A vein at Fan Sheng’s temple twitched. He forced down his anger and only asked about the major incident from before. “Zhongsun Mou was swallowed by the monster he had put under wanted notice?”

On the way back, his subordinate had already reported the details of Zhongsun Mou’s mishap.

Fan Sheng had been badly startled as well.

Zhongsun Mou had met with disaster while he himself was also in Baishajue. Once this matter was investigated afterward, it would inevitably involve him too.

Which meant that everything he had been doing here would have to be explained in full.

County Magistrate Tian’s face turned even more miserable. This truly was one calamity piling onto another. At this rate, should he just resign his post to the ruler and head back to the countryside? “Y-yes. That thing swallowed Lord Zhongsun in one gulp, then burrowed into the sand and escaped.”

No matter how much Fan Sheng disliked He Lingchuan, at a time like this, he still had to ask, “Was that really the criminal you’ve been hunting?”

“I didn’t see it with my own eyes. At the time, you and I were still locked in conflict inside the Lotus Palace, remember?” He Lingchuan shrugged. “But from the witnesses’ descriptions, the aberrant creature that carried off Zhongsun Mou sounds very much like the snail toad Mai Xuewen used for monster hunting.”

Even someone as knowledgeable as Fan Sheng found it hard to believe. “That man surnamed Mai has already escaped. Why would he come back just to abduct Zhongsun Mou?”

“Who knows? Maybe he wanted revenge too.” He Lingchuan smiled. “Maybe Lord Zhongsun got in his way as well?”

As well?

That was obviously meant to jab at him. Fan Sheng glared and was just about to snap back when He Lingchuan beat him to it again. “Now even the Touring Commissioner has been abducted. Lord Fan, what do you think Lingxu City will do about this?”

That was a serious question, and also the most important question at present. Fan Sheng’s anger was forced back down. After thinking for a moment, he said, “Once this is reported, it becomes a major matter. It will be investigated until the truth is fully uncovered.”

First, the eastern imperial eagle carrying messages to the front had disappeared. Then the Touring Commissioner handling the case had been swallowed in broad daylight. That was two hard slaps in a row to Lingxu City’s face—first the left cheek, then the right. How could the Lord Emperor possibly swallow that?

Lingxu City’s authority could not be challenged.

“They’ll definitely send over another special envoy to investigate as well.” The disappearance of the eastern imperial eagle courier might still have been dismissed as an accident, but thousands of eyes here had personally witnessed Zhongsun Mou being taken. Lingxu City would never take this lightly again. By then, this would become a dedicated investigation handled by designated people, pursued rigorously and seriously. It would not be investigated as casually as Zhongsun Mou had handled things.

That was a complete disaster.

He Lingchuan asked again, “Then what about the people and physical evidence already involved in the case?”

“Of course, all of it would be detained. No one would be allowed to leave Baishajue.” At that point, Fan Sheng let out a gloomy breath. That seemed to include himself as well.

This time, he had meant to repay a favor owed to the Zhongsun Family. Who would have thought it would leave him reeking all over with trouble? What a mess.

He Lingchuan could see his frustration and believed his earlier explanation a few points more. He said nothing further and turned to leave.

“You alright?” Jiao Yu asked, seeing that half his clothes were stained red.

“No. It hurts like hell.” Being injured was routine for him, but that did not mean he could not feel pain, especially now that the Stone Lump Powder’s numbing effect had worn off. “But I need to go somewhere first.”

County Magistrate Tian was quite considerate. Seeing that the special envoy was injured, he still managed to arrange a carriage for him despite being overwhelmed.

But He Lingchuan first went to Commander Lu to get Jia Yu back. Only then did he climb into the carriage and head northwest along the lakeshore.

Isn’t this where he’d just come from?

The tiger lay by the window, and after more than half an hour, it could vaguely see the Lotus Palace out on the lake again.

Jia Yu asked in surprise, “Lord Envoy, why are you back here?”

“I dropped something in the water and need to go retrieve it.” He could not stop thinking about the treasure.

