"Brother, you smell so good."
The sudden voice exploded by his ear like a clap of thunder.
Jiang Mu’s scalp went numb, and his mind buzzed.
A bone-chilling cold shot up from the soles of his feet and raced up his spine, nearly freezing the blood in his veins and his very nerves.
’Who?!’
’Who’s in the wardrobe?’
’Why didn’t I sense anyone else in here before?’
’Could it be a ghost?’
Jiang Mu stood frozen, not daring to make the slightest move. He even breathed with extreme care.
Then, an icy-cold sensation pressed against the bare skin of his neck.
It was a hand.
It felt as if it lacked any human warmth.
"Brother, can you scoot over a bit?"
The man behind him chuckled.
"Huh? Oh."
Startled, Jiang Mu instinctively shrank to the side.
With a THUD, his shoulder bumped against the wardrobe wall, making a dull sound.
"ROAR—!!"
Hearing the sound, Butcher Zhang Kui’zi, who was roaming the room, spun around and lunged toward the wardrobe!
His face, smeared with mottled bloodstains, looked savage and terrifying.
BANG!
The wardrobe door burst open.
The butcher was sent flying backward, landing heavily on the bed.
Immediately after, a figure flashed out like a phantom and pinned the butcher down.
It was a stark-naked man.
"Suppress!"
The man flicked his fingers, producing a yellow Talisman from nowhere, and pressed it onto the center of Zhang Kui’zi’s brow.
In an instant, a golden light flashed!
HISS—
Acrid smoke rose with a burnt stench.
Zhang Kui’zi shrieked horribly and struggled violently, a crimson sigil seared onto his forehead.
Then, the man flipped his wrist to reveal a dagger and plunged it into Zhang Kui’zi’s forehead.
SQUELCH.
The blade sank into bone.
Zhang Kui’zi’s body convulsed twice, then went still.
"Your head’s pretty tough."
The man pulled out the dagger, grabbed the clothing from the woman’s body nearby to wipe off the blood, and turned to the stunned Jiang Mu with a grin.
"Kid, it’s just a common Demon. Is there any need to be this scared?"
The man had a thin, long face, looked to be around thirty, and had a thick mustache.
’Demon?’
Jiang Mu snapped back to his senses. "What’s a Demon?"
The man’s expression turned strange. His sharp eyes stared at him grimly as he stood up and suddenly closed in.
Jiang Mu instinctively backed away.
But the other man grabbed him by the shoulder, immobilizing him.
The man pressed a hand to his forehead, then said with sudden realization, "So you’ve been afflicted by the mist poison. No wonder..."
He took out a Talisman, placed it on the back of Jiang Mu’s neck, and smiled.
"You must have lost your memory."
"Amnesia?"
Jiang Mu noticed that the man had taken the Talisman from a ring on his hand, which he guessed was a Storage Ring.
The man said flatly,
"It’s quite normal. This is what happens when you’re afflicted by the mist poison. In severe cases, it can even be fatal. But you’re lucky. You survived, with amnesia at worst."
"But don’t be afraid; you’ll be back to normal in a few days. My senior sister lost her memory on her first mission, too. Back then, she even... ahem... Let’s just get out of here first."
He casually found a piece of Butcher Zhang’s clothing in the wardrobe and put it on.
Jiang Mu’s mind raced.
’The original owner of this body must have died from the mist poison, which is how I transmigrated here.’
’But...’
Jiang Mu glanced at the bronze mirror nearby.
His build, looks, skin tone, accessories, and even the birthmark on his arm were all identical.
However, he had a birthmark on his right arm, while this body had one on both.
’My parallel-world self?’
Jiang Mu turned to the man who was getting dressed and asked curiously, "Why were you hiding naked in the wardrobe?"
The man tilted his head, thought for a moment, and answered with a serious expression,
"I accidentally fell into a river, so I took off my clothes to dry them on a branch. But a gust of wind blew them away. I chased them all the way here, into this wardrobe... Do you believe me?"
Jiang Mu nodded emphatically. "I believe you, because the same thing happened to me."
The two looked at each other and snickered.
The man sized up Jiang Mu, paused, and clucked his tongue in amazement. "Brother, you’re exceptionally gifted. Is your nickname ’The Stallion’?"
