Watching the demon person's corpse lying on the ground, Ning Xiu finally let out a sigh of relief.
A real demon person was far more difficult to deal with than he had imagined. If he hadn't been strong enough, then an ordinary Champion Camp apprentice would probably have died at the hands of this Three-Faced Demon tonight.
A numb, tingling sensation seeped from the wound where the Black Serpent had bitten him. Ning Xiu immediately searched the demon person from head to toe, hoping to find anything valuable he could loot.
Three banknotes worth one hundred taels each, two bottles of pills whose effects were unknown, and three skull-shaped throwing knives.
That was everything the demon person had on him. Ning Xiu had no time to check the scene, so he stuffed it all into his clothes and quickly left.
Evil spirits were yin, so things of utmost yang were especially effective against them.
Many martial artists specialized in yang-type Internal Energy Cultivation so they could better fight evil spirits or treat injuries caused by them.
After returning to his little room, Ning Xiu immediately circulated the Internal Energy in his dantian to staunch the bleeding, then began treating his wounds.
Before half an hour had passed, wisps of black qi were expelled from Ning Xiu's wounds, and the numbing sensation faded with them.
"There's no way it was such a coincidence, meeting a demon person hiding in Chaotian Capital in the middle of the night. Looks like Spring Full Pavilion has some impressive methods for finding people."
Finding a new bottle of Trauma Medicine that had never been opened, Ning Xiu applied it to his wounds and thought to himself.
After bandaging his wounds, Ning Xiu took out the things he had looted from the Three-Faced Demon.
There was no need to mention the three hundred taels in banknotes—they were a real windfall. For over a year, Ning Xiu had been penniless, but today, by killing an evil spirit, he had finally made the first fortune of his life. It was truly cause for celebration.
When he pulled the stoppers from the two bottles of pills, a fragrant scent immediately wafted out. Just one sniff left Ning Xiu feeling refreshed and alert, his fatigue gone.
He had no idea what the pills did, but they were probably good stuff.
The three skull-shaped throwing knives were exquisitely made, with extremely sharp edges on both sides of each blade. They could slice a corner off a wooden table with ease.
Ning Xiu figured that when the Three-Faced Demon had realized he practiced a Hardening Skill, it had likely decided the throwing knives would be useless against him and abandoned the idea of attacking him with them.
The knives had come from a demon person's hands, so they weren't suitable to keep and use himself. Besides, Ning Xiu didn't know how to use throwing knives, so he planned to take them to a pawnshop and sell them when he had time. Since the demon person had carried them around, the materials they were made from were probably quite valuable.
After tallying up the spoils from searching the corpse, Ning Xiu turned his thoughts to another very important matter.
Spring Full Pavilion was harboring evil spirits and letting them disguise themselves as beautiful women to harm people. The power behind it was even connected to Marquis Wuyi, one of Great Shang's thirty-six marquises.
The whole affair was tangled and complicated. For a moment, Ning Xiu truly didn't know whether he should report it to Su Qianqian.
What if the Demon Subduing Bureau already knew, but had chosen to turn a blind eye out of deference to Marquis Wuyi's status?
What if the Demon Subduing Bureau was colluding with Marquis Wuyi, using Spring Full Pavilion to achieve some ulterior goal?
What if the Demon Subduing Bureau knew nothing about it, but Marquis Wuyi's power reached the heavens and he had countless death warriors ready to take revenge once the matter was exposed?
What if...
All kinds of possibilities surfaced in his mind, but in the end, Ning Xiu decided to report it.
He just couldn't make the accusation in his own name. That way, he could watch how things unfolded.
After all, no one knew whether the Demon Subduing Bureau had any connection to Marquis Wuyi, or what role it was secretly playing.
If he reported it under his own name and ended up stepping on the toes of some powerful figure in the Demon Subduing Bureau, he would probably vanish from the world within days.
And if the Demon Subduing Bureau had no connection to Marquis Wuyi, he could still keep himself out of the eye of the storm.
His strength was still weak. In this chaotic, dark age, he needed to keep a low profile—he couldn't be the first bird to stick its head out and get shot for the sake of justice.
