Mifeng

A blue vein throbbed at Fan Sheng's temple as he fought to suppress his temper, asking only about the monumental event that had just taken place. "Zhongsun Mou was swallowed whole by the monster he was pursuing?" On the journey back, his subordinates had already reported what had happened to Zhongsun Mou. Fan Sheng was badly rattled as well. Zhongsun Mou had met with disaster while Fan Sheng himself was right here in Baishaqu. When the subsequent investigation began, it would inevitably drag him into the vortex. Everything he had done here would have to be accounted for, down to the last detail. Magistrate Tian's face grew even more bitter. Misfortunes truly never came singly. Would it be better if he simply resigned his post to the monarch and returned to his hometown? "Y-yes... That thing swallowed Lord Zhongsun in one bite, then burrowed into the sand and fled." No matter how much Fan Sheng detested He Lingchuan, he had no choice but to ask, "Was that truly the perpetrator you were pursuing?" "I didn't see it myself. The two of us were wrestling in the Lotus Palace back then, remember?" He Lingchuan shrugged. "Still, going by the eyewitness accounts of the locals, the beast that abducted Zhongsun Mou sounded an awful lot like the snail-toad Mai Xuewen used to hunt demons." Knowledgeable as Fan Sheng was, he found this baffling. "That man Mai has already fled. Why would he turn back just to abduct Zhongsun Mou?" "Who knows? Maybe he wanted revenge as well." He Lingchuan smiled. "Or maybe Lord Zhongsun got in his way too?" *Too?* Fan Sheng's brows knit in fury, about to tear into him for the sarcastic jab, but He Lingchuan cut him off before he could speak. "Now that even an Inspector has been abducted, what does Lord Fan think Lingxu City will do about this matter?" This was a grave question, and by far the most pressing issue at hand. Fan Sheng's fury was forced back down. After a moment's contemplation, he said, "Once this is reported, it will be a major incident. They will thoroughly investigate until every truth comes to light." First, the eastern imperial eagle delivering messages to the front lines had gone missing. Then, an Inspector investigating the case was swallowed in broad daylight. This was delivering two stinging slaps across Lingxu City's face, striking the left cheek and then the right. How could the Demon Emperor ever swallow such an insult? The dignity of Lingxu City brooked no defiance. "They will certainly dispatch special commissioners to investigate." The eastern imperial eagle's disappearance could still have been treated as an accident, but Zhongsun Mou's demise had been witnessed by thousands of people with their own eyes. Lingxu City would never treat it lightly again. When that time came, dedicated personnel would be assigned to this specific case, investigating and prosecuting with the utmost severity. It would not be handled as casually as Zhongsun Mou had. This was a catastrophic mess. He Lingchuan asked him again, "What about the people and physical evidence currently involved in the case?" "Naturally, they must all be detained. No one will be permitted to leave Baishaqu." At this point, Fan Sheng let out a gloomy sigh. It seemed that he himself was among those included. He had originally come here to repay a favor to the Zhongsun family, only to end up dragging himself into a quagmire of filth. Why had he brought this misery upon himself? Noticing his chagrin, He Lingchuan gave Fan Sheng's earlier explanation a bit more credence. Saying no more, he turned and walked away. "Are you all right?" Jiao Yu asked, seeing that half of He Lingchuan's clothes were soaked red. "Hardly. It hurts like hell." Getting wounded was routine for him, but that did not mean he was immune to pain, especially now that the analgesic effect of the Shituo powder had worn off. "Still, there's a place I need to visit first." Magistrate Tian was quite considerate; seeing that the special envoy was injured, he went out of his way amidst the chaos to arrange a carriage for him. He Lingchuan sought out Commander Lu to retrieve Jia Yu before boarding the carriage, heading northwest along the lake shore. *Aren't we heading right back where we came from?