[LP CYOA] 傳

[Kz3r0]

We need to grab him to check his injuries. If we wait on this, it's going to be hard to get detailed information from his wounds. If we check his injuries thoroughly, with Cao'er skill we should be able to find out when and how exactly he was injured, which will confirm whether he was injured during the fight with Du Yao. Once we have that, we can move on to interrogating him for the rest. If it turns out he's innocent, sorry. If it turns out he's guilty, which he most likely is, then we've got him and this case solved. It seems we can get enough evidence now, and we'd quite possibly have less evidence later, so I prefer grabbing him at this moment. I don't particularly expect him to run off to meet a superior while the investigation is ongoing. And we don't need to worry about tipping him off because we'll already have him.

Collar grabbing time then, should we vote for interrogating him then?

 

[Absinthe]

Yes.

We all know the dude is dodgy as fuck. The quicker we examine, search, and interrogate him, the better. Odds are good this will solve the case.

 

[Tribute]

Fine, flopping to AxAB>BxAB

 

[Smashing Axe]

B1
She has her own thing to do. Plus she might give us more clues to suggest it was Lady Ji who killed that guy
C>B
I don't trust knowing little girls and Xu Jing is not as much of a dick as I would like. treave is there an option to give the girl food but refuse to bow?
B
Restrain him ASAP

 

[treave]

B would be the closest to that choice. You'll give her some food out of the kindness of your heart and send her on her way.

 

[Tigranes]

B2AA

 

[profreshinal]

Some murder weapon speculation:
Some type of dart perhaps. A south-American hitman that uses curare blowgun darts as his tools of the trade? Or more seriously some exotic poison tipped rope-darts, those would explain why there are no physical evidence left behind without the need of a huge conspiracy involving the daughter/guards/officials

treave was the man in black in Du Yao's study masked?
Does Cao'er have knowledge of darts/blowgun darts/rope-darts?

A1xA

We're asking in the first choice and not demanding. No need to try and make her propose it.

I can't decide for the second option, killing a child is probably the worst choice.

 

[treave]

Perhaps, too dark to be sure, and Cao'er knows what darts are and what type of marks they'd leave.

 

[Esquilax]

If we wait on this, it's going to be hard to get detailed information from his wounds. If we check his injuries thoroughly, with Cao'er skill we should be able to find out when and how exactly he was injured, which will confirm whether he was injured during the fight with Du Yao. Once we have that, we can move on to interrogating him for the rest. If it turns out he's innocent, sorry. If it turns out he's guilty, which he most likely is, then we've got him and this case solved. It seems we can get enough evidence now, and we'd quite possibly have less evidence later, so I prefer grabbing him at this moment. I don't particularly expect him to run off to meet a superior while the investigation is ongoing. And we don't need to worry about tipping him off because we'll already have him.

The killer had a grazing wound inflicted by Jiang Zheng's short sword. The problem is that even if there is a scar, we don't know where it came from because even Jiang Zheng doesn't remember where he struck the killer. If I were Fu Xia and I did it, I'd say that it came from somewhere else. In fact, I'd probably say this:

He doesn't seem to be moving like he has any serious injuries. He did come back with a few cuts and bruises from the monks last night. If you want a thorough check, you'll have to strip him.

It was a glancing blow anyways, so you might not even be able to tell if he was cut by the Chief's sword anyways. And really, there are a variety of ways for him to have been involved in the conspiracy without actually being the killer. He could simply be loyal to a Grand Eunuch and an inside man brought to sabotage the investigation, in which case, we just tipped off our suspicions for little reason.

I mean, it isn't entirely implausible that he's the killer, I'm with you on that. He could have left after the brawl, did the deed just before the middle of hai hour, then met up with Xiaofang and got into a confrontation with the eunuch just after hai hour. But I'm not sure if we should start with that as our assumption - we might be lucky and get it right, but it's just plain sloppy on our part and I suspect that there's more to the matter than just one man.

She has her own thing to do. Plus she might give us more clues to suggest it was Lady Ji who killed that guy

Why would Lady Ji involved? I'm sure that Lady Ji has some interest in the case, seeing as the deceased was a MANORBRO, but I don't see why she'd have anything to do with this. Then again, Luoying Manor is a nest for radical anti-government thought (case in point: our rep boosts with them always involve pissing off the Imperial Court) so maybe they want the Bandit Kingdom in charge just to stick it to the Court. Who knows how deep this runs?

 

[Nevill]

Well, the Fire Cult definitely wants us working together, but there's a lot of leeway in terms of what "working together" means. Working together can also mean getting the remnants of the Ashina to join up with the Cult now that the fine young man who saved Khan Bulun and Yunzi is now the Lord of the Fire Temple.

