Chapter 25

“What are you two doing here?” Nunu squeezed her little head between Lin Yu and Fu Ming. She looked at the two people in the room holding each other and weeping, and her usually cheerful expression drooped. “My mom and dad have been like this for a long time… but it’s the first time I’ve seen this many people. What’s wrong with them? They’re sick, right?”

Lin Yu asked her, “When did they start acting like this?”

Nunu thought for a moment. “About two months ago. That day, Mom and Dad went out to buy medicine and didn’t come home for several days. After they came back, they’ve been acting strange ever since…”

Lin Yu didn’t know how to explain it to Nunu, so she patted her shoulder. “Go back to sleep for now. Little kids won’t grow if they don’t sleep. I’ll figure out what to do about your parents.”

Just then, a figure leaped over the rooftops and landed steadily in the courtyard before them—it was Yu Jia, back at last.

Compared to Fu Ming, Zhang Yulin disliked Yu Jia even more, so she took the opportunity to pick up Nunu and head back to the room to sleep.

After Zhang Yulin left, Yu Jia said, “Your Majesty, this counterfeiting case is bigger than we thought. Fake copper coins and gold and silver are probably spread throughout the middle and lower reaches of the entire canal.”

Yu Jia pulled two copper coins and a piece of silver from his clothes. “After I escorted that couple out of the Rain Goddess Temple, I ran into two bandits. I protected the couple and put them on a boat, and they insisted on giving me some money as thanks.”

It was the money they’d collected from their village.

Fu Ming took the copper coins and bent one of them with ease. He raised his eyes. “I’ve already sent the Mingzhao Guard to investigate.”

The Mingzhao Guard was an investigative organization Fu Ming had established years ago, filled with many talented and extraordinary individuals. According to their investigation of coin circulation and iron transport in the market, they’d preliminarily narrowed the target to the area around Huju Mountain. There were nearly a hundred villages of varying sizes nearby, so it would still take time to get results.

Fu Ming continued, “What about the rest of the Xie family?”

The Xies had brought a large amount of gold and silver into the Imperial City, which meant they must have discovered the counterfeiting scheme. Unfortunately, they were silenced before they even entered the city. As long as they followed the trail of the Xie family, clues would surely surface.

Yu Jia hesitated before speaking. “They’re… all dead…”

Fu Ming’s brow twitched. “They move fast.”

Lin Yu leaned in. “How did they die?”

Yu Jia’s tone carried a hint of regret. “The young master of the Xie family corresponded with me by letter during the day. After I sent the couple off, I went back to the Xie residence to return the visit, only to find it already swimming in blood. Every single one was killed by a sword wound—one strike, instant death. I notified the yamen before coming here.”

“Are you sure they were alive during the day and only wiped out tonight?” Lin Yu asked suspiciously.

Yu Jia nodded and pulled a letter from his chest. “The young master of the Xie family and I were classmates for a while. I know his handwriting better than anyone. He arranged for me to visit tonight. This letter can’t be fake.”

Lin Yu skimmed through the letter’s contents, then frowned. “No, something’s wrong. Let’s go to the Xie residence.”

The Xie residence was a great family in Jiangnan, with several hundred members—thriving and deeply rooted. In broad daylight, the whole family had been alive and well, yet overnight they were wiped out to the last person. In the Jiangnan region, who could possibly have such skill?

…

The Xie residence.

The gates of the Xie residence stood wide open, with coroners and yamen runners everywhere. All the bodies had been laid out at the entrance, densely lined up side by side.

Fu Ming called a few coroners aside for questioning while Lin Yu pulled Zhang Yulin along and stepped into the courtyard of the Xie residence.

Zhang Yulin clung to Lin Yu’s arm, standing in the middle of the courtyard, trembling as she stared at the bodies carpeting the ground. “Do we really have to investigate this case ourselves…”

Zhang Yulin had always been afraid of the dead, but in their line of work, dealing with corpses was the most common thing of all.

