Having heard the full story from the City Lord’s own mouth, the Baihua City case could be considered solved.
At least, that was how Yun Xiu saw it. Not one of the three hundred townsfolk had actually died, so it hardly counted as a murder case, and if there was no murder, where was the murderer?
Figuring her job was basically done here, she squatted on the ground with her chin propped in her hands, spacing out. While the others chatted, she watched Xiao Wu feed jerky to the demon beast, a live mukbang, basically.
So hungry… she’d gone four whole meals without eating.
Fieldwork was worse than squatting in the immortal jail, at least jail fed you.
As he fed it, Xiao Wu slowly shuffled over toward her in a squat, jerky in hand, and pointed at the hand she was resting her cheek on.
“Big sister, is this what you used to break through all those traps in the secret passage? What kind of immortal artifact is it?”
Yun Xiu lowered her hand and opened her palm, looking at the broken half of a hairpin lying there.
She hadn’t spotted a trash can anywhere around here, so she’d just been clutching it this whole time.
Her legs had gone a bit numb from squatting so long. Yun Xiu shifted. “An immortal artifact? Eh, maybe a little. But mostly it comes down to skill.”
Xiao Wu’s eyes shone even brighter. “So cool…”
The demon beast shuffled over too and, mouth open, chomped down on the jerky in Xiao Wu’s hand.
“Second Brother, eat slower, you’ll choke again, here, have some water to wash it down.”
The long-distance mukbang had become a close-up mukbang, Yun Xiu could smell the jerky now, and her stomach started to growl.
When she got really hungry, her thoughts slowed down and she grew less responsive to the world around her, entering low-power, energy-saving mode.
In short: she got even more dazed than usual.
After a while, Xiao Wu blinked his clear, bright eyes and fixed her with a keen, sparkling gaze brimming with curiosity. “Big sister, what’s your relationship with Lord Sword Venerable?”
“Oh… isn’t it obvious?”
Yun Xiu lifted the chain on her left wrist, cheek still propped in her hand, her voice flat. “I’m a prisoner.”
Xiao Wu’s pupils went wide at that, his expression shifting unreadably, as though he’d just figured something out. He nodded gravely. “No wonder Lord Sword Venerable has to guard you personally. You must be really strong.”
He glanced around, leaned in with his jerky, and whispered, “So, big sister, what crime did they arrest you for?”
Yun Xiu slowly turned her head, her gaze landing on his hand. “Killed three hundred people in one night.”
Xiao Wu, horrified: “!!!”
He patted his little chest and couldn’t help edging back a step.
So scary!
Having finished the jerky, Xiao Wu fished out a peach for the demon beast and sighed with feeling. “Lord Sword Venerable comes out on a case and still has to haul along such a vicious, monstrous criminal. How exhausting…”
Before he’d even finished, Yun Xiu suddenly lunged at the demon beast and, chomp, bit into the peach cradled in its paws. Xiao Wu: !?
Demon beast: !!?
Xie Wuwang, who was in the middle of negotiating with the City Lord, noticed the commotion and looked over.
Xie Wuwang: “…”
Vicious and monstrously… starving, indeed. (pun swapping the “evil” in “vicious and evil” for its homophone “hungry”)
“I now know the whole of what happened here. Within three days I will settle the matter of the Shuiling Palace, and its past crimes will be proclaimed to all under heaven. After that, none of you need fear reprisal from the Shuiling Palace’s remnants, you may all return to the city and live normally.”
Uncle Wang was so moved that tears and snot streamed down his face. “Lord Sword Venerable, can we, can we really go back?”
They’d lived in Baihua City for so many years, this was their home. If they hadn’t been forced to it, who would ever want to hide their names and live a life that couldn’t see the light of day?
Xie Wuwang made a small sound of acknowledgment.
“One last thing. This demon beast…”
Robbed of its after-dinner fruit, the demon beast was chewing on its own paw, silently watching the black-clad girl gnaw on its peach, aggrieved, but not daring to make a peep.
