Hero Nan Ke

Li Yunxin thought for a moment and said, "Oh."

Seeing his reaction, Yu Meng felt even happier.

Because! This person! Had actually! Not immediately clung to him, fawned over him, and begged to swear brotherhood or curry favor with him!

And he had already said that he was the current Guild Head of the Great Qing Dynasty's Escort-Bureau Guild!

Father had been right after all. Yu Meng thought to himself, traveling the jianghu really did mean meeting more interesting people, instead of being like those young masters and ladies in Weicheng—who practically bored him to death!

Thinking this, he looked at Li Yunxin again, his heart brimming with joy, nearly overflowing. Since the other man treated him like a chance-met wandering hero of the jianghu, he felt he ought to show some of a jianghu man's backbone as well. He had to... hmm... be more seasoned and mature.

Thus, he rubbed his face, cleared his throat, and said solemnly, "Mm. Well... I am the current Guild Head of the Great Qing Dynasty's Escort-Bureau Guild. By my father's orders, I have been traveling the jianghu to befriend heroes and worthy men. While returning to Weicheng, I passed this place and smelled Guiding Incense."

"Feeling sick?"

"Oh? Ah, no, no, returning to Wei—returning to Weicheng."

"Ah... please continue."

"Mm. As I was saying, I smelled the Guiding Incense. This Guiding Incense was the first initiative I conceived after taking office. In the past, the escort agencies of the Great Qing Dynasty each went their own way and had scant ties with one another. I thought that escort agencies across the land were one family and naturally had a duty to watch over and aid one another, so I had this Guiding Incense made. Escort agents carry it with them on a run, and if danger arises, they secretly scatter it—only those who have smelled another kind of incense can detect this special scent, and thus follow it—"

"Just now, as I passed here, I caught that scent. Then I saw the three of you unconscious, so I went to investigate first. Alas... it was too horrible to look upon!"

Li Yunxin frowned slightly. Earlier, he had not had time to deal with the corpses strewn about. He had only planned to wait a few days, until no one came by and spring warmed the air; once the corpses rotted away and were eaten by the birds and beasts of the forest, no one would be able to infer what had happened that day.

But Yu Meng had actually followed the scent deep into those woods?

He must have seen all manner of strange abnormalities.

As Li Yunxin pondered whether he ought to do something, he saw Yu Meng pace back and forth twice, clap his hands, and sigh heavily. "It is a pity I thought of this long ago, but lacked the financial means to put it into practice! Though Great Qing is prosperous, there is no shortage of wilderness like this. Tigers, leopards, wolves, and jackals may lurk along the roads. Once they form a pack, their courage grows; once their courage grows, they harass travelers."

He looked at Li Yunxin with a grief-stricken expression. "I carefully examined those corpses. Alas, four or five had had their heads bitten off, blood flowing everywhere! Some seemed to have died in infighting—they must have panicked too badly and turned on one another! You four, one old man, one young one, one cripple, and one woman, were actually abandoned at the roadside by them. Alas, alas, alas, this was simply..."

...simply idiotic.

Li Yunxin listened to all this with his eyes wide, confirming again and again that this fellow was not forcibly whitewashing things for him before asking, "Then... what do you think happened to that pile of burned carts and goods by the roadside?"

"What would people not do to save their own lives?!" Yu Meng sighed again in heartfelt anguish. "When those beasts first attacked, they must have linked the escort carts head to tail into a circle to fend off the assault. Then, unable to break the stalemate, they lit a fire to frighten the beasts away with the flames! Later, after the standoff dragged on too long, they had no choice but to throw in the goods despite the pain, so the fire would burn longer. And after that... those beasts finally broke through. People fled for their lives, the fire got out of control, and the carts were set ablaze as well!"

"May I ask what inspired this perfectly reasonable deduction of yours, sir? Where did it come from?"

"Hehe. It was not difficult. I once read a book called Beast Record. In it, Hero Nan Ke traveled the jianghu, solved cases, and hunted criminals, and he had an experience much like this!"

Li Yunxin drew a deep breath and clasped his hands solemnly,

then said with utter seriousness, "Brother Yu has eyes like blazing torches and extraordinary knowledge. I am truly impressed. That is indeed what happened. To be frank, this escort agency was Qiao's Hongfu Escort Agency. The old man and I were travelers riding under their escort. A few days ago, we encountered a beast attack on the road. Now only the agency's master, Qiao Duanhong, is missing, dead or alive unknown, along with his terrified little daughter, Qiao Jiaxin. If Brother Yu could assist them in returning to Weicheng..."

"This was the Escort-Bureau Guild's business to begin with. Leave it to me!" Yu Meng swept a hand through the air, his heroic spirit soaring to the clouds, while also feeling very satisfied with Li Yunxin as a friend—

Did he truly not understand what being the "Guild Head of the Escort-Bureau Guild" meant, hmm?

Nor did he understand what kind of presence the Yu Household of Weicheng was, hmm?

This man... was interesting...

And so, before they reached Weicheng, Li Yunxin tested him again and again, finally realizing that he had encountered one of those legendary sorts of people.

The sort who thought, Oh heavens, this girl actually cursed at me, shouted at me, and was rude to me. She is simply too different, too irresistibly fascinating!

That sort of person. Yes, there was something wrong with Yu Meng's head. Not quite severely disabled, perhaps, but certainly unlike ordinary people. Li Yunxin vaguely inferred that the "Yu Household" Yu Meng spoke of was probably an outrageously wealthy family.

The Yu Household originally had nothing whatsoever to do with the escort trade. But one day, Old Master Yu lost his mind and handed out silver to every escort agency in Great Qing. In the end, he gathered them all together and created an Escort-Bureau Guild. He made his own son the Guild Head and let him play around with novel ideas. But no one took it seriously.

After all, the only thing the Escort-Bureau Guild ever did was hand out money during holidays and festivals. Who would not be happy to accept the Yu Household's money?

People said Old Master Yu had fathered a foolish son in his old age and wanted to win some face for him. In the end, he simply had too much money and did not care how he scattered it.

Liu Laodao, after recovering, whispered all this into his ear.

The three of them falling asleep for no reason truly was not Yu Meng's doing. Li Yunxin only thought of the earlier dream and vaguely felt it must be related to what had happened in it, but he had no time to ponder it carefully.

Because the little cat demon... was not quite right.

The little cat demon was awake, yet obedient to a frightening degree. She did not speak, only leaned against Li Yunxin's side and stared wide-eyed at Yu Meng as though he were some kind of monster. Afraid that her body would rot and stink, Li Yunxin secretly examined her wound.

What he found was that the wound had turned an eerie white—soft and elastic, yet like... rubber. It neither decayed nor healed.

That ought to have been a good thing...

But he also felt it was related to that dream.

In the dream, the two who called themselves the Black-and-White Yamas... had actually spoken of his previous life. If it had merely been a dream, then of course there would have been nothing strange about it.

But now, thinking of what those two had said before hurriedly leaving—"Take what?! Don't let him fly into a murderous rage! Let's go, let's go! From now on, don't take the souls of anyone entangled with him! Otherwise he'll come make trouble again!"—and then seeing Qiao Jiaxin's decaying body as it was now...

Li Yunxin realized that perhaps he had truly encountered something like the Yamas sending him a dream.

He was, after all, a cultivator, and he knew that in this world...

The Netherworld, the Hall of Senluo, and the Black-and-White Yamas truly existed.