Jiang Mu glanced down at himself, then sheepishly started getting dressed.
By now, he had calmed down considerably.
Thinking about two grown men hiding in a wardrobe, the air suddenly felt strangely charged.
After getting fully dressed, Jiang Mu walked over to the bed.
Butcher Zhang Kui’zi’s forehead had a large, caved-in patch of flesh, his face was ashen, and the blood trickling from the wound was thick and black.
The woman beside him lay on her back, her eyes wide open.
The wound on her neck was gruesome and terrifying; the flesh was nearly stripped away, exposing the stark white bone beneath.
"Are you wondering why I didn’t act sooner to save her?"
The man came to Jiang Mu’s side and asked with a smile.
Jiang Mu didn’t say a word.
Strangely, despite this being his first time seeing such a gruesome corpse, he didn’t feel any nausea or discomfort.
In fact... he even felt a strange sense of pleasure.
"Let’s go."
The man didn’t explain, just clapped Jiang Mu on the shoulder and walked out of the room.
Jiang Mu glanced at the corpse and prepared to leave.
Just then, a wisp of black gas suddenly emerged from Butcher Zhang’s corpse and, like a slithering snake, drilled into the birthmark on his arm.
BOOM—!
Jiang Mu’s mind reeled.
The next moment, a giant, indented slot in the shape of the character for "Demon" appeared before his eyes.
The wisp of black gas he had absorbed was being injected into the slot, turning into dark red, blood-like water that slowly flowed along the strokes of the character. But there was too little Demonic Qi; it only filled the shallowest marks at the bottom of the slot before coming to a halt.
’What is this?’
Jiang Mu was terrified.
He seemed to sense something and spun around abruptly.
He saw Butcher Zhang standing stiffly behind him, his eyes glowing red!
His body was wreathed in black gas.
’Fuck!’
Jiang Mu was so scared he stumbled back several steps, his back hitting the wall.
"Let’s go! What are you spacing out for?"
The man’s impatient voice came from the doorway.
Jiang Mu snapped back to his senses again.
In the blink of an eye, the "Demon" character in front of him vanished, and the standing Butcher Zhang was gone, too.
Everything was back to normal.
He looked down again.
Butcher Zhang’s corpse was still in the same position on the bed, but its blood-red eyes were staring straight at him.
A chill ran down Jiang Mu’s spine, and he quickly followed the man.
...
Leaving the small attic room, a slightly pungent, coppery smell hit him.
Jiang Mu looked around, stunned by the scene before him.
A thick, red mist filled the air, and the outlines of the buildings on both sides of the street were barely visible, appearing and disappearing in the haze.
At first glance, it looked like a mirage, making it hard to tell what was real and what was illusion.
The entire world seemed to be gently covered by a dark red veil, creating an incredibly bizarre atmosphere.
The man frowned and muttered to himself,
"General Shangguan hasn’t eliminated this Mist Demon yet? It seems its powers run deep."
A shadow of doubt clouded his heart.
Ever since His Majesty, in order to quell the grievances of the world, burned that calamitous Empress to death at Lu Platform, the power of Demon Fiends in the world didn’t seem to have diminished much.
He didn’t know where the prophecy, "When the baleful star falls, the demon hordes will scatter. When the Demon Queen is burned, all evils will be cleansed," had come from.
The man shook his head to himself, not dwelling on it further.
"But the mist poison has thinned out quite a bit now. I suppose this Great Demon won’t last much longer."
He took out a palm-sized Compass, glanced at it, and turned to Jiang Mu. "Eldest Young Master Jiang, you should head home first... oh, right, I almost forgot you have amnesia. This is a problem."
"Wait, you know me?"
Hearing the man call him "Eldest Young Master Jiang," Jiang Mu was taken aback.
The man tossed him a Jade Pendant.
"I swiped this from your clothes earlier. It has the character for ’Jiang’ on it. In all of Hu State, there’s only one major Jiang family. And the Jiang family has a dandy young master named ’Jiang Chen’. Didn’t even need my brain to figure out it was you."
"Besides, I heard not long ago that your father spent a fortune and pulled a lot of strings to get you into the Demon-slaying Bureau... Heh."
