Black Stone Market

Three days later, at the hour of Mao.

Outside North Mountain Gate, the morning fog had yet to disperse.

Li Xuan stood on the stone steps, the Blood Wolf Saber strapped to his back and a bag of dried provisions and ten low-grade spirit stones hanging from his waist. He looked down. The mountain road wound into the fog, its end nowhere in sight.

Footsteps sounded behind him.

"Just you?" Shi Yong asked.

Li Xuan turned around.

Shi Yong had the heavy saber strapped to his back. He carried a bundle in his left hand and held a steaming meat bun in his right, chewing as he walked over.

Su Ying followed behind him. The little girl also carried a bundle, and in her arms was her War Hammer, its head taller than she was.

"Why are you two here?" Li Xuan asked.

"Approved by the Shadow Division." Shi Yong swallowed the bun and grinned. "They said this mission was dangerous, so one person wasn't enough. They added two more to make up the numbers. The Contribution Points will be split evenly."

Su Ying nodded beside him, her eyes shining. "My uncle said it would do me good to go out more. If I stay cooped up in the sect all the time, I'll never grow up."

Li Xuan glanced at her.

Su Ying was seventeen and at Body Tempering Realm Level 9. She had frightening strength, but she was indeed timid.

The last time they had been in the mine, the black shadow had scared her legs weak, and she had barely managed to escape.

"What about Zhou Wu?" Li Xuan asked.

Shi Yong's expression darkened. "Still lying down. The poison's gone, but his leg was saved. He needs three months to recover. Xu He..."

He paused.

"Xu He was taken away by the Shadow Division."

Li Xuan's heart stirred. "Taken away? Why?"

"They said it was to assist with the investigation." Shi Yong lowered his voice. "The Shadow Division wants to get to the bottom of what happened that night. Qin Henian is dead, the mine collapsed, and they took the Bone Staff too. The 'thought' inside Xu He has been removed, but he came into contact with a magical artifact, so they have to observe him for a while."

Li Xuan fell silent.

He still remembered what Shadow had said that night: the Shadow Division had begun investigating this mine three years ago.

Now the mine had collapsed, Qin Henian was dead, Xu He had been taken away, and Shadow's whereabouts were unknown.

What exactly was the Shadow Division investigating? How much did they know?

"Let's go." Li Xuan turned and walked down the mountain.

Shi Yong and Su Ying followed behind him.

The three of them descended along the mountain road, passed through the outer reaches of the Crimson Firmament Mountain Range, and entered the official road.

Vast stretches of farmland and villages lined both sides of the official road. The farther north they went, the sparser the villages became and the more desolate the fields grew. By the third day, there were no longer any broad fields of crops in sight, only scattered wasteland overgrown with weeds.

"We're almost at the border." Shi Yong pointed toward the vague outline of a mountain range in the distance. "Once we cross that mountain, we'll be in the Northern Territory."

Li Xuan looked at the mountain.

It was not tall, but it stretched without end, like a gray wall lying across the horizon.

Beyond the mountain was the road he had taken when he came here.

Iron Wall City, the barbarians, the battlefield, Wang Meng, Yun Qingxuan...

And that black-robed Ghost Face.

On the evening of the fifth day, the three arrived at Black Stone Market.

It was a small border town built against the mountains, with fewer than two hundred households in total. A palisade of rough timber surrounded the town. Two oil lamps hung at the entrance. Their oil was nearly spent, and the flames swayed unsteadily in the wind.

Li Xuan pushed open the palisade gate.

The town was very quiet—abnormally quiet.

There were no barking dogs or children playing, and barely any cooking smoke rose into the air. Most of the houses along the streets had their doors shut. Every so often, a passerby hurried past with his head lowered. When they saw the three outsiders, their eyes darted away and their steps quickened.

"Why does this place feel so full of Yin Qi?" Su Ying whispered, clutching her hammer tighter.

Shi Yong frowned. "Wasn't it supposed to have several hundred households? Why does it look like a ghost town?"

Li Xuan said nothing, sweeping his gaze across both sides of the street.

He noticed several details. Strange symbols had been carved into some door panels, like talismans meant to ward off evil. Black bowls sat on some windowsills, filled with the ashes of burned paper. Tattered clothes were piled in some corners, stained with dark-red smears.

Something was wrong.

"Let's find someone to ask." Li Xuan spoke.

He walked to the nearest house and knocked.

No one answered.

He knocked again.

Still, no one answered.

Shi Yong came over and shoved the door open.