That was also why she hated attending grand ceremonies—because there were always so many dead on the sacrificial altars.

Call Zhang Yulin timid, and yet no matter how dangerous the situation, she would charge in without hesitation. Call her bold, and she’d jump out of her skin if she ran into a corpse at midnight.

Like the ordinary Cultivation Academy, the Heaven’s Mandate Tower held assessments every month and every year. The top performers in those assessments could receive cultivation gifted by the elders for free.

With a single stroke, they could obtain what would take an ordinary person years or even decades to cultivate. Thus, the strong passed the assessments, gained cultivation, and grew stronger.

The weak, on the other hand, were eliminated by the assessments. A year of their own self-cultivation couldn’t match what someone else won in a single assessment, and they only grew weaker. The gap between the two widened more and more, and the weak even faced the risk of being expelled from the Heaven’s Mandate Tower.

Zhang Yulin belonged to that group who couldn’t pass the assessments and whose cultivation remained stuck in place.

But unlike the others, she possessed talent far beyond the ordinary. Exceptionally high talent paired with mediocre strength—so Zhang Yulin’s situation was actually quite dangerous.

Lin Yu patted Zhang Yulin’s head and pulled her toward the house. “Don’t be scared, don’t be scared.”

Zhang Yulin: “Ahh! Is he moving?! Ahh!”

Lin Yu clamped her hand over Zhang Yulin’s shrieking mouth and said in a very gentle tone, “Alright, alright. Maybe the killer hasn’t gone far. If they see us here, they might just take care of us too while they’re at it.”

Zhang Yulin instantly fell silent, staring at Lin Yu in terror. She clung tightly to Lin Yu’s arm, as if she were about to hang her entire body off her.

The corpses lay neatly on the ground, their faces crusted with dried blood, making their original features unrecognizable.

Lin Yu stopped in front of a female corpse. She crouched down and brushed aside the tangled hair, revealing the wound on her neck. Since she hadn’t been dead long, blood was still seeping from the back of her head, pooling into a small puddle. Judging by the looks of it, that slash was her fatal wound.

Lin Yu pressed her finger against the corpse’s flesh and studied the wound carefully, quickly noticing something off. “This wound on her neck was made after she died.”

“Huh?” Zhang Yulin didn’t dare crouch down. She tugged at a strand of Lin Yu’s sleeve and desperately tried to look up at the sky. “How about we head out first?”

“No…” Lin Yu turned over another corpse. It was the same—the wound on the neck wasn’t deep enough to be fatal, yet there were no other injuries on the body. Lin Yu was about to call Fu Ming and Yu Jia from outside the door.

Suddenly, a burst of fireworks exploded across the sky, dyeing nearly half the heavens with light.

Fu Ming looked at the sky, displeasure crossing his face. Lin Yu guessed that someone was sending a signal. “Trouble?”

Fu Ming’s gaze landed on Lin Yu’s brow. “They even dare to touch my Mingzhao Guard. They’re bolder than I thought.”

“That’s the Mingzhao Guard’s distress signal.” Yu Jia added, “Since its founding, the Mingzhao Guard has investigated hundreds of cases, and they’ve never once fired a distress signal.”

The implication was that this was serious trouble.

Fu Ming placed a golden token in Lin Yu’s palm. “Whatever you do, be careful.”

Lin Yu gripped the cold token and looked at Fu Ming. Fu Ming continued, “If I haven’t returned by tomorrow night, kill those resurrected ones, take the Soul-Renewing Pills, and leave. Don’t bother with the Rain Goddess case anymore.”

Lin Yu: “You doubt my ability?”

Fu Ming suddenly smiled. Lin Yu hated being doubted. Whether she could do it or not, she needed to be affirmed first, or she’d be unhappy. Fu Ming said, “I believe you can do it.”

A faint smile tugged at the corner of Lin Yu’s mouth. Fu Ming had a second half to that sentence, but he didn’t say it. He paused for a moment, then said, “See you tomorrow night.”

