Possession

"A little!"

Zhang Jian nodded slightly. He could see the shock in Qi Yi and Qi Yuansi's eyes.

Clearly, this was beyond what either of them had expected.

Sorcerers who knew spells were often exceptionally troublesome. They usually possessed methods beyond the imagination of ordinary people.

The unknown was always frightening.

"Then, Jian'er, can you catch that demon?"

Qi Yuansi looked at him gravely.

After investigating, they had repeatedly reached the same conclusion: Madam Zhou might indeed have died at the hands of a demon!

Qi Estate was already heavily guarded, and the estate of a military family like theirs had no shortage of body-tempering experts. If a killer had struck, no matter how stealthy their methods, they could never have escaped their notice, much less grown wings and flown away.

Moreover, after Qi father and son had looked into the matter, they had found that Madam Zhou's death was indeed rather strange.

Qi Yi's face darkened. "A-Yu, if you know spells, it'd be best for you to handle this. I don't trust Mr. Qingyu, the prefect's man, or any of the other Daoists in the commandery!"

A cold light glinted in Qi Yi's eyes.

In his heart, he was gnashing his teeth with hatred. As long as Madam Zhou remained alive, Qi Estate could advance or retreat as it pleased, and might even stay out of the matter altogether. But with her dead, the entire Qi family had been laid bare before a pack of hungry wolves.

Now they had no choice but to bare their arms and cross blades with the wolves surrounding them.

How could Qi Yi not be furious?

For now, their only option was to find the killer and give the Dingyuan Marquis's estate an explanation. Otherwise, they would not only have to face the dire situation in Fengyang Commandery but also suffer the Marquis's wrath. That would be a serious predicament.

Zhang Jian nodded and agreed.

If the Zhang family wanted to stand as equals with Fengyang Commandery's three great Aristocratic Clans, they naturally had to reveal some of their strength.

To gain the benefits they were after, they needed the strength to match.

Showing some of his strength now would naturally spare him a great deal of trouble and help him avoid pointless provocations and disputes.

Of course, revealing his strength so recklessly would inevitably expose him to greater risks.

But by now, Zhang Jian had thought it through.

His earlier actions had already given him away. The Gu family hadn't publicized it, clearly because they still hoped to marry into the Zhang family and monopolize the benefits. Now that the marriage was all but impossible, they certainly wouldn't keep deliberately concealing it for him. Since that was the case, he might as well trade the truth for some benefits.

The Zhang family could rise to the rank of a commandery's prominent clan, and he could also take the opportunity to reap benefits from the clan shrine.

That would kill several birds with one stone.

Inside the rear courtyard, Zhang Jian stepped in, and the moment he entered, the heavy stench of blood hit him.

He saw his maternal uncle, Qi Yuanwu, standing beside the bed with a gloomy expression. His eyelids drooped, making it impossible to tell what he was thinking, but he showed no sign of grief.

By contrast, his cousin Yu Xian was weeping like a pear blossom in the rain, her heart shattered.

When Qi Yuansi led Zhang Jian inside, Qi Yuanwu glanced over with a calm gaze. A fierce, masculine aura clung to him. His features were exceptionally handsome, and years of leading troops had made him strikingly imposing. No wonder Madam Zhou had insisted on marrying the eldest legitimate son of the Qi family, no matter what.

Zhang Jian wasn't particularly close to his maternal uncle, Qi Yuanwu, and had seen him only a handful of times. He merely nodded before letting his gaze fall on the bed.

A dark red stain had soaked into the bright red brocade quilt.

Even without lifting the quilt, Zhang Jian knew the demon had peeled away a layer of his maternal aunt's skin. Her death had been gruesome.

Qi Yuxian lifted her head. Hatred burned beneath her tear-streaked face as she pleaded, "Little brother Zhang, you have to avenge my mother!"

Zhang Jian nodded.

"I'll find that demon!"

Zhang Jian slowly extended his divine sense. His extraordinarily keen sense could feel the dense aura of dragons and tigers permeating Qi Estate, and even his divine sense was severely suppressed by it.

But his divine sense was exceptionally sharp, and he could still detect many subtle details.

At that moment, he could faintly sense a hidden, malicious gaze watching him from the shadows.

The gaze itself was difficult to find, though still somewhat concealed. But the figure whispering and muttering in his ear stood out starkly.

"Kill... new target... tasty!"

The voice was extremely bizarre. It was even on the "channel" of Zhang Jian's divine-sense perception, yet the Myriad Worlds Spirit Orb caught it with ease.

Following that gaze, Zhang Jian instantly pinpointed its location inside the boudoir. Before the enormous screen stood a nanmu stand, its shelves arranged like steps and lined with candles.

Two crane-beaked palace lanterns also adorned the room, exquisite and beautiful, their oil replenished.

Beneath the candlelight, the shadows of the four people in the room stretched long across the floor. The one Zhang Jian had locked onto was among them.

It was Qi Yuxian's shadow.

"This monster can hide inside shadows?"

Zhang Jian quietly swept the area with his divine sense, but found that he couldn't detect the demon in the shadow. He could only vaguely sense a faint trace of sinister spiritual energy.

He had only noticed it because he already knew where to look.

"Quite the strange thing!"

But almost at the same instant, Zhang Jian chose to strike. A fierce crimson bolt of lightning appeared out of thin air in his palm, and in a flash, it blasted toward Qi Yuxian.

This was the first time he had conjured heavenly lightning with his bare hands.

A thunderclap suddenly rang out. Qi Yuxian, who had been weeping, froze. Her limpid eyes filled with nothing but the terrifying crimson lightning. Beneath its power, her whole body seemed numb and unable to move.

She trembled from head to toe, her senses overwhelmed.

"Zhang Jian, have you gone mad?"

Qi Yuanwu's hair stood on end. Eyes blazing with fury, he instinctively reached for the long saber at his waist, only to see the crimson heavenly lightning heading straight for Qi Yuxian bend at a strange angle in front of her and strike the shadow on the ground.

Beside him, Qi Yuansi's eyes widened as well. This was his first time seeing Zhang Jian use a spell—and it was lightning, no less.

Could anyone truly control the most wondrous force under heaven?

"Gao!"

As though it had struck a vital point in an instant, an incomparably painful shriek rippled out from the depths of the shadow. At the sound, Qi Yuanwu's shocked expression abruptly changed. His whole body went numb, and he found himself unable to move.

"A demon?"

It wasn't only Qi Yuanwu. Qi Yuansi, Qi Yuxian, and even Zhang Jian felt their souls trembling.

More precisely, their shadows on the ground were shaking, as though some terrifying presence had pinned them down.

But the three of them quickly broke free. Zhang Jian had spiritual power within him, which let him shake off the suppression of his soul. Qi Yuanwu and Qi Yuansi, meanwhile, held official posts and were protected by the aura of dragons and tigers. They were also military men, powerful warriors at the viscera-refining stage.

Their fierce, masculine blood energy surged forth, instantly breaking the hold of the sinister spiritual energy.

Qi Yuxian, however, had gone rigid. In an instant, her eyes turned completely dark, and dense sinister spiritual energy streamed from her body. She rose from the ground like a phantom.

Had she been possessed?

A dark look came over Zhang Jian's eyes, but his hands were already moving. The Wind-Walking Technique flowed around him, and like a passing breeze, he appeared beneath Qi Yuxian in an instant. He seized one of her jade feet, then produced several Soul-Cleansing Talismans and slapped them against her jade back.

"Get out!"