Chaotic World Book
Chapter 154 - 150: Famous Detective Changhe

Chapter 154: Chapter 150: Famous Detective Changhe

"Unlike the usual Sword Qi guards imagined, the Sword Qi here was extremely fierce, with a Blood Vicious Energy so tangible that it felt like being possessed by Blood Evil with just one touch," Sisi instantly thought of Lu Shaohong, who was chained at Jingxin Temple.

On the ground, one could even see skeletons scattered about, apparently people from the Lu Family who had entered in the past and were killed here by the Sword Qi.

Sisi looked back, couldn’t see the path they had taken, and could only see the old man following in a roar, shouting manically, "Being clever for nothing! Did you think you could hide from me by coming in here? Little did you know this entry is one way, and you won’t be able to leave! I only have a month left to live; death doesn’t frighten me. What about you? Haha... hahaha!"

"Whoosh whoosh!" Several Sword Qi attacked, the old man’s laughter ceased, and he swung his sword to block the Sword Qi, but not towards the two of them; instead, he moved in a different direction.

It was like a bizarre play that left one puzzled.

"Is this what you meant by getting him engaged in fierce battle?" Sisi asked, somewhat confused, "If we all have to cope with this terrible environment, surely this old man will have it easier than us. We might die first... and why isn’t he chasing us?"

Zhao Changhe dodged the Sword Qi from left to right and said urgently, "As long as you’re right about his life nearing its end, then after fighting a while he’ll inevitably grow frail. We’re all still human; a dying man can’t maintain peak fighting strength forever, that’s impossible; we haven’t even started cultivating yet!"

"So we just have to drag it out, and this environment will slowly finish him off?"

"Not only that. He’s standing guard here with a purpose, definitely waiting for a signal, a place he must go; he can’t afford to delay. Once he’s in and thinks we can’t leave, he naturally conserves his strength to deal with the Sword Qi and head to where he must go. That’s easy to understand," Zhao Changhe said urgently. "I see you know a bit of geomancy. Can you find a relatively stable place temporarily... Be careful!"

Dragon Sparrow swooped in behind Sisi, blocking a Sword Qi.

Sisi didn’t ask what they would do if they couldn’t leave. She ducked to avoid a Sword Qi, then suddenly darted to the right, heading for a corridor that seemed to have even denser Sword Qi, "Follow me."

"Whoosh whoosh whoosh!" Countless Sword Qi flew by, Sisi quickly rolled on the ground, the Sword Qi brushing past her body and landing behind.

Swords clanged loudly behind; Zhao Changhe wielded Dragon Sparrow to fend off the rampant Sword Qi.

With a "clang," a particularly strong Sword Qi came through; Zhao Changhe parried with his sword and, using the momentum, flew backwards, plunging into the corridor Sisi had entered.

Sisi grabbed his belt from behind and flung him forward a distance, then herself "whooshed" forward, swooping from beneath Zhao Changhe in mid-air, her speed much faster than any Qinggong Zhao Changhe could have managed.

Zhao Changhe in mid-air "clang clang clang" blocked several Sword Qi and could not help but laugh and cry.

—It seems like she’s in Burst Seed mode, as if to tell him that she’s no burden; when it comes to nimble dodging, she’s the main force!

And she also knew geomancy.

"This way!" Sisi reached out again to grab his belt, directly smashing him like a hammer to the side of the corridor.

Zhao Changhe: "..."

He only managed to protect his face with Dragon Sparrow, "clang" as he was smashed into the wall.

Inside, another corridor unexpectedly appeared, leading to an unknown place, but the Sword Qi seemed to have weakened a lot.

Both were panting and looked at each other, Sisi full of confusion but no longer needing to ask, because she had already understood everything.

This entrance allows entry but no exit, once inside there’s no way out, just upon those words from the old man, Sisi thought through the sequence, quickly connecting the whole context.

Because of the dimensional collapse, Emperor’s Tomb was indeed beneath Sword Pond, hidden in an Otherworldly Space, but the entrance had collapsed into somewhere else, right here.

Therefore, the Tang family members searched the Huqiu Sword Pool for one hundred years but found nothing because, although the Emperor’s Tomb was at the bottom of the Sword Pool, the entrance was not there at all. Instead, it was located in the far southern city at the Lu family’s residence through a "Transmission Array"... Who could have guessed that?

However, this was an entrance that could only be entered but not exited; once someone entered, they could only wander within this lifetime labyrinth and die there. If someone could break through this space to get out, the corresponding location would be the Huqiu Sword Pool!

The Lu family found an entrance, but once they entered, they could never leave again. They lacked the ability to break through the Otherworldly Space, so they couldn’t return to the Lu Family nor exit to the Sword Pool.

Thus, they could only build stone houses outside, desperately scratching the barrier, attempting to perceive the Emperor’s Tomb Sword Intent within. Unfortunately, their gains were too shallow, virtually useless, as they guarded a treasure trove without gaining anything from it.

