Hexing Street lay beside the Dadu River, which ran across Sanxiang City, and thus got its name.
Every morning and evening, great numbers of fishermen followed the river to the docks of Hexing Street, where they lingered in the fish market to set up stalls and sell their catch.
Whenever the residents west of the city wanted to buy seafood, they came here. Even people from other districts specifically hired carriages to visit its famed market.
The fish market by the docks truly had something special about it.
The fish sold from the stalls in the morning were the freshest, usually still lively and leaping about, and were deeply favored by wealthy households and restaurants.
The fish sold in the evening had already been kept in wooden basins for an entire day. Most had turned belly-up, and their prices were not even one-tenth or two-tenths of what they had originally been.
Common folk would carefully pick through the dead fish. Bringing one home to try something fresh was not bad either.
Once the sky darkened and mealtime had passed, the number of stalls gradually dwindled.
The fishermen successively hurried away from Sanxiang City in their small boats. They all lived in villages on the outskirts, and traveling by water at night was truly difficult.
Under the setting sun, the fish market became so deserted that a bird could have nested in its gates.
Zhang Dou hurriedly packed up his stall. In order to buy brushes and ink for his child attending elementary school, he had nearly missed his chance to leave.
At that moment, he noticed a fish stall still set up not far away, with no sign whatsoever of packing up.
Zhang Dou glanced at the sun setting halfway down the mountain and quickly walked over.
He had met the stall owner a few times before and could not help reminding him, "Wang Bingquan, it's time to leave. The waterways will be hard to travel later."
"Heh heh heh heh."
Wang Bingquan let out an inexplicable, strange laugh. His head was a full circle larger than an ordinary person's, and blue veins covered his face.
Zhang Dou staggered back several steps, though he quickly calmed himself.
He looked toward the stall. There was still a belly-up silver carp in the wooden basin, missing both of its eyes. Its condition was far too poor, which was why it had not sold.
"Wang Bingquan, if this fish won't sell, take it home and make soup..."
"Heh heh heh, how about I sell it to you?"
"Who wants your rotten fish? So my good intentions were treated like donkey liver and lungs."
Zhang Dou could not help cursing under his breath. Wang Bingquan was not angered in the slightest; he only kept up that eerie laughter, making one's hair stand on end.
He suddenly recalled a tragedy he had heard about, which seemed to concern Wang Bingquan.
There had been five fishermen in Wang Bingquan's village. They fished together and took turns selling their catch, looking after one another.
Yet a few days ago, when they cast their nets in the Dadu River, every fisherman except Wang Bingquan had died.
It was said that when the Yamen retrieved the bodies, there was not a single piece of good flesh left on them, while their eyes had become nothing more than two empty holes.
Rumor had it that water ghosts had killed them.
Pity rose in Zhang Dou's heart. Wang Bingquan had likely gone mad, which explained why he remained in the fish market instead of leaving.
He sighed and said, "Wang Bingquan, I'll buy this fish. Go home early."
Wang Bingquan raised his head and stared fixedly at Zhang Dou. An extraordinarily exaggerated smile spread across his lips.
"Three coins."
With an ugly expression, Zhang Dou pulled out his money pouch. As though sending off a plague god, he took out several coins without even counting them and handed them over.
Wang Bingquan skillfully threaded a straw rope through the fish's mouth, then passed the entire silver carp over.
"Remember to fry it. Silver carp meat is tender and smooth, and the fish eyes are an unparalleled delicacy."
Just as Zhang Dou was about to take it, someone suddenly intercepted the silver carp, snatching the straw rope with perfect timing.
He hurriedly turned his head. At some point, a Yamen Runner had appeared beside him.
"You..."
Ren Qing had no intention of returning the silver carp. Instead, he consoled him, "Hurry and board your boat. Consider the three coins the price of buying your life."
Because he feared the Yamen Runner, Zhang Dou could only swallow this grievance. At the same time, deep confusion arose in his heart.
Why would two people fight over a stinking dead fish? And what did buying a life for three coins mean?