I see absolutely no reason why these tasks can not be combined, and why assembling the Ashina can not be pursued from within our party. Can you tell what are you trying to achieve individually that would be more effective than anything we could do together?

And really, working together can only be understood one way. If the Cult wanted us to work on the goals separately, why would they urge us to find Yunzi ASAP?

Short on people? We have Yifang, Yunzi, Cao'er, Song Lingshu, and Qilin. I'd say that's a fairly significant party, and yet you want to include more disgusting women on top of that.

Yeah, there's plenty of situations where having firepower could help us, but I don't know if getting to this manual is going to be a matter martial arts skill as it will be smarts and detective skills. Yes, the manuals can make an individual far more powerful, but we aren't going to get to the manual purely on brawn.

Our 'fairly significant' party was still not enough to assign someone to double-check Fu Xia when he talked to the lieutenants.

'Purely on brawn'? What kind of false dichotomy is that? Why it must be either purely on brawn, or purely on smarts? Finding the culprit behind the theft is going to be a task for the more inquisitive minds in our party, but who would apprehend him and the people that have slaughtered the constables? How many fighters of Jing's level we have to take down the owner of the manual that turns a mere cook into Zhang's equal when it comes to the internal strength? Only Yifang comes somewhat close to Jing in sword combat (because we suck at it), and the rest are strictly inferior.

The other problem, and I might be reaching here, is a matter of perception if Yunzi keeps staying with us - the rest of the world believes that Ahura is alive, so if she keeps associating with a well known rake and seducer like Xu Jing, it might reflect on the Cult being weak.

Sorry, how many in the Central Plains are aware about the internal workings of the Cult and that Ahura marrying Yunzi has religious significance, and that she has to be kept away from Xu Jing at all costs? Aside from the small talk we had at the Tiger Valley when he tried to punish us for that and failed - meaning that we are free to try the same thing again, - I don't see a reason to worry. If we could do it when he was alive and well, why can't we do it now?

I don't think so. Telling her what happened at the Fire Temple will at least know that we cared enough to look for her after the tournament at Dukezong. She cares about the Cult, and so do we, and maybe pursuing goals individually in favour of the Cult is the best way.

No, this is stupid and incongruous tsundere bullshit at this point. "It's not like I want you to help, so you can join if you want to, but I won't ask you to do it because I really-really don't care". And given how tsundere she is herself, it might even work and elicit a similarly strong reaction of "I don't care either".

Our goals are the same. Why would we want to split our party after trying hard to get reunited for the better part of the month is beyond me.

Tally:

Spoiler

Rex Feral A1AA
Baltika9 A1AA
Tribute AxAB>BxAB
Fangshi A1AA
Nevill A2AA
archaen B2B1A
Absinthe A1AB
XenomorphII A1CA
Lambchop19 A2AB
Kipeci B1AA
TOME A1xA
Kz3r0 A1AB
Akkudakku A1AB
ScubaV A1AA
asxetos A1AA
Esquilax B1AA
Smashing Axe B1CB>B1BB
Tigranes B2AA
profreshinal A1xA
Jester B1AA
a bear named spigot B1AB.
Elfberserker B1AA
ERYFKRAD x1BA
Grimgravy A2AA>A1AA

x1 - 1
Ax - 1
A1 - 11
A2 - 3
B1 - 6
B2 - 2

A - 18
B - 2
C - 2

A - 17
B - 7

 

[Kz3r0]

Flopping to A1AB

 

[Jester]

vote B1AA

 

[a bear named spigot]

B1AB.

 

[Tribute]

Question: are we still in the "a confession is only valid if obtained using torture" period of Chinese history?

 

[treave]

Question: are we still in the "a confession is only valid if obtained using torture" period of Chinese history?

Was there actually such a period? Judges were authorized to use torture to obtain a confession, and did so without second thought most of the time, but I've never heard that any confession made without torture is legally invalid.

 

[Akkudakku]

Some murder weapon speculation:
Some type of dart perhaps. A south-American hitman that uses curare blowgun darts as his tools of the trade? Or more seriously some exotic poison tipped rope-darts, those would explain why there are no physical evidence left behind without the need of a huge conspiracy involving the daughter/guards/officials

treave was the man in black in Du Yao's study masked?
Does Cao'er have knowledge of darts/blowgun darts/rope-darts?

A1xA

We're asking in the first choice and not demanding. No need to try and make her propose it.

I can't decide for the second option, killing a child is probably the worst choice.

