Yangjing Creek

Jin Baogen hadn't thought much of it during the first half of the conversation, but by the second half, he was getting nervous.

These days, a good job like this was hard to come by.

Jin Baogen would never let himself get fired, no matter what.

"Brother... Captain, don't worry!"

Jin Baogen thumped his chest and promised:

"I may let other people down, but I'll never let you down, Captain, or this job!"

Xu Yi was fairly confident in Jin Baogen.

He knew the young man inside and out. Though he was a little rash by nature, he was quick-witted and, at the very least, wouldn't botch the job.

Xu Yi's knowledge of Jin Baogen's past was also why he was willing to arm him with a gun.

Jin Baogen had played with guns back in his hometown. Now that he had his own Unicorn Ox and was second-in-command of the factory's security team, he felt he had reached the pinnacle of life. He practically bounced as he walked.

Xu Yi wouldn't be around to see him bouncing.

After hiding some of the bullets in Jing Tao's office on the second floor of Lingtong Hall, Xu Yi left the factory.

A short while later, Xu Yi leaned against the wall of a dark alley outside the Big Factory District. He loaded a Unicorn Ox and tucked it into the back of his waistband.

He loaded the Gun Brand Pistol with seven rounds and tucked it into the left side of his waistband in front.

He tightened the ammunition pouch tied around his waist, then took out Ye Miao's sachet and held it beneath his nose.

Its intoxicating fragrance enveloped his nostrils, awakening his spiritual senses. A black-and-white world unfolded before him.

Then he took out a lighter and lit the incense in the Shadow Wood burner.

When he smelled the incense from the Shadow Wood burner, something wondrous happened to his spiritual senses. A tiny bit of divinity was born.

He forced down his racing heartbeat, took the small black cloth pouch Yan Luo had given him from his pocket, drew a deep breath, and opened it.

As the beeswax was exposed to the air, an indescribable fragrance enveloped Xu Yi.

The instant he caught its scent, he felt as though he were floating amid a sea of clouds, his whole body weightless.

Suddenly, countless legendary fairies appeared around him, surrounding him with laughter as sweet as heavenly music...

"Grr!"

Xu Yi growled. He nearly ground his back teeth to dust, then glared furiously and slammed his head against the wall. Only the pain brought him back to his senses and helped him hold fast to his resolve. He wrenched himself free of that mystical state.

Xu Yi clutched his aching forehead.

"Damn, that smells incredible..."

Xu Yi struggled to focus, fixing all his attention on the beeswax.

A trail of wax-yellow light appeared.

Clutching the beeswax, Xu Yi followed the trail of light.

He headed west along 38th Shop District Street, turned into the side lane beside House No. 37, crossed a small stone bridge where tobacco peddlers hawked their wares, and walked down a dirt road.

He passed through three disorderly, foul-smelling alleys. At the end of the muddy road, he turned a corner, and the view suddenly opened up—

A wide tidal river appeared before him, its waters sluggish and silt-choked. Reeds covered most of it. One side connected to Puxi City's moat, while the other flowed into the estuary downstream of Green Shore River.

The moon was bright tonight. Xu Yi looked across the river and saw its shimmering waters surging toward the sea.

It was already eight in the evening, yet small boats with sculling oars, scattered skiffs, and even some kind of open barges were still visible on the fairly narrow waterway. Those were foreign vessels, many of them fitted with engines.

The riverbanks weren't stone embankments. Most were natural slopes of earth, overgrown with reeds and sweet flag, no doubt breeding swarms of mosquitoes.

Low, traditional Jiangnan farmhouses dotted the slopes—tile-roofed houses and thatched huts. This was the area locals called Black Clothes Alley, usually a gathering place for outsiders. Law and order were almost nonexistent. Gangs bred like mosquitoes, sucking the blood of ordinary people.

There were also large stilt houses and teahouses among the cottages, and markets in the alleys.

This was Yangjing Creek.

This was the scene of the beeswax corpse case!

What struck Xu Yi was that this miserable place lay only a short walk from the British Concession to the south.

A short walk north would bring him to the French Concession.

The two concessions blazed with lights, while Yangjing Creek lay dim. Now and then, the lilting songs of grand dance halls drifted over on the night breeze, bringing a hint of prosperity that didn't belong here.

That hint of prosperity soon scattered amid the croaking of frogs and vanished.

"Across the river, they still sing the song of the 'Jade Tree in the Flowers'..."

Xu Yi clicked his tongue without thinking, then quickly shut his mouth.

The wax-yellow trail of light guided Xu Yi onward.

Even though he tried to avoid them, the smells still forced their way into his nostrils—

The earthy stench of the river, the rot of aquatic plants, the reek of garbage, the aroma of food from the snack stalls on the bank... The pungent medley assailed his nostrils and tormented him.

Before long, the trail led Xu Yi into a patch of graves beside the riverbank.

Ghostly flames flickered in the darkness, but Xu Yi wasn't all that afraid. He already knew that the banks of Yangjing Creek had traditionally been Puxi City's burial grounds, scattered with earthen graves and coffins. They were little different from a mass grave.

Xu Yi took the Gun Brand Pistol in hand and gently pulled back its slide. With a low click, the pistol was cocked.

The black-and-white vision didn't reach very far. Whenever Xu Yi glimpsed a vague human-shaped figure beyond his field of view, he quietly avoided it.

A short while later, he crossed the burial ground, followed the Yangjing Creek waterway, entered a back street from a small alley, and walked along the base of the city wall. He followed the wax-yellow trail for about ten minutes.

Suddenly, he saw the trail of wax-yellow light disappear into a two-story foreign-style warehouse ahead.

A foreign-style warehouse was a storehouse built and run by a foreign trading company.

"Was the perverted killer a foreigner?"

The back of the warehouse stood less than twenty meters from the city wall. Its front was barely ten meters from the river, where a large pier with iron pilings had been built, clearly for mooring cargo ships.

It wasn't time for loading or unloading, and only three guards were inside, playing cards atop a battered wooden crate.

Xu Yi slipped into the warehouse. The guards' curses as they played completely drowned out his light footsteps.

He walked deeper between several large cargo containers until he reached the far end of the warehouse, beyond the reach of the lights. A huge, abandoned metal container sat silently against the wall.

The trail of wax-yellow light ended inside it.

In the black-and-white vision awakened by his spiritual senses, he carefully approached the container door and found it unlocked. A stream of strange, unidentifiable fragrance drifted through the crack.

Just one breath nearly made Xu Yi lose his soul.

What an entrancing fragrance it was!

Everything before Xu Yi turned rainbow-colored. In that instant, he remembered every beautiful thing he had experienced since coming into this world, all of it so vivid and real, as if he were seeing the world for the first time as a living being—

The first time he saw the sun, the first time he felt the rain and dew, the first time he spoke, the first time he embraced the fragrance of nature...

When Xu Yi came back to himself, tears were already streaming down his face.