Chapter 19

Inside the room, a single lamp flickered like a bean.

Under the dim, yellow light, a naked man lay on the floor near the window, his eyes wide open.

Fresh blood stained the floor red.

His chest had been torn open, revealing a fist-sized hole, and the heart inside was nowhere to be found!

A woman's scream pierced through the entire small building.

Panic-stricken footsteps, shouts, and cries for help erupted everywhere.

As Luo Qingchen stood at the doorway observing, he suddenly felt a strange movement of power within his body.

His gaze flickered, and after a quick glance left and right, he entered the room without the slightest hesitation. He reached the corpse and pressed a hand onto its arm.

At the same time, his eyes remained fixed on the doorway.

The warm blood that had been gushing from the hole in the corpse's chest suddenly stopped.

The second blood bar within Luo Qingchen's body, which had been completely empty, began to replenish at an incredible speed!

10%!

20%!

50%!

In the blink of an eye, it had climbed to 60%!

By now, there was almost no blood left inside the corpse.

Luo Qingchen immediately withdrew his hand, glanced at the door once more, and reached into the corpse's clothes, quickly fishing out a money pouch.

Just then, rapid footsteps approached from outside!

Luo Qingchen stood up at once and retreated to the doorway. With his back to the entrance, he stared at the shattered window and the claw marks left upon it.

"Brother Luo!"

Chen Ju rushed in, darting into the room. Upon seeing the corpse, his expression changed drastically as he asked, "Did you see the killer?"

Luo Qingchen turned to look at him and said, "I just arrived myself."

He paused, then added, "Brother Chen, weren't you guarding the main hall? Where did you go?"

Chen Ju's face twisted into a bitter grimace. "I suddenly had a stomach ache and went to the latrine. Who would have thought such a thing would happen while I was gone!"

At this moment, Zhang Jiu arrived in a hurry, accompanied by Wang Long, Wang Hu, and two others.

Seeing the gruesome scene in the room and the claw marks on the window, their expressions all shifted.

"Did you not see the killer?"

Zhang Jiu asked with a gloomy face.

Chen Ju shook his head and hurriedly explained, "Brother Luo and I had already patrolled here. At the time, Miss A-Miao had the door locked and had a guest inside, so we couldn't very well barge in to check."

The woman named A-Miao was still sitting naked in the main hall, slumped over and sobbing.

"Sun Tong, Zhou Yan, you two stay here and guard! Wang Long, Wang Hu, go check outside the window and in the courtyard!"

Zhang Jiu issued his orders immediately.

The four men acknowledged the command; two entered the room, while the other two hurried away.

Zhang Jiu led Chen Ju and Luo Qingchen to the woman named A-Miao in the main hall and asked in a deep voice, "Miss A-Miao, what happened in the room? Did you see anything?"

At this point, Sun Ping had brought over some clothes and wrapped them around A-Miao.

A-Miao's face was pale, and she trembled uncontrollably, clearly terrified. She wept, "I was lying on the bed. After the guest finished, he said... he said he was going to get a drink of water. Then I suddenly heard... heard the window shatter and the guest's scream. When I got out of bed to look... sob..."

"You didn't see anything at all?"

Zhang Jiu frowned.

A-Miao shook her head, curled into a ball, and continued to cry.

Zhang Jiu glanced at her once more, decided not to press further, and returned to the room with Chen Ju and Luo Qingchen.

As soon as they entered, they saw Sun Tong and Zhou Yan, who had been left behind, holding porcelain bottles and collecting blood from the hole in the corpse's chest.

Since the blood was no longer flowing, the two were holding the bottles in one hand and pressing firmly on the corpse with the other.

Seeing this, Zhang Jiu barked angrily, "Are you two tired of living? You don't even know what kind of thing did this, yet you dare to collect its blood?"

Chen Ju also teased, "Brother Sun, Brother Zhou, be careful—the blood might be poisonous."

The two men stood up with their bottles.

Sun Tong's face was bitter. "If we weren't desperate, who would risk using this blood? We haven't had a medicinal bath in a long time; what other choice do we have?"

Zhou Yan looked at the corpse, puzzled. "Boss, not only are the heart and face missing, but the blood inside the body seems to be drained as well."

Zhang Jiu's expression shifted. He walked over and crouched down to examine it.

"Is the blood drained, too?"

Chen Ju was filled with astonishment and walked over to investigate as well.

Luo Qingchen followed them, his expression calm and composed.

"When Zhao Wu died earlier, there was still blood in his body, so how..."

As Zhou Yan was speaking, Zhang Jiu immediately looked up and glared at him.

Zhou Yan realized his mistake at once, glanced at Luo Qingchen, then turned his gaze back to the corpse and fell silent.

"Notify the Town Guards outside; this kind of matter can only be left to them."

Zhang Jiu stood up and sighed.

At this moment, Luo Qingchen suddenly spoke up: "Boss, how come I noticed that the claw marks on this window are the same as the ones in the first room at the back? Could it be that... people died there before too?"

The room suddenly fell quiet.

The expressions on the men's faces shifted in different ways.

Zhang Jiu turned around, reached out to pat his shoulder, and gave a bitter smile: "Brother Luo, it's not that we intentionally wanted to hide it from you, but we truly don't know how to explain this matter. People did indeed die here before, but that was a long time ago. Furthermore, both the management of the pavilion and the authorities above have regulations that this matter cannot be discussed, let alone spread."

Luo Qingchen's expression was grave: "Then the killer is..."

Zhang Jiu shook his head, his expression solemn: "We don't know if it was a man or a monster."

Just as Luo Qingchen was about to ask more, Zhang Jiu waved his hand: "Enough, let's talk another time. You all go back and rest. The Town Guards will be here shortly, so we'll leave this place to them."

The men nodded and left the room.

Once Zhang Jiu was the only one left in the room, he glanced at the doorway, crouched back down beside the corpse, and searched the body from head to toe, even removing the victim's shoes to inspect the insides.

"Where is the money pouch? Has it already been taken by someone?"

Zhang Jiu's expression shifted, his gaze turning gloomy.

Outside the window, the night was as dark as ink.

After parting ways with Chen Ju in the backyard, Luo Qingchen entered the second room, bolted the door, and shut the windows tight.

The room was pitch black, and he did not light a lamp.

After waiting patiently for a while, he carefully took out the money pouch he had swiped from the corpse and poured out the silver inside.

It was all broken silver, and after weighing it carefully, he found there was a full thirty-plus taels!

Added to the forty-plus taels he had picked up outside the Hundred Fragrance Pavilion and the twelve taels A-Yun had just given him, the eight hundred taels of silver needed to repair the Ten-Soul Banner was finally enough!

It was truly a narrow escape from a desperate situation!

He suppressed the joy in his heart and carefully tucked the silver away.

Then, he closed his eyes and looked at the second blood bar within his body.

The blood in that bar, which had been completely depleted earlier, had now grown to 60%; meanwhile, the blood in the first bar was at 100%!

This meant he could continue his medicinal bath training!

Of course, not tonight.

His gaze shifted toward the window.

He wondered what kind of thing that monster was—the one that left claw marks and killed by tearing out hearts and eating faces.

He had to be careful.

Outside the window, the night grew deeper.

It was unknown how much time had passed when a black shadow suddenly and eerily appeared outside the window of the second room in the backyard. It pressed its ear against the window to listen for a while, then took out a thin tube and silently inserted it through the gap in the window frame.

A green mist quickly permeated the entire room.