Following Chu Qiguang's instructions, Du Litian swaggered over to the bun shop a short while later. Tossing down the official warrant in his hand, he bellowed at the burly man, "Hey there, fellow! Are you the one who dodged this year's corvée labor?"
The burly man frowned slightly, but he didn't dare cross the bailiff before him. Resigned, he replied, "I live alone and truly cannot fulfill the labor service, but I've already paid the exemption silver to hire a substitute..."
Du Litian waved his broad hand dismissively, barking out a threat. "Still trying to talk your way out of it?! You clearly dodged your corvée! Come with me to the yamen at once and explain yourself properly! Seeing as you're alone in the world, pay another round of exemption silver and I'll let you off the hook." As he spoke, he spread his open palm flat against his chest, blatantly demanding a bribe.
A flicker of murderous intent flashed through the bun shop owner's eyes, yet he forced himself to hold back and continued trying to reason with Du Litian.
Watching Du Litian extort the shopkeeper, Lin Nan, from a distance, Chu Qiguang smiled and said inwardly, "Master Qiao, would you mind slipping into his bun shop to see what he's keeping inside?"
Qiao Zhi nodded. While Du Litian and Lin Nan were entangled in their petty squabble, the cat stealthily crept in through a back window. After scouring the premises, he uncovered a hidden trapdoor. Following the steps downward, he discovered a cellar.
The moment he entered the cellar, waves of bloody stench rushed at his nose. Qiao Zhi stared at two corpses hung up like slaughtered pigs, cursing inwardly, *Holy shit, is this bastard actually making human meat buns?*
Taking a closer look, he inspected the cellar's cutting board, cleaver, tables, and other utensils. To his surprise, aside from those two human corpses, the meat in the cellar used to fill the buns was overwhelmingly rat meat.
In fact, the two corpses were emaciated and gaunt, as though they had died of utter starvation or illness, yet not an ounce of their flesh had been butchered.
*Where the hell did this guy come from?*
Baffled, Qiao Zhi hurried back to Chu Qiguang to ask what he planned to do next.
Upon hearing the report, Chu Qiguang replied, "What else can we do? Call the police, of course... No, wait, report it to the authorities."
For common folk, reporting a crime to the yamen was notoriously difficult, fraught with endless bureaucratic obstacles. But with the aid of Wang Cailiang, Jin Fugui, and the others, Chu Qiguang had connections among officialdom. That very afternoon, a squad of yamen constables arrived on the scene, intending to search the bun shop.
Chu Qiguang and Qiao Zhi watched from their hiding spot outside. When Chu Qiguang saw that only a dozen or so constables had turned up, he groaned inwardly. *Lin Nan is a trained martial artist. Didn't I tell them to gather more men—preferably even the archers from the Inspection Commission? Why did so few show up?*
Qiao Zhi said, "Why else? They just want to pocket more plunder when they ransack the place, sharing it among fewer hands."
Even as the two conversed, a bloodcurdling scream suddenly rang out. Chu Qiguang's gaze snapped sharp as he saw a constable come flying straight out the front door, slamming heavily onto the ground with a sickening thud, groaning in agony.
Next came a series of violent cracks and pops as the constables collapsed all over the dirt with shattered bones and torn tendons. None of them could hinder Lin Nan in the slightest. Furious and flustered, Lin Nan stormed out of the shop, fuming inwardly, *I clearly paid my exemption silver! The human government is truly rotten to the core!*
The surviving constables scattered in panic, shrieking as they fled. Watching Lin Nan radiate ferocity, Chu Qiguang was somewhat astonished. "Just how strong is this guy?"
Qiao Zhi assessed, "Probably the fourth realm of martial arts, perhaps very close to the fifth. He didn't go all out, so I can't say for sure... He's making a run for it!"
Watching Lin Nan bolt like a cannonball and vanish in the blink of an eye, Chu Qiguang paused, then asked, "Did you detect any demonic qi?"
Earlier, Qiao Zhi had mentioned that as long as Lin Nan didn't fight, his demonic qi was undetectable. Chu Qiguang also recalled that Daoist Qingling's demonic aura had only been exposed when fighting Qiao Zhi on the mountain. Thus, he pressed Qiao Zhi again.
Qiao Zhi closed his eyes, savoring the lingering trace in the air before opening them. "There was a faint trace of demonic qi. That fellow is definitely a monster."
Chu Qiguang nodded and summoned the dog monsters, setting them on Lin Nan's scent to track down where he had fled. Dogs naturally possessed a keen sense of smell, and dog monsters surpassed ordinary hounds by leagues; this task suited them perfectly.