What about finger nails? long sharpened fingernails... Creepy but possible - no sign of stuff left behind (stays with the user)...

 

[ERYFKRAD]

What about regular nails, rapiers, even?

 

[Nevill]

The hits from those don't come in groups of three.

It looks like bite marks or something that can be worn on a hand, because I don't think you can have nails like these. Or like some really strange fork.

Though it probably was just the killer mosquitoes.

 

[Elfberserker]

B1AA

Treave is Yunzi willing to tell where those ashina camp locations are, if we part ways? Or rather will Jing ask where she will be headed?

 

[treave]

Treave is Yunzi willing to tell where those ashina camp locations are, if we part ways? Or rather will Jing ask where she will be headed?

There aren't any tents or camps. She'll probably head to the closest big city from here, which is Chang'an if she hasn't been there, or Xiangyang if she's headed east.

 

[Nevill]

There aren't any tents or camps. She'll probably head to the closest big city from here, which is Chang'an if she hasn't been there, or Xiangyang if she's headed east.

I was under the impression the bulk of the tribe have scattered among Tujue people, not among Tang. Not a lot of them knew Han.

I understand that she wants to send out the word and then let people spread it, but how does she want to go about it? Hire messengers to relay the news? Travel there herself?

Where does one even start with a thing like that? I guess the logical thing to do would be finding the ones who have made Central Plains their home and then let them handle the distribution of the news.

 

[profreshinal]

In Cao'er first investigation she concluded it was thrown so I only considered thrown stuff.

treave is Cao'er still sure the "needles" were thrown?
what kind of pattern do the puncture marks have? they're all 3 close together right?

 

[treave]

I was under the impression the bulk of the tribe have scattered among Tujue people, not among Tang. Not a lot of them knew Han.

I understand that she wants to send out the word and then let people spread it, but how does she want to go about it? Hire messengers to relay the news? Travel there herself?

Where does one even start with a thing like that?

The ones in Tujue lands will be harder to contact and there's no point in actively approaching them unless she's ready to deal with the other tribes. For now she's recalling the ones scattered or wandering in Tang territory, who happen to be most of the more important and influential ones anyway, since they'd have been the ones who resisted being absorbed into the other tribes. As for spreading the word, they have ways of keeping in touch if they want to. She doesn't really need to do more than talk to a few dozen people throughout China.

You don't actually need to micro-manage or even poke your nose into this business for Yunzi, she's capable of handling it on her own now that she has the names and locations that she needs, and just travelling from city to city will naturally bring her to the people on the list. As such she doesn't have an urgent, strict schedule to follow, and will be fine with just wandering for sight-seeing as she originally planned, while contacting whoever she can along the way.

In Cao'er first investigation she concluded it was thrown so I only considered thrown stuff.

treave is Cao'er still sure the "needles" were thrown?
what kind of pattern do the puncture marks have? they're all 3 close together right?

She is still sure it is thrown. The pattern is in a line, and they aren't that close. Slightly spread out, but the different angles of entry indicate that they originated from a single point.

 

[Tribute]

Question: are we still in the "a confession is only valid if obtained using torture" period of Chinese history?

Was there actually such a period? Judges were authorized to use torture to obtain a confession, and did so without second thought most of the time, but I've never heard that any confession made without torture is legally invalid.

If I'm remembering my Judge Dee correctly, he had to torture people in order to get a valid confession (and if they were cooperative he would only torture them a little bit).

I might be misremembering, I suppose.

Rereading Judge Dee I might have it backwards: you need a confession to actually punish regardless of how airtight your evidence is, and you can freely use torture to get it, but I'm seeing him say stuff like "Confess now and I won't have to torture you", which seems counter to what I was remembering.

I am disappointed to find out that ancient China was slightly less ludicrous than I thought it was.

 

[Baltika9]

The ones in Tujue lands will be harder to contact and there's no point in actively approaching them unless she's ready to deal with the other tribes. For now she's recalling the ones scattered or wandering in Tang territory, who happen to be most of the more important and influential ones anyway, since they'd have been the ones who resisted being absorbed into the other tribes. As for spreading the word, they have ways of keeping in touch if they want to. She doesn't really need to do more than talk to a few dozen people throughout China.

You don't actually need to micro-manage or even poke your nose into this business for Yunzi, she's capable of handling it on her own now that she has the names and locations that she needs, and just travelling from city to city will naturally bring her to the people on the list. As such she doesn't have an urgent, strict schedule to follow, and will be fine with just wandering for sight-seeing as she originally planned, while contacting whoever she can along the way.

Ah, in that case, she can stick around with us no problem. Back to A1AA.