Death Calamity

"Yu'er is back! The evil beast is in his room worshipping gods!" Grandmother was quite sharp-tongued herself. With a crisp, chirpy "Oh!" from his aunt, seconds later the bedroom door was violently shoved open with a loud bang. The Elvis speaker immediately ceased its hymns of "pretty, pretty, pretty." Lying flat on the bed, Zhang Yuanqing turned his head toward the doorway and saw his aunt, whom he had not seen in days. Her meticulously styled hair fell loosely in slightly voluminous waves with curled tips, framing her round, delicate face. She wore beige high-waisted slacks, a white graphic three-quarter sleeve T-shirt, and flat sandals, with a dainty little black purse hanging from her shoulder. Though she had reached the ripe old age of twenty-five, she somehow managed to pull off the look of the sweet girl next door. His aunt stood at the door and examined him for a few seconds, rolled her eyes, and said with utter disgust, "Impure creature!" "What?" Zhang Yuanqing failed to follow. Tossing her purse aside, his aunt dashed over to the bed in a few quick steps. Dropping into a lunge copied straight out of martial arts dramas, she sank her waist and chopped a knife-hand straight at her nephew's skull, puffing out her cheeks in indignation. "Impure creature!" Zhang Yuanqing caught on—she was disgusted by the idea of him getting a girlfriend. "Impure creature! Impure creature!" Maintaining her lunge, his aunt pulled her hand back and brought it chopping down—thump, thump! *What the hell...* Having taken several solid chops, Zhang Yuanqing flared with rage. Flexing his core, he clamped his legs around his aunt's slender waist, twisted his body, and flipped her flat onto the mattress. Zhang Yuanqing rolled over and sat up, planting his rear firmly atop Jiang Yuer's round buttocks. Posing like Wu Song beating the tiger, he declared, "Jiang Yuer, since you insist on pushing me around, don't blame your nephew for mutinying against his elder!" Pinned to the bed, Jiang Yuer arched and squirmed her waist, but failed completely to throw her nephew off. Fortunately, she possessed a pair of long legs, which she flailed vigorously, her heels kicking—smack, smack, smack—against his back. Resigned, Zhang Yuanqing said, "I was out on a mission these past three days. All that girlfriend stuff was just a lie to fool Grandma." Hearing that, Jiang Yuer indeed halted her assault. Her eyes lit up. "A mission? What kind of mission? Quick, tell me!" Naturally, Zhang Yuanqing was not about to tell her. He snorted, "How could a mere mortal like you understand affairs of state? Don't pry." Hearing this, his aunt resumed her assault, kicking her heels backward—pat, pat, pat! Right in the middle of their scuffle, a furious shout barked from the bedroom doorway: "How old are you two? Messing around like children all day!" Grandmother stood in the doorway with hands on her hips, glaring at her daughter and grandson. Zhang Yuanqing scrambled off his aunt's back immediately, while Jiang Yuer bounced to her feet. Separating in a flash, both shouted in unison: "Jiang Yuer started it!" "Zhang Yuanqing started it!" Grandmother gave her daughter a cold glare and barked, "Get off the bed." His aunt obediently scampered down. Grandmother bent down to pick up the purse near her feet, clutching it in one hand while seizing her daughter by the ear with the other, hauling her outside. *Heh, Grandma really has a sharp eye.* Having scored a victory, Zhang Yuanqing hummed smugly as he got out of bed. He sat at his desk, powered on the computer, and logged into the official database, intending to look up this "Lian Sanyue" character. With his clearance level, he could pull up any Spirit Realm walker registered with the organization below the Dominator rank. *Bzz, bzz...* The Elvis speaker revived, once again persistently belting out: "You are so beautiful, you are so beautiful~" Evidently, Empress Sandao had inflicted no small psychological trauma upon it, and it still had not fully recovered. As Zhang Yuanqing typed "Lian Sanyue" into the search bar, he said to the speaker, "Pretty this, beautiful that—it's always this one song. Can't you play something fresh?" The Elvis speaker readily obliged. After a burst of static, a tune wafted out: "Chicken, you're too beautiful, ah baby~ Chicken, you're too beautiful, ah baby~" Zhang Yuanqing grabbed the Elvis speaker and chucked it under the bed. At the same time, his eyes fixed on the computer monitor as the search results flashed: *No matching records found for your query.* *No such person?* He frowned. *Anyone Brother Bing knew is unlikely to be affiliated with the official faction. Their expertise in props was at the pinnacle. If I remember correctly, Scholars only gain the ability to mass-produce props once they reach the Dominator stage.* Taking all this into account, Lian Sanyue was a Dominator-level rogue cultivator and had not registered with the authorities. After mulling it over for a few seconds, he dialed his life mentor's number. Once the call connected, he asked straight to the point, "Hey Lingjun, have you ever heard of someone named Lian Sanyue?" "Lian Sanyue? What's his relationship with Fenghuo?" *Why are you making the exact same joke the Demon Lord made?* Zhang Yuanqing thought. *Player boys really are cut from the same cloth—even their terrible humor is identical.* "You haven't heard of him either? Alright, got it." Just before hanging up, Zhang Yuanqing suddenly remembered something and said, "Hey Lingjun, if you ever find out I said something I shouldn't have—something that might, uh, involve your family—you've got to forgive me, okay?" Lingjun chuckled upon hearing this. "If it's about my stallion of an old man and that bunch of half-siblings, by all means, drag them into it! Better yet, ruin their reputations completely." *You hold such complicated feelings toward your father and siblings?