Yamen

Was the body discovered?

How could it not be?

The first to be discovered wasn't even one of the men from the Iron Tiger Gang... it was Scar-Head Li.

A few night-soil collectors were making their usual rounds in the dead of night, collecting waste from house to house, when they stumbled upon Scar-Head Li's corpse right at the entrance of Sesame Oil Alley.

One of the collectors tripped and fell right onto Scar-Head Li.

When he scrambled up, cursing and swearing, and shone his lantern to see what had tripped him... what met his eyes was the corpse of Scar-Head Li, his eyes wide open and blood oozing from his mouth and nose.

With a blood-curdling shriek, he woke up almost everyone in Sesame Oil Alley.

Then... they immediately reported it to the authorities.

The magistrate's office had a team of yamen runners on duty through the night, and upon receiving the report, they rushed to the scene immediately.

While they were still examining Scar-Head Li's body...

The other corpses were discovered one after another by early-rising residents.

The yamen officials were shocked and immediately dispatched men to investigate.

And then...

People from Lan Gui Fang came to report a crime as well.

Three people had been killed in plain sight.

That made a total of six lives lost!

In an instant, the magistrate's office treated the matter with the utmost gravity.

"Five of the dead are from the Iron Tiger Gang."

The yamen runners, who patrolled the streets of True Martial County year-round, were naturally well-versed in the backgrounds of the local thugs.

They identified the men immediately.

"They were all followers of Wang Long..."

Hearing that they were Wang Long's men, and that the incident had reached the magistrate's office, their first instinct was to go find Wang Long...

After all, under normal circumstances, gang feuds rarely escalated to the point of involving the authorities.

When a large group of them arrived at Wang Long's home, they learned that he hadn't returned the night before.

Wang Long's wife, a middle-aged woman in her thirties, was holding a toddler. Seeing the yamen runners looking for her husband early in the morning, she didn't give them a pleasant look: "That deadbeat is probably rotting on some harlot's belly; he hasn't been home in days!"

Upon further inquiry, they learned that Wang Long kept a mistress in Sesame Oil Alley.

Sesame Oil Alley?

The yamen runners exchanged glances upon hearing this... Scar-Head Li's body had been found right at the entrance of that very alley.

They hurried back to the mistress's house in Sesame Oil Alley without delay... and the moment they pushed the door open, they saw Wang Long lying dead outside the room's window.

The yamen runners all gasped in unison...

Wang Long's state of death was gruesome; he was drenched in blood, missing an eye, lying prone on the ground, stark naked, his body frozen to a bruised, purplish-blue...

Then, they saw the broken window frame... and inside the room, they found the mistress of Wang Long, also dead.

"Eight people... the murder weapon in all cases was a throwing dart; it looks like the work of the same person."

The coroner for the magistrate's office was named Zhou Xing, a man in his thirties. He carefully examined Wang Long's body before speaking in a low voice.

"The killer is ruthless, and the intent was clearly to kill... but the force behind the strikes doesn't seem sufficient. It shouldn't be a martial artist."

Coroner Zhou Xing concluded.

Standing beside him was Zhao Xing, the head of the fast-runners.

Zhao Xing, also in his thirties, frowned as he looked down at Wang Long's body, his eyes flickering.

"A vendetta?"

He asked in a low voice.

"Very likely."

Zhou Xing nodded.

They had heard rumors of the Iron Tiger Gang's activities in the villages under True Martial County; it was perfectly normal for them to have enemies.

"Boss, over here."

Suddenly, a runner's voice rang out from a distance. Zhou Xing and Zhao Xing turned to see a runner standing by the base of the wall.

The two exchanged a look and walked over.

They saw that the mud at the base of the wall clearly bore a fresh mark...

It had rained a few days prior, and since the ground at the base of the wall was dirt rather than paved, there was a distinct impression, along with a few footprints.

Zhao Xing raised an eyebrow, then looked up at the three-meter-high courtyard wall. With a sudden burst of movement, he leaped up like a spring, landing directly atop the wall.

After examining it carefully, he let out a soft breath and said to Zhou Xing, "Your judgment was correct. He is not a martial artist... at least not a Ming Jin martial artist. He must have come from over there."

He pointed toward the neighboring courtyard.

There were clear climbing marks on the courtyard wall... the individual hadn't even run the whole way, but had crawled along the top of the wall.

Zhou Xing moved his feet and leaped onto the wall with ease.

This jump, over three meters high, made the constables below look on with envy...

To leap over three meters high was something only a Ming Jin martial artist could achieve.

Most of them, even if they could scale this wall, would need to push off the wall for leverage; how could they be so effortless?

After inspecting the marks, Zhou Xing suddenly narrowed his eyes and looked at the position of the eaves beneath his feet.

"What is it?"

Zhao Xing noticed his expression and raised an eyebrow to ask.

"Boss, look, these two handprints... aren't they a bit strange?"

Zhou Xing pointed at the eaves.

There were two half-dried mud handprints there...

It was obvious that someone had clung to this spot.

Zhao Xing lowered his head to look closely, then squinted and whispered, "In that case, not only is he not a Ming Jin martial artist... he might not even have practiced martial arts at all, just an ordinary person... otherwise, he wouldn't need to use both hands to climb down a three-meter wall."

"But that doesn't add up... if he really is just an ordinary person, how do you explain the throwing knives?"

He was somewhat puzzled.

Zhou Xing shook his head: "That's not strange. Ordinary people can practice throwing knives; with a year or two of training, they can achieve decent accuracy and lethality. That's not what I'm talking about..."

"Then what is it?" Zhao Xing asked, confused.

"Don't you think... the index finger print on the left hand is larger and longer than the other prints?"

Zhao Xing took a look and furrowed his brow: "It really is... but what could that mean?"

"The person has an abnormality in their left hand?"

After observing for a while, Zhou Xing shook his head slightly.

Seeing that Zhou Xing didn't continue, Zhao Xing shook his head as well, looked for a moment longer, and said, "Let's go down first."

"I'll make a rubbing of these prints first."

Zhou Xing took a sheet of rice paper from his bosom and carefully made a rubbing of the handprints.

Zhao Xing turned and jumped off the wall.

Then Zhou Xing jumped down as well.

"The people at Lan Gui Fang said that yesterday, besides the three dead, there were four injured... but one of the injured left halfway through. Lan Gui Fang searched half the night but couldn't find the culprit... so Qiu Jin judged that the fourth injured person is very likely the culprit, using a bitter-meat scheme to deceive them..."

Zhao Xing said, squinting his eyes.

"He's a ruthless man." Zhou Xing nodded, his eyes narrowing: "It seems he was determined to kill those people... I wonder what the grudge was."

"I heard from the person who treated his wounds that he was injured in the right leg, and the throwing knife was embedded very deep... you can see he was ruthless. To be that cruel to himself..."

Zhao Xing clicked his tongue.

He asked himself... if he had to inflict such a wound on himself, he couldn't be that ruthless.

As they were talking, someone ran over and whispered, "Boss, Wang Hu has arrived."

Zhou Xing and Zhao Xing looked up simultaneously and saw a group of people walking into the courtyard.

Leading them was a man in his thirties with a sinister face, but he walked with the stride of a dragon and the gait of a tiger, possessing an astonishing presence.