As the years passed, perhaps due to the Lu family members consistently entering and meeting their demise, or perhaps due to the mass slaughtering of too many workers outside, or maybe simply because of time... The reason was temporarily unguessable, but something had changed at this location, causing the Evil Qi to become denser and the Sword Qi to uncontrollably spill about, already starting to penetrate beyond this space, not just confined within this Otherworldly Space.

The sword marks on the wall facing the old man proved this point.

Zhao Changhe knew that this girl was actually very smart and should have guessed the whole situation. He said, "I guessed earlier than you, not because I am smarter, but because I understand Dragon Sparrow better."

Sisi nodded, "Go into details?"

"When I met Lu Shaohong, Dragon Sparrow lost control, which I couldn’t understand because it shouldn’t react this way to Evil Qi. In the eyes of Dragon Sparrow, Evil Qi is just low-level foolish nonsense. After thinking it over back and forth, the only thing in Gusu that could potentially excite Dragon Sparrow into a fighting spirit would be the legendary two words, ’Sword Emperor,’ the enemy of all blades and the supreme ruler. This could explain Dragon Sparrow’s frenzied combat spirit."

Dragon Sparrow shook with joy.

Sisi ground her teeth, thinking who said Dragon Sparrow only gets worked up for that reason, how do you explain it slapping my face?

Zhao Changhe cleared his throat and said, "So, Lu Shaohong didn’t really kill someone tainted with Evil Qi, causing him to be contaminated. He was actually outside his family’s secret ground when the Sword Qi, carrying dense Evil Qi, penetrated his body. Even though this Sword Qi carried Evil Qi, it actually did not invade his Spirit Platform, that’s not what Sword Qi does. His madness was completely an act—the broken iron chain proved his parents never really intended to lock him down; the chain was always loosely tied. Why would someone pretending to be insane comply with being bound? It only proves he was never mad at all."

Sisi said, "So Dragon Sparrow wanted to chop him down because he slipped up somewhere and he, knowing he had revealed himself, purposely acted even more berserk to cover the reason? And that inadvertently revealed the loosely tied iron chain situation to you?"

"That’s right."

"But why would he pretend to be a madman?"

"Since the Sword Qi was already beginning to spill outward, the Lu family knew they couldn’t stay there much longer, and they couldn’t keep this secret forever. The only option was to divert disaster eastward—wouldn’t the Tang family’s Sword Pool be an excellent place to pin the blame? If they could use this incident to bring down the Tang family, not only could they replace the Tang family’s position in Gusu, but they could also occupy the Sword Pond and achieve their century-old ambition of the Lu family."

"So they staged a play, first bribing an ignorant commoner from the Worldly Society to act mad and attack people in the market. Lu Shaohong ’passed by’ and killed the man, creating a false impression of being tainted by external Evil Qi," sighed Sisi. "So the first victim didn’t even know why Lu Shaohong wanted to kill him."

"Exactly, I examined the body and found no trace of Evil Qi, so I guessed the Evil Qi on Lu Shaohong was all fabricated," Zhao Changhe said. "The subsequent victims like Lord Gu could very likely have been trapped, coming to visit Lu Shaohong only to be secretly invaded by his Evil Qi. What resistance could these pleasure-seeking young men have? A slight contamination by Evil Qi, and they quickly fell ill, which the Lu family used to create a false image, leading all the major families to target the Tang family. But this illness of theirs had little consequence and would soon dissipate, so the attack had to be carried out within these one or two days."

Sisi said, "But they could have started transmitting Evil Qi to Lord Gu and others a few days earlier and instigated an attack on the Tang family; why wait until you were here? Are they waiting for you to solve the case?"

"You’re overthinking it; they don’t care about me at all. They’re planning on attacking the Tang family, not just relying on themselves, but certainly plotting with the Maitreya Sect, waiting for Maitreya to arrive before they act," Zhao Changhe spoke softly. "If that old man wasn’t bragging just now, Maitreya is already at the Tang family by now; I hope the Tang family can handle it."

Sisi let out a sigh, her face filled with the comfort of having solved the case, feeling that the thrill of this was hardly less intense than winning a fight, quite exhilarating.

Despite the increasingly tense situation, her tone became lighter, "So what do we do now?"

"That old man knew his days were numbered, he was planning to come here and never leave. They have been exploring for a long time and must have mastered a method to allow the Evil Qi to spill over to the Tang family’s Sword Pond, in coordination with the actions of the Lu family. What we need to do is to sabotage him, otherwise if the Evil Qi surges, Gusu will become a land of death!" Zhao Changhe looked outside and urgently said, "He’s been wandering within the Sword Qi for so long, logically he should be at his last gasp; just knowing where he is, I’m confident."

Sisi showed a trace of a smile, "That’s simple, I know where he is."

—

PS: Reached 200,000 words in this volume, no update tonight, taking a breath, will add more tomorrow.