Chapter 15: Clues (Revised)

The corpse was drenched in blood, its body stiff and rigid. In the whole town, only the mayor, Yan Wei, ever wore such clothing. By the looks of it, he’d been dead for at least twelve hours.

With a flick of his toe, Ling Chi sent a flash of blade light slicing through the air. Yan Wei’s corpse dropped to the ground with a hollow thud. Peeling back the clothes, he found to his shock that all the internal organs had been removed.

He hadn’t died hanging there; someone had strung him up afterward. Was this meant as a taunt to the authorities?

“Third Brother, Fifth Brother, are you two done puking out there? Hurry in, you’ll want to see this—there’s a surprise,” Ling Chi called out.

At this point, it was pointless to remain silent. If the enemy had left anyone to watch, they would have been discovered long ago.

“This corpse must be Yan Wei. But why hang him up here after he’s dead? What’s the point?” Zhao Shanhe stood nearby, frowning.

“Fifth Brother, does this scene remind you of what happened two years ago in Shigou Village when we dealt with the walking corpse?” Ling Chi’s eyes narrowed as a thought struck him.

“They didn’t eat his organs, and the people outside were ripped to shreds, blood everywhere. A zombie would never pass up a chance to drink so much blood,” Li Shui interjected.

“What I mean is—could this have been a fiendish corpse, evolved from a zombie?”

Fiendish corpses were savage and violent, yet retained a sliver of intelligence—formidable among the second rank.

Ling Chi sheathed his blade. They couldn’t burn the body just yet. Yan Wei had official standing; his remains had to be delivered to Constable Xue Li and brought to the provincial office for inspection before they could be disposed of.

“Fifth, Sixth, our priority is to find Second Sister and Fourth Brother. If we meet anything suspicious, we fight together,” Li Shui said, steady as ever, never reckless, and never fond of killing.

The town was sizable—five or six hundred households, two or three thousand people—but after a full sweep, not a soul was in sight, not even a ghost.

Ling Chi searched through the administrative office, flipping through records, trying to find any clue, while the other two continued combing the streets.

An icy draft slipped through the door, lifting the edge of the curtain. Ling Chi rubbed his aching wrists and set his saber on the desk. The official documents offered little of value, so he turned his focus to the local gazetteer, which chronicled the major events of Willow Town over the past century.

One page caught his eye: In the second year of the Qianwu era, the Lin family of Willow Town discovered a cinnabar mine on their own land, fifteen li south of town.

With a recent surge in strange cases and the price of raw cinnabar soaring, the Lin family had risen to regional prominence, even sending family members to the Central Province to study the arts of talisman Daoism.

The art of talismans in this world came from Daoist methods, ranked from one to nine, just like martial artists.

Ling Chi pondered for a moment, then shut the gazetteer, grabbed his saber, and leapt onto the roof, speeding toward his third and fifth brothers.

Li Shui and Zhao Shanhe had found nothing in their sweep, but when they saw Ling Chi darting toward them, their spirits lifted—Sixth Brother must have found something.

“Third, Fifth—did you search the Lin family? The local records say they practice talisman arts and own a cinnabar mine south of town. I think we should check it out,” Ling Chi said, voice rapid.

“Let’s go. Straight to the southern outskirts. If the Lin place is empty, it’ll just be another field of corpses,” Li Shui decided immediately.

The three of them mounted up and raced south, wrapping their horses’ hooves to muffle the sound. In no time, they’d covered the ten-odd li.

They dismounted before reaching the mine, hid the horses in the nearby woods, and crept toward the cinnabar mine.

Suddenly, Li Shui crouched and raised a fist. Ling Chi and Zhao Shanhe closed in. Li Shui pinched something off the ground and sniffed it.

“It’s warding rice from our family dojo. We’re on the right track—someone scattered it on purpose to leave a trail. At least one of our people—Second or Fourth—went this way. Keep moving, and be careful for sentries,” he said.

Li Shui’s spirits sharpened. He’d been a disciple the longest, and his bonds with the others ran deep. If anyone was lost here because he failed to rescue them, he would never forgive himself.

Ling Chi stowed his saber, gripping his short knife in a reverse hold, and led the way. He would never shirk a fight for his dojo—it was his second home.

He was the youngest, and his seniors had always looked after him; now it was his turn to protect them.

The summer sun blazed overhead, the air shimmering with heat.

Ling Chi smeared crushed leaves over his skin to mask his scent—an essential skill for infiltration. Even in his previous life, before he had any cultivation, he’d excelled at such things; now, with his meridians opened, it was almost effortless.

After a short while, he spotted a sentry behind a tree, stuffing his face with food. Ling Chi circled silently behind him, clamped a hand over the man’s mouth, and snapped his neck. He preferred to slit throats, but the blood might give him away.

The Lin family, nouveau riche, lacked real foundation. Their men were untrained—eating at their posts, just asking for death.

Within the time it took for half a stick of incense to burn, they had taken out four hidden and two open sentries, earning six wisps of thunder essence in the process.

“Third, Fifth—from the fact that Second Sister and Fourth Brother were captured alive, the enemy can’t be that strong. We should focus on sneaking in and rescuing them, and only fight head-on if things go wrong,” Ling Chi whispered.

“Don’t worry, Sixth. Your Third Brother may dislike fighting, but I’m no pushover. Besides, I’ve got a trump card from Master’s wife. Trust me,” Li Shui replied, clapping him on the shoulder, eyes brimming with confidence.

Ling Chi eyed him doubtfully, but had to trust him—not for lack of faith in the trump card. Whenever the disciples went out on missions, their teachers always provided insurance; last time, Fifth Brother received a second-rank fire talisman before heading to Panshui Village.

Ling Chi stripped a corpse for its clothes, slung another over his shoulder, and slipped into the cinnabar mine.

It was a mid-sized vein, the shaft slanting dozens of yards into the earth. Two guards stood at the entrance, chests puffed, trying to look elite.

Standing in the shadows, the guards watched as Ling Chi approached from the light. They couldn’t see his face, only that he wore their uniform.

“Er Yong, what’s wrong with him?” one of the guards called.

“Snake bite. He’s poisoned,” Ling Chi rasped, voice low, closing in quickly.

“What? I didn’t hear you—” The guard frowned, but by then Ling Chi was right in front of him.

“Catch!” Ling Chi tossed the corpse at the first guard, who reflexively reached out to grab it.

“Damn—ambush!”

A fist shot through the air, smashing into the guard’s temple with a crack of bone. He crumpled. The other, still holding the corpse, opened his mouth to shout, but Ling Chi was quicker, covering his mouth and snapping his neck. The thunder pearl inside him instantly rewarded him with a wisp of thunder essence.

He signaled his two brothers to take the guards’ clothes and stand watch, then dragged the unconscious guard outside for interrogation.

A slap brought the man round, dazed and bleeding from the corner of his eye. He saw someone looming and tried to shout, but a short blade pressed to his throat.

“Hero, spare me! I have an old mother and young children—take money, take women, just let me live—”

“Cut the nonsense. Answer my questions or die.”

“Where are the constables from town being held? Are your family’s talismanists in the mine? And where is the fiendish corpse that slaughtered the townsfolk?” Ling Chi fired off his questions in a single breath.