The trio, including Li Shunxi, stood off to the side, surrounded by Crimson Whale Sect members. Their weapons had been confiscated for the moment.
Li Shunxi had been trembling with rage after witnessing the little girl cleaved in two by Lu Sheng’s saber. He couldn’t comprehend it; to him, Lu Sheng was unbearably cruel—heartless enough not to spare even a child.
But before he could voice a single word of protest, the events that followed struck him silent.198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡALILRFQelY
The sight of the little girl’s face melting in the roaring flames robbed him of his wits. His fury evaporated instantly, replaced by raw terror.
Only now, with the sect’s watchful eyes on him, did he truly understand the meticulous intent behind Lu Sheng’s actions.
Lu Sheng had planned to burn down the entire Song Manor from the very beginning. The evidence was right there—the bows, the arrows, the bundles of combustibles prepared by the sect members long before they entered.
If even he could see it now, then Duan Meng’an and Ning San must have realized it as well. A cold shiver ran down all three of their spines. Before they had entered the Manor, there was no way Lu Sheng could have known whether others had already gone inside. Yet he still ordered the entire estate to be set aflame. That decisiveness, that ruthless clarity—it was far beyond anything an ordinary man possessed.
Still shaken, Li Shunxi stared into the blazing inferno swallowing the manor, his thoughts drifting aimlessly.
KA-CHA!
A brilliant flash of lightning tore across the sky, followed by the first scattered patters of rain.
The downpour beat against the flames, dimming them slightly, but failing to quell their furious hunger.
“Retreat!” Lu Sheng barked as he leapt onto a horse and wheeled toward the mining village.
The sect members immediately followed, not sparing a final look at the burning Song Manor behind them.
When they returned to the mining village, the rain had intensified, falling in heavy sheets that blurred the night. The men cleaned up the house’s interior while Lu Sheng changed into fresh clothes and applied medicinal powder to hasten his recovery. He waited until daylight before leading the Crimson Whale Sect members back toward Song Manor.
By dawn, the torrential storm had finally passed.
What greeted them upon arriving at the manor grounds were the charred remnants of what had once been a grand estate. The main doors had burned down to two cracked slabs of charcoal, barely clinging to the beams above. Wisps of white smoke still curled upward from within, as if hidden embers continued to smolder beneath the ruin.
The tall stone walls surrounding the manor remained standing, but they were coated in thick, greasy soot.
More than a hundred sect members spread out, forming a loose ring around the manor’s perimeter. They stopped approximately twenty meters away, weapons drawn and eyes sharp.
Lu Sheng stepped forward, saber in hand. After a full night’s rest, his strength had returned; his posture was taut and ready, like a dragon stirring awake or a tiger preparing to strike.
Li Shunxi, who had insisted on accompanying him to assess the aftermath, followed close behind.
“Brother Lu, after that big fire, there shouldn’t be anything left inside. If I’m not mistaken, that little girl must have been a Blood Corpse,” he said quietly.
“Blood Corpse?” Lu Sheng echoed—this was the first time he had heard the term.
With a sharp kick, he forced the charred doors open and strode inside.
“A Blood Corpse is a ghost formed from coagulated, poisonous, vengeful blood. It isn’t created from a living person, but is a kind of supernatural entity that manifests on its own,” Li Shunxi explained solemnly. “Last night, I spoke until dawn with the scholar who escaped. I learned lip reading back home, so we managed to communicate without much trouble.”
Lu Sheng shot him a brief, surprised glance. “Oh?” He hadn’t expected this fellow to have so many unexpected skills.
The courtyard within the manor was blackened beyond recognition. Everything—the ground, the walls, the collapsed structures—had been scorched through, still radiating heat even after the night’s rain. Smoke seeped from every crack and crevice, though it was impossible to tell whether it came from lingering flames or steam rising from evaporating rainwater.
Each step across the courtyard felt like treading on a warm iron stove.