* The tiger lay by the window. Half an hour later, the Lotus Palace faintly emerged into view across the water. Jia Yu asked curiously, "Why has Lord Special Envoy returned here?" "I dropped something in the water and need to go back to retrieve it." The treasure he had been constantly longing for. Jia Yu immediately understood and said perceptively, "I'll row a boat back. Please wait a moment, my Lord!" The carriage reached its destination. Leaping down in rapid strides, Jia Yu splashed into the water and quickly swam into the distance. He Lingchuan did not have to wait long before Jia Yu rowed a small boat up to the shore. This was the Cen Residence's boat. Earlier, it had carried Fan Sheng over to ambush He Lingchuan, but after the failure, Jia Yu had shoved it away. Now he had rowed it back to carry the wounded He Lingchuan out onto the lake once more. The tiger still could not catch a ride; the boat was too small and he was far too heavy, so he could only lie on the shore and wait. Before long, the small skiff returned to the place where He Lingchuan and Fan Sheng had fiercely clashed. Both men were struck dumb by what they saw. The scene before them was entirely different from when they had left: Centering on where Fan Sheng had fallen into the water, everything within a ten-zhang radius was strewn with shattered lotus leaves and ruined petals; not a single intact blossom remained. This stretch of water looked as if it had been swept clean by a catastrophic storm. Aside from plant stems and shredded leaves, the corpses of waterbirds, insects, and fish floated atop the surface. The piranhas that had once been so overbearing and savage were almost all belly-up with their crimson bellies showing. A dozen or so were not even whole, and only two remained alive, slapping the surface with a lone torn fin and spinning helplessly in circles. They were not far from breathing their last either. Jia Yu murmured, "What happened here?" "Fan Sheng unleashed a life-saving ultimate move and nearly perished together with the lotus demon." He Lingchuan instructed him to row closer to where the Overlord Lotus had been plucked earlier, circling the vicinity several times. The location of the treasure indicated by the divine bone necklace was slightly different from before. Having an idea of where to look, He Lingchuan pinpointed the spot and slipped into the water once more. This time he dove straight to the bottom, searching carefully. The water was filled with messy floating debris, but He Lingchuan swam back and forth strictly along the lake bed. Jia Yu watched with wide eyes as He Lingchuan seemed to rummage in the lake mud for what felt like ages before finally surfacing. Helping He Lingchuan back onto the boat, Jia Yu saw that he was cradling an object in his arms. It looked like broken pottery—hard to tell whether it had once been an urn or a jar—chock-full of rotting silt, inside of which half a section of lotus root was buried. Using the lake water, He Lingchuan rinsed away the mud, discovering that the interior of the broken vessel was surprisingly pristine. There was not a single insect carcass or snail egg, only that section of lotus root. It was impossible to tell how this lotus root had been severed. While the cross section of ordinary roots was an off-white, this one was blood red, and a pale red viscous liquid still oozed from it, resembling human blood at first glance. "This is...?" Jia Yu found it hard to believe. "Could this be the lotus...?" "Probably the Water Spirit of the lake." Jia Yu had previously mentioned that the Water Spirit punished cheaters. When Fan Sheng ambushed He Lingchuan, he had hacked down a wide swath of lotus walls; the lotus demon knew at a glance that he had not come to compete honestly, but to cause trouble. He Lingchuan had guessed it possessed a foul temper, but he had not expected it to seize the chance while Fan Sheng was trapped in the spider web to vent its wrath and seek revenge, only to be wiped out in one stroke by the man's unleashed trump card. Over two hundred years of painstaking cultivation had vanished into thin air, leaving behind only this severed piece of lotus root. Yet, was it truly dead? "Let's head back." The skiff rowed toward the shore, and this time the divine bone necklace no longer radiated heat. It seemed he had finally salvaged the right thing. After reaching the shore, He Lingchuan transferred to the carriage and returned to the inn, giving Jia Yu an ingot of silver as payment for his labor. The soldier departed overjoyed, while the tiger headed off to find Commander Lu. He Lingchuan had the inn bring up hot water so he could wash away the silt, crushed leaves, and insect debris clinging to his body. After soaking, his wounds needed to be treated again. By the time he finished all of this, an hour had passed. He Lingchuan finally found a comfortable chair to sit in, only then retrieving the pottery fragment he had dredged from the lake to scrutinize it. In truth, the material was not pottery at all; it seemed like jade yet was not jade, like iron yet was not iron, emitting a clear, ringing chime when tapped. Seeing its black body and white rim, it had likely once been a jug-shaped vessel, but now barely a third remained, with only the base relatively intact. Since it was already a broken fragment, there was no fear of damaging it, so He Lingchuan simply tapped it twice with a small knife. *Clink, clink, clink.