Chapter 102 - 84: Ji Wei: "Brother, do you believe in transmigration?", Ji Xiu: "Little Sis, what do you think?

Chapter 102: Chapter 84: Ji Wei: "Brother, do you believe in transmigration?", Ji Xiu: "Little Sis, what do you think?

The cold wind whistled, chilling to the bone.

Ji Xiu pushed his way through the dense crowd.

The first thing he heard were his younger sister’s words. He thought he must be hearing things. He’d spent the entire night mastering the Fish Dragon Transformation and even touching upon the True Flood Dragon Transformation, and he assumed the exhaustion had finally caused him to hallucinate.

But when he glanced over at Cai Ling’er, he saw her hesitant expression. She was looking at his sister as if she were an idiot, and it all clicked.

’So it wasn’t just my ears ringing.’

’A Qi Cultivation Grandmaster... someone so rare you couldn’t find another in all five hundred li of Anning County... ran to my doorstep and crashed to his death...’

Ji Xiu’s expression was indescribably complex.

Just then, Hong Jiang, who had been squatting beside Lu Chengfeng, spotted him and immediately rushed over. His face was pale with lingering fear as he whispered,

"Hall Master, it’s all true."

"The man who died..."

"He was the real deal—someone who had opened his Qi Sea."

"It’s downright spooky."

Hong Jiang kept his hands tucked in his sleeves, his face a mask of inexplicable terror.

For the first half of his life, Hong Jiang had been a mountain bandit, a Swordsman at the Sword Manor located beyond the five-hundred-li Mountain Dao, never knowing if he would see the next dawn. Later, seeking stability, he had left that life behind and settled in the Fire Kiln.

By a stroke of luck, he had ended up following Ji Xiu. The steady pay from the Medicine Hall kept his stomach full. And if he wasn’t exactly feasting on rich delicacies, his coin purse was certainly getting fat.

So when Hong Jiang got up in the middle of the night to relieve himself, he suddenly heard a commotion. People were saying something had happened at Master Ji’s home, and his heart immediately seized.

Thinking of the siblings, Ji Xiu and Ji Wei, he grew more anxious than he would have been for his own parents, and he had rushed over without a moment’s hesitation.

And the result...

...was the sight of a corpse in an absolutely gruesome state, one that had smashed through both the inner and outer courtyard walls of the Ji Family home.

Hearing the whispered confirmation from Hong Jiang, his former driver, Ji Xiu was left speechless, but he had no choice but to accept the truth.

With his brow deeply furrowed, he slowly paced over to Lu Chengfeng and his sister, Lu Hongyu, and lowered his head.

He gazed at the black-robed Qi Cultivation Grandmaster before him, whose eyes were wide with disbelief, as if he had witnessed something utterly impossible before dying. His eyes remained open in death...

Holding Ji Wei’s hand, Ji Xiu crouched down, his brow furrowed in concentration, hoping to find some clue as to the cause of death.

Cai Ling’er followed behind Ji Xiu, marveling to herself. ’Anning County looks like such a tiny, insignificant place. Who knew the waters ran so deep in such a small pond?’

’First, a disciple from the Little Five Decline Sword Sect nearly meets a violent end in an alley, and now a Qi Cultivation Grandmaster runs into a wall and dies at someone’s front gate.’

’And to top it off, this young master of hers has stumbled into both incidents. Strange things happen every year, but this one’s been packed full.’

’She’d wandered through numerous counties and raided dozens of tombs, large and small. She’d truly taken to heart the original philosophy of the Jade Shop’s old patriarch—"get rich"—by specializing in raiding the tombs of Qi Cultivation Grandmasters and the lairs of secluded Outer Dao cultivators.’

’Gods, ghosts, and ghouls—she’d seen a bit of everything.’

’But she’d never heard of anything this bizarre.’

Still, it was always fun to watch a show, so long as she wasn’t the one on stage. Cai Ling’er’s dark eyes darted about, taking in the scene.

However, when she got a clear look at the corpse’s face...

...she couldn’t help but gasp in surprise.

"Wait a minute."

"This man... why does he look so familiar?"

"I feel like I’ve seen him somewhere before."

She furrowed her lovely brow, thinking for a moment before her hands clapped together in realization.

"I remember now! This is the ’Ghost Hand Judge,’ Wang Hongzu!"

"He’s an Outer Demon from the Central Yellow Sect! He was hunted across half of the East Canghai by Elder Xue Shaobai of the Little Five Decline Sword Sect, and he’s ranked thirty-seventh on the Outsider Kill List!"

"I heard the Jiangyin Prefect and the Garrison Commander put out a bounty for him—one hundred taels of Red Gold for his head!"

The Ghost Hand Judge, Wang Hongzu. A hundred taels of Red Gold!

A collective gasp of shock went through the crowd.

Red Gold.

In a backwater place like Anning County, where most people used copper coins and even silver ingots were currency only for the wealthy, such a substance was something out of legends.

As a metal of absolute purity, one tael of Red Gold was worth a hundred taels of silver in the Great Xuan Empire.

In other words, Wang Hongzu, who had died such an ignominious death...

...his head was literally worth ten thousand taels of silver!

"A hundred taels of Red Gold is about ten thousand taels of silver. Even for a place as large as the Fire Kiln, that’s no small sum."

"How many Great Pills and Treasure Medicines could an ordinary person buy with that?"

In an instant, the eyes of many Guests and Wind and Cloud Assembly Members in the crowd began to burn with greed...

At this moment, they no longer saw the corpse of a Qi Cultivation Grandmaster whose fearsome power still lingered.

This was a literal, unmoving gold mine!

Hearing Cai Ling’er’s revelation, Lu Chengfeng’s eyes narrowed.

"I knew he looked familiar! So it’s the Ghost Hand Judge, Wang Hongzu, the one who terrorized Anning County nine years ago!"

"He served the Central Yellow Sect. The man was cruel and perverse, spreading the faith of an Evil Deity without any restraint."

"Back then, Elder Xue of the Little Five Decline Sword Sect claimed to have slain this monster. Everyone assumed he had died by the Elder’s Secret Sword Dao."

"But now, it seems those rumors were false."

"However..."

"Ji Xiu, how did you manage to provoke a behemoth like the Central Yellow Sect?"

Ji Xiu turned his head, his gaze falling upon the still form of Lin Ruxue. As he listened to Cai Ling’er’s words, his eyes grew thoughtful.

’Lin Ruxue collapsed on East Fire Kiln Street, her body stiff. And Xue Shaobai of the Little Five Decline Sword Sect, who seems to be her Master, has a blood feud with this Qi Cultivation Grandmaster from the Central Yellow Sect.’

’Her ending up on the verge of a violent death... it’s highly likely she was injured by Wang Hongzu.’