The Blade-Wielding Legend
Chapter 55: The Truth Behind the Tragedy

Chapter 55: Chapter 55: The Truth Behind the Tragedy

"Corpse stench... zombies?"

Hearing Li Yan speak, Wang Daoxuan immediately became alert.

Zombies were not so easy to deal with, especially deep in the mountains where, after absorbing moonlight and Yin Evil Qi for a long time, they became impervious to blades and spears, and even decapitation wouldn’t stop them from lunging at people, unless their Fierce Soul was dispersed.

Li Yan shook his head and said, "No, it’s a dead person."

"You guys wait here, I’ll go over and take a look."

Having said that, he lowered his body and disappeared into the underbrush.

"Goo-goo!"

Before long, a bird call came from the distance.

This was the secret signal they had agreed upon beforehand.

Two calls meant safety, three signaled danger and the need for concealment.

Wang Daoxuan and the others quickly followed, and with Zhao Lvzi leading the way, they soon found Li Yan.

Li Yan was standing under an old tree, bending over to examine a corpse.

The body was highly decomposed, its blackened flesh mixed with mud, and after drying and shrinking, exposed a frightfully white jawbone.

Sha Lifei glanced at the wooden structure hidden in the tree and said, "It’s a bandit’s lookout. Why has no one claimed the body even after death?"

After speaking, he went to turn over the body.

"Don’t touch it!"

Li Yan’s expression turned solemn, stopping him, then gestured towards the surroundings.

Beside the corpse, there were numerous insect husks, and even a few dead rats were spotted further away.

"That’s some powerful poison!"

Sha Lifei gasped, "No wonder no wild animals dragged it away."

Li Yan stood up and sniffed the air a few times before saying in a heavy tone, "This bandit stronghold has probably been destroyed long ago."

"Let’s go and see what happened."

No one objected, and they made their way toward the bandit stronghold under the cover of night.

Their expedition was not out of idle curiosity.

Those bandits of Yan Laoniu had survived official assaults numerous times and were not easily dealt with.

Yet now, they lay silently dead in this place.

Understanding the cause was crucial, lest there be some Evil Skill at work and they could be prepared when they later headed to Leopard Gully.

With Zhao Lvzi and Li Yan, the pitch-black forest posed no obstacle at all.

On their way, they encountered several more corpses.

Some, like the earlier one, were poisoned.

Others were torn to shreds by wild animals, indicating they hadn’t been poisoned.

Soon, the bandit stronghold appeared before them.

Built on a cliff, with walls of rammed earth and wooden stakes for towers, it looked extremely crude.

The entire place reeked of strong corpse odor.

The gate was wide open, revealing a mess inside with bodies everywhere. Roughly counting, there were forty to fifty, all lying on the ground with the handles of their weapons in their hands.

"Hush!"

Sha Lifei suddenly signaled everyone to be quiet and pointed to a large house on the right side of the stronghold, whispering, "Do you hear that? What is that noise?"

In the dead of night, covered in moonlight that cast a layer of frost over the stronghold, although pitch-black inside, there was the sound of someone smacking their lips.

Suddenly, the sound stopped.

With a creak, a wooden door slowly opened, and something crawled out, its face covered by disheveled hair as it struggled to crawl forward on its hands.

Moreover, it only had half a body!

Under the moonlight, it looked exceptionally eerie.

Sha Lifei broke out in a cold sweat and immediately jumped behind Wang Daoxuan, stuttering, "What... what is that thing?"

"Don’t worry, if it were Qingfeng, you wouldn’t see it."

Li Yan’s expression was grave as he shook his head, "It’s a person!"

"A person?"

Hearing it was a person, Sha Lifei immediately came to his senses, full of anger, and cursed as he approached, "Are you crazy, pretending to be a... Qingfeng and scaring people in the middle of the night!"

With that, he grabbed the other person’s head.

Under the tangle of hair, a pair of eyes remained voids of blackness, the face shriveled, leaving only bones, looking almost like a ghost.

However, Sha Lifei was taken aback:

"Commander Zhao!"

...

The only living person left in the stronghold was Zhao Cheng.

This big disciple of the Zhao Family Fist, the head protector of the Landlord Lu’s household, had been mutilated, his eyes gouged out and legs chopped off; he was surviving in the stronghold like a fierce ghost.

Wang Daoxuan and Li Yan looked at each other, both puzzled.

Wasn’t Commander Zhao the traitor who had an affair with that red-dressed concubine and, before fleeing, swindled a sum of money, taking it with him as he made his escape?

Why then had he appeared here?

...

"Cui Lan and I were forced!"

Commander Zhao, upon recognizing the identities of Li Yan and his companions, was first shocked that they had managed to escape death, then he hoarsely told his story with anger.

"The real traitor was that white-dressed concubine!"

"Her name was Jade Lotus, but it must be a pseudonym. Now that I think about it, her many techniques were clearly those of the ’Black Witch’ from Yanmen!"

Upon hearing this, Li Yan instantly became thoughtful.

Among the Dark Eight Gates, Bee, Hemp, Swallow, and Sparrow were all deceivers.