…

Early the next morning, Lin Yu knocked on the gate of the Lu residence. No one answered. Thinking it might still be too early, she wandered around the neighborhood near the Lu residence.

The location was good, and with Jiangnan’s thriving handicraft industry, the street vendors had already set up their stalls and started hawking their wares early. It should have been a scene of bustling prosperity, but there was something eerily off about it.

Jiangnan was a land of plenty, so why did the streets feel so lifeless?

Everyone’s clothes were ragged, covered in dirt and dust. They all looked grimy and dejected. Even street peddlers shouldn’t look like that.

Lin Yu spotted a trinket vendor in the distance. The vendor had laid out his wares—and they were all plain wooden hairpins, without a single ornament. The hairpins were oddly shaped and crooked, with splinters sticking out from lack of polishing. “Ugly” didn’t even begin to describe them.

She walked over and casually picked up one of the hairpins. Seeing a customer, the vendor smiled shyly. “I made these myself. If you don’t mind them, miss, you can take one for thirty-five wen.”

Lin Yu and Zhang Yulin exchanged a look. Thirty-five wen?! Why didn’t he just rob them?!

Lin Yu chose her words carefully. “Uh… Master, how long have you been in this trade?”

The vendor scratched his head. “About a dozen years, I suppose. I’m the finest woodworker for miles around!”

Lin Yu and Zhang Yulin both let out an “Ah.”

These hairpins didn’t look like the work of someone with a decade of experience. Lin Yu reckoned that even Da Niu, her former apprentice at the medicine shop, could make better ones. Oh, right—Da Niu was disabled in both hands.

Lin Yu stood there puzzling over it for a long while, but in the end, she paid and bought two hairpins.

The vendor’s eyes lit up the moment he got the money, and he immediately started packing up. “Made some money, haha! Time to go home!”

With lightning speed, he gathered up all the hairpins on the table and ran off, leaving a bewildered Lin Yu and Zhang Yulin behind.

Zhang Yulin: “Is he… not right in the head?”

Lin Yu stared blankly at the vendor who’d already disappeared into a blur. “Possibly…”

Lin Yu knocked on the Lu residence’s gate again. It was already mid-morning, yet still no one came to the door. Lin Yu asked an elderly woman by the side gate, “Ma’am, might I ask where the people of this household have gone?”

The old woman glanced at the Lu residence’s bright vermilion gates. “Them? You won’t catch them before late morning. The head of this household is a woman named Lu Yao. Young, started her own household. They say she’s blessed by the Rain Goddess, so she goes to worship the Rain Goddess before dawn every day without fail, and doesn’t come back until the sun’s high in the sky.”

Lin Yu nodded her thanks. Zhang Yulin was about to take Lin Yu’s arm and leave when a familiar figure appeared before them again—the wooden hairpin vendor.

Lin Yu was puzzled. “Didn’t you close up shop? How are you back so soon?”

The vendor hung his head in dejection, his voice faint. “Sigh… I lost the money. I haven’t made a single coin in months, and the first copper I finally earn, I lost it again, again, again…”

Lin Yu: ?

Zhang Yulin: ?

What rotten luck?!

Lin Yu thought it over before speaking. “Did you accidentally offend the God of Glory? Is he deliberately screwing with you?”

If he hadn’t offended the God of Wealth, Lin Yu couldn’t imagine how someone could be so unlucky. Even she wasn’t this jinxed.

The vendor suddenly grew agitated and argued, “The God of Glory is the best deity in the world! He would never do such a thing! I made a point of worshipping the God of Glory before I left the house today, and that’s why I got your business!”

Then he fell back into self-pity. “It’s just that I’m not good enough and went and lost the money… Don’t laugh at me, ladies. The hairpins I used to make were actually quite pretty. It’s just that the tendons in my hands were injured, so I can’t make nice ones anymore. But I don’t have any other skills, so I just have to grit my teeth and keep at it.”

