The Killer

Right, I almost forgot about that kid.

Li Dongze's words reminded the captains that the Kangyang District Spirit Realm team had already recruited a Night Wanderer, so they didn't need to borrow one from the Taiyi Sect.

Big Muscle Tyrant beamed and immediately said, "Then what are we waiting for? Hurry up and contact the kid. This proves we really need to train our own Night Wanderers. When it matters, our own people are the most reliable."

The other captains relaxed.

Big Muscle Tyrant had a point. The Taiyi Sect's Night Wanderers were always cooperative when it came to official business, but they were still outsiders. Having one of their own was bound to be more convenient.

Li Dongze glanced at Fu Qingyang. Seeing him give a slight nod, he immediately took out his phone and left the meeting room.

"I'll go contact him."

After his morning lectures ended, Zhang Yuanqing slung his backpack over his shoulder and left the classroom. He planned to skip his afternoon classes and visit the office of the Kangyang District Spirit Realm team's Second Team.

In the future, the focus of his social life would shift to the Spirit Realm team.

Zhang Yuanqing wasn't very fond of school and had little interest in studying. Young people in Songhai had a laziness that ran bone-deep. They lacked the drive to fight and the grit to push themselves.

There were only two kinds of people who strove to get ahead in this world: those who had been taught from childhood to be ambitious, and those forced to by their circumstances.

After becoming a Spirit Realm Walker, Zhang Yuanqing had finally regained the drive to work hard that he'd lost long ago.

For one thing, his life depended on it. For another, he could fulfill his childhood dream of roaming the martial world with a sword.

The Spirit Realm was full of danger and the bizarre, but once you got a taste of its rewards, you could never again be content with being an ordinary person.

He had just come downstairs and was about to rent a shared bike when his phone rang in his pocket.

It was Li Dongze.

"Squad Leader?" Zhang Yuanqing answered.

"Where are you right now?" Li Dongze asked briskly, getting straight to the point.

"At school."

"Songhai University, right? I'll have Guan Ya come pick you up."

Pick me up? Hearing the urgency in Li Dongze's voice, Zhang Yuanqing asked tentatively, "What happened?"

"A colleague of ours was murdered. We need a Night Wanderer to devour his spirit and obtain his memories. You can do that, right?" Li Dongze asked, sounding unsure.

Uh, probably. "I'll give it a try?" Zhang Yuanqing said.

Devouring a spirit wasn't difficult. It was a Night Wanderer's innate skill, and his instincts told him he could do it. But he'd never actually devoured a spirit before, so he had no experience reading its memories and couldn't guarantee anything.

"Then that's settled." Li Dongze said no more and hung up.

Zhang Yuanqing put away his phone and walked toward the school gate.

A few minutes later, he stopped at the gate and waited quietly for Guan Ya to pick him up. At the same time, he noticed a girl in a pleated long skirt standing by the roadside, holding a designer handbag as if waiting for someone.

Xu Yingying?

Zhang Yuanqing looked the class beauty over a few times. She was dressed with great care: bracelets, a necklace, earrings, and a handbag. They all looked expensive, setting her apart from most of the girls at the university.

A girl from an average family couldn't pull off that look.

Noticing Zhang Yuanqing's gaze, Xu Yingying smiled faintly. She tucked back a strand of hair and straightened her posture, striking her most alluring pose, while feeling a little smug.

The boy was rather handsome, so she instinctively showed off her beauty.

But she was no longer in the same world as ordinary university students, and she was filled with a sense of superiority.

The accessories she had on were worth a typical university student's living expenses for an entire year.

Just then, Xu Yingying saw a blue sports car drive up and pull to a stop at the school gate.

The woman behind the wheel wore a crisp white shirt and sunglasses. Xu Yingying couldn't see her face, but her fair, pointed chin and exquisitely sculpted lips made it clear she was a beauty.

Xu Yingying pursed her lips and shifted her pose, angling the designer handbag's logo toward the sports car.

