You’re too kind, Sister. As it happens, I knew those people, so after eting with them and talking for a bit, they released Brother Liu. Here’s the money you gave earlier—I didn’t spend a single coin. I brought it all back."

Wu Liangchen placed the small package that Third Granny had given him on the table.

Even Third Granny was left speechless.

Third Master Liu was more composed and instructed Sister Liu, "Go and prepare so dishes. I want to have a drink with Xiaowu."

"Right away!"

Sister Liu hurried to the kitchen to prepare food and wine. Wu Liangchen couldn’t refuse and had to stay.

During the al, Wu Liangchen gave a general account of what had happened, though he modified the specific cause of events.

This was what the two of them had agreed upon during their walk back.

Liu Dongchuan was naturally very grateful and didn’t say much, only draining three cups of wine to express his gratitude.

The drinking continued until dawn. When Wu Liangchen returned ho, he found that Sister Liu had already sent breakfast over for his sister. He instructed his sister to wake him up at noon, then fell into bed.

After a night of rushing around plus the pre-dawn drinking session, Wu Liangchen quickly fell into a deep sleep.

At the sa mont, the eagle-eyed investigator Zhao Hui was checking nas on his list one by one.

It was an extrely tedious and exhausting job, as there were over a hundred carriage drivers who had worked for the Five Blessings Hall carriage company.

These drivers lived in widely scattered locations, making it incredibly difficult to investigate them all thoroughly.

Yet Zhao Hui approached the task with exceptional patience and strategy.

Whenever he visited soone’s ho, he would quickly gain the trust of their neighbors with his superior conversational skills, then extract information about his target.

This allowed him to save significant ti.

Typically, after a brief conversation, Zhao Hui would know enough about the person to make a fairly accurate assessnt just by looking at them from a distance.

Even so, it remained an enormous undertaking, especially since during the day these n would be out working for a living.

Though the Five Blessings Hall carriage company had burned down, most of these n still worked as carriage drivers, just for different companies.

The difficulty of tracking their movents was considerable.

After an entire day, Zhao Hui had interviewed less than a third of the people on his list.

This slow progress made even Zhao Hui frown slightly.

Yet this was not a task he could delegate to others, as that might alert his quarry.

So he could only push forward as quickly as possible, refusing to rest even at night.

Finally.

By nine in the evening, when most people had finished their dinner and were preparing for bed, Zhao Hui had finished investigating those he had marked as the most suspicious.

The result: nothing.

What was going on?

Had his deduction been wrong? Was the culprit not from the carriage company but from the Heartless Dao or so other faction?

Zhao Hui couldn’t help doubting himself, but he forced himself to stay alert. He first found a small restaurant for a quick al, then decided to try his luck again.

At this hour, his options for investigation were quite limited—only the night-shift carriage drivers remained.

After checking a few more nas, Zhao Hui finally focused on one person.

Wu Liangchen, age 16, orphaned, with only a younger sister. He had been seriously ill recently, but after recovering, he began driving a carriage in North City for the currently popular actress Yang Xiaolian.

Zhao Hui didn’t actually believe this Wu Liangchen could be the culprit. After all, he had been seriously ill just two months ago, and his whereabouts before that were easily verifiable. He certainly wasn’t so outside criminal.

How could soone like that possibly be a murderer who had killed dozens?

But at this point, with nothing else to do, he might as well check it out.

With that thought, Zhao Hui hailed a carriage and headed straight for the West Garden theater.