The house was empty. Tables and chairs lay overturned, the stove had gone completely cold, and broken bowls and plates were scattered across the floor. The bedding on the bed in the inner room was in disarray, as if someone had hurriedly thrown it aside.

"No one's here," Shi Yong said.

The three of them checked several more houses. They were all the same.

Some still contained unfinished meals, already moldy and covered in fuzz. Other houses had bundles and valuables left behind, as though their owners had departed in such haste that they had taken nothing with them.

"This isn't right." Shi Yong lowered his voice. "It looks like... people fleeing disaster?"

Li Xuan crouched beside the stove in one household and picked up a pinch of ash from the bottom. It had gone completely cold, but the wind had not scattered it. That meant the people had left recently—at most three or four days ago.

He rose and walked into the courtyard.

A pile of burned things lay in the corner of the courtyard—not firewood, but clothes and paper. He stirred the ashes aside and found a scrap of cloth that had not burned completely.

Half a rune was embroidered on it.

A barbarian rune.

Li Xuan's eyes narrowed.

"Senior Brother Li?" Su Ying came over.

Li Xuan tucked the scrap of cloth into his robe and stood. "Let's go to the town office."

The town office stood at the center of the town. It was a two-story wooden building, somewhat more imposing than an ordinary residence. A signboard hung at the entrance, bearing the five words "Black Stone Market Office" in mottled lettering.

The door was ajar.

Li Xuan pushed it open.

Someone was sitting inside.

It was an old man with hair and beard completely white. He wore a shabby cotton robe and was dozing with his head on the table. At the sound of the door, he jolted awake. When he saw the three strangers, his expression changed, and he immediately reached for the saber on the table.

Shi Yong stepped forward and pressed down on the hilt.

The old man was no match for his strength. After struggling a few times, he gave up.

"You... who are you?" the old man asked, his voice trembling.

"Disciples of the Crimson Firmament Sect." Li Xuan showed him his token. "We were ordered to investigate a case of missing people."

The old man stared at the token for several breaths. The fear on his face slowly turned into delight, then sorrow, and finally tears streamed down his cheeks.

"You finally came... you finally came..." He fell to his knees and kowtowed. "Please, Immortal Master, save us! Please, Immortal Master, save us!"

Shi Yong helped him up. "Stand up and talk. What happened?"

Wiping away his tears, the old man told them the story in fits and starts over the course of half an hour.

It turned out that strange things had begun happening in Black Stone Market three months ago.

At first, a child who herded sheep outside the town disappeared. When the adults went searching, they found only one shoe and several pools of blood. They assumed a wolf had carried the child away and paid it little mind.

Later, more and more people began disappearing. Some had risen in the night, some had gone into the mountains to chop wood, and some had gone to visit relatives in neighboring towns—alive, they could not be found; dead, there was no corpse.

The townspeople panicked. They invited a Daoist priest to perform rituals, but it did no good. They pooled their money to buy talisman paper and paste it on their doors, but that was useless too.

A month ago, someone saw a black shadow outside the town. They said the shadow could move, and its speed was as fast as a ghost's. From then on, someone disappeared every night.

The townspeople began to flee. But of those who escaped, eight out of ten disappeared along the way. The other two fled to different places and did not dare return.

Now, only a little over thirty households remained in the town—old, weak, sick, and disabled people who could not leave. Every day, they shut their doors at night and endured one day at a time.

"That black shadow..." Li Xuan asked. "What did it look like?"

The old man thought for a moment. "Those who saw it said it was pitch-black, shaped like a person, but its face couldn't be made out. Sometimes its eyes would glow—green."

Green light.

Li Xuan and Shi Yong exchanged a glance.

"When does that black shadow usually appear?"

"After dark," the old man said. "It comes out as soon as night falls and leaves only when dawn breaks. For the past three months, no one has dared travel at night."

Li Xuan walked to the window and looked outside.

The sky had already darkened.

The last blush of red in the west was being swallowed by darkness.

"We'll stay here tonight," Li Xuan said. "Old man, find somewhere safe to hide. No matter what you hear, don't come out."

The old man nodded repeatedly and ran out through the back door.

Shi Yong shut the door, inserted the bolt, then dragged over a table to brace it.

"That black shadow," he said in a low voice, "is it the same kind as the one in the mine?"

Li Xuan shook his head. "Not necessarily. But the green light... that isn't a coincidence."

Su Ying hugged her hammer and huddled in the corner. "Are we... really going to wait for it to come?"

"If we don't wait for it, how will we investigate?" Li Xuan said. "The missing people, the barbarian rune, the green-eyed black shadow—these things are connected. They're not coincidences. If it doesn't come tonight, we'll wait here for three days. If it still doesn't come after three days, we'll search outside."