"Bee" refers to organized groups of swindlers, "Hemp" to solitary veteran con artists, "Swallow" to those who use female charms to deceive, and "Sparrow" to professional criminal gangs.

Bee, Hemp, and Swallow Gates mostly target money, while "Sparrow" Gate is unscrupulous, highly skilled, and known for both deception for profit and murder.

As for Swallow Gate’s "Black Witch," this refers to young women.

They have two methods:

One is to use four or five-year-old children, pretending to be lost and crying, to lure those with compassionate hearts to take them home. The woman then claims to be the child’s mother looking for her child. After being reunited, she would express endless gratitude and, the next day, come to show her thanks, paying close attention to potential things to steal and the layout of the house, only for a thief to visit that night.

The second is to use a good-looking young woman who pretends to have suffered abuse at the hands of her parents-in-law or husband, and fled from home. Looking pitiful, she wins the sympathy of the rich family who takes her in, stays a few days as a servant, gets familiar with the household, and then conspires with outsiders to rob the place.

An elder of Liu Gate, knowing these tactics yet reluctant to expose them directly, thus wrote a legendary story about fox demons and fierce ghosts who use human skins to disguise themselves as females and infiltrate homes to cause havoc.

The so-called human skins are akin to the appearances of beauties with hearts of evil ghosts.

Of course, there is another most extreme method: relying on their beauty to marry into a wealthy family and, later on, attract a large group of sisters from Swallow Gate to conduct obscene rituals night and day. Soon enough, the wealthy man would die mysteriously, and they would brazenly seize the family fortune.

Sha Lifei also curiously asked, "The ’Black Witch’ usually only goes after wealth, how did she get involved with bandits?"

Zhao Cheng said mournfully, "Cui Lan and I were in a secret affair, and she told us she would put the old master to sleep, allowing us to flee at night. To think we even felt grateful to her at that time."

"After the bandits entered the house, they killed everyone, and then coerced Landlord Lu to reveal the location of an ancient painting. Scared, he led them to the treasury, but unfortunately, that painting had already been stolen by Jade Lotus, whereabouts unknown."

"Later on, when we went to report to the officials and swindle money, we were under duress, having ingested poison and someone monitoring us closely, we dared not make any reckless moves. The aim was to draw Jade Lotus out!"

"When that didn’t work, Yan Old Nine took us to the mountains, cut off both my legs, and flayed Cui Lan’s skin. He’s a beast!"

With that, he couldn’t help but burst into loud sobbing.

Seeing this once spirited man pushed to such an inhuman and ghostly state, everyone felt a sympathetic sorrow.

Li Yan steadied himself and looked around, "What happened here?"

Zhao Cheng muttered, "I’m not sure."

"I was blinded by them for their amusement, it has been worse than death for a long time."

"That night, the bandits suddenly blew up the camp, someone screamed ’Cockscomb Snake’, followed by chaos, and within half an hour, everyone was dead."

"I heard a man approaching, asking me what had happened, and I told him everything that transpired. He said I deserved this for betraying my master and that I should experience this kind of taste, then he left."

"I’ve stayed alive by eating the rats that fed on the corpses. I was hanging on to the hope that someone could reveal the truth about Ancient Water Village!"

"Those involved included several bands of bandits from Guanzhong and bandits from Qilu, I overheard that they were gathered under the orders of someone called ’Luo Ye’ from the Capital!"

Having said this, he laughed bitterly, "Master, I’ve disappointed you!"

Bang!

No sooner had the words left his mouth than he exerted all his strength and smashed his head against a rock, his brains splattering, and he died instantly.

The others just shook their heads slightly, not intervening.

This man had lived like a fierce ghost, and probably once his desire was fulfilled, he had no intention to keep living.

"Cockscomb Snake?"

Sha Lifei suddenly spoke up, "Isn’t that the one we encountered on the way?"

Zhao Lvzi, clearly also shocked by the bizarre tragedy, shook his head, "Cockscomb snakes are often found in ancient tombs. I’ve heard my father say that among the Hidden Treasure Men, the Xun You lineage has some who inherit the Evil Skills of Fang Xian Dao and can command cockscomb snakes."

Sha Lifei shuddered and cursed, "Damn, that sounds so evil. What kind of ancient painting could cause so much trouble? It must be incredibly valuable!"

"No matter how valuable, it is the source of disasters."

Wang Daoxuan shook his head, "Let’s go. This has happened a long time ago; that person has probably long gone. We shouldn’t stay here any longer."

Li Yan nodded, then pinched the Yang Jue, and despite the stench of corpses around, he took a deep breath and pointed towards the big hall in the robbers’ stronghold:

"Uncle Sha, there is something good under the tree to the right of the hall!"

Sha Lifei, well aware of Li Yan’s abilities, was immediately excited. He dropped his iron pickaxe and rushed over.

Ding!

After some frantic digging, the sound of metal clashing rang out.

Below the soil was a small chest, only half a foot in length.

Sha Lifei was initially a bit disappointed, but when he pried open the iron lock and lifted the lid of the chest, his eyes widened and he muttered, "We’ve struck it rich..."

Inside the chest, lay neatly stacked small gold bars!