Ning Xiu immediately found the brush, ink, paper, and inkstone left behind by the room's previous occupant. Holding the brush in his left hand, he wrote an anonymous denunciation letter in crooked, dog-scratching characters.
The Demon Subduing Bureau had a dedicated station for collecting information on evil spirits, called Heavenly Eye Tower.
Demon Subduing Captains returning from investigations could submit their findings to the tower in the form of letters or case files. Once the clerical staff had registered the reports, they would be circulated throughout the bureau.
Early the next morning, Ning Xiu secretly delivered the denunciation letter to Heavenly Eye Tower, then headed out with three hundred taels in banknotes.
Before, everyone had lived in Champion Camp, where food, clothing, and shelter were all taken care of. Ning Xiu and the other youths hadn't needed to worry about daily necessities and could devote themselves completely to training.
Now that he had been promoted to the Demon Subduing Bureau, those conveniences were gone. After last night's fight, when the Three-Faced Demon had ruined the clothes Lu Hao lent him, Ning Xiu realized that fighting evil spirits was a very clothes-intensive occupation.
So today, he planned to go out and buy a large batch of ready-made clothes to keep on hand for the future.
As soon as Ning Xiu stepped out of the Demon Subduing Bureau's headquarters, he heard the street peddlers chatting excitedly, their faces animated as they told one another something.
Curious, Ning Xiu deliberately edged closer.
"Have you heard? A demon person died on Tian'an Side Street last night. The way it died was gruesome. Someone squeezed its face until it burst!"
"What's the Demon Subduing Bureau even doing? How can there be a demon person inside Chaotian Capital? They've been negligent in their duties—they ought to be severely punished!"
"Don't go making such dangerous remarks, lest someone comes knocking at your door to 'check on your well-being.'"
Peddlers must have been the most well-informed group in all of Chaotian Capital. No one could say for sure how many of them there were in the city.
Most wore gray scholar's caps and carried square wooden cases on their backs. Men and women, old and young, could all take up the trade.
Ning Xiu, the one who had set it all in motion, stood silently among the crowd, listening to the peddlers describe the Three-Faced Demon's death. It was rather amusing.
But Ning Xiu had things to do, and it wouldn't do to linger and listen to gossip. Just as he was about to turn and leave, however—
A peddler suddenly said, "There's been no shortage of strange happenings today. The shopkeeper at Yun Family Cloth Shop in the south of the city had his youngest son's wedding last night. Who could've guessed that in the middle of the night, a strange cry would come from the bridal chamber? When Shopkeeper Yun barged in with his servants and maids, the newlyweds were both hanging from the roof beam."
"A wedding turned into a funeral? That's awful. For Shopkeeper Yun to have his hair turn white while burying his children must be utterly devastating."
Ning Xiu shook his head, deeply sympathetic toward Shopkeeper Yun, whom he had never even met.
No one else could understand or imagine how utterly devastating it would be to suffer something like that.
Ning Xiu squeezed out of the crowd and headed straight for a cloth shop by the roadside, intending to buy some ready-made clothes that would fit him.
Unexpectedly, the moment he stepped inside, he spotted someone familiar.
It was none other than his superior, Bronze Leopard Demon Subduing Captain Su Qianqian.
Su Qianqian wasn't wearing her Mysterious Silver Lock Armor today. In her apricot-yellow dress, she looked more like some family's young lady.
"Lord Su!" Ning Xiu hurriedly greeted her.
Su Qianqian turned around. "Oh, it's you. You've only just moved into the Demon Subduing Bureau. Have you settled in?"
Ning Xiu wouldn't dare mention that he and the other new recruits had gone out to enjoy themselves at Spring Full Pavilion last night. He could only nod. "It's not much different from Champion Camp. Thank you for your concern, Lord Su."
"I was going to give you a few days to settle in before assigning you a task. Since I've run into you now, come with me. It'll give you an early taste of a Demon Subduing Captain's work." Su Qianqian took a parcel from the cloth shopkeeper, then motioned for Ning Xiu to follow her outside.
"Ah, this..." For a moment, Ning Xiu was at a loss for words. He had only come out to buy clothes—how had he ended up being introduced to the job ahead of schedule?
