Eternal Swordmaster
Chapter 52 Epidemics Part 2

Chapter 52: Chapter 52 Epidemics Part 2

Kong Yuhui had brought over a dozen inner guards who already defeated all the guards in the Yu residence, thankfully without killing anyone.

He raised his hand to signal everyone to stop, but there were hardly any guards left who could stand.

"Since it involves Lin Xin’s teammate, I was hasty this time. My apologies for the offense."

His expression remained unchanged, still indifferent, but he turned to whisper something to one of the inner guards. After listening, the guard turned around and handed out Broken Silver to the beaten guards as compensation.

Yu Chang wore a smile on his face, but he actually let out a huge sigh of relief internally.

"What’s wrong?" At this moment, Lin Xin had a bad feeling and entered the room under the guidance of Shu Luoyi.

The room featured a red bead curtain as the door and a red carpet with gilded peonies. The furniture, all crafted from polished brown Qilin wood, was exquisite.

However, on the floor lay a middle-aged woman with her eyes tightly shut and a large black mole on her forehead.

Lin Xin recognized at a glance that she was the target of his mission. He couldn’t remember her name at the moment, but he looked carefully at the woman.

At that time, the target had fallen unconscious, her forehead covered in sweat, her face pale.

"Her pupils are dilated, but she’s not dead yet. No idea what’s happened," Shu Luoyi said with a frown.

Looking at the woman, Lin Xin suddenly remembered the appearance of the old lady who sold fried dough cakes, noting the remarkably similar conditions of the two.

A shock went through him, and he turned to look at Kong Yuhui.

As expected, Kong Yuhui’s expression was solemn, his brows furrowed, and he shook his head slightly at him.

"Young Master Lin, this matter is troublesome..."

"What do you mean?" Before Lin Xin could speak, Shu Luoyi asked first.

Kong Yuhui shook his head, just looking at Lin Xin.

"Young Master Lin, it seems you can’t avoid getting involved. I can’t be part of this, but the fifteen outer martial experts under my command can be at your disposal."

He paused.

"Regarding this matter, it’s an issue of stance, my apologies."

"It’s alright," Lin Xin didn’t press him to disclose the details, "You have your difficulties."

"I suggest you take her straight back to the Sect and let the higher-ups handle her," Kong Yuhui said softly, "Of course, this is just a suggestion."

"Without any clue, how could we just go back like this?" Shu Luoyi said coldly. "If you don’t want to get involved, why don’t you leave?"

Kong Yuhui was taken aback, glanced at Shu Luoyi, and then frowned slightly. Bowing to Lin Xin, he turned and left.

With Kong Yuhui leaving, Lin Xin was also puzzled. However, since Kong Yuhui had left him the manpower, it was clear that he had his own unspeakable difficulties, and Lin Xin didn’t insist.

After Kong Yuhui left, the leading figure among the fifteen trained martial experts stepped forward and saluted Lin Xin with a fist.

"Wang Meng awaits Young Master’s orders!"

"You all go out. We need to check the situation," Lin Xin nodded.

"Yes."

When everyone had left, Lin Xin turned to Shu Luoyi and Yu Chang.

"What exactly happened?"

Only then did Yu Chang hurriedly explain the whole story, and by now he finally understood clearly that one of them was a friend of Kong Yuhui, and the other had a profound background; both were not individuals he could afford to offend, so he adopted a very humble attitude.

It turned out that once they had separated from Lin Xin, they started sending people to search the region mentioned in the mission but found that the person had long since vanished. For several days, with the help of people from the Yu residence, they searched everywhere with no success, until yesterday, when they finally found her whereabouts, only to find her lying on the ground unconscious.

"I suspect that Duan Qi might have been on the run from being hunted, so she had to move quickly. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have left before the Sect’s people could come to rendezvous," Shu Luoyi said seriously.

"That’s possible," Lin Xin nodded. "I asked my friend, and he was unwilling to mention any details about the epidemic situation in the city. I suspect that this Duan Qi might be related to the epidemic in the city."

"An epidemic?" Yu Chang’s face changed, "Do you mean the epidemic that breaks out every year, that there’s some dark secret behind it?"

Lin Xin didn’t elaborate but instead took a Resentment Talisman out of his waist pouch.

"I had this with me when I saw someone who died from the epidemic, and from their ear crawled out a very strange bee."

"A bee?" Shu Luoyi suddenly paused, her expression turning peculiar.

"Yes, a bee with six wings and two legs."

Upon hearing this, Shu Luoyi’s face became even more peculiar.

She looked around to make sure there was no one eavesdropping.

"If I’m not mistaken..."

She quickly pulled out a high-level Resentment Talisman from her bosom, which was something only those in the Qi Refinement Realm could handle, and generally inaccessible to someone without connections.

After infusing Inner Qi, the high-level Resentment Talisman began to burn slowly.

Under their puzzled gazes, she slapped the talisman paper onto the forehead of Duan Qi, who was lying on the floor.

"Wait a moment."

Lin Xin had a premonition of what was about to unfold.

Sure enough, in less than half a minute, a six-winged bee covered in blood slowly crawled out of Duan Qi’s ear.

Lin Xin’s hand twitched, ready to draw his sword, but Shu Luoyi stopped him.

"Don’t act rashly!"

Yu Chang also hurriedly halted his motion to draw his sword.

