Great Li Martial God

”Where are the Shadow Crows?”

Bai Changfeng let out a sharp, thunderous roar, and the entire hall shook with it.

In the next instant, a cold wind stirred within the hall, and the figure of a black-robed man appeared from within it.

”Find out everything at once.”

”Anyone connected to Yuanwei’s death, every last one of them, I want found. I swear I will grind them all to dust and scatter their bones to the wind.”

In this moment, Bai Changfeng’s eyes burned with an ungovernable fury and grief, and the overwhelming killing intent emanating from his entire body was almost palpable.

The black-robed man lowered his head in acknowledgment, said nothing further, and dissolved back into a cold gust of wind and was gone.

In that instant, the entire hall fell so silent one could hear a pin drop.

At the octagonal table, both Zhu Wu and Cen Luohua had their expressions change at once. In this moment, the terrifying martial Dao aura radiating from Bai Changfeng filled them both with a deep and genuine sense of foreboding dread.

The two of them exchanged a look and could each see the shock on the other’s face.At this point, Bai Changfeng suddenly turned his head, and his voice came out cold as ice, saying, ”From this day on, my Bai family swears to be the mortal enemy of the Murong family, without any possibility of coexistence. Both of your families said you would stand together with the Bai family. I trust you know clearly what must be done.”

As he spoke, the martial Dao aura around Bai Changfeng receded, and his expression turned to one of quiet grief, saying, ”I have affairs to attend to today and cannot keep either of you. Please, go ahead.”

In the next instant, Bai Changfeng seized the armored soldier before him and roared, ”Take me to find Yuanwei’s remains.”

In moments, the two of them had vanished from Zhu Wu and Cen Luohua’s sight.

”Bai Changfeng’s martial Dao cultivation has advanced yet further. He is probably not far behind Murong Hong at this point.”

Zhu Wu drew the tobacco pipe from his waist, watching Bai Changfeng’s departing figure, and pinched the tobacco between two fingers, sending a crimson spark igniting through it.

Cen Luohua narrowed her eyes gently, the wrinkles at their corners pressing together, saying, ”We are all insects tied to the same string. From the moment we decided to stand with General Han, there has been no going back.”

”What is more, the Murong family has been declining with every generation and has long since lost its former glory. Yet they insist on clinging to the title of the foremost martial arts family, withering by the day while refusing to yield their seat. The world does not work so conveniently.”

Hearing this, Zhu Wu put the pipe stem to his lips and drew several deep pulls, then said, ”Even so, a dead camel is bigger than a live horse. And the first bird out gets shot. The Bai family has taken a blow this time. We need to tread carefully in dealing with the Murong family.”

Cen Luohua glanced at him but did not argue, and gave a slow nod.

...

The Tianjin Guards Branch Office of Sheng Province.

Hu Rui’an arrived at the building’s entrance with Wu Shang and Cheng Zhong, only to find the large doors of the impressive office building firmly shut, with not a single guard in sight at the entrance.

”This is supposed to be the Tianjin Guards branch for an entire province. Why does it look so completely deserted?”

Both Wu Shang and Cheng Zhong wore expressions of puzzlement, while Hu Rui’an furrowed his brow and signaled Wu Shang to go and knock.

Wu Shang immediately nodded and went up to knock the brass ring knocker, full of confusion. But after knocking for some time, not a single person responded from inside.

”What is going on? It is not yet the end of the shift, and there should be someone on duty in the Tianjin Guards.”

Wu Shang turned back to look at Hu Rui’an. The sky was growing dark, but it had not yet gone completely black.

Yet the Sheng Province Tianjin Guards office appeared to have not a single person inside, which was genuinely unusual.

Hu Rui’an scanned the surrounding area, and happened to spot an old man pushing a small cart loaded with sacks of tea passing by on the street behind them.

His gaze shifted, and he stepped quickly over to stop the man, asking, ”Old uncle, do you happen to know what is going on with the Tianjin Guards here? We knocked on the door and no one answered.”

Hearing this, the old man stopped his cart and looked Hu Rui’an and the other two over for a moment with his cloudy eyes, then glanced at the imposing Tianjin Guards building behind them.

His expression shifted slightly, and he suddenly lowered his voice, saying, ”Are you people from out of town?”

Seeing this, Hu Rui’an narrowed his eyes slightly and replied, ”We have been away traveling on business for nearly half a year and have only just returned to the provincial city today. We came to visit a good friend in the Tianjin Guards, and this is the first time we have encountered anything like this. We would be grateful for your explanation, old uncle.”

As he spoke, he drew out a small piece of silver from his robe and pressed it into the old man’s hand.

