First Merit

By the time Ye An brought Song Yuanshan's corpse back to the Demon Suppressing Guard's outpost, dawn was breaking.

The front hall was packed. Members of the Song Family who had been brought in, along with martial artists connected to the Heaven Overturning Cult, were held in designated areas by the Demon Suppressing Guard.

The noise was a tangled mess. Some protested their innocence, some muttered curses, and others tried to struggle, only to be kicked back by a commandant. After a muffled groan, they dared not move again.

Wei Wu stood in the hall, his face dark as he complained to the clerk handling the records.

"I finally stopped the boat that was about to escape from Clear River Crossing, only to find that the Song Yuanshan aboard was a fake! He was wearing a Human-Skin Mask! I've been chasing him for days, and all I caught was a stand-in!"

The more he spoke, the angrier he grew. "I spent the whole night intercepting that boat, and in the end I caught an impostor?!"

The clerk glanced at him. Wei Wu's temperament was nothing new to the Demon Suppressing Guard. He liked to complain and angered easily.

The clerk did not take the bait. He merely lowered his head and wrote a few lines in the register.

Wei Wu was about to say more when his gaze swept toward the entrance, and he froze.

A familiar figure walked in—the troublesome subordinate he had "scared" off, whose superior was at odds with his own!

Ye An entered with a corpse slung over his shoulder.

The corpse wore commoner's clothes, but many of his colleagues in the Demon Suppressing Guard recognized the face. It was Song Yuanshan!

Ye An walked to the center of the hall and set the corpse down.