At the same time, she saw Zhang Yuanqing jog over to the car, open the door, and climb inside.

The rich lady hit the gas and drove off with her boy toy.

Xu Yingying's mouth fell open in shock.

For a moment, she couldn't tell if her classmate was a low-key rich kid or a fellow of hers—a seafood merchant or a steel-wool-ball merchant.

Kangyang District Public Security Bureau, morgue.

Zhang Yuanqing stood beside the autopsy table and lifted the sheet. A mangled corpse appeared before him.

The dead man's body was covered in bruises and knife marks. The wound in his chest gaped open, flesh turned inside out, a gruesome sight.

If he'd seen a corpse like this two days ago, Zhang Yuanqing would definitely have felt sick. But after what he'd gone through at the Mountain God Temple, the sight of a corpse no longer stirred much of a reaction in him.

"You can begin," Li Dongze said expectantly, leaning on his cane.

Zhang Yuanqing nodded. As he examined Zhao Yingjun's corpse, he sensed the spirit lingering in the cold body slowly becoming active, gradually awakening.

The aura of a Night Wanderer had a fatal attraction for spirits and could rouse them from slumber.

He silently drew on the Lunar Power within him. His sclera and pupils were covered by a layer of pure black. Then he reached out and made a grabbing motion toward Zhao Yingjun's body.

He pulled out a hazy figure.

It had Zhao Yingjun's features, but its expression was vacant and its gaze hollow.

After a person died, ninety percent of their consciousness dissipated, leaving their spirit in this dazed state. With their consciousness gone, their memories were naturally incomplete, and only a few deeply ingrained ones remained.

Memories from just before death tended to be vivid and close to the moment of death, so they were often preserved.

After pulling out the spirit, Zhang Yuanqing suddenly felt a hunger to feed. He opened his mouth without thinking and drew in a gentle breath.

Zhao Yingjun's spirit turned into wisps of smoke and drifted into his mouth.

A dull ache throbbed in his brow, and his consciousness seemed to swell as things that didn't belong to him crowded into it.

Zhang Yuanqing heard quiet sobbing and a mournful whimper. A vicious, gloomy voice rang in his ears:

"I'm running out of patience. You'd better answer me."

He knew he was reading the spirit's final memories. Slowly, he "opened" his eyes, and the surroundings came into focus. He was in a lavishly furnished suite.

He sat slumped on a soft bed, naked. Clothes and trousers lay scattered across the floor, along with women's underwear.

Not far away, by the head of the bed, a young woman was curled up. She was naked too, her pale, slender legs, taut stomach, and full breasts showing off her youthful, enviable figure.

The sobbing was coming from her.

A woman? Naked? The sight left Zhang Yuanqing stunned. Why hadn't Squad Leader explained the crime scene? How could he make me watch something inappropriate for minors? I'm still a kid.

From the dead man's point of view, he looked at the person by the bed. The man had a vicious face, a half-inch-long scar on his left cheek, sparse eyebrows, and a cruel, shadowy gaze.

He held a gleaming Willow Blade.

The killer. Zhang Yuanqing stared at the man's face, committing every detail to memory.

That completed half his task.

The man pointed the blade at "Zhang Yuanqing's" chest and snarled:

"Where's the Holy Grail? Where's the Roster?"

He seemed to have asked the question many times. Impatience showed on his face, and his eyes brimmed with murderous intent.

"I don't know. I really don't know. Please, let me go." Zhang Yuanqing heard "himself" beg.

The man crouched beside the bed, finally losing patience. He rubbed his face wearily and muttered:

"I gave you a chance and you blew it. I gave you a chance and you blew it."

As he spoke, he drove the tip of the Willow Blade into "Zhang Yuanqing's" chest.

Pain surged through him, and his consciousness blurred at once. Zhang Yuanqing crumpled limply to the floor and saw the man undo his belt, grab the pretty woman by the ankle, and drag her toward him.

The scene cut off amid the woman's screams.