The old man glanced down at the silver in surprise, and a glimmer of brightness sparked in his cloudy eyes. He squeezed it firmly, then tucked it away inside his sleeve.

Then the old man looked left and right, leaned in toward Hu Rui’an, and said in a lowered voice, ”This government office has had almost no one coming or going for over a month now.”

Hearing this, Hu Rui’an furrowed his brow and asked, ”Does old uncle know why?”

”What other reason could there be?”

The old man let out a sigh, then shrank his neck in slightly and said quietly, ”It is because this place is haunted. You have no idea. Over a month ago, starting at night, evil ghosts would appear here to claim people’s lives. It was truly terrifying.”

Then the old man gave Hu Rui’an a rough account of what had happened at the Sheng Province Tianjin Guards office.

As he spoke, the old man seemed to grow increasingly frightened himself, and hurriedly left with a parting word of ”keep away from this place,” pushing his small cart off in a flustered scramble until he was gone from sight.

Watching the old man leave, Hu Rui’an and Wu Shang and Cheng Zhong all wore unusual expressions.

According to the old man, hauntings had begun occurring in the Sheng Province Tianjin Guards office around a month and a half ago.

It started when a guard on night duty encountered a ghostly shadow drifting about, accompanied by a chilling, bone-freezing laughter.

At first, no one paid it much attention. But when the day passed and morning came, someone found that the guard who had encountered the ghostly shadow had hanged himself in his own room.

Of course, even with that, the Tianjin Guards people had not taken the matter to heart.

Then on the second night, another person saw the ghostly shadow and heard the laughter, and when morning came, another person was found dead in their room, hanged exactly like the first.

But unlike the first night, this time the number who died had gone from one to two.

One incident might be called an accident, but two in a row made that explanation rather strained.

Three people had died in two consecutive days, under what seemed like the baffling circumstances of seeing a ghost, no less.

The people stationed at the Tianjin Guards office began to grow uneasy, and the matter was reported up the chain without delay.

The Garrison Inspector placed in charge of handling the situation took it with the utmost seriousness, and immediately dispatched the most skilled investigators in the Tianjin Guards to launch a full investigation into both deaths.

Yet while the investigation was still underway, on the third day another incident occurred at the Tianjin Guards office, and the number of people who died after seeing the ghost rose from two to four.

What was more, unlike the two previous incidents, the Tianjin Guards experts investigating the case, upon learning that someone had seen the ghost during the night, placed the four individuals who had been on watch the previous night under strict protective guard the following day.

Even so, all four of them hanged themselves and died right in front of a room full of Tianjin Guards experts.

And according to the coroner’s examination, all four of these deaths, and the three before them, presented identically. Every single one had been a suicide by hanging, with no trace of poison or any other person’s involvement.

Yet it was plainly the case that none of these seven people had shown any inclination toward suicide before their deaths.

When news of this spread, the entire Sheng Province Tianjin Guards office was gripped by panic.

After all, seven people had died in three days, and in such bizarre circumstances. Anyone who encountered the ghost during the night, even under the protection of multiple high-level experts, could not escape death. It defied all rational explanation.

In the end, the matter reached the ears of the Sheng Province Tianjin Guards Branch Deputy Commander Mei Yan, who ordered that no one remain on night duty at the branch office from that point forward.

Instead, several martial world experts including the Garrison Inspector were left inside the office overnight, planning to lie in wait and discover the truth behind the ghost sightings.

The result, however, dealt the Tianjin Guards a severe blow. Six people had stayed behind in the branch office that night.

All six were said to have seen the ghostly shadow that night and heard the bone-chilling laughter.

But when they poured everything they had into attempting to expose the truth behind the ghostly shadow, following the direction from which it appeared and searching desperately for the source of the laughter, in the end they found absolutely nothing. Not a single lead.

And the more terrifying part came afterward. The next day, every single martial world expert who had stayed behind, including the Garrison Inspector, hanged themselves and died, one after another, without exception.

Again, there was no trace of poison or any other person’s involvement, and in the rooms where the deaths occurred, not a single sign of any unnatural human presence could be found.

When this news broke, it did not merely shock the entire Tianjin Guards branch office. It sent reverberations throughout the entire Sheng Province provincial city, stirring a period of widespread panic and uproar.

From that time on, at the Tianjin Guards branch office in this location, every evening as darkness fell, all personnel would leave an hour before the end of their shift, and no one remained to keep watch inside at night.

With this rule in place, no further deaths had occurred within the Tianjin Guards office.

Even so, a number of spirited and skeptical martial world practitioners in the provincial city at the time, who considered talk of ghosts to be utter nonsense, banded together several days later, slipped into the unoccupied Tianjin Guards branch office under cover of darkness, and set out to debunk the rumors through direct experience.

