Night had fallen. After hesitating for a moment, Ren Qing followed the severed head with brisk steps.
He was not worried about exposing himself to the Hundred-Eyed. The human eyes within the snail and fish belly were dead objects, merely affected by an Art.
Otherwise, he would have received information from the Hundred-Eyed the moment he touched them.
The main issue was that quite a commotion had come from East City. A large number of constables had begun sealing off the streets, giving him a faint sense of unease.
Ren Qing did not want to let the Hundred-Eyed's trail slip away. He simply kept several hundred meters from the severed head and silently followed behind it with the Double-Pupil User's ability.
Plop.
The severed head fell into a drainage ditch meant to channel rainwater and continued toward South of the City, moving slowly but with extreme secrecy.
Ren Qing gripped the short blade at his waist, the pupils in his eyes rotating around each other.
He used a blade only because it felt convenient.
Compared with the other districts, South of the City was even more of a mingled mass of fish and dragons. More than half the corpses found there came from gang conflicts.
Though the Yamen had attempted to clean it up, nothing had improved. Instead, matters only grew more and more intense.
Yet that had also created South of the City's nighttime prosperity. Nearly every street had a brothel, and the scent of rouge permeated the air.
There were no shortage of gambling dens either, and where smoke and miasma filled the air, gangs inevitably stood guard.
The place Ren Qing followed the severed head to was very close to a residential area. With doors and windows tightly shut, he did not draw anyone's notice.
When the severed head slowed down, he adjusted his pace accordingly.
The head rolled into a dilapidated City God Temple. Ren Qing found a patch of woods to hide in and observed from the grass.
A moment later, a man repeatedly glanced around before sneaking into the ruined temple.
The Hundred-Eyed?
No...
A suspicion gradually arose in Ren Qing's heart.
He continued waiting patiently and took out Pig Eyes, swallowing them into his stomach. The heat could keep his blood and qi circulating rapidly throughout his body.
After the time it took to brew a cup of tea.
The man emerged from the ruined temple. He wrapped the severed head in Linen Cloth, held it against his chest with both hands, and prepared to head toward the residential area.
By the moonlight, Ren Qing saw the man's appearance clearly.
He looked about twenty-five or twenty-six. The exposed skin on his body was covered in knife scars, and his eyes were exceptionally fierce.
He had only taken a few steps with the cloth sack when a figure appeared in the distance.
The other person was shrouded in shadows cast by the trees, making their features impossible to distinguish. All Ren Qing could feel was an aura that inspired fear.
The man stopped at once, staring with an uncertain expression before instinctively drawing the Chopping Knife at his waist.
"I am Lu Ping of the Mud River Gang. Might I ask which hero you are?"
Ren Qing said coldly, "I'm with the Yamen. I have questions for you."
At those words, Lu Ping staggered several steps back, a bad feeling rising in his heart.
"Could you be a Forbidden Guard, sir?"
Ren Qing did not reply. He kept his eyes fixed on Lu Ping as he slowly approached.
"Sir, I have never committed any crime, and the Mud River Gang recently..."
"What is that in your hand?"
"I didn't kill him!"
Lu Ping's face went deathly pale. With a violent shudder, he dropped the severed head to the ground.
Under the terrifying pressure Ren Qing brought, he could no longer care about anything else. As his skin writhed, several eyes appeared on his forehead.
Ren Qing recalled the Eye-less Method he had found in the Bookstore. It seemed it had not been a coincidence—the Hundred-Eyed was deliberately spreading it.
The Hundred-Eyed controlled some cultivators to gather human eyes for him, while the rest were merely abandoned pawns meant to divert the Forbidden Guards' attention.
For all anyone knew, the Hundred-Eyed had never shown himself from beginning to end. He had stirred the entire city into a muddy mire using only his Art.
Of the Headless Cases that had appeared, at least a small half had been committed by people who cultivated the Eye-less Method. Truth and falsehood intermingled, impossible to sort out.
That way, even if Forbidden Guards intervened, the Hundred-Eyed could still slip away with ease.
Ren Qing asked, "How did you hand the human eyes over to him?"
Lu Ping's expression darkened. If he had known, he would never have touched that Art manual. Now he was deeply entangled and had even drawn the Forbidden Guards' attention.
"I don't know. I only come here once every three days and place the human eyes on the windowsill. Birds will naturally carry them away."
Lu Ping pointed at the extra eyes on his forehead. "If I don't do that, the Aberration in my body will completely spiral out of control."
Ren Qing nodded slightly.
It seemed the Hundred-Eyed had not planted informants in Sanxiang City in order to conceal his identity. That made Butcher Zhang's matter much easier to resolve.
Ren Qing continued closing in. Lu Ping hurriedly said, "I'm considered fairly restrained. Those guys..."
Before he could finish, he saw Ren Qing step into the moonlight. He immediately shut his mouth, and his expression turned utterly grim.
He had thought Ren Qing was a Forbidden Guard feared even by the Mud River Gang's higher-ups. Who would have expected him to be merely a Yamen Runner, one who did not even appear to be a Constable?
"Since when did Yamen Runners meddle so broadly?"
"My apologies. I need to borrow your life."
Ren Qing quickened his pace. His Double Pupils had already locked onto Lu Ping.
A savage smile appeared on Lu Ping's face. He drew his Chopping Knife and charged forward. He's only a Yamen Runner. Could he possibly stand against me?
The Chopping Knife slashed down from above.
As if he could predict the future, Ren Qing sidestepped the blow and drew his short blade, slashing at Lu Ping.
Lu Ping reached out to grab it. The contact between his palm and the blade rang out with the sound of metal striking metal.
Ren Qing withdrew the short blade with the motion. He noticed several eyeballs growing from Lu Ping's palm, and had not expected them to be so hard.
Just then, the commotion caused by the constables suddenly drew near.
The urge to retreat rose in Lu Ping's heart. "You go your way, and I'll go mine. Let's pretend we never met..."
Before he could finish, Ren Qing's short blade pierced his ribs from a bizarre angle.
Lu Ping felt agonizing pain erupt within his body, and his breathing became rapid. His lung had suffered a severe injury.
In his panic, his Chopping Knife swings became increasingly disorderly.
Ren Qing remained exceptionally calm. Though Forbidden Guards had most likely arrived nearby, killing his enemy would still be more than enough.
He sheathed his blade.
The Double Pupils rotated faster, and the flow of time seemed to slow to a crawl.
He gripped the hilt. Under his gaze, Lu Ping was riddled with openings, and countless methods of killing arose in his mind.
Ren Qing chose the simplest one.
He drew his blade.
Lu Ping remained in the posture of fleeing, but a thin line had appeared across his neck, blood seeping from it.
His head fell to the ground and rolled a few times, his face still wearing an expression of disbelief.
Ren Qing looked at the short blade in his hand. Its edge had already curled. If it struck anything hard again, it would likely snap.
This blade had been left behind by his predecessor's elder brother, so its material was fairly ordinary. He could only find an opportunity to replace it with a new weapon.
Ren Qing immediately left the ruined temple. Hiding in the grass, he looked into the distance and noticed two Forbidden Guards swiftly approaching along the rooftops.
One of them was Miss Bai, whom he had seen in the prison. She looked normal in a way that utterly clashed with everything around her.
The other Forbidden Guard had long arms and long legs, each stride covering several meters.
Their target was Wang Bingquan's severed head.
The long-limbed Forbidden Guard opened his mouth and spat out a large web resembling spider silk. He wrapped up the severed head and left, while Miss Bai merely glanced calmly in Ren Qing's direction.
Only after the two had left did Ren Qing emerge from hiding.
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