* Not a scratch. He Lingchuan slammed it against the edge of the table. With a sharp crack, the fragment remained completely unharmed, while the corner of the table sheared off. The material of this fragment was astonishingly hard! Indeed, how could something caught by the divine bone's discerning eye be anything ordinary? Yet the object possessed a matte finish throughout and bore no decorative patterns, or perhaps the patterned sections had already shattered away. Only on the underside were a few characters engraved: *Mifeng.* *Command the wind, and wind shall rise; summon the rain, and rain shall fall.* The first two characters were large, while the latter eight were small, all written in the ancient immortal language. "I really did pick up an ancient artifact." He Lingchuan glanced at it, then at the half-section of severed lotus root, guessing that this ancient artifact had shattered for unknown reasons and its fragments had fallen into Chao Lake, subsequently transforming the lotus growing within it into a demon. Turning it over repeatedly yielded no further clues, so he fed the fragment to the divine bone necklace. The divine bone necklace devoured it with delight, leaving not a crumb behind. How it managed to digest such a hard fragment was beyond him. Having witnessed too many bizarre things, He Lingchuan did not bother to dwell on it. As for the severed lotus root, its cross section riddled with holes, He Lingchuan casually tossed it into a washbasin. Only then did he close his eyes to rest, beginning to review the day's events in his mind. Ever since the courier investigation had ground to a halt, hiding Fu Songhua had grown increasingly difficult, and He Lingchuan himself had been ambushed twice. Back then, he had understood that his opponents acted without scruple because of their status as Lingxu City officials. If he wanted to turn the tables and break out of this passive position, he needed an opportunity. That opportunity had a name: Zhongsun Mou had to die! On the one hand, Zhongsun Mou had pushed relentlessly to take Fu Songhua back to Lingxu City to close the case. With him dead, no one would orchestrate that effort, allowing Fu Songhua to remain in Baishaqu. He Lingchuan's pressing crisis was instantly resolved. Fu Songhua had been on the verge of being exposed anyway. The Cen family's influence was no joke, and He Lingchuan had been powerless to openly obstruct them. On the other hand, Zhongsun Mou's death would inevitably enrage Lingxu City. Once this affair blew up, the Demon Emperor would not let it drop, nor would the Zhongsun family. The special commissioner dispatched to investigate could no longer brush things off or muddle through like Zhongsun Mou had. When that time came, every piece of evidence tied to the case would be laid bare under the sun and scrutinized again and again. The eastern imperial eagle courier case would also be overturned and reinvestigated. Could the tricks the Cen Residence had pulled still hold up? Would the new special commissioner not suspect them? One could say that the moment Zhongsun Mou died, the entire chessboard came alive. Extraordinary times called for extraordinary measures. Besides, it was Zhongsun Mou and his cohorts who had resorted to treacherous, lethal methods first. He Lingchuan was merely paying them back in kind. Thus, he had made use of the snail-toad egg. Wan Song had once confessed that if they wished to summon the snail-toad, they needed only to crush its egg and stand upon the ground. If it were its master, the snail-toad would naturally be obedient; If it were anyone else—such as He Lingchuan or Zhongsun Mou, ill-intentioned foes who had slaughtered its offspring—the snail-toad wouldn't bother searching for a more satisfying vengeance than swallowing them in one gulp. Its brain was barely larger than a peach; it was never meant for deep thought in the first place. During their wager atop Chaohu Pagoda, He Lingchuan had taken advantage of the moment to crush the snail-toad egg, smearing its fluid across the soul-snatching mirror before using his true power to bake it dry.