The Golden Saber Divine Constable

Sword, come!

At Yang Xiao's cry of "Sword, come," a streak of golden light whistled out from his sleeve.

"A Daoist flying sword? Not good!"

"Zhao Hu" was shocked out of his wits. He hurriedly locked his fists together, his elbows braced across like mountains, trying to withstand this sudden sword strike with both arms.

Boom!

In that instant, "Zhao Hu" felt a tremendous force slam into him, one he could not resist at all, and his entire body went flying backward into the air.

Yet though the force was immense, "Zhao Hu" discovered in astonishment that his arms had not shattered. They were still perfectly intact.

"Not good!"

"This man deliberately sent me flying so I can't draw breath in midair. With ten-tenths of my strength, I won't even be able to use five-tenths. He'll strike while I'm at my weakest..."

Sparks flashed through "Zhao Hu's" mind. In an instant, he guessed Yang Xiao's strategy, and his face changed drastically.

But before "Zhao Hu" could even resist, his vision blurred, and another streak of Sword Qi flew through the air, piercing his heart with perfect accuracy.

Zhao Hu forced his eyes open. In those murky eyes of his, burned by lime and fierce flames, he saw only one thing—a chicken drumstick?

"The so-called flying sword was actually—a big chicken drumstick?"

Ah...!

With disbelief and stifled grievance in his eyes, "Zhao Hu's" massive body crashed to the ground, all life gone from him.

"Even a martial artist who failed blood exchange was this hard for me to deal with. A true First Blood expert is absolutely not someone I can withstand as I am now!"

Wiping the hot sweat from his forehead, Yang Xiao saw the flames around him growing fiercer and fiercer. His ears trembled, and he instantly heard a burst of urgent hoofbeats rapidly approaching this way.

"Devour everything. Leave no trace!"

Yang Xiao's heart chilled. He swiftly summoned the phantom and gave the order without hesitation.

Whoosh—

The phantom turned into a gale. Wherever it passed, everything vanished without a trace.

At the same time, Yang Xiao quickly slipped into a crack in the wall nearby and ran toward the corner of the courtyard, changing clothes as he went.

The courtyard was extremely large and should have belonged to some wealthy merchant, but there was not a single person inside the estate. It had likely been ignored for a long time.

The lime, tung oil, and plant-ash dust Yang Xiao had used against Zhao Hu had all been dug out from the cellar of this wealthy merchant's residence.

Someone who hid things like that was naturally no good person.

So Yang Xiao took those things with a perfectly clear conscience, without the slightest psychological burden.

Soon, by the time Yang Xiao rushed to the corner of the courtyard, he had already changed back into the clothes he had worn when leaving Vermilion Bird Tower.

As for the clothes dirtied during the fight, Yang Xiao tossed them directly to the phantom to devour, leaving not the slightest trace behind.

Whoosh—

Leaping along the large tree at the corner of the courtyard, Yang Xiao's figure landed in the small alley behind Drunken Immortal Inn.

After vaulting over another wall, Yang Xiao landed lightly, casually flicked the dust from his clothes, clasped his hands behind his back, and walked proudly into the front courtyard.

"Sir, the Zuihuadiao Wine and Braised Pig Trotters are ready. This way, please."

The waiter came trotting over eagerly, nimbly took the bits of silver Yang Xiao tossed him, and immediately beamed with joy. He hurriedly led Yang Xiao to an elegant room by the window on the second floor.

Bang!

Once he shut the door of the private room, Yang Xiao's heart, which had been hanging in his throat, finally settled completely.

"Hyah!"

On the bluestone street below Drunken Immortal Inn, a rider galloped like the wind, rushing over from afar.

Mounted on a fiery date-red horse was a middle-aged constable chief with a golden saber at his waist.

The man wore a cloak of tiger and wolf pelts, with tiger-skin battle boots on his feet. He was extremely burly, fully nine chi tall.

"It's actually the Golden Saber Divine Constable—Di Ruhuo?"

Yang Xiao swept a glance downstairs, and his pupils immediately constricted, his expression turning ugly.

