The rain was still falling.
When Ye Qingxuan pushed open the courtyard gate, he moved so lightly that not a sound escaped, as though he were not a man at all, but a wisp of night mist wrapped in wind and rain.
The lamp in the inner room was still lit, a dim yellow flame. Through the window paper, it let out a trace of warmth.
He stopped outside the threshold. Rainwater slid silently from his hair and the hem of his clothes, pooling into a small puddle by his feet. He did not enter at once. Instead, he stood in the shadow beneath the eaves, closed his eyes, drew a deep breath, and slowly exhaled. That breath carried the chill of the rainy night, along with the murderous aura roiling in his chest, and scattered both into the darkness.
He took off his soaked shoes and stepped barefoot into the courtyard.
"Brother?"
His sister's soft, milky voice came from the inner room, still hazy with sleep.
Ye Qingxuan's figure stopped. He turned his head and saw Ye Caiwei standing by the doorway in a thin garment, rubbing her eyes.
"Why aren't you asleep yet?" He walked over, keeping his voice very low.
Ye Caiwei did not answer. Her gaze passed over Ye Qingxuan and landed outside the threshold where he had just stood. Mixed into the water stains he had left behind was a faint, nearly imperceptible smear of dark red.
Her gaze shifted back to his bare ankle. There, too, was a red line of grime blurred by water.
"Brother, your foot..." Her little hand pointed toward it.
Ye Qingxuan lowered his head and looked. His heart sank.
It was mud splashed onto him while he had washed by the river, mixed with blood. He had thought the rain would have washed it away completely, never expecting a trace to remain.
He casually rubbed it with his other foot, smearing away the mark. "I stepped in a puddle on the way. I must've picked up some red mud. It's late. Hurry back to bed."
He bent down and picked up his sister. The moment he touched her, he felt her warm little body. That warmth drove away the lingering chill clinging to him from the corpses.
After setting Ye Caiwei back on the bed and tucking in the blanket around her, Ye Qingxuan turned and went to the outer room to change out of his soaked clothes.
He had only just begun undoing his collar when an odor steamed up from the wet garments.
It was neither the freshness of rainwater nor the rank smell of earth.
It was a peculiar, sweetish stench mingled with rust and the decay of livestock entrails.
The smell of blood.
Chill rushed from the soles of his feet straight to the crown of his head.
He had thought he had covered every trace. The downpour had washed everything away, and the fire had burned the corpses, destroying the evidence. He had even remembered to bury the murder weapons and silver far away. Yet he alone had overlooked this.
The coroners of the Fengtian Division, those veteran clerks people called "smellers," could tell from a single strand of hair what the deceased had eaten for their last meal. How could the smell of blood on him, even diluted by rainwater, possibly escape their noses?
Cold sweat seeped across his back—not because he had killed someone, but because of this fatal oversight.
He suddenly thought of Zhang Lingxiao, and of Constable Tan. If, a few days ago, he had clashed with them while relying on nothing but hot-blooded courage, then even if he had been in the right, those slick old hands of the Fengtian Division would have picked countless faults out from between his bones afterward. His petty calculations as a nobody from the streets were as fragile as a sheet of window paper before the true web of officialdom.
Fortunately, he had been able to endure back then.
And fortunately, tonight, there had been this heavy rain.
He swiftly stripped off the wet clothes. Not daring to linger indoors, he carried them into the courtyard and repeatedly scrubbed them with the rainwater collected beneath the eaves. The icy water stabbed his finger bones with pain.
Only after the smell of blood had been completely covered by the rainwater and soapberry scent did he wring out the clothes and hang them beside the stove to dry.
After finishing all this, he returned to the inner room.
Ye Caiwei was not asleep. She stared at him with wide eyes in the darkness.
"Brother," she suddenly said, "you smell like rust."
Ye Qingxuan's heart tightened again.
He walked to the bedside and sat down without speaking, merely reaching out to gently stroke his sister's head.
"Nannan," he finally said after a long while, "from now on, no one will ever dare come to our house again, overturn our table, or spill our food."
His voice was perfectly calm, as though he were speaking of something utterly ordinary.