Just as Lin Yu was puzzling over this, a gaunt coachman leading a tall horse walked past them. As the horse passed Zhang Yulin, it suddenly raised its hoof and kicked out at a noodle stall beside them!

The tables and chairs in front of the noodle stall toppled over in a row, with the crack and splinter of breaking wood filling the air! Amid the loud racket, the horse seemed even more riled up and charged straight at the iron wok set up outside!

A pot of boiling water spilled across the middle of the street, sending up a plume of steam!

Zhang Yulin scrambled out of the way, and the noodle stall owner came running out, cursing, “Is your horse blind?! Can’t it see a stall this big?!”

Seeing the commotion, the surrounding vegetable sellers, food vendors, and trinket peddlers all gathered to watch the show. The coachman apologized profusely, pulling a banknote from his chest and handing it to the noodle stall owner. “I’m truly sorry. My horse has been going mad out of nowhere these past few months. This is all the money I have left…”

The coachman was extremely thin—the kind of sickly thin from starvation, as if a gust of wind could blow him away. His hair was already streaked with white, and deep wrinkles carved his face.

The noodle stall owner’s eyes lit up at the sight of the money, but he still put on airs, trying to squeeze out more. “You spineless wretch! Look at what’s become of my tables and chairs! You think this pittance is enough to cover it? Pah!” He spat a thick wad of phlegm.

The coachman almost bowed his head into the ground. He kept apologizing, fumbling through his clothes until he pulled out another crumpled banknote and handed it over. His voice was hoarse, on the verge of tears. “That’s really all I have. It’s all yours.”

The noodle stall owner finally broke into a grin, snatching the banknote away. “That’s more like it. Your uncle’s in a good mood today, so I’ll let you off. Don’t let me catch you again! Next time, I’ll beat you every time I see you. Now get lost!”

The stall owner made a move as if to strike him, scaring the coachman into hastily leading his horse away with his head down. Seeing that the show was over and the coachman was too weak-willed to even argue, the crowd dispersed, unsatisfied.

But as they walked past the slick, greasy patch of ground soaked with spilled hot soup, someone slipped and grabbed at the person next to them for balance, sending a whole swath of people tumbling down!

A whole bunch of people hit the ground, hissing in pain. The first one to slip climbed to his feet and spat out a mouthful of blood—he’d knocked out a tooth!

Meanwhile, the noodle stall owner smoothed out the two crumpled banknotes and held them up to the sun to admire the patterns, grinning with glee. But out of nowhere, a gust of wind swept through and whisked the freshly acquired banknotes away!

The stall owner’s face went pale with shock, and he scrambled and stumbled to chase the flying banknotes. Zhang Yulin was still stunned, watching this tragicomedy unfold. Lin Yu tapped Zhang Yulin’s shoulder to signal her to follow.

It was a clear, cloudless morning—why would such a strong wind suddenly kick up? Something was off about this wind!

Lin Yu gathered her spiritual power in her palm, pulling Zhang Yulin along as she rode the wind in pursuit of the banknotes. They chased them all the way to a riverbank before the wind finally stopped.

The wind died, and the two banknotes drifted to the ground. No one else was around. From a distance, two women—one tall, one short—came walking over, and Lin Yu quickly concealed her presence.

The shorter woman seemed to be the younger sister. She skipped along behind the other, who wore white robes and had an aloof, icy temperament. “Lu Yao, we’ll never be short on money again. Why do you still bother worshipping the Rain Goddess so diligently every day?”

Lu Yao took two more steps, then suddenly stopped. She bent down, picked up the banknotes from the ground, and handed them to Lu Yuan.

Lu Yuan seemed long accustomed to Lu Yao finding money out of thin air. She took the banknotes with practiced ease and tucked them into her sleeve.

Zhang Yulin couldn’t stop herself from blurting out, “What kind of dumb luck is that?! She even gets to pick up the money?!”

Lu Yao’s brows knit together. “Someone’s there!”