The Golden Saber Divine Constable Di Ruhuo had originally been the chief constable of the Great Yan Kingdom's capital. He had once solved eight major strange cases in one breath, shaking the world.

During one of Di Ruhuo's investigations, the clues pointed toward a certain prince, and he was just preparing to draw in the net.

The late emperor suddenly received multiple memorials, every one of them impeaching Di Ruhuo with various pieces of "evidence" of his crimes.

The late emperor flew into a thunderous rage. He demoted Di Ruhuo again and again, all the way from chief constable of the capital to a remote little county town in Qingzhou, making him an ordinary constable chief in the county yamen.

But Di Ruhuo had a hard spine as well. He refused to compromise in the slightest and insisted he was innocent.

Di Ruhuo put down roots in Qingzhou for twenty years and solved countless cases.

Starting again as an ordinary constable chief, he climbed upward step by step until he finally reached the illustrious position of Qingzhou's chief constable.

Not long ago, Emperor Ming suddenly summoned Di Ruhuo back to the capital.

This matter sparked heated debate in the imperial court, with voices of support and opposition ringing out without end.

Even among the wealthy households and local gentry of the inner city, people were talking about it everywhere, making all sorts of guesses.

"Di Ruhuo is formidable, but I cleaned the battlefield so thoroughly that even if he had heaven-piercing ability, he couldn't possibly find the slightest thread or horse-track of a clue."

"And to guard against the unexpected, I already arranged a fallback plan long ago..."

Watching Di Ruhuo ride away on horseback, Yang Xiao quickly calmed down.

Taking a step back, even if Di Ruhuo really could see through the fallback plan Yang Xiao had arranged, that actually would not matter much.

No one would ever imagine that the killer who had done in "Zhao Hu" was an ordinary waiter in Vermilion Bird Tower with inferior talent and bones, someone destined never to practice martial arts in this life.

Yang Xiao stopped paying attention to the matter. Instead, he closed his eyes and regulated his breathing, beginning to review every action he had taken today.

After confirming there had been no flaws, Yang Xiao's heart stirred, and a dull black dagger instantly appeared in his hand.

This dagger had belonged to "Zhao Hu" and had once been used to threaten Yang Xiao.

After the battle in the alley ended, Yang Xiao had used the phantom to scour the ground and devour everything, yet only this dagger had not been swallowed.

"With my current Myriad Phenomena Heaven-Swallowing Art, even Tiger Chicken flesh and blood can be slowly devoured, yet when it tries to devour this thing, the phantom actually can't gnaw through it?"

Carefully toying with the dagger in his hand, Yang Xiao once again tried using the phantom to devour it.

Yet after Yang Xiao had finished an entire pot of huadiao wine and a full hour had passed, the phantom desperately circulated its black-and-white qi, but still failed to leave even the slightest mark on the dagger.

"I only killed some lowly Peace Sect small fry. Could I really have picked up a treasure?"

Yang Xiao's spirits instantly lifted, and he began carefully studying the small, delicate dagger.

"When this dagger was in 'Zhao Hu's' hand, it was clearly incomparably sharp. Why is it dull black and ordinary after falling into my hands, and why is the edge still blunt?"

The more Yang Xiao looked, the more wrong it seemed. He faintly felt that this dagger was absolutely not simple, and that there was most likely some special control technique involved.

Unfortunately, although "Zhao Hu" had been devoured by the phantom, the memory fragments Yang Xiao obtained were instead fewer than those from devouring the real Zhao Hu last night.

"The 'Zhao Hu' I killed today—his memories were actually a blur. I couldn't see them clearly at all. I could only obtain a few fragments, but none of them were of any use."

"Could it be that within the Peace Sect, there is also some evil art for covering memories?"

Yang Xiao frowned slightly, his expression somewhat ugly.

No matter how good this dagger was, if he could not activate it, then it was utterly meaningless!

Wait!

Yang Xiao stared fixedly at the dagger for a long while. Suddenly, his pupils shrank, and he could not help widening his eyes.

He saw a faint wisp of golden light slowly emerge from within the dagger. Very soon, it shot up into the sky, transforming into a blazing pillar of light that covered the heavens and blanketed the earth!