Chapter 202: The Old Man's Past

"Luring the snake out of its hole."

Brush in hand, Bai Qiu wrote a few large characters on the paper. His brush ran like dragons and snakes, the forceful calligraphy nearly piercing through the back of the page.

Nearby, a figure in a white robe looked at the words and said, "Are you saying the report from the station means Bi Jie might be luring the snake out of its hole?"

It was a woman's voice. She sounded to be in her thirties or forties.

"Hahaha, you always understand me best," Bai Qiu laughed.

"Then why did you still pay them?"

"Because I'm not the one coming out of the hole." Bai Qiu tossed his brush aside. "Anyone with an ounce of power in Bianliu County knows I have ties to the station. The goods we send out don't just skip inspection—they also have to give my men face."

"But what they don't know is that the station and I aren't actually on the same side."

Today, Bai Qiu wore a blue gauze robe with a floral print. The fabric alone cost over a hundred pieces of broken silver. He rolled up his sleeves, picked up a seal, and stamped the paper.

"The station doesn't let my goods through to give me face; they do it to give the receiver face. I, Bai Qiu, am nothing more than a lapdog for Across the Lake..."

"A lackey, really."

"Since Bi Jie wants to lure the snake out of its hole, let those guys get taken away."

"When that happens, the conflict between Bi Jie and me will shift into a conflict between Bi Jie and Inspector Liu. As for arresting me, they still don't have any proof."

Bai Qiu picked up the paper and tossed it to the white-robed figure.

"How does it look?"

"Very good," the white-robed figure nodded.

"How does it compare to yours?"

"It falls a bit short."

"And compared to Across the Lake?"

"It falls far short."

"Hahaha." Bai Qiu burst into laughter. "Bi Jie can't catch me. He's a man with nothing to lose—as the saying goes, the barefoot aren't afraid of those wearing shoes. But the people backing him are wearing shoes. As his investigation goes deeper, he'll realize that he has to put those shoes on, too, whether he wants to or not."

"When someone used to going barefoot finally puts on shoes, they pinch and chafe. He'll wish he had stayed barefoot."

The white-robed figure remained silent.

Watching Bai Qiu laugh, her thoughts drifted to another man—a man at the Lake.

Comparing the two, she felt that while Bai Qiu was clever, he only possessed petty shrewdness.

She was thoroughly sick of this remote backwater. She had no idea when she would finally be able to go back.

...

...

"Did you understand what I just said?" The old man looked at Bi Jie.

"I did," Bi Jie nodded.

"Then why are you making that face, kid?"

The old man picked up the mirror from the table and held it up to Bi Jie's face. Right now, Bi Jie's typically dignified face was written thick with disbelief.

"Because it doesn't make any sense!" Bi Jie stood up. "Old Liu, since when did you have the brains for this?"

"This is exactly why I don't like you! Such a foul mouth!" the old man sneered. "Regardless, there's definitely something wrong with that batch of corpses."

"Find a time for me and my brothers to go take a look."

"It's not that I won't let you look..." Bi Jie sighed. "It's just that I already investigated those corpses myself. There's nothing special about them."

"That was you !" The old man was not to be outdone when it came to infuriating people. "Do my brothers look like they're on your level?"

"Hey! I don't like the sound of that!" Bi Jie shot back. "I told you to swallow your pride back then! You should have just stayed Across the Lake and been done with it! Was I wrong? If you had stayed, then since you saved my life and I saved yours, wouldn't we have been completely even?"

"Heh." The old man tucked his hands into his sleeves and sneered. "I, Liu Fu, refuse to be a dog for those people."

"But now you're playing the dog for the Young Master of the Luo Family? Don't think I'm blind. You want me to get rid of Inspector Liu just so he won't go to Tranquil Valley, don't you? If you ask me, that Young Master Luo isn't dead at all!"

"Working with someone doesn't make you their dog!" The old man grew agitated. "Regardless, you let me look at the corpses, I'll help you crack the case, and then you send that inspector packing! Do that, and we'll wipe the slate clean!"

"Fine! We'll wipe the slate clean!" Bi Jie had a stubborn streak like a stone, too. He stiffened his neck and snapped, "Tomorrow morning it is! I'd like to see exactly what kind of divine entity this friend of yours is, and what he can manage to sniff out!"

"Fine. Tomorrow morning it is."

The old man stood up and walked out of Bi's Gambling House.

Bi Jie watched the old man's somewhat lonely silhouette recede. He hesitated for a moment before finally muttering, "Unreasonable old coot!"

...

...

Nighttime.

A group of men in station uniforms entered Bianliu County.

The guards at the gate were with them, so they slipped through without any trouble.

Once inside the county, the men followed their prior arrangements and headed straight to a large tavern on East Street.

They knocked on the tavern doors a few times.

Before long, a voice called out from inside:

"The wonton shop on South Street. Walk about eight or nine hundred meters from West Street to South Street, and you'll see it."

"Got it."

The men changed clothes, masked their faces, and soon crept up to Old Monkey's shop front.

Old Monkey's shop had a wooden door. It was locked from the inside, but breaking in wasn't difficult. The station employed specialized cultivators for train repairs; with a surge of weird energy and a crisp click, the heavy doors swung open.

It was pitch-black inside—they couldn't even see their own hands in front of their faces.

The men exchanged a glance, flashed malicious grins, and stepped inside.

The moment the last man stepped inside, the doors slammed shut with a heavy bang!

Panic instantly gripped the group of men.

"What's going on?!"

The leader spoke up. "Why did it slam shut so hard?"

"I-I wasn't the one who closed it..." one of them stammered.

"Then who—"

Before the leader could finish his sentence, a fist smashed directly into his face.