Jia Yu understood at once and quickly said, “I’ll go row us back in. Please wait a moment!”

He sprang down in a few quick steps, splashed into the water, and soon swam far out.

He Lingchuan had not waited long before Jia Yu rowed a boat back to shore.

It was a boat from the Cen household, the same one that had earlier carried Fan Sheng over to ambush He Lingchuan. After that failed, the boat was taken away by Jia Yu.

Now he had rowed it back again to carry the injured He Lingchuan back out onto the lake.

The tiger still did not get a seat this time. The boat was too small, and it was too heavy, so it could only crouch at the shore and wait.

Before long, the boat returned to the place where He Lingchuan and Fan Sheng had fought so fiercely.

The two men were both stunned speechless. The scene before them was completely different from when they had left:

Centered on the spot where Fan Sheng had fallen into the water, everything within a radius of over thirty meters was ruined lotus leaves and broken blossoms. There was not a single intact lotus that remained.

It looked as if this stretch of water had been swept clean. Besides broken stems and leaves of plants, the surface was also littered with the corpses of water birds, insects, and fish. Those arrogant, unstoppable man-eating fish had mostly floated belly-up; more than a dozen were not even whole anymore, and only two still lived, slapping the water feebly with one ruined fin and spinning in place.

They were not far from death either.

Jia Yu muttered, “What happened here?”

“Fan Sheng released some life-saving trump card and very nearly perished together with the lotus monster.” He Lingchuan had him row closer to where they had picked the Overlord Lotus earlier, then circle the area a few more times.

The treasure position indicated by the divine bone amulet was slightly different now from before.

He Lingchuan had a rough idea. After fixing on the spot, he slipped into the water again.

This time, he dove all the way to the bottom and began feeling around carefully.

All sorts of random debris floated in the water, but He Lingchuan only swam back and forth over the lakebed.

Jia Yu stared with wide eyes. He watched He Lingchuan grope around in the lake mud for quite a while before finally surfacing.

He helped him climb back into the boat, only then noticing that He Lingchuan was holding something in his arms. It looked like a shattered piece of pottery. It was hard to tell whether it had once been a jar or an urn. It was full of rotten mud, and half a lotus root was buried inside.

He Lingchuan rinsed the mud away with lake water and discovered that the broken vessel was strangely clean inside. There was not even a dead insect or snail egg within, only that one section of lotus root.

No one knew why the root had snapped. The broken surfaces of the other roots were all milky white, but this one was blood-red, and even now it oozed a pale crimson slime that, at first glance, looked rather like human blood.

“This is?” Jia Yu found it hard to believe. “Could this be the lotus...?”

“It’s probably the water spirit of the lake.” Jia Yu had mentioned before that the water spirit punished cheaters. Fan Sheng had ambushed He Lingchuan this time and hacked down a large section of lotus wall, so the lotus monster had taken one look and known this was no legitimate contestant, but a saboteur.

He Lingchuan had guessed it had a bad temper. What he had not expected was that it would wait until Fan Sheng was trapped in the spiderweb and then come seeking revenge and venting its anger, only to get taken out in one wave by the trump card Fan Sheng released.

More than two hundred years of hard cultivation had turned to nothing, leaving behind only this half-broken lotus root.

But was it truly dead?

“Let’s go back.”

As the boat rowed toward shore, the divine bone amulet no longer gave off heat.

It seemed he had finally picked up the right item.

After going ashore, He Lingchuan switched back to the carriage and returned to the inn, then gave Jia Yu a silver ingot as payment for his work.

The soldier left happily, and the tiger went off to find Commander Lu. He Lingchuan, meanwhile, had the inn send up hot water so he could wash off the mud, broken leaves, and insect corpses stuck all over him.

After being soaked in water, his wounds also needed to be treated all over again.

By the time he had dealt with all that, an hour had passed. At last, He Lingchuan found himself a comfortable chair and sat down, finally taking out the broken vessel shard he had dug up from the lake for closer inspection.

In truth, the thing did not seem to be pottery. It was not quite jade, not quite iron, and when struck, it gave off a clear ringing sound.

