Chapter Eighty: Duan Lin Had Long Been Dead

A heavy sabre rang as it was drawn, then settled into Yan Xian’s grip.

Fang Mu frowned and looked at him as if he were an idiot. He said to the shopkeeper, “Is he one of those from the Celestial Watch Office too?”

The shopkeeper looked a little embarrassed and nodded.

Fang Mu reversed his grip on the butcher’s knife, his face darkening. “My cat has a problem, and I’m in a very bad mood right now. I don’t feel like talking to you.”

With that, Fang Mu turned back to the shopkeeper, about to speak, when a voice came again from behind him.

“As a swordsman,” Yan Xian said with grave seriousness, “why cling to those fluffy little things? A gluttonous beast is only an external thing in the end. Come, draw your blade and fight me!”

Fang Mu, already in a foul temper, could not help the twitch at the corner of his mouth.

“Is he always like this?” he asked. “Does the Celestial Watch Office not have anyone normal?”

The shopkeeper sighed. “Most of us are perfectly normal. But with enough people, it’s only natural for one or two odd ones to turn up now and then.”

Fang Mu said gravely, “I feel like you’re speaking in riddles. May I hit him?”

The shopkeeper answered with complete certainty, “By all means. I’ve wanted to hit him for ages. Just don’t kill him.”

The atmosphere grew strange. Only Yan Xian stood there clutching his sabre, staring fixedly at Fang Mu.

Fang Mu turned around and placed his hand on the butcher’s knife at his waist.

“Are we beginning?” Yan Xian’s face lit with excitement, and his aura rose sharply.

His hand swept along the blade of the sabre, and blood spilled from his palm, spreading over the edge until, in the blink of an eye, the blade turned red.

“Come! Young swordsman!” Yan Xian shouted.

Fang Mu held the unconscious Ah Bai in his left arm and drew the butcher’s knife with his right.

A storm of blade light erupted. A blazing red net of strikes densely enveloped Yan Xian.

Crack, crack, crack...

A rapid succession of impacts rang out. Yan Xian was blasted backward, red marks covering him from head to toe.

“This time it was the back of the blade.” Fang Mu sheathed his knife and, without looking back, said, “Next time it will be the edge.”

Yan Xian got up from the ground, sheathed his sabre, and cupped his fists in salute. “My skill is inferior to yours. I am impressed.”

Having said that, he quietly returned to his original place and stood there properly.

Fang Mu frowned and ignored him. Just as he was about to continue questioning the shopkeeper, Yan Xian spoke again.

“Um...” Yan Xian looked at the red marks on his body, then pointed to a spot without one and said, “Could you give this side a hit too? It’s a little uneven... I’m uncomfortable.”

Fang Mu: “...”

“I’ll do it!” The shopkeeper kicked out and sent Yan Xian flying before saying, “Right, what was it you were looking for me about just now?”

Lying on the ground, Yan Xian wore a satisfied smile. “At last... it’s symmetrical.”

Fang Mu’s gaze sharpened. This shopkeeper had something to him; that kick had been so fast Fang Mu had not been able to see the movement at all.

But now was not the time to think about that. Fang Mu pointed to Ah Bai in his arms and said, “My cat has a problem. It’s been unconscious the whole time.”

The shopkeeper only glanced at it before explaining, “It’s fine. Its strength has reached the critical point; it’s about to break through. Gluttonous beasts are always like this when they break through. Nothing in this world is perfectly flawless.

“A gluttonous beast can keep devouring the strange and never encounters a bottleneck in its progression, but that is also when it is weakest.”

“What do I need to do?” Fang Mu asked.

The shopkeeper spread his hands. “All you can do is wait. Your gluttonous beast is crossing from the Yellow tier to the Black tier. Once it reaches the Black tier, it will wake up.”

“Yellow tier? Black tier?” Fang Mu asked, not quite understanding.

The shopkeeper explained, “Strange beings and beasts such as gluttonous beasts are divided into nine tiers. From highest to lowest, they are Void, Universe, Cosmos, Vast, Wilderness, Heaven, Earth, Black, and Yellow. Void is the highest, Yellow the lowest.”

Fang Mu stroked his chin. So the strange and the beasts had classifications too. The nine tiers corresponded neatly to the nine levels of mystics and strange officers.

Since Ah Bai was fine, Fang Mu could finally relax.

Back to the matter at hand, he explained why he had come.

The shopkeeper was startled. “The Duan family? The Sun family? The hidden treasury?”

Fang Mu nodded. “That’s right. Do you have any leads on those two families here, or any records?”

The shopkeeper thought for a moment. “Wait here. I’ll go look.”

With that, he went toward the back of the general store.

“My name is Yan Xian.” At that moment, Yan Xian came over and introduced himself. “I’m the case chief of the Celestial Watch Office, a swordsman.”

Fang Mu looked back. “My name is Fang Mu.”

Yan Xian did not leave him with a bad impression. Although he kept trying to compare blade techniques with him, he was not the same sort of person as Deng Zheng.

Of course, Fang Mu felt Yan Xian seemed to have some strange quality about him. That bizarre obsession with symmetry felt oddly familiar, somehow resembling certain traits from his previous life.

Yan Xian said sternly, “Lord Li Gun told me to wait for you here and assist you in dealing with the Five Gods Sect?”

“Oh?” Fang Mu frowned. “Brother Li Gun isn’t coming himself?”

Yan Xian raised a hand to his mouth and coughed awkwardly. “Lord Li Gun is still investigating elsewhere. Even if he received word, he probably wouldn’t be able to make it back in time, so I’m here to help you first.”

To lure the serpent completely from its hole, Li Gun was naturally keeping a very great distance away.

But if it was support...

Fang Mu stroked his chin. “Can you divine?”

Yan Xian did not know why Fang Mu would ask such a thing. “No. Why?”

“Nothing.” Fang Mu shook his head, then asked, “Can you be carried around and used to fire ranged attacks?”

Yan Xian looked even more puzzled. “No. I’m a swordsman, and I possess blood-qi mystic power. My blood-qi can harm strange beings, though of course I can’t do anything about rule-based ones.”

Fang Mu sighed. If there was anyone truly useful, it was still Iron Fortune Immortal.

Still, one more person meant one more strength, and Yan Xian was not weak.

Before long, the shopkeeper came out from the back of the general store holding a thick booklet.

“There really is a record of that Duan Lin you mentioned,” he said, coming to the counter and setting the booklet down as he flipped through it. After a while, he stopped on one page.

Fang Mu walked over and looked down at the booklet, his brow faintly furrowing.

“Duan Lin, from East Prosperity County. He died fifteen years ago after falling off a cliff.”

“Duan Lin is dead?” Fang Mu frowned. “He died fifteen years ago from a fall off a cliff?”

The shopkeeper said, “That’s what the record says. There’s also a record of the Sun family.”

As the pages turned, the shopkeeper stopped on another page.

“The Sun family was a wealthy household in Well Dragon County, headed by Sun Chang,” the shopkeeper said slowly. “The Sun family came to Well Dragon County twenty-five years ago, and in just twenty-five years they turned into one of the county’s most prominent rich families. If your account is correct, then the Sun family is suspicious as well. And there’s one more crucial point...”