Zhu Gui looked at the young Demon Suppression Envoy before him.
The man appeared to be in his twenties, with strikingly handsome features.
At least among the young men Zhu Gui had seen, he stood in a league of his own.
Zhu Gui had actually heard of this young man before.
He had heard the story of how he had turned back from the wrong path.
What good fortune.
Zhu Gui sighed inwardly.
He, too, had once been obsessed with the Dao.
He had once stood before the gates of a sect, but unfortunately, he lacked the aptitude for cultivation.
Of course.
Part of the reason Zhu Gui paid attention to him was that they both came from the same place.
"Steward Zhu!"
"I am Song Chengan. I have come under orders to deal with the matter of the monster harming people here."
"I ask Steward Zhu to tell me about this man in detail."
Zhu Gui said, "Lord Song, please come in and sit. I will explain it to you in detail."
Song Chengan nodded.
Zhu Gui poured Song Chengan a cup of tea. "I heard that Lord Song's father came from Sanjiao Prefecture?"
"May I ask which part of Sanjiao Prefecture?"
"Heard?" Song Chengan was somewhat puzzled upon hearing this.
"Steward Zhu, even here, you have heard of me?"
Zhu Gui smiled. "Before, naturally, I had not."
"But that day, when Lord Song beat that evil man who had harmed others to death with a staff in the street, your name spread throughout Spirit Mound."
"Then there were those with loose tongues who spread every matter from Lord Song's past."
"For instance, how Lord Song turned back from the wrong path, or how you happened upon a Daoist scripture and embarked upon the path of cultivation."
Song Chengan fell silent.
That bunch of gossipmongers.
Turned back from the wrong path.
What turning back from the wrong path was there?
Why did the Buddhists say that turning back was the shore? Because it was hard to turn back.
Could anyone really believe that a gambling addict could turn back?
"So that was it."
"My father was from Tiancui County."
"Tiancui County, Song?" Zhu Gui said.
"Could Lord Song be from the Tiancui Song Family?"
"The Tiancui Song Family?"
This time, it was Song Chengan's turn to be puzzled.
Song Cui had said that his parents indeed came from the Song Family of Tiancui County.
But judging from Zhu Gui's reaction, the Tiancui Song Family seemed quite famous?
"I am indeed from the Tiancui Song Family."
"Steward Zhu knows of the Tiancui Song Family?"
Zhu Gui cupped his fists. "It seems Zhu has failed to recognize Mount Tai before his eyes."
"I never expected Lord Song to come from the Tiancui Song Family."
"Yet from Lord Song's manner, it seems you do not know much about your own lineage?"
Of course he did not know much.
He had never even been to the Song Family.
And from his memories, neither his father nor mother had ever spoken of returning to acknowledge their ancestors.
They had not even mentioned it.
It was as though that Song Family did not exist.
Could it be that the family had disapproved of his father marrying his mother, so his father had taken his mother and left home?
This thought could not help surfacing in Song Chengan's mind.
In those storybooks, wealthy young masters who believed love stood above all else would take the women they loved and fly far away together.
In other words, they eloped.
But that did not seem right either.
Even if they had eloped.
They might have hidden at first.
But after three or five years, or ten years, surely they should have gone back for a look.
To see their parents.
To see their relatives.
After all, time slipped away easily. How many stretches of three or five years could a person have?
How could they remain out of contact forever, not even mentioning them?
Could there be some hidden reason behind it?
Perhaps they had been hurt too deeply back then.
Song Chengan spun an entire drama in his mind.
That was right.
His sister seemed to have mentioned that their parents had some grievances with the family back then.
Song Chengan said, "To be honest, Steward Zhu, my father had some conflicts with his family back then."
"Conflicts?"
Zhu Gui said, "They were probably some trifling matters from long ago. How could there be overnight hatred between relatives? Besides, now that Young Master Song has embarked on the path of cultivation, you are a promising younger generation worth nurturing. So long as you return and explain things to the elders of the family, any grievance will melt away."
Song Chengan nodded.
The reasoning was sound.
But the problem was that his old man had never even mentioned this Song Family. It was obvious that he harbored deep resentment toward the lineage.
If he, as his old man's son, went eagerly to acknowledge his ancestors the moment he heard how formidable the Song Family was, his old man would probably be angered to death even in the underworld.
"May I ask what background this Song Family has?"
Song Chengan was somewhat curious about his parents' lineage.
Zhu Gui's expression became reverent.
"The Tiancui Song Family."
"They rose to prominence in Tiancui County of Sanjiao Prefecture. Their ancestors once produced a Great Cultivator at the Half-step Nascent Soul level."
"Now, Song Yuanjiao, the son of the Song Family's Clan Leader, ranks ninth among the younger generation. He is a heaven-blessed prodigy with hopes of reaching the Golden Core within a century."
"Half-step Nascent Soul?"
Song Chengan clicked his tongue.
Did his father really have such an impressive background?
If he remembered correctly.
The founding emperor of the Chen Kingdom had only been a cultivator of the Nascent Soul Realm.
