The Truth Comes to Light

Last night, Niu Ben had caused no small commotion in Clearwater Alley.

It had drawn the attention of the neighbors all around.

The people near Clearwater Alley were all of the pleasure trade, and they usually looked out for one another. Though they had not dared disturb anyone during the night.

By morning, however, someone had asked the madam to go take a look.

After all, most customers left once they were done playing. Few stayed overnight, so knocking on the door in the morning probably would not offend the guest.

The madam was a fat woman with squinting eyes.

She was the one who had introduced Niu Ben and the others to Xiao Huan of Clearwater Alley. Though Niu Ben looked fierce and menacing, plainly no good man.

He was an officer of the Pacification Office.

How could a mere madam dare offend him?

Besides, Niu Ben had been generous with his money. The madam had no reason to turn up her nose at silver, so she could only agree.

Xiao Huan of Clearwater Alley was adept at dealing with every sort of person.

She was especially skilled at handling vicious guests, and she lived at the very end of the alley, which also suited Niu Ben's demand for a quiet place.

The madam pondered to herself.

But the moment she turned into the little alley.

An inexplicable panic seized her.

She gently patted her chest with a plump hand and muttered softly, "What's going on? Why is my heart beating so fast..."

She could make no sense of it.

The madam continued swaying her broad hips, moving deeper into the alley like an enormous potato.

When she reached the courtyard gate, she saw that it had been locked from the outside. Beside the gate wall lay a suspicious patch of dark red.

Panic gripped the madam's heart.

She stretched her ducklike voice and shouted:

"Xiao Huan!"

"Xiao Huan, are you in there?"

No one answered. The madam immediately pulled out a ring of keys from the back of her waist. All the houses in Clearwater Alley had been acquired by the madam and lent to the girls as temporary places to conduct business, so she kept a ring of spare keys herself.

She searched through the keys one by one.

The more anxious she became, the worse her hands trembled. When she finally picked out the key, she shakily inserted it into the lock. With a click, it opened. The madam staggered as she hurriedly pushed the gate open and went inside.

From the entrance to the main room.

Dark red specks stretched all the way through the courtyard.

Trembling from head to toe, the madam approached the main room's front door. A faint smell of blood drifted out from inside.

This was bad.

The ominous feeling in her heart grew stronger and stronger. She had worked in this world of painted boats and willow smoke for many years...

She had seen her share of perverted customers.

Those people found no pleasure in the act itself. Instead, they delighted in tormenting and abusing others, drawing a twisted, perverse thrill from it.

She recalled Niu Ben's maggot-like body, his ugly face brimming with viciousness and lechery.

A man like that was definitely a warped pervert.

Together with Xiao Huan's shrill screams last night, it only confirmed the madam's suspicions.

Her heart filled at once with grief.

Xiao Huan was surely facing certain doom.

Niu Ben had played someone to death, then locked up both the main room and courtyard gate before leaving.

Poor Xiao Huan...

At last, the madam's trembling hand twisted the key in the lock. With a light push, the wooden door slowly opened inward, groaning and creaking as though it could no longer bear the strain.

With trepidation in her heart, the madam slowly stepped inside. Then she poked her head in, and the hellish, bloody sight before her surged into her vision like a mountain flood bursting its banks.

Her mind crashed on the spot.

"Ahhhhh!"

A scream that nearly split the dawn rang through Clearwater Alley. The madam rolled her eyes back and collapsed stiffly to the ground.

Not long after.

Several brightly dressed, panic-stricken courtesans and gang enforcers who controlled this street hurried over.

They rushed into the courtyard.

Then rushed into the main room.

The madam's fat body lay motionless on the floor. Then everyone saw a sight they would never forget for the rest of their lives.

The room was full of spilled and dried blood. A naked, obese corpse, like a giant maggot, lay sprawled on the ground.

Even more terrifyingly.

This corpse.

Its head was a head, its legs were legs, its arms were arms.

