Chapter 1752: Reasoning from Effect to Cause
Enbo's information was easy to find. Even though his house had been bulldozed, just because of his direct connection to the name "Ember," players dug up every bit of his information without leaving anything behind.
Enbo was an orphan, raised by the whole village. Later, he caught a good opportunity during the district's development and was assigned a job by the government. But unfortunately, he injured his leg at work and became a cripple. From then on, he grew silent and withdrawn, keeping to himself.
He was in a slump for a long time. Later, government officials came to comfort him and urged him to work hard, saying that if he had a job, they could introduce him to someone. Enbo pulled himself together for a while and took on some work that didn't require flexible legs. After discovering the large amber, he became sought after for a time. However, he seemed uninterested in the girls' advances and the government's arrangements, rejecting them all outright. He even flew into a rage and hurt someone when repeatedly pursued and pressured. After that, he stopped working altogether, lived on welfare, had no family or friends, often drank heavily, and died of alcoholism within a few years.
An ordinary and humble life.
There were hardly any women within his social circle, and he himself had no connection to young girls. So trying to find the "Ember Maiden" from this angle yielded almost no clear leads. It could only be a carpet search, like in Dingding Flower Town and other places called "Ember."
Unfortunately, this method didn't work. Players came and went in waves, and no one found any clues at all.
After learning the origin of the name "Ember," players naturally first went to the mine where the large amber was discovered, then to Enbo's demolished residence, and then followed the clues from locals—true or false—about Master Solan.
It was basically a blind search, since no one knew who the "Maiden" actually referred to, not even someone like Xu Huo, who had stumbled upon clues by chance.
The identity of the "Maiden" couldn't be confirmed until the painting was revealed. Many parts of his chain of reasoning lacked necessity, because each link had too many possibilities to eliminate one by one. At this point, the only option was to try reasoning backward from the effect to the cause.
Assuming that "Xiaxi Duolaiti" was the "Maiden" and Jiusang City was "Ember," then the blind old woman who transferred her son's ashes to the neighboring Sanhuicheng was one of the participants, Master Solan was a witness, and Funiu Village at that time, after Xiaxi's disappearance, was not a suitable hiding place. It was more reasonable to flee to a nearby city. In other words, the final place where "Xiaxi Duolaiti" stayed must have been Ember Town.
Master Solan knew about this. Given her sudden change in attitude toward the painting, she likely didn't learn about it long after the incident. And these two places were so close. At the time, the blind old woman couldn't visit her two sons due to illness. It wasn't strange that Solan, who had grown up under her care, would think of going in her stead. After more than a decade of companionship, Xu Huo also assumed here that Master Solan knew the final resting place of the blind old woman's two sons.
So, sorting it out: the old woman used illness as an excuse to secretly go to Funiu Village, while Master Solan coincidentally went there to sweep the graves, thus coming into contact with the kidnapping case. For some reason, she knew but didn't expose it, which led to the painting "Ember Maiden."
Affection for the blind old woman and sympathy for the victim's family could both be reasons why Master Solan buried the secret. As for Xiaxi Duolaiti, she might have been powerless to help...
The blind old woman's target was Xiaxi Duolaiti. From the cleanup afterward, this wasn't a spur-of-the-moment decision but a premeditated plan. The old woman had been in Dingding Flower Town all along. Whether she herself eventually became a player or not, she definitely had companions.
These companions could easily keep track of Xiaxi Duolaiti's movements, making it convenient for both surveillance and action. Over 110 years ago, technology in Zone 019 was developing rapidly. Monitoring movements wasn't hard; the difficulty was where to hide the kidnapped person afterward. And near Funiu Village, there was no place more suitable than Ember Town.
The surrounding roads and caves were mostly mines controlled by mining groups. If someone was searching, these places were the most likely targets, and they were also easier to search. The first choice would definitely be these locations. According to the information given by Old Sir Yue, the kidnappers of Xiaxi Duolaiti left no traces. Normally, people would think it was the work of players. And dueling with players required speed, accuracy, and ruthlessness—on both sides. At the time, Mattri Duolaiti probably thought someone was making a demand through this.
But after months of searching with no results, this didn't fit the pattern of player actions. It seemed more like a simple act of revenge against Mattri Duolaiti.
The district government couldn't find the person. Judging from "Ember Maiden," they might not have even found the body, indicating that the kidnapper never intended to show their face from start to finish. Such decisiveness usually had two possibilities: one, they had no intention of negotiating, their goal was just kidnapping or murder; two, the kidnapper was too weak, and revealing themselves carried too much risk, not enough to deal a heavy blow to Mattri Duolaiti.
In fact, not recovering the body did have a huge impact on Mattri Duolaiti. From the later information in the USB drive, Duolaiti used a lot of connections to push for the positioning chip. And Xiaxi Duolaiti's silent disappearance also made other government officials feel an unprecedented threat, because the people watching them from the shadows didn't even intend to communicate. This factional struggle lasted for over a decade, forcing Mattri Duolaiti to resign early.
Therefore, it could be concluded that the kidnapper was weak and had companions. To deal the heaviest blow to the district government, the kidnapper deliberately left Xiaxi Duolaiti's fate unknown. They might even have, out of some vengeful mentality, intentionally placed Xiaxi Duolaiti back in Funiu Village or a place not far from it.
Combining this information, the first possible location for the "Ember Maiden" was the grave of the blind old woman's sons. But because the blind old woman had once protested at the district government and the mining group, she was a relatively obvious target. She must have been investigated by government players afterward—Dingding Flower Town should have been checked too, otherwise how could the hospital have such detailed records? Xu Huo had already ruled this out earlier.
After ruling out the grave, the second possibility was "Ember Town." At that time, there must have been companions of the old woman in Ember Town. Given that there were no famous players in Ember Town, and because a hiding place that no one could find needed to be arranged, this companion was most likely a local of Ember Town.
Involving locals meant a very large number of people. But the key target was people related to the victims at that time.