Moreover.
Ever since the previous head of the Daoist sect had passed away, no one in the Chen Kingdom had attained the Nascent Soul fruition for a full hundred years.
"Lord Song has achieved so much at such a young age. One day, you will surely return to acknowledge your ancestors."
Song Chengan did not respond to that.
He had no intention at all of acknowledging his ancestors.
No matter how formidable this Song Family was.
Song Chengan did not wish to continue this topic.
"Steward Zhu is also from Sanjiao County, correct?"
Song Chengan said.
"That is right. I am from neighboring Shangnan County."
"A flood struck us back then."
"A flood?"
Song Chengan was somewhat curious.
"Steward Zhu, did you witness that great flood?"
Even after all these years, terror still lingered on Zhu Gui's face. "Heaven and earth overturned, and cries of misery covered the land."
He waved his hand. "Let us not speak of that."
"Lord Song came because of Qi Feng's matter, correct?"
"Correct."
Song Chengan nodded.
Qi Feng was the person mentioned on the mission scroll this time.
"Steward Zhu, please tell me about him in detail."
Only then did Song Chengan remember that he had come to deal with a monster harming people, not to reminisce with Steward Zhu, who was practically half a fellow townsman.
"This man was originally a lazy layabout in our quarter."
"He was gluttonous and idle."
"When he had nothing to eat, he would fish for a day. Once he had food, he would wander the streets every day, gambling with those other idlers."
"He was over forty and did not even have a woman."
"The trouble began because of that matter of not having a woman."
"He was gambling in the street, and somehow he started arguing with someone. It seemed that someone had lost money and refused to pay."
"That man used this to mock him, cursing that he would die without descendants."
"So Qi Feng began fighting with that man."
"They made such a scene that it reached me. I gave each of them fifty strokes of the board, warned them both, then sent them away."
"But unexpectedly, a few days later, someone saw a woman coming and going from Qi Feng's house."
"Later, I heard that Qi Feng had somehow obtained a woman from somewhere."
"You know, when an unfamiliar person settles in the quarter, I naturally have to ask about them so I can report it to the Government Office."
"So I went there."
"Yet I never expected that once I went, I would find a dead man inside Qi Feng's house."
"It was that rascal idler who had clashed with Qi Feng while gambling."
"A life had been lost, so I dared not be careless. I immediately sent people to find Qi Feng."
"Why did you not report it to the authorities?" Song Chengan was puzzled when he heard this.
After all, the docks were very close to Lingqiu City, and nominally this place fell directly under Lingqiu County's jurisdiction.
Zhu Gui shook his head. "The magistrate has always found the Refugee Quarter troublesome and does not like handling its affairs."
Song Chengan immediately understood.
If the Refugee Quarter were a clan.
Then Steward Zhu was its Clan Leader.
That magistrate, Xiong Huaiyi, avoided trouble whenever he could, leaving everything for the Refugee Quarter to settle itself.
"Then did you find Qi Feng?"
Zhu Gui shook his head.
"In this quarter, people from every walk of life, rascals, and idlers all have to give Zhu some face. Yet that is what is strange about this."
"I mobilized nearly everyone and turned the Refugee Quarter upside down, digging three feet into the ground, yet we still could not find Qi Feng."
"That alone would have been one thing, but Qi Feng seemed to have gone mad. Over the past few days, he killed several people in succession, all of them people who had once held grudges against him."
"How did you discover that he was a monster?"
If an ordinary person committed a crime, it would be handled by the County Yamen and would not be passed to the Demon Suppression Division.
Since it had been handed over to the Demon Suppression Division, the only possibility was that someone had confirmed Qi Feng had completely turned into a monster.
"It was during Qi Feng's most recent crime."
"He killed a man who had occupied half a mu of his land."
"That man slaughtered pigs on the street and was usually vicious. Years ago, seeing that Qi Feng was all alone, he had seized half a mu of Qi Feng's fields."
"Qi Feng killed both him and his woman."
"But his child escaped and said that Qi Feng had turned into a monster."
"We learned from that child that Qi Feng still had the upper body of a man, but his feet had already turned into a fish tail?"
"The upper body of a man and the lower body of a fish tail?"
"Exactly."
"The moment we heard that, how could we not know that he had become a monster? We hurriedly sent someone to report the matter to the Demon Suppression Division."
"It seems he was tainted by monster blood and underwent monsterization."
"Take me to see that child."
"Officer!"
"Officer!"
"Qi Feng killed my father and mother!"
"You must avenge my parents!"
The house next door.
Song Chengan saw the child being kept under guard.
"Don't panic yet. Tell me first, what did the Qi Feng you saw look like?"
"You have to kill him!"
"He's rotten to the core!"
"Don't panic yet."
Song Chengan finally left.
He hadn't gotten any useful information. The child had kept cursing Qi Feng with every vicious word he knew and demanding revenge from Qi Feng for his parents.
"Take me to see those bodies, then we'll go to Qi Feng's house."
Before you continue