Xiao Wu tensed up at once. “Lord Sword Venerable, Se—Second Brother really has never hurt anyone. Just now he only knocked you all out because I told him to…”
Grief flickered across the City Lord’s aged face too. This was his child, seeing him like this, no one hurt more than he did.
He bowed his head. “Xiao Wu is young and doesn’t understand things. Keeping a demon beast in secret was my idea from the very start, all the blame lies with me. Lord Sword Venerable, however you choose to deal with my life, I will not utter a word of complaint, only, might you spare Xiao Xu?”
Xie Wuwang lifted his eyes. “What use would I have for your life?”
He grabbed the spirit-lock chain and tried to haul up the girl squatting on the ground gnawing her peach, his tone calm. “The Shuiling Palace has committed no end of evil. Three days from now, the Immortal Alliance and the Alchemy Cauldron Bureau will send healer-cultivators and curse-masters to treat all the innocent victims.”
The little group froze.
The City Lord grew so agitated he nearly dropped his cane, the others stammered, unable to get a word out.
The girl was too absorbed in gnawing her peach to be budged. Xie Wuwang fell silent for two seconds, then simply seized her by the scruff of her collar and lifted her up like a rabbit.
Before leaving, he dropped one calm remark.
“That said, if it can’t be cured, then it’ll just have to go to the Immortal Alliance, pass the harmlessness test, and earn a pet-beast license.”
The City Lord and Uncle Wang quietly wiped away their tears of joy, even so, they were already more than satisfied.
Xiao Wu wiped down his flute, crouched, and murmured, “Second Brother, once you’re better, play the flute for me again.”
…
Thanks to Lord Sword Venerable’s airy little remark that he “didn’t like to be disturbed while working,” Shui Yu, a pavilion master of the Shuiling Palace, and Lin Zhengqing, a team leader of the Immortal Alliance’s Bureau of All Affairs, had no choice but to wait outside the city until late into the night.
At one point Shui Yu thought about leaving, but Lin Zhengqing shot him a look and opened his mouth with a snide, passive-aggressive drawl: “Lord Sword Venerable toils tirelessly through the dead of night to handle the Shuiling Palace’s trifling little affairs, and yet certain people from the Shuiling Palace don’t seem grateful at all~”
Shui Yu: “…”
“Since Brother Lin is already keeping watch here, I’m sure nothing will go wrong. I have some matters to attend to…”
“Oh? What urgent business? Do tell, you can’t even wait the little while it takes His Lordship to handle a case~”
Lin Zhengqing blinked. “Don’t tell me you’re in a rush to get home and sleep?”
Shui Yu’s temple twitched, he pressed down his temper. “…Brother Lin jests. Of course not.”
If Sword Venerable Wuwang weren’t standing right here, would I put up with a lowly Immortal Alliance clerk like you prancing around? What a dog throwing its weight around on its master’s power (a lackey bullying others by leaning on a powerful backer).
Right now everyone in Baihua City was “dead,” so there were no more children here suitable for the experiments. The last batch had been poor quality and few were left, and the other side was pushing hard, only a few days remained, so he had to hurry off to comb through other cities.
But there was no way he could say any of this to Lin Zhengqing, so he had to swallow his anger and go on waiting outside the city.
After all, Sword Venerable Wuwang was not someone he could afford to offend. If this little clerk embellished a report once Wuwang emerged, claiming Shui Yu had been disrespectful, would he even get to keep his post as pavilion master?
And so the two parties, each with their own agenda, went on waiting at the city gate.
They waited and waited, until the moon hung at its zenith, before the white-robed young man finally emerged.
His expression was calm, behind him, the black-clad girl was visibly sluggish on her feet, drifting and unsteady. The moment Lord Sword Venerable came to a stop, she squatted right back down, propped her cheek in her hand, and spaced out.
Lin Zhengqing hurried forward. “Lord Sword Venerable, how did it go?”
Xie Wuwang: “A few loose ends remain, but it’s late now, not the right time.”
