Chapter 415: The Dead

The young girl turned to look out toward the inn's entrance and found that the sky, already approaching dusk, had grown darker still. At least half the time it takes to burn a stick of incense had passed.

The young girl pinched her own arm. As a sharp jolt of pain shot through her, her slender brows pressed together, clearly baffled about what had just happened.

Just then, the large black cat came padding down from the inn's upper floor with leisurely steps, its round green eyes shooting a provocative look at the young girl before it ambled off toward the kitchen on its own.

Seeing this, the young girl was about to move to stop it, but something seemed to occur to her, and she froze in place.

She then snapped her head upward, looking toward the upper floor of the inn, her pretty face cycling rapidly through different expressions.

Before long, she withdrew her gaze, glanced once more at the large black cat's swaying tail as it strutted away, and after a moment of hesitation transformed into a flicker of afterimages and vanished from the inn.

Before long, the young girl arrived at an earthen house deep within the town.

On the heated brick bed inside the house sat a figure cross-legged, none other than the small figure who had blocked Cao Gaoshan's path earlier and been cut down by him with a single strike.

The small figure wore red clothing and had a withered, ugly face, and his entire body showed no sign of injury whatsoever.

"Did they go to the inn?"

The small figure slowly opened his eyes. The young girl gave a slight nod, her expression somewhat grave, "Those people are not simple. They have already settled in at the inn."

"Why let them stay instead of driving them out?" the small figure asked with a furrowed brow.

"I did not let them stay. I simply could not stop them at all."

The young girl shook her head. The small figure looked at her and said, "They have no credentials. There are likely plenty of people in this town with designs on them. The inn probably will not be able to protect them tonight."

At those words, the young girl was silent for a moment, then spread her hands and said, "It does not matter. The clan's plans are imminent, and we should be setting out for White Emperor City soon ourselves. This outpost probably will not be of much use to us going forward."

As she said this, she paused briefly, then asked, "You crossed blades with that Heaven-Human expert. How was his strength?"

"Decent enough, but he seems to have only just broken through to the Heaven-Human Realm not long ago. His martial foundation is still somewhat shallow."

The small figure looked at the young girl, narrowed his eyes slightly, and said, "Strange. You seem rather wary of them, yet with your true strength, that Heaven-Human expert should pose no difficulty for you at all. Could it be... someone formidable is hidden among them?"

The young girl crossed her arms and ran back through everything that had happened at the inn in her mind. In the end she shook her head, "There is definitely something unusual about their methods. They most likely possess some technique or substance for inducing illusions. Even I was caught off guard by it."

"Even so, there is no need for us to provoke them. The clan's affairs are the priority right now, and we should avoid stirring up further complications."

The small figure gave a slight nod, then shifted his tone and asked, "White Emperor City concerns the revival of our clan. The entire clan has been preparing for this for a long time. When do you plan to set out?"

At those words, the young girl's thoughts gathered, and a sharp gleam gradually surfaced in her eyes as she said thoughtfully, "Tomorrow. We will leave then. We can pick up that item from the Yellow Spring Market along the way. This matter carries enormous weight, and there is absolutely no room for error."

The small figure said nothing, signaling tacit agreement. The young girl gave a few more instructions, then said, "I will head back to the inn for now. I suspect there will be quite a show to watch tonight."

The moment the words fell, the young girl transformed into a flicker of afterimages and vanished from the earthen house.

...

With a casual illusion from Dream of a Thousand Autumns, the young girl had been dealt with, and Li Musheng and the others each chose their own rooms at the inn to settle into. The large black cat, on its own, single-handedly cleaned out the inn's entire kitchen.

Afterward, Cao Gaoshan left payment on the counter in the main hall. Their group had not stayed and eaten without paying.

The young girl, returning from the earthen house, glanced at the silver on the counter, swept it casually into a wooden drawer, considered for a moment, then went back to lying down in the bamboo chair.

Before long, dusk gathered, and the sky grew completely dark.

The young girl lit an oil lamp. The town at night was as silent as it had been during the day. Cang Yinyue and the others had come down once, but had quickly returned to their rooms.

The young girl let this pass without comment, covering her face with the account book to feign sleep, while in truth she kept her ears alert to every sound, quietly waiting for the hidden malefactors of the town to make their move.

The town sat deep within the desert, beyond the reach of any law, and operated under the principle that the strong preyed on the weak. Aside from those with protective credentials, anyone who came here without sufficient strength to defend themselves would inevitably end up as meat on the chopping block, to be slaughtered at will.

Though Li Musheng's group had a Heaven-Human expert among them, they had no credentials, and the town's depraved villains included no shortage of formidable experts who would feel no fear of them whatsoever.

Besides, some of these people took a particular pleasure in hunting down so-called martial world experts, and showed little interest in ordinary people.

The young girl had wanted to watch the show unfold tonight, but she was also well aware that Li Musheng's party was likely not as ordinary as they appeared, and this was as good an opportunity as any to take their true measure.

Yet the young girl lay in the bamboo chair through the entire night, listening intently, and the entire inn passed in complete calm. Nothing whatsoever happened all night long.

"What is going on?"

The young girl sat up from the bamboo chair. Morning light was already streaming through the lattice windows into the hall. It was now the morning of the second day.

She found it difficult to believe that the night had passed so uneventfully, that the murderous villains of this town would have so easily let prey that had walked right to their door simply slip away unharmed.

In the next instant, the young girl shot out of the inn.

The morning light was faint and gray, the cold, quiet streets outside the inn carrying a chill, completely still and lifeless.

The young girl, in her thin clothes, frowned deeply and swept the area with her eyes, finally letting her gaze settle on the top of an earthen building not far from the inn.

At the edge of the building's roof, a corner of cloth was faintly visible, nearly invisible to the naked eye, but it did not escape the young girl's sight.

In the next instant, the young girl's figure vanished from where she stood and appeared on top of the earthen building. The moment she looked, her pupils contracted sharply.

There, lying atop the building, was a figure in gray robes, half-bald, gaunt and thin, with not a trace of life left in him. He had clearly been dead for some time.

"Why is the Yin Wind Old Devil dead here?"

The young girl's mind filled with startled uncertainty. She immediately examined the body before her, but found no wound on him whatsoever, nor any sign of poisoning.

The Yin Wind Old Devil was a Heaven-Human expert with a long-established reputation in the Great Wu martial world, who had hidden himself in this desert town to escape pursuit by his enemies. Though his strength was considerable, he was a vicious and merciless man who had committed every imaginable evil, and countless people had died at his hands. He had never expected to die here himself.

What was more, no one in this entire town had ever had the confidence to kill the Yin Wind Old Devil. And the manner of his death was clearly suspicious, as though his life had simply been snuffed out without any clear cause.

With that thought, the young girl stood atop the earthen wall and surveyed the surrounding area. In the next instant, her expression changed again.