Judging from its black body and white mouth, it had probably once been some kind of pot-shaped container, but now at most only one-third remained, with only the bottom part still relatively intact.

Since it was already a fragment anyway, He Lingchuan was not afraid of damaging it, so he simply tapped it twice with a small knife.

Clang, clang, clang.

Nothing happened.

So He Lingchuan simply slammed it against the edge of the table.

With a crack, the fragment was still perfectly fine, but the corner of the table broke off.

The material it was made of was astonishingly hard.

However, was this not only to be expected? After all, how could something that the divine bone had taken a fancy to lack any mystery?

Still, the fragment had a matte texture all over and no visible patterns. Or perhaps the patterned sections had already shattered away. Only a few words remained engraved on the base:

Mifeng.[1]

Wind on demand, rain on demand.

The first word was large, while the rest were small. All of them were written in the language of the ancient immortals.

“So I really did pick up an antique.” He Lingchuan looked at it, then at the half-section of lotus root, and guessed that for some unknown reason this ancient object had shattered. The fragments had fallen into Chao Lake, and as a result, the lotus growing there had turned into a monster.

He turned it over several times but found no further clues, so he fed the fragment to the divine bone amulet.

The divine bone amulet was delighted and ate every last bit of it.

How it digested something that hard was anyone’s guess. But after seeing so many strange things, He Lingchuan could not be bothered to think too much about it anymore.

As for the lotus root, its broken surface was full of holes, and He Lingchuan casually tossed it into the washbasin.

Only then did he close his eyes to rest and begin reviewing the day’s events.

Ever since the investigation into the courier case had ground to a halt, Fu Songhua had become harder and harder to hide, while He Lingchuan himself had also suffered two separate assassination attempts. By then, he had understood that his opponents were relying on their status as Lingxu City officials to act without restraint. If he wanted to seize the initiative and break out of his passive position, he needed an opening.

And that opening was called:

Zhongsun Mou must die!

On the one hand, Zhongsun Mou had strongly insisted on taking Fu Songhua back to Lingxu City to close the case. Once he died, no one would push that matter anymore, and Fu Songhua could continue to stay in Baishajue.

He Lingchuan’s most urgent problem would be solved at once.

Fu Songhua had already become close to impossible to conceal. The Cen Family’s power was no joke, and He Lingchuan had had no real way to stop them.

On the other hand, Zhongsun Mou’s death would inevitably enrage Lingxu City. Once the matter was blown up, the Lord Emperor would not let it go, and the Zhongsun Family would not let it go either. Then the special envoy sent over to handle the case would no longer be able to muddle through and fake his way along the way as Zhongsun Mou had done.

At that point, all evidence connected to the case would be dragged out into the light and scrutinized again and again.

The eastern imperial eagle courier case would also be reopened and reinvestigated.

Would the tricks the Cen household had pulled still hold up then? Would a new special envoy not begin to suspect them?

It could be said that as long as Zhongsun Mou died, the whole game would come alive.

Extraordinary times called for extraordinary measures.

Besides, Zhongsun Mou and the others had struck at him first with murderous intent. He Lingchuan was only returning their methods in kind.

So he had used the snail toad egg.

Wan Song had explained before that if they wanted to summon the snail toad, all they had to do was crush one of its eggs, then stand on the ground.

If it were its master, the snail toad would naturally be obedient.

If it were someone else, such as He Lingchuan or Zhongsun Mou, who had killed its offspring with malicious intent, then the snail toad could not even be bothered to think of a more satisfying form of revenge. It would simply swallow them whole in one gulp.

Its brain was not much bigger than a peach to begin with. Thinking had never really been what it was made for.

While they were betting against each other on Chao Lake Tower, He Lingchuan had used the opportunity to crush the snail toad egg, smear the juice all over the Soul-Stealing Mirror, and then dry it with true energy.

1. I’m unsure what this might be hinting at, but the original word here is 宓风. 宓 literally translates to still or silent, while 风 should just be referring to wind. ☜