Chapter 19

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

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

Blood had stained the floor red.

A fist-sized hole gaped in his chest. His heart had vanished!

A woman's scream rang through the entire building.

Panic-stricken footsteps thundered everywhere, mixed with shouts and cries for help.

As Luo Qingchen stood by the door, watching, he suddenly sensed a disturbance in some power within him.

His eyes flickered. He glanced to either side, then, without the slightest hesitation, entered the room and went to the corpse, pressing one hand against its arm.

At the same time, he kept his eyes fixed on the doorway.

The corpse's warm blood had been pouring rapidly from the hole in its chest, but now it abruptly stopped.

The second Blood Bar inside Luo Qingchen, which had been completely empty, began filling with blood at an astonishing speed!

10%!

20%!

50%!

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

By then, little blood remained in the corpse.

Luo Qingchen immediately withdrew his hand and glanced at the doorway again. Then he reached into the corpse's clothes once more and quickly felt out a money pouch.

At that moment, hurried footsteps came from outside!

Luo Qingchen immediately stood and backed toward the doorway, his back to it as he looked at the shattered window and the claw mark on its frame.

"Brother Luo!"

Chen Ju hurried in. When he saw the corpse, his expression changed drastically. "Did you see the killer?"

Luo Qingchen turned to him. "I just got here too."

After a pause, he asked, "Brother Chen, weren't you guarding the hall just now? Where did you go?"

Chen Ju grimaced. "My stomach suddenly started acting up, so I went to the latrine. Who knew this would happen just after I left?"

Just then, Zhang Jiu hurried over with Wang Long, Wang Hu, and two others.

When they saw the grisly scene in the room and the claw mark on the window, all their expressions changed.

"Didn't you see the killer?"

Zhang Jiu asked grimly.

Chen Ju shook his head and quickly explained, "Brother Luo and I already patrolled here. At the time, Miss A-Miao had her door closed and a customer inside. There was no way we could go in and check."

The young woman called A-Miao was still naked. She sat slumped in the hall, weeping.

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

Zhang Jiu immediately gave his orders.

The four acknowledged him. Two entered the room, while the other two hurried away.

Zhang Jiu led Chen Ju and Luo Qingchen to the woman called A-Miao, who was sitting in the hall, and asked in a low voice, "Miss A-Miao, what happened in the room? Did you see anything?"

By then, Sun Ping had brought over some clothes and wrapped them around A-Miao.

A-Miao's face was pale, and her whole body trembled uncontrollably. She looked badly shaken. At his question, she sobbed, "I was lying on the bed. After the customer finished, he said... said he was going to get a drink of water. Then I suddenly heard... heard the window shatter and the customer scream. When I got out of bed to look... sob..."

"Didn't you 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 again but didn't press her further. He led Chen Ju and Luo Qingchen back to the room.

As soon as they entered, they saw Sun Tong and Zhou Yan, who had stayed behind, holding porcelain bottles beneath the hole in the corpse's chest to catch its blood.

Since the blood had stopped flowing, they were each holding a bottle in one hand and pressing hard on the corpse with the other.

Seeing this, Zhang Jiu immediately roared, "Are you two not afraid to die? You don't even know what the thing that killed him is, and you're already collecting its blood?"

Chen Ju also mocked them. "Brother Sun, Brother Zhou, be careful. That blood could be poisonous."

The two men stood up with their porcelain bottles.

Sun Tong wore a bitter smile. "Who'd risk using this blood unless he had no choice? We haven't had a medicinal bath in ages. We're completely out of blood. What else can we do?"

Zhou Yan eyed the corpse in confusion. "Chief, not only are the heart and face missing, but it looks like there's no blood left in the body either."

Zhang Jiu's expression shifted. He went over and crouched to examine the corpse.

"The blood's gone too?"

Chen Ju looked astonished and went over to check.

Luo Qingchen followed without letting anything show.

"When Zhao Wu died before, there was still blood in his body. How come..."

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

Zhou Yan caught on at once. He glanced at Luo Qingchen, turned his gaze back to the corpse, and fell silent.

"Notify the Town Guards outside. This is something only they can handle."

Zhang Jiu stood up and sighed.

Then Luo Qingchen suddenly said, "Chief, why does the claw mark on this window look just like the one on the first room at the back? Does that mean someone died here before, too?"

The room fell silent.

The others' expressions varied.

Zhang Jiu turned around and patted his shoulder, smiling bitterly. "Brother Luo, it's not that we meant to hide this from you. We just don't know how to explain it. Someone really did die here before, but that was a long time ago. The house and the people above us both have rules against discussing the matter, let alone letting it get out."

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

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

Luo Qingchen was about to ask more, but Zhang Jiu raised a hand. "That's enough. We can talk another time. You all should go back and rest. The Town Guard Bureau will be here soon. Let them handle this."

The others nodded and left the room.

Once Zhang Jiu was alone, he glanced at the doorway, then crouched beside the corpse again. He searched it from head to toe, even taking off the man's shoes to check inside them.

"Where's the money pouch? Has someone already taken it?"

Zhang Jiu's expression shifted. His gaze darkened.

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

After parting with Chen Ju in the back courtyard, Luo Qingchen went into the second room, latched the door, and closed the window.

The room was pitch-black. He didn't light a lamp.

After waiting patiently for a while, he carefully took out the money pouch he had just taken from the corpse and poured the silver inside into his hand.

It was all small pieces of silver. He weighed it carefully. There was more than thirty taels!

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

He had truly found a way out of desperate straits!

He suppressed his excitement and carefully put away all the silver.

Then he closed his eyes again and looked at the second Blood Bar inside him.

The blood in it, which had been completely depleted, had now risen to 60%. The blood in the first Blood Bar was at 100%!

That meant he could resume cultivating with medicinal baths!

Of course, tonight was out of the question.

His gaze shifted to the window.

He had no idea what kind of creature had left the claw mark, killed the man, and torn out his heart and eaten his face.

He would have to be careful.

Outside, the night deepened.

After who knew how long, a shadow suddenly appeared outside the window of the second room in the back courtyard. It listened at the window for a while, then took out a thin tube and silently slipped it through a gap in the window.

A cloud of green smoke soon filled the entire room.