Li Shunxi continued speaking as they advanced. “People outside are saying that Song Yunjuan was the scholar’s biological sister, the so-called Fifth Sister of this manor. But after questioning Song Yuncheng, I found out he never had a Fifth Sister at all. Other than him and his Second Brother, he doesn’t even know where the other three siblings came from! What’s even more terrifying is that he only realized this after living alongside those… things… for years.”
Lu Sheng felt a cold heaviness settle in his chest. He remained silent for a moment before replying.
“What do you mean? Are you saying there were still two more monsters in this manor besides Song Yunjuan?!”
“That I can’t confirm.” Li Shunxi shook his head. “But after the scholar uncovered the truth, that creature wearing Song Yunjuan’s face cut out his tongue and locked him inside his own home. The strange part is this: according to him, Song Yunjuan behaved like a perfectly normal girl during the day—going to school, eating, sleeping. Yet once she fell asleep, she would suddenly rise and transform into a horrifying killer. He wanted many times to kill her during the day, but he never managed to find the courage.”
He frowned deeply. “And according to him, Song Yunjuan often muttered to herself… speaking to someone—or something—he couldn’t see.”
Lu Sheng’s gaze darkened. “Didn’t he get himself into this mess because of his obsession with pill concocting?”
“Not sure. I asked him the same thing. He said he once stumbled upon a bird’s nest deep in the forest. Inside, he found a pitch-black medicinal pill. He brought it home, thinking it might be someone’s discarded concoction. But the pill vanished mysteriously… and from that day on, strange things began happening in his house,” Li Shunxi said gravely.
POP.
Lu Sheng abruptly halted, his boot landing on something that gave a sickening snap.
He looked down.
A long strand of hair lay across the scorched ground—black, glossy, and eerily intact despite the fire.
Bending forward, Lu Sheng hooked the lock of hair with the tip of his saber and lifted it for a closer look.
His expression twisted instantly.
“RUN!!!”
He whirled around and shot toward the main doors like a released bowstring. Snatching Li Shunxi by the collar, he hurled him toward the exit with brutal force before sprinting after him at full speed.
The moment they crossed the threshold, a deafening bang erupted behind them.
They turned back just in time to see the pair of blackened, half-destroyed doors slam shut with tremendous force—as though someone inside had hurled them closed.
The momentum carried Lu Sheng more than ten meters before he finally skidded to a stop. Still gripping the disheveled Li Shunxi, he lifted his gaze toward the manor, malice flickering coldly in his eyes.
“There’s still danger in this place!”
“I get it… this is an Anomaly. It has to be! My Master once said only an Anomaly behaves like this! A Blood Corpse that can’t even be destroyed by a blazing fire…” Li Shunxi’s expression twisted into shock and fear as the truth dawned on him.
“What Anomaly?” Lu Sheng snapped, his voice sharp enough to cut through glass.
Li Shunxi swallowed hard, eyes locked on the tightly sealed doors of Song Manor. “Let’s leave this place first—then we talk!” His face had drained of color.
Lu Sheng steadied his breath and cast a final glance at the manor. The ruins stood cloaked in a sinister, suffocating stillness. Compared to the night before, it looked even more battered… and far more dangerous.
“Let’s go. We retreat for now.” He looked down at the long, black strand of a woman’s hair hanging from the tip of his saber—untouched, unburnt, even after the inferno.
…………
At one of the Crimson Whale Sect’s branch bases.
A bamboo tower rose quietly within a small patch of woods outside Mountain-Edge City. The structure stood solemn and unmoving amid a sea of slender green stalks, their leaves whispering softly whenever the wind passed through.
On the third floor, inside a tranquil room, several sect guards stood watch as Lu Sheng and Li Shunxi sat opposite each other. A bamboo table between them held an assortment of wines and dishes.
Li Shunxi lifted his gaze, taking in the endless emerald around them. The serene view seemed to wash away the tension clinging to his chest.
