Chapter 189: An Anomaly

Inside Heaven Room 2 on the eastern side of Fortune’s Arrival Inn’s fourth floor.

An incense burner, tea set, ornaments, and other objects had been knocked to the floor, though few were badly damaged. A blackened bloodstain marred the thick brown carpet.

Candleflames appeared in Ding Songyan’s eyes as he searched the room, but he found no clues.

Fan Chunlin, whose cold, pale skin bore black markings across the forehead, crouched beside the bloodstain and studied it for a while.

"The Ghost Yu Way assassin must have hidden in the folding screen’s shadow, waited until Qi Lingyi approached the bed, then struck without warning and killed him in one blow.

"Aside from the objects Qi Lingyi knocked over as he fell, there are no signs of a struggle."

"A Dharma Realm assassin?" Ding Songyan did not know how strong Qi Lingyi truly was after being forcibly elevated to the rank of Grandmaster, how he compared with Patriarch Zhen or the Small Boat Gang’s Ma Hanjiang, or whether someone one major realm lower could have assassinated him. He could only assume the worst.

"Most likely. It was clean and decisive, and the assassin came and went like a shadow." Fan Chunlin sighed softly.

Ding Songyan glanced at him.

"Why are you sighing?"

It is not as though you knew the victim.

And the killer was a Ghost Yu Way Grandmaster. Surely there is no need to compare yourself with someone like that?

Fan Chunlin glanced at the Martial Prohibition Bureau official standing in the doorway, then rose.

"Qi Lingyi was a Grandmaster after all, a second-rank Subtlety Attuned, yet someone killed him with a single strike. It makes me feel somewhat... somewhat..."

"As though his fate might one day be yours?" Ding Songyan ventured.

"Exactly." Fan Chunlin let his hands fall and smiled bitterly. "I had planned to gather pills and amass cultivation resources after turning thirty, then force my way into the ranks of Grandmasters. I would be far inferior to a Dharma Realm master who advanced normally, but it would suffice in a prefectural city. Who could have imagined that Qi Lingyi, who became a Grandmaster through that very path, would die so easily without blocking even one strike?"

A clear flaw in his temperament. Did the Ghost Yu Way exploit it through its power to turn hearts treacherous? Ding Songyan smiled.

"Show the Ghost Yu Way some respect. They are renowned for assassination. If one of their assassins could not kill Qi Lingyi in a single strike at the same realm after catching him unprepared, they might as well disband."

Ding Songyan looked at Fan Chunlin and asked casually, "Fourth Fan, you are only two years older than me, correct?"

"Yes." Fan Chunlin nodded, uncertain what he meant.

Ding Songyan considered for a moment and said, "You are twenty-four or twenty-five and already at the late Great Proliferation Realm. You should reach perfection in another year or two. Even so, you still have no hope of becoming a Grandmaster through your own efforts?"

"The Dharma Realm is difficult to attain," Fan Chunlin replied after a brief silence.

Ding Songyan chuckled.

"In my view, anyone under forty still has hope of entering the Dharma Realm."

"My Shadowkill School alone has twenty or thirty people under forty at the perfected Great Proliferation Realm. Your Brightnight Sect must have nearly a hundred. Do all of them have hope of becoming Grandmasters?" Fan Chunlin could not resist retorting.

"They certainly have hope, but each person knows their own prospects best. There is no shortage of people who entered the Dharma Realm near the age of forty." Ding Songyan smiled. "If you doubt yourself, abandon hope, and lose your way, then you truly have no hope at all."

The Brightnight Sect had more than a hundred such disciples, but only six had originally been considered Grandmaster candidates. Zheng Zhuxi, Wan Guhong, and Ding Songyan himself had now openly joined their ranks. Pan Yunzhou was excluded because he cultivated the Myriad Stars Canon.

Grandmaster candidates were those with a chance of breaking through within three to five years. The rest could not be said to have no hope whatsoever. After all, they were under forty and had reached the perfected Great Proliferation Realm. Yet precedent showed that fewer than one in a hundred would ultimately become a Grandmaster.

Grand Elder Wang Zhou had been one such person, entering the Dharma Realm only at forty. Of his entire generation, he alone had seized that slender hope. In Tao Wenshu’s generation, Yan Jingxian, Sun Tie, and Yang Dongsheng had all once been considered Grandmaster candidates.

Thanks to the initial improvements to the Celestial Stars Scripture and Candlelit Nocturne Sutra, Ding Songyan hoped that at least two people outside the Grandmaster candidates among Zheng Zhuxi’s generation and the younger members of the preceding one could enter the Dharma Realm. Ideally, half of the sect’s eight prodigies would also become Grandmasters.

After personally verifying Ding Songyan’s improvements, the Brightnight Sect’s Grandmasters had gradually begun letting the under-forty disciples at the perfected Great Proliferation Realm follow the updated version. They told these disciples that the sect’s unceasing efforts to perfect its arts had borne modest fruit and that one nonhuman viscus required alteration. Once the disciples drank the numbing power and fell unconscious; however, they had no way to know how much was truly changed.

Once this generation fully matured, the Brightnight Sect might enjoy the splendor of ten Grandmasters at once. It would no longer need its present arrangement, adopted to keep two Grandmasters permanently at Alpine Lake Mountain while retaining the flexibility to address problems elsewhere: the Elder responsible for external affairs would no longer be a Dharma Realm master, and a Grandmaster could venture out only when a particularly difficult situation arose.

"I should have confidence in myself?" Fan Chunlin understood Ding Songyan’s meaning.

Ding Songyan nodded gently, then turned to the Martial Prohibition Bureau official assigned to assist them.

