Where Immortals Once Walked

He pointed at the man and stammered, “H-how are you here?!” So I really wasn’t just seeing things a few days ago!

“I came back to take care of some business, and to visit an old friend.” He Lingchuan smiled. “Shall we find somewhere quiet to talk?”

Liu Baobao had already calmed down. “Come with me!”

The young attendant walked ahead with a lantern, while the two followed behind, chatting as they went.

“How have Heishui City and the Hongya Route been over the past year or so?”

“Ah, not good at all. My family’s business has plummeted!” Liu Baobao immediately began complaining, as if the two had returned to their old way of conversing.

“Is that so? Then I have a good job for you.” He Lingchuan patted his shoulder. “Right, I’ll be leaving again soon, but I’ll come by again in a few days.”

The two crossed the main street. Liu Baobao subconsciously glanced north.

The season of mad sand had suddenly ended, and this person had suddenly appeared.

Is there some connection between the two?

He shook his head. No, no. What nonsense am I thinking? How could such a major change in the weather have anything to do with one person?

* * *

The third month of this year was unusually hot. It had only just reached the Spring Equinox, yet moving even a little left people drenched in sweat.

In past years, at this time, the old trees by the roadside would not even have put out new buds yet.

Beneath the blazing sun, a Yuheng City patrol guard had just reached Man Family Village when they hurriedly stopped at the post station. No one needed to lead the horses; the animals gathered around the water trough by themselves and drank greedily. Meanwhile, the twenty patrol guards walked under the shade of the trees to cool off.

The post station had set several tables beneath the great tree. Besides plain cold water, it also offered bitter, refreshing herbal tea. For those willing to pay a few extra large coins, there was also honey water to drink.

Aphid honey and bee honey were Panlong City specialties to begin with, and among the most common goods along this trade route.

As soon as the men sat down, sweat streamed down their foreheads like little creeks. Several patrol guards simply went to the well, drew water, and poured a bucket over themselves from head to toe. Only then did they finally recover a little.

“It’s damn hot.” Someone complained, “It’s already this bad this month. When midsummer comes in the seventh month, won’t we all get dried into jerky?”

A few others laughed. “Miao Mingming, isn’t your cousin’s uncle in the city guard office? I heard he works for the commander every day. Why don’t you ask him to get you promoted, so you won’t have to suffer the wind and sun with poor bastards like us every day?”

Miao Mingming glanced at him. “If you want to climb higher, you have to earn military merit. What chance is there to earn military merit by sitting in a room in Yuheng City?”

“You’ve got ambition, kid.” His companion laughed. “But the bandits along the trade route haven’t been showing themselves much lately. If there’s no one to fight, there’s no merit to claim.”

Only killing or subduing enemies counted as merit. Patrols like theirs, going back and forth on schedule, earned only toil and fatigue.

The group chatted a while longer and laughed several times, all of them very relaxed. Then Miao Mingming suddenly said, “Where’s Xing Wu? He’s been squatting in the latrine for fifteen minutes by now. Why isn’t he back yet?”

“Who knows? Maybe his legs went soft. We told him there was something wrong with that mushroom soup this morning, but he didn’t believe us.” The others burst into laughter again, and someone immediately said, “I’ll go call him.”

But before the laughter had faded, the sound of something cutting through the air suddenly came from the grass.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. More than twenty arrows shot out. Less than half missed, and the rest struck the patrol guards!

Several patrol guards toppled backward on the spot. The man who had just stood was the unluckiest. An arrow pierced through his eye and out the back of his skull.

“Enemy attack!” The patrol guards were shocked and furious, drawing their weapons to meet the ambush.

The grass rustled, and a mob of bandits rushed out, and there were actually more than a hundred of them!

Miao Mingming roared, “Get into the post station!”

They were badly outnumbered, so they had to find cover quickly.

But a guest sitting at the table behind him suddenly slipped up to his back. One hand locked around his neck, while the other hand stabbed rapidly several times into his waist and between his ribs!