A trace of contempt appeared in the man’s eyes.
’Trash like this could get into my Demon-slaying Bureau? If he gets in, I’ll eat shit upside down!’
"Jiang Chen?"
Jiang Mu looked down. Sure enough, the Jade Pendant was engraved with the character for "Jiang."
’This name is the reverse of mine.’
"Right, my name is Xu Fu. I’m with the Demon-slaying Bureau."
Xu Fu interrupted his thoughts. "It’s too complicated to explain right now. You’ll understand everything once your memory returns."
Jiang Mu leaned in and asked,
"Brother Xu, since you know about the Jiang family, is my status at home decent? Do I have a fiancée who wants to break off the engagement? Are there clansmen who look down on me? Do I have..."
"What kind of nonsense is that?"
Xu Fu frowned and said irritably,
"With your reputation as a silk-panted fop, what family would want to marry their daughter to you? But I heard your parents dote on you. You’re considered the precious treasure of the Jiang family."
"Whew, that’s good."
Jiang Mu breathed a sigh of relief and smiled.
’Finally, not an orphan start. No broken engagement plotline, no disdainful clansmen...’
’A perfect starting hand. Sweet!’
Just then, the surrounding blood-red mist gradually thinned and then disappeared completely.
"The Mist Demon must have been slain."
Xu Fu was delighted.
’Looks like I don’t have to go help after all.’
’After all, every time I use Instant Teleportation, my clothes can’t keep up. Having to fight naked is a real pain.’
RUMBLE!
The sky suddenly darkened.
Before Jiang Mu’s shocked eyes, a towering, colossal figure tore through the clouds, pressing down from beyond the heavens.
It was a half-body Dharma Aspect, as massive as a mountain.
The Dharma Aspect blotted out the sun, surrounded by a white halo. It was impossible to tell if it was male or female, but it seemed to be faintly clad in golden armor.
It looked down upon the earth, its giant pupils shining like the sun and moon.
"Don’t be afraid."
Xu Fu glanced at the pale-faced Jiang Mu and said with a smile,
"That’s General Shangguan, the Garrison Envoy of our Hu State, under the Demon-slaying Bureau. They’re manifesting their Dharma Aspect right now to patrol the city for any remaining Mist Demon remnants."
Jiang Mu was dumbfounded.
’General Shangguan... so huge.’
In that instant, Jiang Mu felt an oppressive aura, as if he were in the presence of a god.
"Lord Xu!"
A figure came running from a distance.
It was a young man dressed in tight-fitting black clothes.
When he saw Jiang Mu, he paused, and his expression turned a little strange.
"How is it? Is everything handled over there?"
Xu Fu asked.
"The Demons tainted by Demonic Qi have all been cleaned up, but..."
The man stood on his tiptoes and whispered a few words in Xu Fu’s ear.
Xu Fu’s brow gradually furrowed.
He was silent for a moment, then walked over to Jiang Mu and said, "I have two pieces of bad news and two pieces of good news. Which do you want to hear first?"
"Uh..."
"Never mind, I’ll start with the bad."
Xu Fu looked him straight in the eye, his face full of sympathy. "Your home was attacked by a Demon Fiend. Your parents and all the servants in your residence... none of them survived. They’re all dead."
Jiang Mu was dumbfounded.
"Then... what’s the good news?"
"Your sister is still alive."
"..."
Jiang Mu’s mouth twitched.
’So classic.’
Then, Xu Fu delivered the other piece of bad news:
"The one who killed your parents was your sister. She transformed into a Demon Fiend and fled the city. The Demon-slaying Bureau is now issuing an all-out warrant for her."
?
Jiang Mu took a deep breath, feeling numb.
’What the hell kind of script is this?’
"There’s also one more piece of good news."
"Your father’s previous arrangements to get you into the Demon-slaying Bureau have been approved by the higher-ups."
Xu Fu coughed, then patted Jiang Mu’s shoulder. "So now you have the chance to kill your sister with your own hands and avenge your parents... Uh, does that count as good news?"
Jiang Mu looked up at the goddamn heavens.
He slowly raised his middle finger and couldn’t help but let out a stream of profanities.
"You bastard!"
Coincidentally, General Shangguan’s gaze swept over them just at that moment.
"?"