"Director Cai, we have found no clues. Why did Qi Lingyi stay at Fortune’s Arrival Inn last night?"

Why would a Grandmaster of the Sea-Treading Gang not own a grand residence?

Director Cai was under forty and cultivated the Accumulating Waters Divine Art. His nose was rather large, his face ruddy, and his features somewhat resembled a rooster’s.

He wore the Martial Prohibition Bureau’s everyday black uniform, with two crimson fire dragons embroidered upon the cuffs and a golden cord bearing a silver seal hanging from his waist. After a moment’s consideration, he answered, "He was having a secret rendezvous."

"Afraid of trouble at home?" Ding Songyan pressed.

Director Cai slowly shook his head.

"It was a male lover."

"Oh." The well-traveled Ding Songyan and Fan Chunlin, a frequent visitor to the Hengbo River, spoke at the same time.

Such affairs between men were hardly considered refined, so men of standing concealed them carefully.

"Where is the male lover?" Fan Chunlin asked.

"He left the inn fifteen minutes before the incident and returned to the male brothel. We investigated him and found nothing amiss," Director Cai answered truthfully.

"Fifteen minutes before the incident..." Fan Chunlin considered this. "The Ghost Yu Way assassin must have exploited the moment when the male courtesan opened the door and slipped inside through the shadows. If a door or window had moved at any other time, Qi Lingyi would have noticed."

This is no supernatural traversal art. The assassin remains bound by human limitations and cannot slip through cracks beneath doors or other small openings... Ding Songyan judged the situation from the Yu’s traits.

He questioned Director Cai again.

"Whom has Qi Lingyi offended over the past six months?"

"Too many people." Director Cai’s expression grew somber. "He handled the Sea-Treading Gang’s dirty work."

"Then please have the Martial Prohibition Bureau compile the relevant information and notify the estate." Ding Songyan spoke at an unhurried pace. "For now, let us examine Qi Lingyi’s body."

Just after leaving Heaven Room 2, Ding Songyan abruptly extended the still-sheathed Frostshade and tapped a spot on the wooden wall beside him.

A shadow suddenly stirred across the wooden surface, and a man "grew" out of the wall.

The man had a deer-like face and protruding fish eyes. Clutching his nose, he stared at Ding Songyan in terror.

Under the astonished gazes of Director Cai and Fan Chunlin, Ding Songyan asked calmly, "Who sent you?"

This man cultivated an art similar to that of the third of the Three Villains of Xiao City and possessed the ability to move as one with vegetation.

A wooden wall still counts as vegetation? Ding Songyan felt he had learned something new.

The fish-eyed man answered fearfully, "Our gang leader sent me.

"I belong to the Sea-Treading Gang. We also want to discover who hired the Ghost Yu Way assassin to kill Elder Qi."

Director Cai studied the man for a moment.

"He does belong to the Sea-Treading Gang. Tell Gang Leader Hu to report to the Martial Prohibition Bureau before tonight."

The fish-eyed man repeatedly acknowledged the order, hurried out of the corridor, and left by the stairs.

"The Brightnight Sect’s Candle-Star Pupils truly deserve their reputation." Only then did Director Cai look at Ding Songyan and offer his heartfelt praise.

When did you see me use the Candle-Star Pupils? Ding Songyan smiled modestly.

"It was merely luck."

I relied entirely on the Chaos Realm.

...

Qi Lingyi’s body had been placed in the Shangyuan County yamen. With the weather already turning cold, it showed no signs of decay.

His head had been completely destroyed, making any obvious physical abnormalities there impossible to discern. His upper body was pale and partly covered in blue-black scales.

Ding Songyan looked beside the corpse.

Light entered from outside and cast a headless shadow there.

The wound upon the headless shadow was clearer than the damage to the corpse itself, visible down to the finest detail.

"Harm the shadow, and the body follows. The assassin erased the head of Qi Lingyi’s shadow with a single strike, killing him instantly." Fan Chunlin understood the Ghost Yu Way quite well.

They stood at the pinnacle of the assassination trade.

The Ghost Yu Way is formidable indeed. No wonder it ranks among the Twenty-One Heretical Ways... Ding Songyan circulated the hazy, translucent seed and quietly opened his yin eyes.

At a glance, his brow involuntarily twitched.

There was no ghost lingering beside Qi Lingyi’s body!

Even the soul of a Grandmaster propped up by external means could not have entered the underworld the same night. It should have lingered beside the corpse for at least six months to a year!

Ding Songyan had already examined the room at Fortune’s Arrival Inn and found no lingering ghost there either.

Was he silenced?

Even his ghost was erased?

Interesting...

Who exactly did Qi Lingyi offend, or what did he learn that he should not have known?

Ding Songyan frowned slightly.

He turned toward Director Cai.

"Did the Martial Prohibition Bureau send someone capable of communing with the underworld to examine him?"

People capable of communing with the underworld were exceedingly rare and generally belonged to specialist sects. An entire province might not contain even one willing to cooperate. Yet as Great Zhao’s organization for handling jianghu affairs, the Martial Prohibition Bureau would overcome every difficulty to recruit a few for emergencies. Those dissatisfied with their original sects made excellent targets.

"We did," Director Cai said succinctly. "They discovered that Qi Lingyi’s ghost was gone."

No wonder they asked Fan Chunlin and me to assist with the investigation... Ding Songyan considered this before asking,

"Was his soul destroyed, or did someone take it away?"

A Dharma Realm soul was extremely valuable to those who cultivated certain unusual martial arts.

Director Cai chose his words carefully.

"We currently believe his soul was completely obliterated."

Ding Songyan fell silent briefly, then murmured almost to himself, "The Ghost Yu Way’s martial arts do not appear to involve the underworld."

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