The patient rubbed his still-numb arm and jerked his chin toward another part of the market, his face showing lingering fear and disdain:
"Over there."
"When we were suffering so badly we nearly died, some old guy dressed like a crow was muttering to himself in the crowd."
"He said, 'What disease? The Chrysos Heirs' arrogance offended the heavens, and this is divine punishment!' He even said ordinary people like us shouldn't get close to the Chrysos Heirs, or we'd be tainted by misfortune..."
Before he had finished speaking, Feng Jin had already looked in the direction he indicated.
In a relatively open corner of the market, near a crumbling stone wall, a small crowd had gathered.
Most of them looked frightened and uncertain. They had clearly either just endured the agony of poisoning or were worried they had caught it.
And among them stood a figure.
The person wore a loose, unadorned black robe. His hood was pulled low, concealing most of his face and leaving only a hard, unusually pale jaw and thin, bloodless lips exposed.
He was not particularly tall, and even seemed somewhat hunched, yet he stood there like a light-absorbing magnet dropped into the bustle, exuding a calm, chilling presence utterly out of place.
"Purifiers?" Feng Jin asked in surprise.
At a time like this, the only people who would still come out and slander the Chrysos Heirs had to be that faction of Kenis's opposition. Feng Jin could think of no one else.
That senior elder had been gravely wounded before, and the physicians of Dim Light Courtyard had treated her in hopes of extracting more information from her.
Yet they had not expected that wicked woman to escape.
Feng Jin's gaze met the black-robed man's.
"Sir over there... who exactly are you?!" Feng