I am the Ruler of the Kingdom of Mysterious-Chapter 185 - 158: The Informant

When Sang Que climbed onto the rooftop, he saw a petite figure leaping and darting between the rooftops, moving swiftly and silently like a cat.

The person had already run far away, and Sang Que took up his bow and nocked an arrow.

The bow was a peach wood bow, and the arrow was an ordinary one bought in the city.

The moonlight was bright, and Sang Que narrowed his eyes slightly, focusing on the zigzagging figure. As it jumped onto the left rooftop, Sang Que aimed to the right and decisively released the arrow.

Whir!

The bowstring vibrated, and the figure sprang up, hit squarely in the back by Sang Que’s arrow, and fell straight down.

Sang Que spread the Evil Mist and used Instant Teleportation continuously, quickly arriving at the spot where the person had fallen.

There was no one there. Sang Que stood on the rooftop, surveying his surroundings. The Buiyi Lane was quiet, not a sound, but there were bloodstains on the ground; his arrow had indeed hit the target.

After waiting on the rooftop for a while and still finding nothing, Sang Que had no choice but to return to the small courtyard where he was stationed.

"Did you catch the person?" Yu Da asked.

Sang Que sat down at the table, "I hit them with an arrow, but they still got away."

Yu Da was somewhat surprised, "Did you get a clear look at their figure and appearance?"

"Petite build, probably a woman, very agile, a master in this field. To escape so silently must be the effect of a yin object or aided by evil spirits."

Yu Da sucked in a breath, "You mean, the person might be a Yin Walker?"

Sang Que nodded, "Coming to the crime scene in the dead of night, it might be a Yin Walker controlling the Thousand-faced Ghost."

"Everyone’s been killed, so why come back?" Yu Da was puzzled. 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

Sang Que didn’t answer, as she couldn’t explain the reason. She could only continue flipping through the inquiry records on the table, and after a while, her eyelids began to droop.

Worried that the person might return, she didn’t dare to sleep, so she stood up to stretch her limbs. Xuan Yu was nowhere to be found; otherwise, she could have rubbed it to relieve her fatigue.

Looking at the corpses kneeling in a circle inside the house, Sang Que asked Yu Da, "Old Yu, can I move those corpses?"

Yu Da didn’t even lift his head, "Suit yourself. Those corpses will be burned after the forensic doctor from the Evil Suppression Bureau has examined them tomorrow."

Sang Que took out a handkerchief to cover her mouth and nose, drew a dagger from her waist, and walked to the corpses. The hollow on the face of the corpse still made her scalp tingle, but she forced herself to examine it for a while, then used the dagger to lift a piece of face skin from the ground.

Sang Que looked at the face skin, touched her own face, and felt a large hole on the corpse’s face. On the ground, there was only a piece of skin; where did the facial bones go?

After finishing with the inquiry records, Yu Da also stood up to stretch his limbs.

"Did you find anything?"

Sang Que stood up from the corpse’s side, "The facial bones of these corpses are all missing; nothing else discovered."

Yu Da pondered for a moment, "Do you think this was the work of the Thousand-faced Ghost?"

Since there were no outsiders in the room, Sang Que expressed her true thoughts.

"I always feel something doesn’t quite add up. When we investigated the Thousand-faced Ghost before, we found that the supposed manifestations of the Thousand-faced Ghost were all in trivial matters, like seeking medicine, asking for a doctor, looking for people or objects, and driving away evil spirits from homes. Slightly bigger requests, like asking the Thousand-faced Ghost to help someone pass exams, find a good match, or have a child, had no results. And these small matters could be accomplished by normal people too."

"All this time, the Thousand-faced Ghost’s activities have never seemed strange, and now with such a large-scale massacre suddenly occurring, I still feel there’s something fishy. But what you said makes sense too, Old Yu. If the one controlling the Thousand-faced Ghost lost control, or the Thousand-faced Ghost needs a promotion ritual, it’s possible for such a crime to occur."

This was where Sang Que felt conflicted, making it hard for her to draw a conclusion.

Yu Da nodded slightly, "Regardless, we must first figure out the rules of killing to prevent this from happening again, and then find this Yin Walker to get to the bottom of it. Tomorrow, we’ll split up: I’ll continue to visit people related to these five houses, and you start investigating the Thousand-faced Ghost’s activities. You can go to the city south’s Half a Day’s Leisure inn to ask Buda Ting."

The mention of Buda Ting made Sang Que’s eyes light up, as this kind of character was an important figure in wuxia stories.

"Half a Day’s Leisure is right opposite the Ruyi Building at the southern city troupe, easy to find. The back room here is fairly clean. You’ve been on the road for two days; get some sleep first. I’ll wake you in the middle of the night."

Sang Que thanked him, truly too tired. If she didn’t sleep, she might suddenly die young in her post.

*

The night passed without incident, and early the next morning, Sang Que found Xuan Yu, who had wandered off for a night. She bought two buns on the street next to Buiyi Lane and went to look for the Ruyi Building.