Chu Qiguang cautioned them, "This man is extremely dangerous. When tracking him, do not get too close. The moment you find him, inform me at once, and I will report it to the yamen!"
***
For the rest of the day, Chu Qiguang encountered no further trouble. He merely heard from Wang Cailiang that the yamen had convicted Lin Nan in absentia and pinned several recent cases of abandoned corpses and other crimes outside the county seat onto him, launching a countywide manhunt.
However, the authorities treated Lin Nan merely as an ordinary murderer, so they had not disturbed the Daoist temple.
The more Chu Qiguang pondered the matter, the stranger it seemed. "Master Qiao, have you truly never heard of someone like Lin Nan? Why would he set up a bun shop and kill people? What was his angle?"
"No memory of him at all." Qiao Zhi was equally puzzled, speculating, "Generally, senseless killings like that are rituals for some wicked cult. But I didn't find any sinister scriptures or tokens in his place..."
Chu Qiguang shook his head. "Forget it. Let's finish tidying up the room first. I'm moving into the new courtyard within the next two days anyway. Once Lin Nan is dead or captured by the authorities, I'll go round up and assimilate all the cat monsters in Qingyang County."
***
The following day at noon, the Shar-Pei Da Tou squeezed through a hole in the wall into Chu Qiguang's room, barking gleefully, "Godfather, we found that monster!"
"Oh?" Chu Qiguang's eyes lit up. "Where?"
Just as Chu Qiguang and Da Tou were speaking, a sudden commotion broke out outside the room.
Chu Qiguang stepped outside and saw a group of seven or eight men standing in the courtyard, confronting Wang Cailiang and his attendants.
The man leading the intruders was richly dressed and exuded arrogant disdain. He glared coldly at Wang Cailiang and said, "I'm giving you one final month. Surrender that land to me."
Intimidated by the man's overbearing aura and the martial artists behind him, Wang Cailiang hung his head and stammered timidly, "Young Master Hao, that plot of land holds my family's ancestral graves. How can we possibly surrender it..."
Looking at the young master, Chu Qiguang recognized him as Hao Yongnian of the Hao family. Hao Yongtai, whom Chu Qiguang had seen during his first visit to Yinglue Academy, was this man's older brother.
Hao Yongnian was also a student at Yinglue Academy. However, he had broken through to the third stage of martial arts this year and normally trained in the upper academy.
Today, Hao Yongnian had brought along his family's guards. Several of the thugs behind him appeared lean, robust, and thick-limbed; clearly, every one of them was a trained martial artist.
Chu Qiguang had already known that the county's Hao family was trying to seize the Wang family's land. Seeing them barging in to intimidate Wang Cailiang to the point where the youth could barely string a sentence together, Chu Qiguang stepped forward to mediate. "Brother Hao..."
To his surprise, Hao Yongnian shot him a venomous glare, radiating an aura as savage as a wild beast. "What kind of thing do you think you are? Don't flatter yourself that just because you practice martial arts at Yinglue Academy, you're worthy of calling me brother."
With that, Hao Yongnian hurled a punch that cracked like rolling thunder, arriving before Chu Qiguang's face in the blink of an eye.
As a martial artist of the third stage, his power, speed, and lethality vastly outstripped a first-stage martial artist like Chu Qiguang.
Chu Qiguang raised his arm to block. With a dull smack, an agonizing pain tore through his limb.
Without pause, Hao Yongnian unleashed a second strike, swiftly followed by a third...
When he first started practicing martial arts, Chu Qiguang had heard Qiao Zhi mention that a single realm of difference in martial arts conferred an absolute advantage. Unless one resorted to schemes and ambushes, there was no possibility of the weak overcoming the strong in a straightforward, one-on-one fight.
Now, taking several blows in succession from the third-stage Hao Yongnian, he felt the undeniable gap between their cultivation realms firsthand.
Muffling a grunt, Chu Qiguang blocked three punches in a row. Spotting the momentary pause as Hao Yongnian cycled his breath, Chu Qiguang immediately scrambled backward several paces. Cradling his red, swollen arm, he thought darkly, *This mad dog... Did he fracture my right forearm?*
Qiao Zhi tensed up. "How are you? Do you need me to step in?"
Suppressing the fury boiling within his chest, Chu Qiguang replied, "No. Neither the time nor the place is right."
Hao Yongnian didn't pursue him. In fact, he didn't even spare Chu Qiguang another glance. He simply shot a warning glare at Wang Cailiang, then turned and walked away. "Remember this: one month. Otherwise, today is only the beginning."
Chapter 48