Hearing the vendor’s words, Xu Zimo frowned slightly and said, “Can’t you be a little more specific.”
“In the south of the city there’s a household, where a little girl lives. I watched her grow up, she used to often come eat dumplings at my stall,” the vendor said to himself. “That little girl had always been an orphan, but recently she somehow gained parents. And she stopped coming to eat my dumplings.”
“Who would dare eat your dumplings,” Ji Ruobing glanced at the corpse of Qin Luo beside them and muttered softly.
“Got it,” Xu Zimo thought for a moment, then finally nodded.
He led Ji Ruobing straight toward the south of the city.
“You actually trust him?” Ji Ruobing asked.
“Whether I trust him or not, we’ll know once we go,” Xu Zimo replied.
The south of the city was rather desolate.
The ground was overgrown with weeds, and the people living here seemed to be from the very bottom layer of this city.
On both sides of the main road were all sorts of makeshift tents, inside which lay unkempt people.
In the alleys, groups of beggars in tattered clothes lay half-dead.
This city seemed to contain a hundred different faces.
Every district you went to, you’d see something different.
The two of them arrived at the courtyard the vendor had mentioned.
The courtyard was very old, with earthen walls that had partly collapsed.
“Let’s go in and see,” Xu Zimo said.
He stepped forward and knocked on the door. Before long, the gate opened.
The one who opened it was a little girl.
She wore a plain coarse white shirt, had two little braids on each side, and her face seemed smudged with dirt.
“Do you need something?” the little girl asked curiously.
“Little one, are your parents home?” Xu Zimo asked.
“Papa, someone’s here to see you,” the girl called into the house.
A voice replied, “Coming,” and soon a middle-aged man in a dark blue robe walked out.
The man’s appearance was ordinary, showing nothing unusual.
“Who are you?” the man frowned and asked.
“Oh, we are enforcers under the Lord of Destruction,” Ji Ruobing quickly answered.
“This time we’ve been ordered to investigate the case of the escaped Blood Rune Beast.”
“What does that have to do with us?” the man asked nervously.
“Someone reported that you have a connection with the Blood Rune Beast, so we came to investigate,” Ji Ruobing said coldly.
“Please, sirs, see the truth,” the man quickly explained. “These days the city is so restless that we barely leave our home. How could we know anything about a Blood Rune Beast?”
“Too many words are useless. We’ll check, and if there’s nothing, we won’t trouble you further,” Ji Ruobing said.
The man hesitated, then finally nodded.
“Please, come in.”
As they entered the house, Xu Zimo frowned slightly.
The little girl and the man who had received them didn’t seem out of the ordinary.
The courtyard was very simple.
From an inner room came the sound of coughing.
“Old Dong, is someone here?”
Hearing the voice, the man quickly explained, “That’s my wife. She’s gravely ill and not fit to see people. I ask your forgiveness.”
“Let’s go take a look,” Xu Zimo said.
Entering the inner room, a strong medicinal smell assaulted their noses, pungent and overwhelming.
On the table was a freshly brewed medicine pot, and on the bed lay a woman covered completely by a blanket.
“My friend here is a physician. As the saying goes, doctors are like parents. Let her examine your wife,” Xu Zimo said with a smile. “Perhaps there may be some miraculous effect.”
“Then many thanks, sir,” the man hesitated, but finally nodded.
Ji Ruobing glared at Xu Zimo, then slowly walked toward the woman.
“Madam, stretch out your hand,” Ji Ruobing said.
“Then I’ll trouble this beauty,” a strange voice came from under the blanket, and suddenly a green claw swiped past Ji Ruobing’s eyes, aiming straight for them.
Ji Ruobing snorted coldly, seemingly prepared, and quickly retreated.
With a “boom,” the room’s door slammed shut, and the blanket flew up. A green-skinned monster stood up.
The monster’s form was hideous, its whole body oily green, resembling the imps of legend.
Its ears were like an elf’s, sharp and long, its bald head covered in rippling patterns.
Its two eyes were pure white, with a hooked nose like a hawk.
“You deserve death,” the little demon said angrily.
The next moment, four more imps leapt down from the beams of the room.
Meanwhile, the little girl and the man had long been terrified, shivering in a corner.
“Blood Rune Beasts look like this?” Ji Ruobing asked curiously.
“They are not Blood Rune Beasts,” Xu Zimo said gravely, shaking his head.
Though he had never seen one himself, when he had been in the Northern Continent, he had seen ancient carvings left behind at the ruins of the Sword Immortal Jiang Race.
The Jiang Race had been guardians of the Blood Rune Space in the north, just like the Sword Immortal Jiang Yun himself.
Though Blood Rune Beasts had many forms, they shared one common trait: their power was that of Spirit Summoning.
That was a special kind of power from the twilight of the Legendary Era.
Just like the gods of the Legendary Era, who all possessed divine powers.
But these green monsters before them used nothing but ordinary spiritforce, how could they compare with overlords of the Legendary Era?
“Who exactly are you?” Xu Zimo frowned and asked.
“Your superior has already come, and you still ask who we are?” the monster said coldly. “You interrupted our worship, do you know what the consequences are?”
“What race are you?” Xu Zimo asked again.
The monster did not answer, but slowly raised its hands.
These hands were unlike those of normal beings.
Most beings had five fingers, long and short.
But this monster had six fingers, all of equal length.
Ji Ruobing, with her broad knowledge, thought for a moment and asked in shock, “Are you from the Six-Finger Race?”
“Oh, so someone still remembers that name,” the monster looked at Ji Ruobing with a faint glance.
With a cold snort it said, “But those lowly Six-Finger Race wretches cannot compare to us. They are but a mottled side branch. We are the true Mountain God Race.”
“Mountain God Race?” Xu Zimo shook his head slightly. “Never heard of it.”
He wasn’t one who read much, outside of what interested him, he paid little attention.
With three thousand races in this world, how could he remember them all?
“Mountain God Race,” Ji Ruobing, however, exclaimed softly. She carefully asked, “So the worship you mentioned earlier, you were worshiping the Mountain God?”
“What else did you think?” the monster said angrily. “But because of your intrusion, I was forced to stop the ritual.”
Hearing this, Ji Ruobing tugged at Xu Zimo’s sleeve and whispered, “This might be a misunderstanding.”