Thoroughly bewildered, Zhang Dou walked to the docks. He looked once more in Wang Bingquan's direction, only to see the two men turning into an alley one after the other.
The more he thought about it, the more wrong it felt. Wang Bingquan looked every bit like a vicious ghost come to claim lives, so Zhang Dou hurriedly poled his boat away.
Meanwhile, Ren Qing carried the silver carp as he wandered along, his eyes constantly surveying the surroundings of the alley.
He had secretly investigated the bodies from the Headless Case and discovered that some of the deceased had lived near water sources, which led him to Hexing Street.
What they had in common was that they had all bought dead fish before they died. After eating them, their eyes began to ache, and in the end, they became headless corpses.
The other bodies had met different fates, which showed that Hundred-Eyed had never revealed himself. He had always killed invisibly through certain methods.
Ren Qing waited at the end of the alley. There was not the slightest bit of light nearby; one could not see one's own fingers even with a hand outstretched.
He stood there for a while before bright green eyes gradually approached him, accompanied by faint, inexplicable muttering.
"I never wanted to kill them."
"They deserved to die, deserved to die."
"How could you blame me? You absolutely cannot blame me."
"Die die die die die!!!"
Wang Bingquan walked over, his twisted face filled with resentment and venom.
"I came to return your fish eyes..."
Ren Qing sensed something amiss and looked down at the silver carp in his hand. The scales on its body were gradually falling away, while densely packed human eyes grew from beneath them.
In a daze, the silver carp became incomparably fresh and alive, as though it had just leaped from the water, making him unable to resist swallowing.
Ren Qing's Double Pupils turned, and the Illusion vanished in an instant.
He reached out and squeezed the carp, clearly feeling something foreign inside. After tearing open its belly, a human eye fell out.
Seeing that the human eye was still twitching, Ren Qing stomped it directly into a pulp of flesh before moving toward Wang Bingquan.
Wang Bingquan faced the wall and muttered to himself. As though seized by extreme terror, he trembled as he dropped to his knees.
"Don't kill me. I already did as you said. Every day, I fed eyes to living people. I didn't even spare the people from my own village."
When he reached that point, his tone abruptly turned shocked again. "I didn't kill them. I only hid the eyes in the fish bellies. If they bought my fish, they deserved to die."
Ren Qing drew the short blade from his waist and stepped forward.
Wang Bingquan's head turned crimson, and more than half his eyeballs bulged out. Yet his gaze did not shift in the slightest.
Hundred-Eyed's ability was to create Illusions. Using them to manipulate hearts and minds was not difficult. Wang Bingquan was clearly nothing more than his puppet.
Ren Qing looked toward the wall.
For other cultivators, even if they could see in the dark, closely observing every minute detail would have been impossible. But for a Double-Pupil User, it was effortless.
A snail crawled across the wall. Between the feelers on its head grew a human eye, which stared back at Ren Qing with an eerie gaze.
Before Ren Qing could react, the snail exploded into a heap of rotten mud.
Immediately afterward, a gurgling sound came from Wang Bingquan's throat. He clutched his severed neck in agony as his head fell to the ground.
The head rolled with the wind, shooting out of the alley in the blink of an eye.
Ren Qing hurriedly chased after it.
Hundred-Eyed's methods did not resemble those of someone who had only recently advanced. It felt as though he had been hiding in Sanxiang City for a long time, and killing people for their eyes was not for cultivating the Eye-less Method.
Perhaps he was gravely wounded and needed treatment. Perhaps he was old and nearing death, seeking to prolong his life.
If that was truly the case, Hundred-Eyed had definitely relied on an Eerie Object to reach the Half-Corpse stage.
If he wanted to advance, he would have to consume the Eerie Object of the Hundred-Eyed Demon Lord. Setting aside the nine deaths and one life, how could such a thing be found so easily?
Could he be creating chaos to conceal something?
Thanks to readers 160506141214740, Who Is the Darkest, and Shu Ba for their rewards.
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