Shu Luoyi found a piece of rough paper from the desk in her room, which she used for practicing calligraphy, and similarly attached an ordinary Resentment Talisman to her back before snapping her fingers to ignite it.

She then quickly smothered the bee that had just crawled out from the ground, wrapping it in paper she rolled up into a package.

"As long as we continuously seal it with the Resentment Talisman, we can keep it from dissipating for a full day and night. Let’s ask about this Duan Qi’s situation first," she said.

Lin Xin took out a Sweet Dew Talisman, infused it with Inner Qi, and slapped it onto Duan Qi’s body.

The Talisman Paper was indeed useful, for halfway through the Sweet Dew Talisman’s burn, Duan Qi slowly came around. However, she appeared dull and vacant, as if the bee had gnawed at her brain, leaving her a bit foolish.

"Huang Ji... Huang Ji... clothier...." Duan Qi murmured, repeating a word incessantly.

"What? What did you say?" Shu Luoyi leaned in close to listen carefully.

"Huang... Ji... clothier.... clothier...." Duan Qi still had a vacant look, clearly out of her senses.

"Huang Ji clothier? It seems like she is talking about this," Yu Chang repeated.

"Do you know this place?" Lin Xin asked him.

"If we haven’t misheard, Huang Ji clothier should be the largest tailoring shop right at the northern city gate. I don’t think any other tailor shop in Peacock City dares to use this name," Yu Chang explained.

"Ask her again, to see if she will say anything else," Lin Xin turned to Shu Luoyi.

The latter nodded and moved closer to Duan Qi, ready to interrogate her further, but found that Duan Qi had her eyes wide open and mouth ajar, motionless, having passed away just like that.

"This..." Yu Chang was somewhat stunned.

Shu Luoyi, however, did not utter another word. She went straight up to search the body and found an odd blood-colored Copper Coin on Duan Qi.

The Copper Coin was different from ordinary ones—not only was the color blood red, but the patterns carved on it were not the reign title of the Song State. Instead, there were four characters for ’people’.

"Four people coin," Shu Luoyi picked it up and examined it.

"What’s this?" Lin Xin asked, puzzled.

"What’s the homophone?" Shu Luoyi replied offhandedly, without looking up.

"Dead people coin?" Lin Xin suddenly understood.

"Let’s go check out the Huang Ji clothier. The clues here are cut off," Shu Luoyi said calmly.

"Shouldn’t we go back to the Sect to report directly?" Yu Chang felt somewhat uneasy.

"If you’re afraid, then scram," Shu Luoyi said impatiently. "How can you accomplish anything great with such a timid attitude?"

"I..."

"What are you looking for?" Lin Xin, on the other hand, turned directly to Shu Luoyi.

Unexpectedly, Shu Luoyi showed a hint of a mysterious smile.

"If you’re brave enough, I have a great opportunity to offer you here. I’m just afraid you won’t dare to take action," she said.

A thought crossed Lin Xin’s mind.

"What opportunity?"

Yu Chang also showed interest on his face, listening attentively.

"Something that would allow us to directly enter the Innate level. No... it’s not just that... With such a big event, the effects might be even stronger!" Shu Luoyi’s eyes flashed with a strange glint.

******************

In the north of the city, Huang Ji clothier.

The shabby gray-white two-story building silently stood before the trio, Lin Xin, Shu Luoyi, and Yu Chang.

The signboard hanging above the door was skewed to one side, but the characters ’Huang Ji tailor’ could still be faintly seen.

The sky was dim, and the clothier, isolated, was surrounded by tightly shut doors and shops, with white funerary banners hanging all around, and white joss paper scattered on the ground.

At the rustle of the wind, the joss paper suddenly began to whirl and dance in the air.

Construction debris had piled up on both sides of the clothier at some unknown time, with a mix of mud, bricks, broken round wooden pillars, and filthily torn fabrics vaguely visible within.

"This is Huang Ji clothier?" Shu Luoyi questioned doubtfully. "Yu Chang, you didn’t take us on the wrong path, did you?" She held the paper package tightly in one hand and rested her other hand on the hilt of her sword.

"Absolutely not!" Yu Chang confirmed with decisive certainty. "I used to come here often to have clothes made when I was a child, there’s no mistake in the way. It was still fine just a few years ago."

"Perhaps it’s been struck by a plague," Shu Luoyi guessed, seeing the white funerary banners next to the tailor shop.

At that moment, a ragged old beggar across from the clothier approached them with a grin.

"Hehe, have mercy, sirs.... If you want to know about this shop, I can tell you about it," he said.

"You sure are shrewd," Shu Luoyi said with some distaste as she covered her nose and tossed a Large Copper Coin to him.

Lin Xin and Yu Chang also each gave some Large Copper Coins, tossing them into the broken bowl he held out.

"Hehe, thank you, thank you," the old beggar rattled the bowl, his face lighting up with a smile.

"Speak up. What’s the story with this tailor shop?" Yu Chang hurriedly asked, hardly able to stand the stench coming from the man.

"To talk about Huang Ji clothier, we must start with a strange incident that spread a few years ago," the old beggar said mysteriously, looking around and lowering his voice.

"What strange incident?" Shu Luoyi frowned.

"It was said that the clothes in this tailoring shop moved on their own, as if alive..." the old beggar said in a hoarse voice that sent chills down one’s spine.

"At midnight, suit after suit of clothing in the clothier would start moving on their own, as if... as if some invisible person was wearing them, moving around freely..."