He drew the Blood Wolf Saber and laid it across his knees before sitting cross-legged.

Shi Yong sat as well, placing his heavy saber beside him.

Su Ying glanced at them, set her hammer on the ground, and sat down beside Shi Yong.

Silence settled over the room.

Only the wind outside the window and the occasional barking of wild dogs in the distance could be heard.

At the hour of Hai.

The moon rose.

Moonlight filtered through the window paper, casting several pale beams across the floor.

Li Xuan closed his eyes as the inner qi within him circulated slowly.

Suddenly, he opened his eyes.

There was something outside the window.

It was very light—so light it was almost inaudible. But Li Xuan's soul strength was 6.5, making his senses far sharper than an ordinary person's.

It was an extremely faint sound of footsteps, like a cat stepping across roof tiles, one step at a time as it moved along the roof.

He raised his hand and signaled to Shi Yong and Su Ying.

The two immediately tensed and gripped their weapons.

The footsteps stopped on the roof.

Then a black shadow swept past the window. It moved so fast that Li Xuan saw only a flash of black before the thing had already flipped through the window!

Shi Yong let out a low roar and slashed horizontally with his heavy saber!

The black shadow flickered aside, dodging the blade, and landed in the center of the room.

Under the moonlight, its outline became clear—

It was shaped like a person, but it was absolutely not human!

Black Mist wrapped around its entire body, thick as a living creature as it slowly writhed. Its face could not be seen. Only two ghostly green lights shone from its eye sockets.

Green light.

It was exactly the same as the thing in the mine.

Li Xuan drew his saber, and Blood Fiend Gang Qi instantly covered the blade.

When the thing saw the blood-colored light on the saber, it suddenly paused.

Then it spoke.

Its voice was hoarse, like rusty iron scraping against iron:

"You... have his... mark... inside you..."

Li Xuan's pupils contracted sharply.

It was speaking the barbarian language.

But how did it recognize the Wolf Soul Mark inside him?

Before he could figure it out, the thing suddenly lunged at Su Ying!

Su Ying screamed and swung her War Hammer at it. The hammerhead struck its body, but it was like striking a mass of cotton—the hammerhead sank in, then sprang back out. The thing was unharmed. Instead, it flowed along the handle and slid toward Su Ying!

Li Xuan moved.

The Blood Fiend Gang Qi left his body and transformed into a blood-colored blade beam, cleaving toward the thing's back!

The blade beam struck. The Black Mist exploded, and the thing let out a sharp hiss. It released Su Ying and turned toward Li Xuan.

The green light in its eye sockets flared, like two burning ghost fires.

"You... must die..."

It pounced at Li Xuan.

Li Xuan did not retreat. The Blood Wolf Saber swept horizontally.

The blade cut into the Black Mist. This time, it did not feel like cotton. It had struck something solid—something like bone, yet also like rotting wood.

The thing shrieked again. The Black Mist roiled violently, and it actually tore itself free from the blade before darting toward the window.

Shi Yong blocked the window and brought his heavy saber down.

But the thing was too fast. It smashed straight through the window lattice and vanished into the night.

The three of them chased after it.

Outside, everything was empty. There was nothing to be seen.

Moonlight illuminated the deserted street. Only several barks echoed from far away.

Su Ying's legs went weak, and she dropped to the ground, panting heavily.

Shi Yong cursed and slammed a fist into the doorframe.

Li Xuan stood in the courtyard, staring in the direction where the thing had vanished.

What it had said still echoed in his mind:

"It said you have his mark inside you."

His.

Whose?

Gurqin? The Shaman King?

Or—

Li Xuan suddenly remembered something.

When the shamanic corpse in the mine opened its eyes, it had also glanced in his direction.

At the time, he had thought it was a coincidence.

But thinking about it now, it wasn't.

They recognized the Wolf Soul Mark inside him.

Or rather, they recognized Gurqin's aura.

And Gurqin had said that his ritual artifact contained half of his power.

Then what was the relationship between these black shadows and Gurqin?

Were they his subordinates? His clones? Or the "eyes" he had scattered across the outside world?

Li Xuan didn't know.

But he knew one thing.

The case of Black Stone Market's missing people and the seal in the mine were part of the same thread.

And at the end of that thread stood Gurqin.

In another month, the seal would be completely broken.

Within that month, he had to uncover the truth.

Otherwise—

A wolf howl rang out in the distance.

Li Xuan raised his head and looked north.

The night was deep and heavy. He couldn't see a thing.