All four limbs and the head had been severed from the torso, yet flowing blood visually connected them together.

At a glance, it looked like an elongated, twisted human figure.

Most horrifying of all.

Niu Ben's head faced the doorway.

The instant anyone entered and raised their eyes, they saw those two wide-open eyes, filled with unwillingness and venom, staring straight at them.

How could an ordinary person see such a scene and not be terrified?

The madam had fainted after one look.

The courtesans who came afterward also let out waves of shrieks. Three had arrived; two fainted.

The remaining one's mind went blank. She clutched the gang enforcer beside her for dear life, only then managing to keep her legs from giving out beneath her.

The two gang enforcers were both burly men.

They had taken part in street brawls between gangs and seen blood before, which was why they had not been frightened senseless.

At a glance, both recognized the dismembered man on the floor as Niu Ben, a Captain of the Pacification Office who patrolled this stretch of street.

As for the woman on the bed and the corpses of the other two men, compared to Niu Ben's earthshaking manner of death, they were no longer so conspicuous.

Someone from the Pacification Office had died. This was not like the death of some courtesan, something that could be brushed over with a few careless words before tossing the body into a mass grave!

The two quickly conferred.

One stayed behind to watch the scene.

The other turned and ran for the Southern District Garrison of the Pacification Office to report the case!

There was less than half an hour left before the city gates opened.

North of the city.

The sky had not yet brightened.

Yet many commoners, peddlers, merchant caravans, escort guards, and wandering martial folk preparing to leave the city early had already gathered here.

Shen Yi was mixed among them.

He wore a bamboo conical hat pulled low, revealing only a sharply defined jaw.

He wore dark gray hemp clothing beneath a black outer robe that concealed the saber at his waist.

Sitting at a tea stall, he looked no different from those Ronin wandering the martial world.

The reason he had come to the northern side of the city rather than the closer Southern District was that he had considered that if Niu Ben's corpse was discovered early in the morning.

The Southern District Garrison where Niu Ben served would surely be the first to receive the report. According to the Pacification Office's usual practice, they would immediately take control of the city gates and strictly investigate all those entering and leaving.

The first gate the Southern District Garrison could coordinate with the city defense to control would certainly be the south gate. For the other gates, Cui Kui would need to report upward to the prefectural Pacification Office for coordination, so the process would naturally be much slower.

Moreover, Li Dong of the northern garrison had never gotten along with Cui Kui. Presumably, he would not act with much enthusiasm either.

Shen Yi's chances of escaping the city through the north gate were far greater than through the south gate.

Just as Shen Yi waited.

News of Niu Ben's death reached the Pacification Office garrison, instantly jolting the entire garrison awake from its sleep.

Cui Kui immediately donned his gear in person.

And headed to the scene to inspect the situation.

The situation was obvious at a glance.

Niu Ben and two others were dead, while Shen Yi was missing.

Together with the wounds from the standard-issue Wild Goose Sabers on Niu Ben and Liu Fang, everything pointed to Shen Yi as the murder suspect.

Afterward.

The Pacification Office also discovered that Niu Ben's private courtyard had been broken into and ransacked. In Shen Yi's quarters, they found a bloodstained Wild Goose Saber and black uniform, as well as Old Lu the gatekeeper's eyewitness testimony.

The evidence was ironclad!

Cui Kui immediately reported to the prefectural office and requested that the city gates be sealed. Then he assembled every Captain and black-clad constable from the Southern District Garrison and angrily issued the order:

"Black-clad constable Shen Yi has murdered his colleagues Niu Ben, Xu Ping, and Liu Fang! He is hereby expelled from the Pacification Office! Everyone, move out and bring this criminal to justice!"

The Southern District Garrison of the Pacification Office surged forth in full force.

Yet while the entire city sprang into action, no one cared why Shen Yi had suddenly risen up to kill, nor about the life of Xiao Huan, that courtesan...