"Since the method for extracting spirituality worked on animals with little spirituality, why couldn't it work on people, who had an abundance of it?
People were animals too!
People had stronger spirituality, so the fragrance extracted from it should be even richer!"
The Foreign Devil pointed at the tightly wrapped corpse on the operating table.
"This was my great experiment!"
He was so excited that he spoke very quickly, slurring his words and even going off-key.
"Where was I?
...Right, right!
The day I became a Night Roaming God, my master came to see me. I told him about my achievements and my ideas.
I never expected him to fly into a rage and even try to kill me with his disciplinary rod!
I didn't understand. Master, hadn't I already smelled the fragrance in the incense burner and become a Night Roaming God, just as you wanted? Why did you still want to kill me?
My master said, 'You haven't become a Night Roaming God. You've been dominated by spirituality. You've become a Hundred Night Miasma, a fiend who does every kind of evil!'
But I clearly wasn't a fiend!
I was a god!
I was a Night Roaming God who had set foot on the Path of Fragrance!"
"I pulled out my gun and shot my master."
"In the end, my master's disciplinary rod was no match for my marksmanship."
"My master fell. Spirituality streamed from his body, and its fragrance intoxicated me beyond reason!
I realized this would be my first lesson after becoming a Night Roaming God.
I got my master's recipe and used it to prepare and cure him.
A week later, my master's body had rotted."
He spoke like a graduate student devoted to medical research.
"How could it have rotted?
I'd used so many spices, and my master had such powerful spirituality. At the very least, it shouldn't have rotted.
I added more ingredients and waited another week. At last, a faint fragrance appeared on my master's pickled body, which had begun to stink as it rotted.
It was the fragrance of spirituality!"
His body trembled, and a flush spread across his cheeks, as if a volcano had erupted after his hormones reached some kind of peak.
"I! I created a fragrance unlike any before it!
The fragrance of human spirituality! I succeeded!
This proved my theory was right! Even though the recipe was imperfect, I still extracted the fragrance of spirituality from a human body!"
He spoke even faster.
"It was such a wonderful thing. You know, just being able to smell a fragrance like that is enough to make anyone happy.
It was a tremendous achievement...That's right! A tremendous achievement! My master was a Night Roaming God a whole rank above me!"
"My master's corpse soon rotted completely, and no more fragrance appeared.
For a while after that, all that appeared in the pickled corpse were maggots."
"I realized I had to continue my experiments.
Your Great Yan Dynasty has an old saying that my master used to repeat to me—
Strike while the iron is hot!
So I went to find several of my fellow disciples' mothers. I'd always liked their scents. If I could turn them into spices and keep them by my side, wouldn't that make me so happy?"
"I began my great experiment!"
"I tried things on each of them, improving the recipe and the process, and adjusting how long I cured them with the spices...
I succeeded. I extracted more spices, and they kept releasing their fragrance for longer and longer, while the stench of decay grew fainter...
I gradually realized that women had much more fragrance than men.
I didn't know why, but that didn't get in the way of my experiments.
Later, my family's business changed, and the Great Yan Dynasty went to war, so I came to Puxi City..."
He pointed at the corpse on the operating table.
"My recipe has been improved. The corpses I cure now have reached a very advanced stage, and there's almost no smell of decay!
If I keep researching and refining the proportions of the spices and the amount of spirituality, I'm sure I'll soon have a perfect recipe!
Once I have that perfect recipe, I'll follow it to create pure spirituality. Then I'll advance a step on the Ascension Staircase and become a Doctor of Fragrance!"
Xu Yi's eyes widened.
"Doctor of Fragrance?"
That was the next rank on the Ascension Staircase in the Path of Fragrance tradition!
Seeing Xu Yi's reaction, the Foreign Devil was already certain that Xu Yi would stay and become a kindred spirit.
It wasn't human nature at work.
It was spirituality.
Faced with a kindred spirit—someone who shared his ambitions and might one day become a fellow cultivator, helping him along the Ascension Staircase—the Foreign Devil couldn't help becoming serious.
"That's right, a Doctor of Fragrance.
My master was a Doctor of Fragrance.
Once we became Doctors of Fragrance, our divinity wouldn't be limited to detecting scents. We wouldn't be mere Sniffers anymore.
We'd begin to understand the deep connections between fragrance, human emotions, and even memories.
As Doctors of Fragrance, our divinity would let us create unique perfumes.
My master told me a little about it. A Doctor of Fragrance's divinity could create perfumes that affected people's minds, emotions, and memories!"
The Foreign Devil had described the Doctor of Fragrance in very broad terms, but Xu Yi was still filled with longing.
Having finished discussing serious matters, the Foreign Devil looked at Xu Yi again, unable to contain his excitement.
"My recipe is almost perfect. The fragrance it produces—the fragrance of spirituality—drew you to me.
The fragrance of spirituality brought us together!"
He reached out to Xu Yi.
"Come, my brother! Help me perfect the recipe! Once it's complete, we can use it to make spices infused with spirituality, and we'll both become Doctors of Fragrance!
Let's set out together on the Path of Fragrance!"
Xu Yi nodded.
"Sure. Let me show you something first."
Xu Yi stood still, his body poised neither stiff nor relaxed, neither fully extended nor contracted. His waist and legs worked as one, and his heels turned slightly inward. Power rose from the ground, surged up his spine, twisted at his waist, then burst through his arm and into his fist—
"Bang!"
Xu Yi threw a punch. The afterimage of his fist still hung beneath the white incandescent light, but the Foreign Devil's head had already been knocked sideways off his neck.
As he rolled his eyes and fell backward, his gaze was still filled with excitement and anticipation.
"Thud..."
The punch had scrambled the Foreign Devil's brains. His whole body convulsed as he collapsed unconscious, foam running from his mouth. He didn't look as though he had much longer to live.
Xu Yi exhaled, tucked the Gun Brand Pistol into the back of his waistband on the left, then found a coil of hemp rope in the corner and bound the Foreign Devil tightly to the base of the operating table.
Xu Yi had long known that the Night Roaming Gods of the Path of Fragrance tradition didn't emphasize physical training.
The Foreign Devil wasn't a martial artist either. He hadn't even reacted when Xu Yi threw his punch.
Xu Yi passed the operating table and went deeper into the cargo container, toward the desk.
A large number of sheets of paper in different sizes had been nailed to the wall of cargo containers behind the desk. A few were newspaper clippings; most were black-and-white photographs covered in writing.
As Xu Yi looked through them one by one, he realized that these papers, photographs, newspaper clippings, and notes were evidence that the Foreign Devil had murdered women in Puxi City.
The Foreign Devil had carefully investigated every girl's circumstances, scouting them out days in advance and learning their daily routines. Only when he was certain there was no risk did he murder them and bring them back to this cargo-container hideout.
"Hm? He brought them all back?
Why was the woman's corpse, preserved in amber wax, outside?"
Xu Yi's gaze shifted downward.
A few documents lay scattered across the desk. One of them was pressed beneath a Parker fountain pen with its cap on.
Before you continue