But since his superior had already given the order, Ning Xiu had no right to refuse. He would just have to put off buying clothes until another time.
He hurried to catch up with Su Qianqian and walked beside her. Curious, Ning Xiu asked, "Lord Su, where are we going?"
"Yun Family Cloth Shop."
Ning Xiu froze. "The Yun Family Cloth Shop where the newlyweds both hanged themselves last night? Could evil spirits really be behind it all?"
Su Qianqian glanced sideways at him. "I didn't expect you to know about this. You're pretty well informed."
"That's about all the public information I have. If you know any Demon Subduing Bureau secrets, could you share a little?"
"It's hard to say for now. You'll find out when we get to Yun Family Cloth Shop."
Led by Su Qianqian, the two soon arrived at Yun Family Cloth Shop in the south of the city. The red silk and wedding characters still hung at the entrance, but the shop's doorman already wore a black band around his arm.
"I'm a Demon Subduing Captain of the Demon Subduing Bureau. I want to see Shopkeeper Yun." Su Qianqian spoke as she showed him a bronze token engraved with a leopard's head.
The doorman immediately ran inside. Before long, a middle-aged man with an utterly weathered face came out. His eyes were bloodshot; clearly, he had wept bitterly.
"Your humble servant Yun Heng pays his respects, my lord."
"Your household sent someone to report the case to the Demon Subduing Bureau last night. I'm in charge of it. Take me straight to the scene." Su Qianqian said.
"Please follow me, my lord."
Yun Heng's family lived in a courtyard behind the shop. After passing through the shop, the dyeing vats, and the warehouse, the three of them finally arrived at the large courtyard where Yun Heng's family lived.
At that moment, Yun Heng's family were all in the courtyard, wailing in grief.
"My lord, that room is where it happened. My son's body is still hanging inside. I'm afraid seeing it again will bring everything back, so I won't go in with you." Yun Heng pointed to a room in the courtyard and choked on his words.
Su Qianqian nodded, then led Ning Xiu over and pushed open the door.
At the sight before him, Ning Xiu was a little surprised. It was much as the peddler had described: inside the room, a bride and groom in wedding clothes hung from the main beam, nooses around their necks.
Their hands and feet were stiff, their faces a livid blue, and their eyes bulged out. Their tongues dangled from their mouths, limp and stuck to their chins—a truly horrifying sight.
Fortunately, Ning Xiu had seen even more terrifying scenes in Demon Subduing Prison, so he had some tolerance for it. Otherwise, he really would have been startled half to death.
The room was undisturbed, with no signs of a struggle. That ruled out the possibility that someone had killed them and disguised the murders as suicides.
The Yun family was wealthy, and they lived happy lives. They had no reason to take their own lives. There was no way the young couple had both chosen to die by hanging.
Just as Ning Xiu was about to quietly use the Spiritual Eye Qi Observation Technique to examine the scene, Su Qianqian suddenly handed him the parcel she was carrying. "Take the cloth inside and lay it around the perimeter of this room."
Ning Xiu didn't know why she was asking him to do that, but Su Qianqian was a Bronze Leopard Demon Subduing Captain, so she must have her own way of handling things. He did as she asked.
Soon, the entire room was surrounded by the cloth Su Qianqian had brought.
As Ning Xiu watched in confusion, Su Qianqian took out a small bottle and poured everything inside it over the cloth.
The cloth instantly turned red, and the stain began to spread.
Ning Xiu sniffed, then realized that what Su Qianqian had sprinkled over it was blood.
"Be careful," Su Qianqian reminded him for no apparent reason.
Just then, the blood-soaked cloth began to stir. At the center of the red stain, the outline of a baby slowly appeared, licking the blood off the cloth.
With the prey taking the bait, Su Qianqian formed a hand seal. The cloth in the room stirred despite the lack of wind, quickly wrapping itself into a bundle and completely binding the invisible baby.
"Waa! Waa! Waa!"
The baby's wails erupted from inside the bundle. They were piercing and deeply unsettling, as if something inside the body was about to crawl out through one's mouth.
Ning Xiu hurriedly circulated the Great Sun Profound Scripture, and the strange sensation in his body eased considerably.
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