Lin Zhengqing nodded again and again. “You’ve worked hard, Lord Sword Venerable. Do rest for today. The Immortal Alliance’s Yaochi Jade Pool is rich in spiritual energy, a fine place to rest, I’ve already prepared a room for you…”
“No need to trouble yourself.” Xie Wuwang said mildly. “I’ve been in seclusion so long without seeing anyone that I’ve grown a little distant from old friends. Since I happen to be on Shuiling Palace territory, I’d like to go catch up with the Palace Master.”
He lifted his eyes toward Shui Yu. “I only wonder, does the Palace Master have any free time these days?”
Shui Yu started, then hastily answered, “Free, free, of course he’s free, I’ll go announce you right away.”
Even if the Palace Master weren’t free, he’d have to squeeze out the time. The Palace Master already knew Sword Venerable Wuwang had come to investigate in Baihua City today, and had repeatedly ordered Shui Yu to wait on this great buddha hand and foot.
Five hundred years ago, Sword Venerable Wuwang had already been a name that thundered through the cultivation world, now, the moment he came out of seclusion, the Lingyun Sect’s disciple recruitment for the year had filled to bursting, cementing its place as the number-one sect.
Although plenty of people thought Sword Venerable Wuwang’s reputation outstripped the reality, overhyped, all bluster, on the surface they still had to show him some face. What was more, the present Lingyun Sect was not something their now-declining Shuiling Palace could afford to provoke.
Lin Zhengqing had already heard from the immortal-jail guards how the Sword Venerable had taken Yun Xiu away. He looked at the black-clad girl. “It must be inconvenient to bring a suspect along while you visit an old friend, Lord Sword Venerable. Let me take her back to the jail, if you need her again…”
Mushroom Little Yun slowly booted up, her eyes lit.
Immortal jail…
Food…
Mushroom Little Yun, in a thread of a voice: “Quick, quick, take me back to the cell…”
Lin Zhengqing: ?
He’d never heard such a bizarre request in his life.
He looked her up and down, and seeing how listless and wilted she was, seemed to understand something, his eyes went wide.
Could it be that staying by Lord Sword Venerable’s side was even more terrifying than the immortal jail?!
Her collar was suddenly seized, and in the blink of an eye Mushroom Little Yun was up on the light of the flying sword. Beside her, the young man said calmly, “That won’t be necessary.”
Yun Xiu: “…”
How was it “not necessary”?! Is a cannon-fodder side-heroine’s life not a life?!
Whatever. Starving to death still beat being fed to snakes.
Thinking of it that way,
Yun Xiu was, once again, at peace with it.
The Zhezhu Sword rose into the air, its light bearing them aloft.
Yun Xiu squatted in a corner of the sword-light and went back into standby mode.
After a while, deciding that squatting drained a bit too much battery, she just plopped down and sat on the sword-light.
A little later, she flopped over and lay flat.
The Zhezhu Sword Spirit: “…”
Who in their right mind rides a flying sword lying down?!
Yun Xiu hadn’t slept a wink the night before, had climbed a whole mountain on top of that, gotten thrown in jail this morning, and been dragged around ever since. Now, just sitting there, she was so sleepy she couldn’t keep her eyes open, her little head nodding again and again.
In the end she fell asleep, and with no wall beside her to lean on, her body slowly began to tip over.
Just as her head was about to smack into the sword-light, a hand with clean, defined knuckles caught her, and her veiled hat tumbled off.
Asleep, the girl was no longer tense and timid. Freed from the hairpin’s hold, her dark hair spilled softly around her face, a few unruly strands falling across her fair little cheeks, the tip of her nose flushed pink, as docile as a fawn in sleep.
…The sight was quite at odds with the things she’d done.
Xie Wuwang looked down at her, silent for two seconds, and was about to prop a pillow under her head when the girl suddenly grabbed his hand and, chomp, bit down on it.
Xie Wuwang: ?
But before he could pull his hand back, the girl let go on her own, her brow furrowing, and mumbled in her sleep:
“…Who stewed these pig trotters… they taste awful…”
Xie Wuwang: “…”
Two seconds later, with an utterly cold expression, he released the hand cradling her head.