The outcome was as one would expect. That night, all seventeen martial world practitioners who entered the Tianjin Guards office followed in the footsteps of the Garrison Inspector and the others before them, every single one dying by hanging, with not a single survivor.

And from that event onward, the area around the Tianjin Guards branch office became a no-go zone throughout the entire Sheng Province provincial city after dark.

No more martial world practitioners dared set foot there at the cost of their lives, and even people within the city who knew of the matter kept their lips tightly sealed when it came up.

”So many people died because of ghosts? And most of them were people with some martial Dao cultivation, with even a Garrison Inspector among them. If that old man was not making it up, this whole affair sounds genuinely strange.”

Cheng Zhong said with a furrowed brow, looking at Wu Shang and Hu Rui’an beside him.

Hearing this, all three of them instinctively turned to look back at the Tianjin Guards building behind them.

Cheng Zhong and Wu Shang were not people given to superstitious beliefs, but the affair was suspicious in every detail, and their own martial Dao cultivation was nowhere near the level of that Garrison Inspector. The building before them made both of them feel involuntarily uneasy.

Hu Rui’an’s gaze shifted slightly. After thinking it over for a moment, he said, ”In this world, tales of ghosts and spirits are invariably either the result of rumors building on rumors, or of someone deliberately staging a supernatural act for their own purposes.”

”If what was said is true, in my estimation the key to finding the truth of the whole affair lies in that Tianjin Guards building before us. There may well be a significant secret hidden inside.”

Hearing this, Wu Shang and Cheng Zhong exchanged a look, then both fixed their gaze on Hu Rui’an with an expression somewhere between disbelief and unease, asking, ”Commissioner, you are not actually planning to go inside, are you?”

Hu Rui’an glanced at the two of them, let out a cold snort, and said, ”And why not?”

Wu Shang and Cheng Zhong were immediately left looking at each other in silence. The old man had just given such a frightening account, and ever since the haunting began, not a single person who entered the Tianjin Guards office at night had come out alive. The fact that Hu Rui’an was still willing to take such a risk was genuinely beyond their ability to understand.

At this point, Hu Rui’an seemed to read their thoughts, and shook his head, explaining, ”I genuinely have little choice. His Highness is only staying in the provincial city for two days, and to deal with Governor Zhu Ziming and Deputy Commander Mei Yan within such a short span of time is essentially impossible through ordinary means.”

”So to accomplish all of this, conventional approaches are obviously out of the question. The haunting affair is deeply unusual and is closely connected to the Tianjin Guards. I have a feeling it might just turn out to be a breakthrough point for everything in Sheng Province.”

With that, Hu Rui’an sighed again and said, ”Of course, it is also possible that nothing comes of it in the end. But we cannot afford to let any opportunity pass. Now that we have run into this, we have to give it a try.”

Hearing this, Wu Shang and Cheng Zhong said nothing more, and both clasped their hands together, saying, ”We are at the Commissioner’s disposal.”

With that, the two of them turned toward the Tianjin Guards branch office, but Hu Rui’an reached out and stopped them, saying, ”Not yet. Go among the nearby residents and first confirm whether what the old man just told us was true.”

The moment he said that, both of them came back to their senses and stopped in their tracks.

One could never be too careful. If that old man had been spinning them a story, they would truly have become the ”fools” His Highness so frequently referred to.

With that thought, both of them agreed at once and without lingering set off in a flash into the surrounding streets and alleyways.

By the time the sky had gone completely dark, Wu Shang and Cheng Zhong returned one after the other.

”What did you find?”

”Commissioner, what we learned about the Tianjin Guards branch office from the nearby residents largely matches what the old man told us earlier. The haunting did indeed occur.”

Both Wu Shang and Cheng Zhong gave a nod, but then furrowed their brows and added, ”However, we noticed that the level of detail the surrounding residents knew was considerably less than what the old man described. This person may have some questions around him.”

Hearing this, Hu Rui’an’s gaze shifted slightly, but he still waved a hand and said, ”Never mind questions about the old man for now. All I need to know is that the events are real.”

With that, he raised his head and looked at the Tianjin Guards branch office before him, his eyes narrowing.

The haunting was genuinely unusual. Though he regarded himself as having a formidable martial Dao cultivation and held no belief in ghosts or spirits, he still could not entirely suppress a faint stirring in his heart at this moment.

”Wait here for the time being. I will go in alone and investigate.”

Hu Rui’an gave Wu Shang and Cheng Zhong a brief instruction, then headed toward the dark building before him.