New Murim Online's Second Law: Dong Bongsu can put any object that is in direct contact with any part of his body into the Inventory. (However, its size must be smaller than the Inventory, and it must not be a living creature.)
New Murim Online's Third Law: Insects and animals (Not yet certain. Need to experiment with animals other than rats.) give no Experience Points, and killing a human increases Experience Points and kill points. (Need to confirm the difference based on strength and weakness.)
Anhui Province.
In the north flows the Huai River, and in the central part, the Yangtze River flows eastward, forming a vast rural area.
In the coastal areas of these two rivers, humid regions surrounded by swamps and ponds are widely distributed, boasting the fertility of the land.
Its symbols were the pride of the Central Plains, the North China Plain, and Chao Lake.
Since ancient times, commerce and trade have developed in this land due to the prosperous and fertile land, the great rivers, and the exchange between the lakes.
Geograhically, it was also advantageous for business, bordering Jiangsu Province and Zhejiang Province to the east, Shandong Province to the north, and Hubei Province and Henan Province to the west.
Naturally, goods from all over the country gathered here, and money flowed in.
Just as flies are drawn to foul smells, it is natural for thieves or the scoundrels of Demonic Path sects to be drawn to places that reek of money.
Many Murim Sects that defeated such people and protected the justice of the Jianghu also emerged in Anhui Province.
Among them, the most representative sect was the Namgung Family in Hefei, one of the Five Great Families of the Central Plains.
The Namgung Family was by far the best among the Five Great Families of the Central Plains.
Since they opened their doors, Anhui Province had never once been trampled by the followers of unorthodox or Demonic Path.
Emperor Sword Art, Azure Sky Infinite Sword Art, Great Divination Sword Art, Thirteen Flashing Thunder Swords Art, Heavenly Wind Sword Art, Heavenly Thunder Emperr Divine Art, Azure Sky Great Divination Divine Art, Heavenly Thunder Qi Art, Three Heavenly Thunder Palms Art, Heavenly Wind Palm Energy Art, Great Azure Sky Infinite Sword Formation Art…
Armed with Martial Arts that would make any member of a Demonic Path sect tremble just by listing their names, the Namgung Family stood alone and high as Anhui's Number One Great Sect.
The prestige of the Namgung Family was so great that other Murim Sects in Anhui Province were as insignificant as fireflies before the moon, but there were still sects in each county and city.
Among those many sects, there was also the Danri Family.
Although it couldn't be compared to the Namgung Family, it was the top family in Soaring Sun.
How else could the saying have arisen that in Soaring Sun, a person with the surname Danri would ride in a four-horse carriage even after death?
The Danri Family had the Black Crow Corps as its intelligence and law enforcement group, and the Heavenly Sword Cross Corps as its specialized military force.
They all learned the family's Secret Martial Arts, the Flying Heaven Sword Art and the Heaven-Sundering Flying Sword Art, and their fame was quite considerable within Anhui Province.
In particular, the Black Crow Corps's information-gathering ability was second to none.
To hat extent? Even the beggars of the Beggars' Sect, who would be offended if called second best in information, would yield a step to the Danri Family's Black Crow Corps within Soaring Sun City.
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However, that very Black Crow Corps was now suffering a headache because of a recent incident.
Suicide Plague.
It was a term spreading among the people, saying that suicide was trending like a plague within Soaring Sun these days.
In the past month, a staggering two hundred people had committed suicide.
What an abnormal phenomenon this was.
There had been suicides before, but never this many.
At most, one or two a month.
Even if two hundred murder cases occurred in a month, it would be a scale that would cause a huge uproar.
For two hundred suicide cases to occur in a medium-sized walled city like Soaring Sun, it was no ordinary matter.
Naturally, the residents of the city were agitated.
Rumors spread, like a host was secretly killing people and disguising it as suicide, or that the Horsehair Worm was making not just insects but also people commit suicide, or that a real Suicide Plague had broken out.
Besides these, various other hypotheses were circulating as rumors.
Regardless of which of the rampant rumors was true, they were all ominous.
Among these, there was one hypothesis that the authorities paid attention to.
It was the theory of a Demonic Path sect's entry into Soaring Sun
The idea was that a fearsome, unorthodox group, unknown to the Murim, had recently entered Soaring Sun and was causing these incidents.
The reason this theory gained traction was simple.
The Murim, then and now, were beings who had built a wall between themselves and ordinary people, as well as the authorities.
From the perspective of ordinary people, they were people of the World Beyond, who were citizens of the country, but in another sense, were not.
People who could fly through the sky, use ground-shrinking techniques, and split mountains and rivers.
If such things were possible, how could secretly killing people be impossible? Moreover, among them, the unorthodox practitioners sometimes killed people to suck out their livers, brains, or essence to build up their Internal Energy.
There were no such corpses among those found, but who knew if it was a new method of Internal Energy Accumulation Art.
However.
The Investigator of Soaring Sun City was not a Martial Artist.
If this hypothesis was correct, he had no way to root them out, nor any way to catch them.
Of course, there were masters within the government as well.
But they mostly belonged to the Imperial Family, and as a principle, they wouldn't come to help a small Walled City like this.
In the end, the Investigator had to request help from a Murim Sect.
That party was, naturally, the Danri Family.
The Danri Family's Head, the 'Flying Heaven Beautiful Sword' Danri Cheonwoo, willingly accepted the government's request as part of their symbiotic relationship.
Such things didn't happen often, but they did happen from time to time.
And whenever they did, the Black Crow Corps would step up and resolve it magnificently.
But…
The Black Crow Corps' Leader, Gi Daehyo, was perplexed.
On Danri Cheonwoo's orders, he had no choice but to start investigating the 'Suicide Plague', but he couldn't grasp its true nature at all.
'Something is definitely strange…'
But that was it.
There were over a hundred cases with only evidence of suicide and no circumstances suggesting murder.
The reason he found these cases strange was that while the scenes of the incidents all pointed to suicide, it was difficult to declare them as such with certainty.
A significant number of the deceased were people who had reasons to commit suicide.
Life was hard; they were abandoned by a lover, or they couldn't endure parental abuse.
The suicides of such people could be understood.
But the problem was that there were also many who were not like that.
People who had lived their entire lives happily, content with their lot, suddenly committing suicide overnight?
Gi Daehyo found it hard to understand.
Does suicide have to have a reason? If asked, he thought it might be possible, but…
'Something isn't right.'
He was a man who had experienced all sorts of battles in the Murim—on land, on water, at sea, and even with dogs.
His sense of smell was strongly insisting that these cases reeked of something foul.
“Who was the first person to die?”
Gi Daehyo decided to go over it from the beginning.
To his question, the Black Crow Corps' Vice Corps Leader and his son, Gi Manji, answered.
“Machil, an armory hand of the family.”