The unbroken drizzle continued for three whole days, and a slick film of water had congealed over the bluestone tiles of the county office. Ye Yun was sorting case files in the duty room when the sound of rain outside was suddenly cut off by a hurried burst of footsteps.
"Something terrible has happened!" Fatty Zhang stumbled inside, his official hat hanging crookedly from his head. "Another person has died at Wealthy Wang's residence! That makes two!"
The wolf-hair brush in Ye Yun's hand paused slightly, and the ink spread across the rice paper in a blot shaped like a dark cloud. Wealthy Wang was the richest man in Chun'an County, controlling thirty percent of the county's silk trade. Even the county magistrate had to show him some respect. With someone like that suffering successive murders at his residence, it was no wonder the entire county office was on high alert.
Chen Qingzhou emerged from the inner hall with a gloomy expression, the scar on his left shoulder faintly tinged blue-purple in the damp weather. His right hand unconsciously rubbed the Yanling Saber at his waist as he said in a deep voice, "Yan Xiao Liu! Take Ye Yun, coroner Old Zhou, and two more sharp-eyed men. Go to Wang Mansion and investigate at once."
"Yes, sir!" Yan Xiao Liu clasped his fists and answered. His brand-new constable's waist tablet gleamed with a cold light in the dim duty room. Ever since breaking through to Ninth Rank, this newly appointed head constable carried a hint of fierce authority in every gesture.
Before the vermilion gates of Wang Mansion, the eyes of the two white-jade stone lions were made from premium obsidian, gleaming with an eerie luster in the rain. Butler Wang Fu had long been waiting beneath the dripping eaves. The moment he saw the constables, he hurried forward with an oil-paper umbrella. "The lords have finally arrived! Everyone in the residence is terrified, and the master has fallen ill in bed..."
Ye Yun followed Yan Xiao Liu into Wang Mansion, and the sight before them made everyone suck in a cold breath. After passing through three successive halls, the view suddenly opened up—the pavilions and towers nestled among exotic flowers and strange trees, while gilded lamp pillars stood along the paths paved with white jade. Even the railings of the covered walkways were carved with lifelike images of a hundred beasts. Most astonishing of all was the lotus pond in the center. Though it was late autumn, great swathes of blood-red lotuses bloomed across its surface.
"This Wang family... is far too extravagant." The young constable Zhao Hu's eyes widened. He unconsciously touched the iron ruler at his waist, as if confirming that he was not dreaming.
Ye Yun, however, suddenly stopped. His keen perception as an 8th Rank martial artist caught a trace of something unusual—the air carried a faint, indistinct reek. It was not the ordinary smell of blood, but more like rotten medicinal herbs mixed with the scent of old rust. Yet when he looked around, everything seemed normal. Even Yan Xiao Liu and the others continued forward with calm expressions.
"Brother Ye?" Yan Xiao Liu turned back and called out. The newly issued saber at his waist made a faint clinking sound inside its sheath. "What are you spacing out for?"
"Nothing." Ye Yun shook his head, but his right hand unconsciously pressed against his Storage Bag. Ever since he had entered Wang Mansion, the Nine Nether Spirit Ginseng inside had begun to tremble faintly, as if it had sensed something.
The scene of the crime was in the servants' quarters at the rear of the residence. Two corpses lay side by side on a door plank, covered with plain white hemp cloth. The instant Old Zhou, the coroner, lifted the cloth, everyone instinctively retreated half a step.
The victims' faces had twisted into something almost inhuman. Their eyes bulged as if they were about to burst from their sockets, their bloodshot whites framing pupils that had expanded into eerie oval shapes. Their mouths hung wide open, their tongues a purplish-black, as though some force had violently dragged them partway out. Most horrifying of all, both men had a strange smile frozen at the corners of their mouths. It was as if that smile had been carved into their flesh; even pressing down hard could not smooth it away.
"How strange..." Old Zhou put on deerskin gloves and carefully examined the corpses with his withered fingers. "No external wounds, no signs of poisoning, all the organs intact..." He pried open one victim's mouth, then suddenly cried out, "There are slight burn marks at the base of the tongue."
Ye Yun crouched down and pretended to adjust his boots while secretly circulating his Essence Qi to sense his surroundings. When his aura swept across the corpse's crown, he suddenly caught a trace of cold energy lingering there. It was definitely not the internal force of an ordinary martial artist. It seemed more like... the aura of some living creature!
"Were there any strange occurrences when the deaths happened?" Ye Yun suddenly spoke. His voice sounded exceptionally clear in the silent mortuary.
Butler Wang Fu wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. "They both happened around midnight. The first was the groom. The person sharing his room said he heard him laughing in his sleep. The laughter grew sharper and sharper, and then suddenly he... he stopped breathing. The second was the cook. A servant on the night watch saw her dancing wildly beside the well in the middle of the night. The next day, she..."
Before he could finish, a sinister wind suddenly swept through the passageway. The Hundred-Year-Old Locust Tree in the courtyard began to sway despite the lack of wind, its leaves rubbing together with a rustling sound like ten million insects whispering among themselves. Even stranger, the weeds beneath the tree all bent in the same direction, as though something invisible had rolled over them.
Ye Yun abruptly raised his head. In a daze, he seemed to see a human-shaped black shadow skim past the treetop. But when he focused his eyes, there were only several crows flapping into the air, their eyes glowing with an unnatural red light in the dusk.
"Stop playing at ghosts!" Yan Xiao Liu shouted harshly, though he could not conceal the tremor in his voice. "We'll stand guard here tonight and see exactly what manner of thing is causing trouble!"
Wang Fu was overjoyed at this and hurriedly ordered the servants to prepare guest rooms. Ye Yun used the excuse of surveying the surroundings to wander alone through Wang Mansion. When he passed a secluded courtyard in the western wing, he suddenly felt something strange.
A faded seal had been pasted across the courtyard gate, the cinnabar-written talismans already blurred beyond recognition. Looking through the crack in the gate, he saw weeds growing wild and an ancient well thick with moss standing silently in the center of the courtyard. Several fresh scratches along the rim gleamed a sinister dark red beneath the setting sun, as though someone had desperately tried to climb out of the well and left them behind...
Just as Ye Yun was about to take a closer look, faint footsteps suddenly sounded behind him. He spun around and saw a little girl of six or seven standing at the corner of the covered walkway, clutching a tattered cloth doll in her arms. Her pale face was utterly bloodless, and her pitch-black eyes stared fixedly toward the ancient well.
"Little girl..." Ye Yun had just begun to speak when she suddenly spread her lips into a grin—the smile was exactly the same as the expression on the victims' faces! In the blink of an eye, the girl's figure dissolved like mist into the deepening dusk. Only the dirty cloth doll on the ground proved that she had truly existed.
Ye Yun stood frozen in place, all the blood in his body seeming to congeal in an instant. The chill of late autumn crawled up his spine and burst into a fine layer of gooseflesh at his neck. He stared fixedly at the corner where the girl had vanished, his pupils shrinking involuntarily—in broad daylight, a living child had actually vanished into thin air like mist!
"This is impossible..."
He muttered to himself, his voice dry and unfamiliar. The experience of living through two lifetimes seemed so pale at that moment. His scientific understanding of modern society collided violently with the supernatural scene before his eyes. Ye Yun subconsciously pinched the web between his thumb and forefinger, and the sharp pain reminded him that he was not trapped in a dream.
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