Suspicious

Iwamoto nodded. "Have them arrange a bed for you so you can rest. My room is at the very back. If you need anything, have them pass the message to me."

With the guards' help, Lin Nan had his wound re-dressed and bandaged. After they tied it off, he lay down and rested for a little over ten minutes.

"How many people are watching downstairs? Don't let that Kyoraku brat use this chance to pull anything!" He had been resting with his eyes closed when he suddenly opened them and asked.

"Don't worry. There are five people watching downstairs. Young Master Kyoraku won't be able to make a fuss." A guard in black answered from nearby.

Lin Nan nodded, reassured. "How many of us are here? If people from the Kyoraku House come looking, can we beat them?"

"Fifteen, counting you. Don't worry, they definitely won't find us. There are walls on all four sides above us, and Lord Iwamoto used Kido to disguise the place. It won't be easy to find."

"Oh, then I'm relieved." Lin Nan nodded thoughtfully, then suddenly got up. "No, the more I think about it, the angrier I get. I need to go down and beat him up again!"

As he spoke, he rose with an angry huff and patted the bandages around his abdomen. "They're wrapped pretty tight. They won't come loose this time!"

The guards started to stop him, but Lin Nan cut them off with a single remark.

"Boss Iwamoto already gave me the okay. As long as I don't kill him, I can beat him however I want. Don't worry, I'll be fine."

In the basement, several guards were dozing in the dark corners. When they heard footsteps, they all opened their eyes and looked over.

"You lot, stay by the stairs. I don't want him running off while I'm beating him up." Lin Nan seemed to have recovered his strength. He casually waved at them.

The guards exchanged glances, then obediently took up positions by the stairs.

Lin Nan crossed the spacious, dim basement and walked up to Kyoraku, who was sitting stiffly upright. He met his gaze and grinned.

"Here I am to beat you up. Looks like you're all ready? We're certainly on the same wavelength!"

The five guards stood in a row at the dark stairway entrance. In the faint light behind Lin Nan, they stared at him with sullen faces.

How could Boss Iwamoto let a little brat like this act so arrogantly? And the kid was injured, too. If he got beaten up while trying to rough up the young master of the Kyoraku House, that would be perfectly normal, wouldn't it?

The men had known one another for years and worked together like clockwork. They exchanged glances in the darkness, understood one another without a word, and began cracking their knuckles.

Kyoraku raised his head and looked coldly at Lin Nan. "Since you dared to come back, do you dare to take these handcuffs off me so we can fight fair?"

Lin Nan slapped his bandaged stomach with gusto, grabbed Kyoraku by the collar, and lifted him up. "I came here to beat you up. Why the hell would I care about fighting fair?"

Kyoraku glared at Lin Nan's shameless grin. His battered body summoned every last bit of strength and shoved him hard. "Get away from me, you disgusting bastard!"

As they grappled, the badly injured Lin Nan was clearly no match for Kyoraku, who had only superficial wounds. He couldn't stop himself from stumbling backward, and in the end, their scuffle knocked over the oil lamp behind him.

Clang—

The five guards watched as the lamp toppled off the small table by the wall, and its tiny flame went out at once.

Here's our chance!

All five sprang into action, charging toward Lin Nan with nothing but their fading memories of where he had been before the light disappeared!

In the darkness, dull thuds, muffled groans, and heavy falls rang out one after another, followed by a flurry of blows.

At that moment, Kuramoto happened to be passing upstairs when he heard the commotion from the basement. Curious, he went to the stairwell, opened the door, and called down, "What's going on down there? Is there trouble?"

"It's fine!" one of the guards answered from the basement. "The new guy's just beating up the prisoner!"

Kuramoto frowned. "We weren't supposed to beat him to death... He's laying into him pretty hard. The new guy's vicious!"

After a moment's thought, he turned and headed toward Iwamoto's room. It was always best to report things first.

Inside the basement, the rapid blows gradually died down. Only a few ragged breaths remained.

"Hah... Hah... At least we've beaten this kid half to death..."

"Yeah... It's been ages since I've had this much fun beating someone up..."

"Just now... which one of you hit me too...?"

"No idea... Hey, what's this?"

In the darkness, they all suddenly felt something heavy in their hands.

Kuramoto knocked and entered Iwamoto's room.

"Boss. Looks like the new guy's gone downstairs to beat up the young master of the Kyoraku House again."

Iwamoto was meticulously sharpening his sword. "It's fine. Let him beat him up..."

Kuramoto looked taken aback. "You're not going to stop him?"

"Who beats whom is still up in the air."

"You knew he'd go down there to fight?"

Iwamoto replied without a care. "There are only three possibilities. First, Kyoraku knocks him down. Second, the guards downstairs knock him down. Third, the two of them escape in the confusion."

"E-escape?... You expected even that?"

"How could I trust that brat so easily?" Iwamoto kept meticulously sharpening his sword, as though he were talking about something that had nothing to do with him.

"What if the two of them really do escape?"

Iwamoto raised the blade and held it up to the light to inspect its edge. Then he said leisurely:

"According to the intelligence, Kyoraku Shunsui had been Yamamoto's student for less than three months. Yamamoto hadn't returned to Gen Private School during that time, so he'd had no chance to teach him. We can predict his skill level. He just has a reputation as a genius.

