Meanwhile, Jiang Cheng was standing before a forest when he sensed someone approach. He turned his head slightly. The newcomer was dressed in white, and the tails of his forehead ribbon fluttered behind him with his hair. He was exceedingly handsome and refined, with a face as fair as jade. The moonlight washed him in a soft glow.
“Lan-er-gongzi,” Jiang Cheng greeted him coolly.
With a solemn expression, Lan Wangji nodded. “Sect Leader Jiang.”
Neither of them had anything more to say after exchanging greetings. And so, they set off on their swords in silence with the cultivators of their respective sects following behind.
Two months ago, the Twin Jades of Lan and Jiang Cheng had launched a surprise raid on Wen Chao’s “Education Office” to seize the swords that had been confiscated from the various clans’ disciples and return them to their rightful owners. It was only then that Sandu and Bichen had been returned to them.
Lan Wangji swept his light-colored eyes over the other sword at Jiang Cheng’s waist, then looked away. After a while, eyes still directed forward, he asked, “Has Wei Ying still not shown himself?”
Jiang Cheng cast him a glance, as if curious why he would suddenly ask about Wei Ying. “No.”
He glanced at Suibian, which hung at his waist.
“My people still haven’t turned up any news on him, but he’ll definitely come looking for me when he returns. When he does, I’ll return his sword.”
Not long after this exchange, the two of them and the cultivators they led arrived at the Overwatch Office where Wen Chao was hiding, preparing to launch a night-time raid. They had yet to enter when Lan Wangji’s eyes hardened and Jiang Cheng frowned.
Yin energy contaminated the air and resentment flowed all around them, but the talismans on both sides of the door were perfectly intact. Jiang Cheng gestured, and the cultivators he’d brought along scattered and crouched low at the enclosing walls. He brandished Sandu, and the sword’s qi assaulted the door and broke it open.
Before they entered, Lan Wangji’s gaze briefly swept over the talismans on both sides of the doorframe.
Inside the Overwatch Office was an incomparably horrific sight.
Corpses were strewn all over the courtyard. But the slaughter wasn’t limited to that area—even the flowering shrubs, the corridors, the wooden railings, and the roofs were littered with bodies.
All the corpses wore the blazing sun uniform. All were Wen disciples. Jiang Cheng turned a corpse over with Sandu and saw the blood streaking its ghastly pale face.
“Bleeding from the seven apertures,” he announced.
“Not this one,” Lan Wangji said from the other end of the courtyard.
Jiang Cheng walked over and found a corpse with both eyes rolled back into its head. Its face was twisted beyond recognition, and yellow bile trickled from its mouth. This person had been literally scared to death.
One of his sect disciples said, “Sect Leader, we have examined them all—they’re all dead. The causes of death are all different.”
Strangled, burned, drowned, poisoned, frozen, throat slit, sharp object through the brain…once Jiang Cheng had listened to it all, he commented somberly, “Looks like some other creature helped us accomplish our mission tonight.”
Lan Wangji said nothing, but entered the residential wing first.
The door to Wen Chao’s room was wide open. Only a flimsily dressed female corpse remained inside. Half a stool leg jutted from her gaping mouth. It seemed she had attempted to force a stool leg down her throat and into her stomach, and died in the process.
Jiang Cheng turned the corpse’s distorted face to inspect it. He stared for a while, then sneered and grabbed the leg of the stool to shove it hard into her mouth, thrusting in the remaining half that still protruded.
He stood up, eyes red. He was just about to speak when he saw Lan Wangji standing at the door, deep in thought with furrowed brows. He walked over and followed Lan Wangji’s line of sight, only to see a yellow talisman with vermilion characters stuck on the door.
At first glance, there didn’t seem to be anything off about the talisman. But a closer look showed some subtle but extremely disconcerting details.
“Extra strokes,” Lan Wangji commented.
Jiang Cheng’s expression grew severe. “I knew it.”
Ever since they were fifteen or sixteen years old, they’d known how to draw this kind of residence protection talisman by heart. Among the lively and vigorous vermilion flourishes on this talisman were a few additional strokes. It was these few strokes that changed the pattern of the entire talisman. Looking at it now, the talisman stuck to the door seemed to depict a person’s sinisterly smiling face.