* Zhang Yuanqing did not press further and hung up. He placed the phone on the desk, his mind made up. Even though Fu Qingyang had designated this playboy as useless trash who would never amount to anything, Lingjun had been a renowned Spirit Realm walker for a long time. Well-traveled and knowledgeable, he was nothing like a rookie who had only been practicing for two and a half months. If even Lingjun had never heard of the person, Lian Sanyue's status was virtually confirmed: A Dominator-level rogue cultivator who was never registered with the official organization. *The Scholar class is different from the others. It heavily emphasizes academic discussion and teamwork; conducting research all alone is an uphill struggle. Even if that Lian Sanyue isn't part of the official faction, they must have ties with the wider Scholar community.* *When I get time, I could ask around the three Scholar families... Wait, why don't I deduce it with the astrolabe?* He slapped his forehead, suddenly recalling the prop he had just acquired. He could easily use the astrolabe's divination abilities to gain a revelation, saving himself the trouble of hunting people down. *I'm a Star Official now, no longer a Night Wanderer. I need to adjust my mindset quickly.* Zhang Yuanqing stood up, closed the bedroom door, and locked it. Returning to the desk, he pushed his computer, mug, and other clutter aside. Reaching into the void, he retrieved a washbasin-sized disc. Cast from black iron, the astrolabe was heavy and pitch-black all over. The celestial constellations were etched across its face, filled in with silver lacquer. It looked just like a dazzling galaxy stretched across the night sky. Zhang Yuanqing pressed one hand against the disc and slowly channeled starlight power into it. Dazzling stardust glow flowed like water across the surface, illuminating the celestial constellations carved into it. The next second, the Big Dipper, the Purple Forbidden Star, the Twenty-Four Mansions, and other constellations broke free from the astrolabe, condensing in midair like a holographic projection. Promptly, the celestial stars rotated rapidly, churning into a resplendent stellar vortex. Over a dozen seconds later, the sea of stars that filled half the room transformed into streams of light that shot into the space between Zhang Yuanqing's brows, entering his sea of consciousness. A vision suddenly flashed across Zhang Yuanqing's mind. It was an ancient water town south of the Yangtze, complete with whitewashed walls, black tiles, and bluestone pavement. In a narrow, dilapidated alley, a handsome young man leaned against a wall, panting heavily as though he had just survived an intense battle. Beside the youth were the bloodless, scrawny Chi'ou, as well as Guan Ya, who was aiming a rifle forward with her lips pressed into a frigid line. He recognized this young man—Li Chunfeng! The backdrop was the Yinyang Town trial. In the next second, the image shattered. Zhang Yuanqing snapped his eyes open, stunned. The revelation from the divination pointed to Li Chunfeng? *Li Chunfeng knows Lian Sanyue? Right, he's also a Scholar, and a rogue cultivator to boot.* *Lian Sanyue is very likely a rogue cultivator as well, so it wouldn't be strange if they're connected.* *In fact, Li Chunfeng might even be Lian Sanyue's subordinate, just like how Xiao Yuan and Kou Beiyue are Uncle Wuhen's 'subordinates.'* *It's only natural for a rogue cultivator at the Dominator stage to cultivate their own team.* *Good thing I saved Li Chunfeng's contact info. Once Fu Qingyang comes out of the killing trial and I wrap up the chores around me, I'll get in touch with him.* The sun sank below the western horizon, casting a blood-red afterglow. At the dinner table, the five-member family was having their evening meal. His precociously mature cousin held his bowl and looked toward his younger cousin. "Grandma mentioned you got a girlfriend?" "Uh-huh!" Zhang Yuanqing gave a noncommittal grunt. Chen Yuanjun nodded slightly and picked up a piece of celtuce with his chopsticks. "If things are going well, you could consider moving in together. Take your girlfriend back to your own place. Eldest Aunt's flat is just sitting empty anyway." *If I really managed to win Guan Ya over, that wouldn't be a bad idea...* Zhang Yuanqing brushed it off, saying, "We'll see! By the way, Cousin, Grandma said you've been working overtime on a case these past few days? Did something happen again?" Chen Yuanjun swallowed his food, frowning as deep vertical creases furrowed between his brows. "Lately, Public Security Bureaus across various districts of Songhai have received multiple missing-person reports. No sign of them alive, no corpses found, and the victims are all young, attractive women. Because of the recent Bronze Sparrow Tower case, higher-ups are extremely sensitive to these incidents. The Municipal Public Security Headquarters called us in for a meeting to discuss it." *Young women going missing again?* Zhang Yuanqing frowned inwardly, but asked with outward composure, "Any leads?" Chen Yuanjun's furrow deepened, his expression turning odd. "We retrieved surveillance footage of the last places all the missing women were seen, and discovered that prior to vanishing, they actively avoided the surveillance cameras on their own. Our neighborhood interviews and investigations also found zero evidence of them being coerced. "So far, missing-women cases compiled across the various Public Security Bureaus have already reached thirty. We can't rule out the possibility that there are more that haven't been reported." He took a mouthful of rice and continued, "However, we've locked onto a suspicious person who showed up in the surveillance footage just before three of the women vanished. We're currently vetting him." *Sounds eerie—hardly like an ordinary disappearance case. If Spirit Realm walkers are involved, I'll have to step in. It's too dangerous for an ordinary person like my cousin to be mixed up in this.* With that thought, Zhang Yuanqing lowered his eyes and quietly activated astrology. A dazzling river of stars quietly emerged in his eyes, flashing and vanishing in an instant. He looked up again, staring at his "world-weary" cousin. Between Chen Yuanjun's eyes, a thick layer of bloody light was congealing. This indicated that he would soon suffer a bloody disaster, and judging by the intensity of the bloody glow... This was a death calamity!