Ye Caiwei looked at him. In the darkness, she could not see her brother's expression, but she could hear the weight in his words. She did not ask where those ruffians had gone, nor what her brother had done. She merely reached out her little hand and grasped Ye Qingxuan's large one.
"Mm." She nodded hard. "I believe you, Brother."
Those three words soothed Ye Qingxuan's tightly wound heart, strained by the fear of what might have happened, more than any other words could have. He clasped his sister's little hand in return. It was small and warm.
He suddenly remembered something and released her hand.
"Nannan, tomorrow, people from the Fierce Tiger Hall—or constables from the Fengtian Division—might come to ask questions."
Ye Caiwei's body shrank slightly.
"Don't be afraid." Ye Qingxuan pulled her blanket higher, covering half her little face. "Whatever they ask, just say you don't know."
He thought for a moment, then added, "If they ask about Hu Jiudao and the others, say they came this afternoon and were very fierce. They pushed you down. Then I came back and cursed them away. After that, you fell asleep and didn't know or hear anything. Remember?"
Nine parts of this story were true, and one part was false. After being frightened, it was perfectly reasonable for a little girl to cry herself to sleep.
"I remember." Ye Caiwei answered softly, "They came and were very fierce. Brother came back and cursed them away. Then I fell asleep."
Ye Qingxuan grunted in acknowledgment and tucked in the edge of her blanket again.
He lay on his own hardboard bed, but sleep would not come.
The rain pattered against the window lattice. He lay with his eyes open, replaying everything that had happened that night in his mind.
From the moment he stepped out of the courtyard, to the moment he infiltrated Hu Jiudao's courtyard.
He had struck, killed, burned the corpses, and buried the money.
He examined every detail and every movement over and over.
That fatal punch had shattered the first ruffian's breastbone, leaving him no chance to raise the alarm. Very good.
The kick that swept out and broke the man's leg had carried slightly too much force, making him cry out. Next time, he could simply cripple the man's throat.
Using the Locust Stone to shatter Hu Jiudao's kneecap had been precise and effective, but the splattering blood had been the source of the mark left on his ankle. When using hidden weapons to injure someone, he had to account for the direction of the blood spray.
The final thrust to the throat had been clean and decisive.
He was like the strictest of craftsmen, inspecting his own work and searching for every flaw. This was not cold-bloodedness. In this turbid world, it was a skill necessary for survival.
He turned over to face the wall.
Hu Jiudao was dead, but the matter was far from over.
The Fierce Tiger Hall would not let this go. A Body Refining First Layer leader had died on his own turf. This was not merely a loss—it was a trampling of the Fierce Tiger Hall's dignity.
Duan Tianbao...
Ye Qingxuan's mind conjured the image of that hall master who appeared fair-minded but was actually ruthless.
Hu Jiudao was nothing more than a dog. To beat a dog, one had to look at its master. Now that he had killed the dog, its master would soon come knocking.
He needed to grow stronger faster.
At Body Tempering Triple Layer, with a strength of a thousand jin, one could only just barely protect oneself in Linyuan Prefecture.
He opened the scroll of the Heavenly Machine Codex.
[Locust Throwing Technique (Minor Accomplishment, Merit: 0/50)] [Indestructible Vajra Body (Perfected, Gauge: six inches, Merit: 0/500)]
His Merit points had been reduced to zero once again.
The next breakthrough required fifty Merit points. Advancing the Indestructible Vajra Body further would require the enormous sum of five hundred.
Money, and Merit.
These two things were the foundation of his ability to establish himself and survive in this world.
The deaths of Hu Jiudao and the others would certainly stir up no small disturbance in the Southern District tomorrow. The Fengtian Division and the Fierce Tiger Hall would both make their moves.
And he, Ye Qingxuan, an insignificant temporary constable without official registration, needed to hide beneath the disturbance and continue accumulating his strength.
Listening to his sister's steady breathing beside him, the restlessness born from slaughter gradually settled in his heart.
He closed his eyes. The fatigue of a night of killing and rushing about surged over him like a tide.
After dawn, a new day would begin.
And he, too, was no longer the same Ye Qingxuan he had been yesterday.
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