Seeing Nan Shiying’s silence, Ying Yi asked, “Does my master have a different opinion?”
“No!”
“I think your summary is brilliant!”
It was just a bit too explicit.
Situ Kong, who ran the inn, had heard things others hadn’t. He had heard a little about Tulan, but according to what he heard, Tulan became a dead city because of a plague a hundred years ago.
“So the reason Tulan’s citizens died a hundred years ago wasn’t a plague, but man-eating spiders? How big a spider would that be!”
“Plague?”
Nan Shiying looked at Situ Kong.
Situ Kong looked back as he roasted the rabbit, “Yes, a plague, that’s what I heard.”
The events of a hundred years ago were impossible to verify now. However, what he had heard from those madmen was bound to be a whitewashed story embellished with mythical elements. Listening to the entire account, the only thing worth pondering was the spider devouring the celestial maiden and the celestial maiden’s rebirth to devour humans.
Thus, what Ying Yi guessed might be the initial state of the entire affair.
However, what Nan Shiying was thinking about was how much the Liao Jiang Khan knew about this matter, how much of it, and how much the Eagle Division, dispatched to guard Changming Mountain only half a month ago, knew.
Nan Shiying subconsciously rubbed the corner of her clothes. She suddenly said to Ying Yi, Ying Shi, and Ying Shi’er, “You’ve worked hard. Throw these bodies into the Eagle Division’s camp.”
Situ Kong’s hand trembled, and the rabbit almost fell into the fire.
Xiao Man glared fiercely at him and walked to his side, signaling him to be careful.
If the meat falls into the fire, I’ll throw you in too!
Situ Kong: “……”
Why are you, a maid, so fierce!!!
…
“Dong~ Dong~ Dong~”
As dawn broke, the military camp where the Eagle Division was stationed outside Changming Mountain was suddenly hit by several loud thuds.
Burigude’s eyes snapped open, and he shot up from the bed. Before he could even get up, urgent and panicked shouts from soldiers outside the tent reached him, “Special Officer, something’s happened!”
Burigude, clad in soft armor, strode to the scene of the incident. He looked at the bodies on the ground, thrown down from a great height, his face so grim it seemed water could drip from it.
He looked up towards Changming Mountain.
“Special Officer, look!”
The shaman in the camp lifted the clothes of a body, showing Burigude the wounds on the wrist and ankle.
“Apart from these three bodies, the wrists and ankles of the others were cut off. Some were cut while alive, and some were cut after death.”
“So?”
Burigude only wanted to know the conclusion.
The shaman shook his head, “These people had almost all undergone extreme torture before death. However, their bodies were thrown from the mountain and suffered secondary injuries. Therefore, it has become somewhat difficult to examine the wounds and identify the fatal injuries that caused their deaths.”
“However, these wounds seem to have been intentionally inflicted by the perpetrator, resembling some sort of ritual or perhaps revenge.”
Burigude didn’t care how these people died, what torture they endured before death, nor did he care about rituals or revenge. He only cared about the identities of these people and why those scumbags from Linyuan would throw their bodies at him.
Burigude didn’t believe this was a provocation against Liao Jiang or the Eagle Division. He believed the perpetrators wanted to convey something to him.
He gazed at the bodies and suddenly noticed a blurred tattoo on their wrists.
“What is this?”
He squatted down, picked up a corpse’s wrist, and examined it closely.
The shaman took a glance and, based on the discernible parts of the tattoo, guessed, “It seems to be… a spider?”
“Who in Liao Jiang, what organization, worships spiders?”
“This subordinate does not know!”
Burigude did not get the answer he wanted, but vaguely, he felt that the other party wanted him to investigate the identities of these people.
…
“The Shadow Guard operates, and the General has no right to interfere.”
Ying Wu tidied his sleeves. Seeing the bloodstains on them, he stepped on the hand of the assassin beneath him and slowly pressed down.
The commander of the Langhuan Army, Lin Xie,’s eyelids twitched. He looked at Ying Wu with eyes as sharp as knives. Seeing him acting so brazenly in front of him, he slammed his palm on the table and roared, “You are insolent!”
Lin Xie, a veteran of countless battles, exuded a fierce aura. Now, his fury caused his entire presence to condense into a force that pressed against Ying Wu like waves. Anyone else would have been terrified into submission by Lin Xie’s might, but Ying Wu was a dark guard who had emerged from a sea of blood and was not intimidated by his presence in the slightest.
Instead, he pressed down harder with the sole of his shoe on the assassin’s fingers, as if to retort Lin Xie’s reprimand.
The Regent’s subordinates are truly outrageously arrogant.
“Guards!”
Lin Xie, enraged, decided to have the man arrested and imprisoned.
Soldiers rushed into the tent, surrounding Ying Wu.
Ying Wu looked at Lin Xie and slowly said, “General Lin, if you do not wish to be branded a traitor, do not act so rashly. Otherwise, you will bear the consequences yourself.”
“Are you trying to bluff me?”
Lin Xie’s hand rested on the table, his upper body leaning forward slightly. His tiger-like eyes gleamed with chilling light.
Ying Wu smiled. He said, “If the General doesn’t believe me, he can try it.”
“However, General, you know full well that my presence in Cheng Chongyu’s tent was for protection, not assassination. If you imprison me out of momentary anger, then you, your Lin clan, your maternal Xie clan, your wife’s Deng Ying Sun clan, and the entire Langhuan Army, will be plunged into eternal damnation because of your momentary temper.”
Lin Xie’s hands slowly clenched into fists. The value of some people’s lives was not their inherent worth, but the value of the power they represented.
Although the person before him was merely a dark guard, his master was Linyuan’s Regent, a position second only to the emperor, with an imperial edict that allowed him to admonish the king and execute officials without prior approval. Lin Xie had not truly intended to treat him this way, he simply couldn’t stand his arrogant and rebellious demeanor.
Lin Xie took a deep breath and waved his hand at the soldiers, signaling them to withdraw.
The soldiers dared not say anything more. They surged in like a tide and receded like a tide.
Ying Wu bowed slightly, picked up the assassin, and brought him before Lin Xie. He bowed slightly, yet still looked down at Lin Xie from a superior position.
“General Lin Xie, do me a favor!”
Lin Xie felt that the man was constantly pushing the limits of his tolerance. He took a deep breath, desperately holding onto his rapidly collapsing composure, and said in a sinister, teeth-gritting voice, “Speak!”
“Help me interrogate this assassin, will you?”
Lin Xie: “……”
What the heck is wrong with you!
Are you sick? You just said I couldn’t interfere with the Shadow Guard’s business, and now you want me to interrogate an assassin for you. Do you want me to know or not?
“General Lin?”
Ying Wu blinked, looking at Lin Xie, whose jaw was moving and veins were bulging.
Lin Xie: “……”
Damn it!
“Fine!”
The voice boomed like thunder!