In an instant, four or five people from that table all drew weapons and joined the encirclement.

The bloody storm at the post station lasted only a little over seven minutes. Aside from two patrol guards who seized a chance to mount their horses and flee, all the rest lay motionless on the ground.

Blood ran across the sandy ground like a river.

The bandits put away their weapons and laughed. “And here I thought the Yuheng Army was supposed to be strong. So much for that!”

Someone else asked, “What do we do with the people at the post station?”

The post station still had servants, merchants, and travelers. The smart ones had fled toward the rear mountain earlier. There were still a dozen or so hiding inside and around the post station, trembling all over.

The man who had ambushed Miao Mingming glanced at them. “Ignore them.”

* * *

One day later, still at Man Family Village.

He Lingchuan and his deputy, Chao Qian, stood outside the post station, looking up at the long pole beside the horse trough.

Eighteen human heads were tied to the pole, swaying in the wind.

They were the heads of Yuheng City patrol guards.

After only one day, the severed heads had already been dried and dehydrated by the sun, making their expressions even more ferocious. But that did not stop their families from recognizing them.

Chao Qian stared at them without blinking. He Lingchuan asked him, “Is it really your kin?”

“My cousin’s son. My younger female cousin’s child.” Chao Qian was deeply saddened. “Though he was a distant relative, the boy wanted to make something of himself. He came to Yuheng City to enlist on his own, didn’t ask me to open any back doors, and volunteered for front-line patrol duty.” He sighed. “Ah, I don’t know how I’m supposed to explain this to my cousin.”

“He fought bravely. Give them generous compensation.” He Lingchuan pressed a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry. This debt will definitely be repaid.”

Chao Qian nodded instinctively.

He Lingchuan knew that Chao Qian only took this as a word of comfort.

No matter. He kept his promises. Very soon, everyone would know that.

Then he walked into the low courtyard behind the post station, where the patrol guards’ bodies had all been laid out.

In such hot weather, after a day, the smell of the bodies was terrible.

No one at the post station dared approach, but He Lingchuan’s expression remained as usual. He began examining the wounds on the corpses.

Most were wounds from blades, spears, and arrows. They were very ordinary.

But the wounds on two of the men were rather unusual, with a row of three bloody holes. Willow also came closer to inspect them carefully. “Hm, could these have been done by hooks or claws?”

There were plenty of martial artists who used unusual weapons, and some were especially fond of injuring others with hooks or claws.

But she immediately overturned her own judgment. “No, that isn’t it. Hooks and claws would leave slashing wounds. They wouldn’t go this deep.”

Claw weapons modeled after bears, wolves, or tigers all created wounds where the flesh turned outward, not straight, deep holes like these.

He Lingchuan silently extended his hand, shaping it like a claw, and inserted his fingers into the wounds.

Although the size did not match perfectly, the shape was basically the same.

“Dug in directly with fingers—no, with claws?” Willow was surprised. “So it was a monster? But the witnesses at the post station said the attackers were all human.”

He Lingchuan turned over another corpse and found the same wounds there. There was also a small hole in the neck.

The blood had, of course, already congealed. He stared at the wound for a long while before saying to Willow, “Bring all the heads inside. Give them back whole bodies.”

“Yes.”

It took quite a bit of work comparing the severed heads before everyone could place the eighteen heads back with their bodies.

He Lingchuan looked at the corpse he had paid attention to earlier, then said, “No, this one’s been matched wrong.”

The others had no choice but to endure the stench of corpses and compare them all over again.

It was no easy task to match all eighteen heads again by the cut wounds on the necks.

In the end, it was He Lingchuan who found it first.

Just as he placed the head back onto its original body, Chao Qian happened to enter. “The witness statements outside have all been recorded... Mingming?”

He stared at the body before He Lingchuan. “This is my cousin’s son, Miao Mingming. Is something wrong?”