They didn’t find Wen Chao or Wen Zhuliu’s bodies at the Overwatch Office. Jiang Cheng inferred that they must have fled in the direction of Qishan and immediately led his men to withdraw from the abandoned office and pursue them via sword flight. However, Lan Wangji returned to Gusu first.
The next day, he caught up with Jiang Cheng and took out the talisman from the night before.
“This talisman has been reversed.”
“Reversed?” Jiang Cheng repeated. “Meaning…?”
“Ordinary talismans repel evil,” Lan Wangji replied. “This one attracts it.”
Jiang Cheng was astounded. “A talisman that attracts evil? That’s unheard of.”
“Indeed,” Lan Wangji said. “But tests show that it has the ability to summon and assemble things nefarious.”
Jiang Cheng took the talisman and scrutinized it. “Just adding a few strokes reverses the function of the entire talisman? Was this done by a human?”
“A total of four strokes were added, drawn with human blood,” Lan Wangji said. “Every residence protection talisman at the Overwatch Office was altered. The pattern of the brush strokes indicate it was done by the same person.”
“Who could they possibly be?” Jiang Cheng wondered. “I’ve never heard of any renowned cultivators capable of doing such a thing.” Then he added, “But no matter who he is, it’s all good as long as his goal is the same as ours—to slaughter every last Wen dog!”
Following the intel they’d received, the two headed northward. In every area they passed, they heard locals gossiping about strange corpses who had died violent deaths. These corpses were all dressed in blazing sun uniforms. All Wen cultivators. All of them were of high rank and had remarkable cultivation but had still died horribly and in a horrifying variety of ways, their corpses left on display in crowded areas.
“Do you think they were all killed by that person?” Jiang Cheng asked.
“The evil aura is intense,” Lan Wangji replied. “It must be the work of the same individual.”
Jiang Cheng snorted. “Evil? Is there anyone eviler than the Wen dogs in this world?!”
They maintained their pursuit until late into the night of the fourth day, when they finally picked up Wen Zhuliu’s trail near a post station in a remote mountain city.
The post station had two stories, with a stable at the side. When Lan Wangji and Jiang Cheng arrived, they saw a large figure charge into the building and lock the door. Both of them were wary of Wen Zhuliu’s Core-Melting Hand, so in the interest of not alerting the enemy, they leapt onto the rooftop rather than enter through the door. Forcing himself to endure the overpowering hatred in his heart, Jiang Cheng ground his teeth and peered through a crack between the roof tiles at the scene playing out below.
A travel-worn Wen Zhuliu carried someone in his arms as he trudged up to the second floor. He set the person he carried beside the table and dashed to the windows to draw all the curtains, sealing off the room entirely. Only then did he return to the table and light the oil lamp.
The faint light illuminated his face. It was still wan and grim, but there were now heavy dark circles under the eyes. The other person at the table was tightly bundled in his cloak like a fragile cocoon, with even his face concealed. He cowered inside the fabric, trembling and gasping for breath.
“Don’t light the lamp!” he suddenly said. “What if he discovers us?!”
Lan Wangji raised his head and exchanged looks with Jiang Cheng. Both had the same curious expression. That had to be Wen Chao, but how had his voice gotten like that? It was so shrill and small that it didn’t sound like Wen Chao at all.
Wen Zhuliu lowered his head to rummage around in his sleeves. “You think he won’t find us if we don’t light the lamp?”
“We…we ran so far and for so long,” Wen Chao panted. “He…he shouldn’t be able to catch us, right?!”
“Perhaps,” Wen Zhuliu answered in an indifferent tone.
“What do you mean, ‘perhaps’?!” Wen Chao exclaimed angrily. “If we haven’t gotten far enough away from him yet, then why didn’t you keep running?!”
“You need to take your medicine, or you’ll die,” Wen Zhuliu replied.
He lifted Wen Chao’s cloak as he spoke. The pair on the rooftop were stunned at the sight that waited beneath.