Thwack!

"Ah!" the man shrieked. Before the others could even react, a flurry of fists and kicks rained down on them.

"You dare break into my shop to steal!!" It was Old Monkey's voice.

"You were so cocky this morning! Take this!" That was Dong An's voice.

"I'll beat you to death!" It was Dong Pingping, picking up her suona.

Tiger remained silent, relentlessly aiming all his strikes straight for their crotches.

As for why the old man and Yan Jing weren't there...

It was because...

...

At this exact moment.

In a break room at the station.

A man in a plaid shirt roused from his sleep, rubbing his eyes.

Getting older meant he always had to get up a few times during the night.

He stumbled out to the station's latrine and unbuckled his belt.

At the exact same time, two figures stepped up on his left and right, casually unbuckling their belts as well.

The three of them relieved themselves side by side.

Still half-asleep, the man in the plaid shirt didn't register that anything was wrong at first.

It was only after he finished that he jolted completely awake.

At this hour, aside from the ticket vendor, there shouldn't be anyone else in the entire station.

"Not looking too great there."

An aged voice spoke up from beside him, and a hand patted his shoulder. "You're so young, but your stream is already splitting. You really need to take better care of your health."

...

Hearing this unfamiliar voice, cold sweat instantly broke out over the man's body.

On his other side, Yan Jing strolled over to the faucet and washed his hands.

Then, he chuckled.

"And it takes you a while to get started, too."

...

The man in the plaid shirt started sweating even harder. That wasn't the ticket vendor's voice, either.

He spun around, trying to run without even bothering to buckle his pants.

But with a snap, time seemed to freeze for him instantly. Everything jumped out of his dimension, warping into an immensely towering, twisted landscape.

Then, a fist rapidly magnified in his vision.

With a heavy thud, the man's body went limp and he collapsed to the floor.

The old man reached out and slung the unconscious man over his shoulder.

He and Yan Jing prepared to head back to Bianliu County.

The two of them had come out to stake the place out in the afternoon, so they had passed through the checkpoints normally. But trying to get through the checkpoints now in the dead of night, while hauling a body, wasn't going to be so easy.

Yan Jing simply hit both guards at the gate with a Freeze Frame Moment, combined with Memory Severance and Fear Memories. Hard-controlling them for a dozen seconds, he and the old man swaggered right back into the city.

Once they had dragged the man back to the shop, Yan Jing began his highly practiced interrogation.

After a few rounds of the Great Memory Restoration Technique, the man lay gasping on the floor, completely broken.

It couldn't be helped—someone was just far too skilled at this.

"How do you inspect Boss Bai's shipments?"

"The escorts give a special hand signal, and we let them straight through."

"What's the signal?"

"They ask what day of the week it is. We reply, asking if they don't know the day themselves. Then, they hold up a number that's one day ahead of the current day. So if it's Saturday, the sixth day, they'll hold up a seven."

"What exactly is he shipping?"

"Mostly dead bodies."

"No opium?"

"He only handles opium logistics; Bianliu County doesn't produce it."

"With this current case, did the inspector never consider that Bai Qiu might have killed those people and smuggled them out of the county?"

"He did, b-but he checked with all the gatekeepers on the train cars. They usually memorize the faces of the bodies being transported, and they swore they never saw any of those missing people."

Spurred by terror, the man frantically spilled more details. "Inspector Liu really does want to crack the case. The people who sent Bi Jie here have a lot of backing, after all. He just honestly has no idea what kind of trick Bai Qiu used to make those victims vanish."

"Do you have anything else to say?"

"C-c-can I live?"

"Ask a different question."

"D-do you have anything else you'd like to ask me?"

"Try another one."

"Fuck! It was Bai Qiu who captured me! That damn Bai Qiu grabbed me! Making a move at a time like this, trying to silence me! Motherfucker, he really is a motherfucker! And his old man isn't any better!"

"Very good." Yan Jing reached out, popped a Thorn Seed into the man's mouth, and patted his shoulder.

"I hope you know what's good for you."

Staring at Yan Jing's robed back, the man couldn't suppress a violent shudder.

Yan Jing stepped out of the room, and the old man quickly hurried over.

Yan Jing relayed everything he had just learned.

"So what do we do now?"

"We go back to the most basic method."

"The most basic method?"

The old man was confused.

"Criminal motive."

Yan Jing explained, "Whether Bai Qiu is burying bodies or making people vanish into thin air, he still needs a reason. He wouldn't just kill people for nothing."

"We'll wait until we examine the bodies tomorrow and see if we can find any clues."

"Alright."

The old man nodded.

Yan Jing left the storefront and returned to his room.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, he gazed out the window.

The moon was bright and the stars were sparse. The night sky was completely cloudless.

"Could this be related to your lingering wish, Young Master Luo?"

Yan Jing clearly remembered the notification from the Ghoulish Life Role-playing Game right after Wei Nantian finished speaking his final words. It had told him he was drawing closer to Luo Sheng's lingering wish.

If there was anything that had left a deep impression on him, it was Wei Nantian mentioning that he had caught Bai Qiu dealing in human trafficking. That had to be at the very top of the list.

Early the next morning.

The three of them met up with Bi Jie.

"Heh, you miscalculated this time, Old Liu."

Bi Jie immediately started mocking the old man the moment they met.

"You'll never believe what happened last night!"

Seeing Bi Jie's smug expression, the trio exchanged a glance. Then, the old man raised an eyebrow and asked, "What happened last night?"

"Bai Qiu! That bastard actually attacked the station!!!"

Bi Jie crossed his arms with a smug look on his face, acting as if he had just announced the biggest news in the world.