“Brother Lu indeed has fine taste.”
“Brother Li hails from an extraordinary background; what’s this little scene to you?” Lu Sheng replied lightly. “Now then—let’s pick up where we left off. What exactly is this so-called Anomaly? I’d appreciate Brother Li’s guidance.” He bore no real ill will toward Li Shunxi. To him, the man was simply overly upright—possessing a strong sense of justice but little worldly experience, easily misled by appearances. Aside from that, he was a decent fellow.
At the mention of the word, Li Shunxi’s expression tightened.
“Anomaly…”
He lifted his cup and took several swallows of the pale green wine.
“If ghosts can be considered one kind of mutation, then Anomalies are extraordinary sceneries—existences that absolutely cannot be destroyed.”
“Sceneries?” Lu Sheng frowned. “You mean something like rainbows or earthquakes?”
“No… not just that. My Master said the defining trait of an Anomaly is permanence. Take Song Manor as an example. I’m certain that if we returned now, we’d still see that little girl, Song Yunjuan… and those Souls of the Dead.” Li Shunxi’s voice lowered.
Lu Sheng’s expression grew solemn. “How did Brother Li come to know all this?”
Li Shunxi fell silent, the weight of the past closing in. After a long moment, he poured himself another cup and drained it in one go.
“My Master… he died during an encounter with an Anomaly.”
Lu Sheng was stunned into silence. He had never imagined that Li Shunxi’s connection to such matters ran this deep.
Li Shunxi let out a thin smile, something shadowed flickering across his face. “I left home to temper myself, to grow stronger. One day, I will avenge my Master.”
Lu Sheng studied him carefully. “From the looks of it, Brother Li must come from a distinguished background. Don’t you have any means to deal with such things?”
Li Shunxi froze for a moment, then smiled bitterly. “My family indeed holds considerable status… but Anomalies are like the Noble Families—forces far beyond what us ordinary mortals can contend with.”
“You know of the Noble Families as well?” A faint gleam flashed in Lu Sheng’s eyes.
“Yes. Anyone who reaches a certain level among officials will learn of them,” Li Shunxi replied quietly. “The Emperor’s lineage—the Huang Family that rules the entire realm—is most likely one of those Noble Families.”
So it was true. Lu Sheng’s heart sank. His suspicions had been correct: the royal family of the Song Dynasty belonged to the Noble Families.
Li Shunxi exhaled with a bitter smile. “Alright, let’s not dwell on matters so far removed from us. The Noble Families possess unfathomable status and mysteries. They live in a world utterly separate from ours.”
Lu Sheng nodded slightly, then asked, “There must be other places with Anomalies, yes? How were those handled?”
“They’re cordoned off as forbidden zones, and people simply take detours,” Li Shunxi replied.
“Cordon them off as forbidden zones?” Lu Sheng was speechless. “So there’s no solution at all?”
“None. Anomalies are confined to specific areas and have clear boundaries. As long as we don’t wander in, we’re safe,” Li Shunxi said with a nod. “Speaking of which, I’m quite curious how Brother Lu managed to injure the Souls of the Dead.”
“Is that very rare?” Lu Sheng asked, suddenly uneasy.
Li Shunxi gave him a strange look. “Yes. Extremely rare. While there are Yang-attribute inner force skills capable of harming ghosts after reaching a high level, those only work on low-level spirits—and even then, destroying one usually takes dozens of strikes.”
“Souls of the Dead are considered deadly even among ghosts, yet Brother Lu beat them into black pulp in fewer than ten moves. This is the first time I’ve ever witnessed such a thing.”
Lu Sheng felt a flicker of curiosity himself. Could the Yang attribute of my inner force be unusually strong?
Li Shunxi leaned forward slightly, unable to contain his intrigue. “May I be so bold as to ask—what is the name of the inner force Brother Lu cultivates?”
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