"Lin Nan's Hakuda is decent, but he just took a sword wound, so his ability must have dropped considerably. Injured as he is, even with Kyoraku, they're no match for the five guards downstairs.

"Even if those two brats are prodigies who can use Kido, their spiritual pressure isn't strong enough yet to use Kido above number twenty, let alone break through the basement's seal."

He picked up a handkerchief from beside him and carefully wiped the blade. With a smug look, he said, "So whether it's Kido or hand-to-hand combat, they're both under my control. Even if they try something, I'm confident I can keep Kyoraku Shunsui in my grasp. As for Lin Nan... if he doesn't value his life, I'll have no choice but to kill him."

Kuramoto nodded as though he understood, then asked, "It's been more than ten hours since we captured them. The Soul Reapers have probably sent people out to search by now, right? Should we move?"

Iwamoto glanced at him. "Oh, I forgot this is your first time here. You don't know how it works. Don't worry, this place is perfectly safe. If anyone searches outside and gets close, I'll know.

"Even if they notice something strange, they'll trigger the alarm. By the time they rack their brains and find our hideout, we'll have already left in plain sight."

On the outskirts of Danzhao District, Kyoraku Seishu and his group were anxiously searching the surrounding area.

"Sir, we haven't found anything nearby." The head servant came to Seishu with a grave expression and spoke in a low voice.

A Soul Reaper officer also approached Kyoraku. "Mr. Kyoraku, we've searched the nearby area and found nothing unusual. There are two abandoned houses we're about to check."

Seishu glanced at the officer, noticing something odd. "Abandoned houses? How could there be abandoned houses in Danzhao District?"

The officer nodded. "We thought it was strange, too, so we asked the nearby residents. They said the houses belonged to two wealthy merchants who had moved away a long time ago.

"We also heard that both houses had been making eerie, frightening noises at night for years. No one dared to stay there, so they'd been left empty. The neighbors had gotten used to it."

After listening, Kyoraku Seishu scratched his chin. "Let's take a look."

Following the officer's directions, the group arrived in front of the two abandoned houses next to each other.

Both properties had spacious yards, suggesting that their former owners had lived in comfort. But now, both courtyards were overgrown. Through the rotten, crumbling gates, they could see weeds taller than a person swaying gently in the sunlight.

Seishu looked at the two shut, dilapidated gates and gave the officers beside him an order. "The servants aren't much use in a fight. You two stay outside with them. Don't go in unless necessary. If anything happens, send a distress signal to the Seireitei immediately."

With that, he took two officers and entered through the gate on the left.

Just as it had looked from outside, the courtyard was in ruins. Grass grew thickly around the broken corners of the walls and collapsed railings, forming dense thickets.

The weeds had almost swallowed the whole courtyard. Even the path had disappeared beneath the green. Every so often, the frightened sounds of small animals darting away came from the brush.

One of the Soul Reaper officers walked a few steps forward, cut down a patch of weeds with his sword, then looked at the traces on the ground and called out, "There's no sign of anyone walking here. No footprints or anything like that."

The other officer, who was standing guard, sounded a little disappointed. "Kyoraku, what should we do?"

But Seishu's eyes were fixed on the dilapidated house twenty meters ahead, nearly hidden by weeds as tall as a person.

Perhaps it was his imagination, but he thought he could sense faint traces of spiritual pressure there.

"Let's go inside and have a look." He drew his Zanpakuto to clear a path and led the two men deeper into the courtyard.

The closer they got, the clearer his sense became. Even the two officers murmured in surprise, "I think I can feel spiritual pressure..."

"Me too... Keep your voice down and stay alert."

Holding their Zanpakuto, the three of them slowly advanced toward the house, watching their surroundings.

After a few steps, Seishu suddenly asked in a low voice, "Have you noticed?"

The other two turned to him and quietly shook their heads.

Seishu sniffed twice, then gestured silently with his hand. "The smell."

The officers glanced at each other, puzzled.

Seishu pointed at the weeds beside them, then lowered his voice. "There's no smell of grass."

Only then did the two officers catch on. They sniffed carefully and confirmed that they couldn't smell grass at all.

Even though the place was covered in weeds.

A breeze brushed lightly through the weeds, setting their shadows swaying.

The sunlight was bright, but the two officers still felt a chill run down their spines.

Amid a rustling sound, a faint noise seemed to come from inside the house, then disappeared in an instant.

It sounded as though someone had bumped into something.

The two Soul Reaper officers immediately pinpointed the sound's direction and raised their swords, ready to charge inside.

At the sound, Seishu had instinctively taken a step forward, but he forced himself to stop and said softly, "Hold it!"

The officers stopped at once and turned to look at Kyoraku Seishu in confusion. They kept their voices low as they asked, "Why stop?"

"Someone's definitely hiding in there! We can catch them if we go in now!"

Seishu stared at the house, with only its roof visible in the distance, and frowned. "That's right. I sensed it too. But something feels off. This place isn't that simple."

"Big bro, you heard the noise and sensed the spiritual pressure too, right? If all three of us can sense it, we can't be wrong!"

Seishu gave a slight shake of his head. "I can't explain it. But something's strange about this place. Let's not act rashly."

As he spoke, he turned his gaze to the right, looking past the old, cracked courtyard wall toward the neighboring yard.

"I can't shake the feeling that the yard on the right is more suspicious."