Glancing around the casino, the lights intertwined like a woven tapestry, their crimson glow spilling across the room, painting covetous expressions on every face—some exhilarated, some ecstatic, some crestfallen, some anguished. The clatter of dice, the shuffle of dominoes, and the click of mahjong tiles still filled the air, just as before.
This scene made Meng Qi feel as if he had experienced a dream, a dream of assassination. Yet upon waking, there was no trace left, and he was still in the casino.
The assassin’s ability to conceal his presence and mask his killing intent was unparalleled in Meng Qi’s experience. When not attacking, the assassin was indistinguishable from an ordinary person—in every sense, completely indistinguishable.
“Was he discovered by Qiu Fei, who deliberately lured me to a crowded place like this casino to kill me?”
“With his half-step into the external realm cultivation, wouldn’t it be more assured for him to take me to an uninhabited area outside the city to personally deal with me?”
“Or perhaps he was meeting someone, and specifically sent an assassin to seek out and eliminate any followers?”
Thoughts swirled in Meng Qi’s mind as his right hand tightly gripped his sword hilt, slowly weaving through the dense crowd to the entrance of the private rooms.
Here, it was much quieter, with courtyards layered and self-contained, convenient for people of status to enjoy their leisure. Meng Qi had lost sight of Qiu Fei and could not investigate every private room, as doing so might provoke the wrong people. He could only hide at the entrance of one courtyard, waiting for the croupiers or servants to emerge so he could question them using his illusionary techniques, subtly enhanced by the “Sky-Turning and Earth-Shaking Great Method.”
“I haven’t seen this person…”
“There’s no such person in the private room I’m responsible for…”
“No new guests have entered recently…”
Each response deepened Meng Qi’s confusion. He had clearly seen Qiu Fei heading toward the private rooms. Where could he have gone?
After searching for a while longer, Meng Qi finally concluded he had lost his target and was more inclined to believe the assassin’s purpose was to hinder or eliminate anyone tracking Qiu Fei.
“But would such a powerful assassin really be assigned to do such menial tasks?” Pondering this, Meng Qi left the Tianzi No. 1 Casino and returned to his rented courtyard.
Due to the earlier encounter with the assassin, he remained alert, cautiously opening the courtyard gate to prevent any ambush.
With a creak, the gate opened, but Meng Qi’s pupils suddenly constricted.
At the center of the courtyard stood something that hadn’t been there when he left.
It was a coffin!
A black lacquered coffin!
The dim moonlight fell upon it, flowing across the black surface, evoking an indescribable chill.
Someone had sent him a coffin… Meng Qi was both startled and furious. “Tianzhi Shang” was drawn directly as he alternated his steps, slowly approaching the coffin.
He suppressed his emotions, observing the surroundings, and found no sign of life within the coffin, no sense of flesh or blood, indicating no ambush.
With a flick of Tianzhi Shang, the coffin lid flipped aside, revealing an empty interior with a small wooden carving inside.
It was carved into a human shape, palm-sized, its face filled with agony. A piece of paper was pasted beneath its lower lip, covering its body.
On the paper were four words:
“Kuang Dao Su Meng.”
Who dares to act like a ghost or spirit? Meng Qi was not frightened. He snorted coldly. Was this a death challenge, or an attempt to disrupt his composure?
He believed Qing Yu wouldn’t stoop so low. Such actions would only tarnish the reputation of the Xuantian Sect if exposed. How could the Tian Di sect stoop to such ignoble tactics?
Therefore, someone was targeting him?
Who was it? Which faction was behind it?
What was their purpose?
Meng Qi was not the kind of person to tolerate being insulted at his doorstep without retaliation. After carefully searching the courtyard and finding no clues, he collected the wooden carving and the note and knocked heavily on his neighbor’s door.
After a while, the neighbor, wearing a coat and still sleepy, yawned and peered through the door crack, cautiously checking for any potential thieves.
“Old man, I have a question to ask,” Meng Qi stated directly, having already reverted to his normal appearance using the Eight-Nine Mystical Art and washed off any disguise.
The old man was startled at first, then opened the door, half curious and half concerned, asking in return, “Master Su, are you asking about the coffin in the courtyard?”
“Precisely,” Meng Qi nodded.
The old man hesitated, then said, “Master Su, shortly after you left, someone delivered a coffin for you. Since you weren’t home, they specifically asked Old Ye to open the door, claiming it was something you had bought yourself. Old Ye thought you were preparing a coffin to cut off your retreat before challenging a powerful expert, so he opened the door for them.”
Old Ye was the landlord.
“Do you know who delivered it?” Meng Qi asked with a frown.
The neighbor shook his head, “Two strangers. They looked like coffin shop apprentices, but definitely not from around here.”
A coffin shop… This must have been on someone else’s behalf. Meng Qi was confident in his mental techniques; as long as he found the coffin shop, he could extract the physical description of the coffin buyer from the apprentices and the shopkeeper.
“Did they have any distinctive features?” Meng Qi inquired.
The neighbor thought carefully and suddenly exclaimed, “One of the apprentices had a mole on the corner of his mouth, very noticeable.”
After asking a few more questions, Meng Qi sincerely thanked him and turned away from the door, already considering his next move.
“Carrying a coffin through the streets in the dead of night—Maoling isn’t under curfew, so many drunkards and gamblers return home at night, plus the night watchmen. There should be many witnesses!” Without delay, Meng Qi decided to investigate immediately.
Considering the timing, Meng Qi decided to find the night watchmen who were on duty at that time.
Without much difficulty, he located his target by inquiring other watchmen.
“That coffin? I remember it clearly. Who wouldn’t be frightened seeing a coffin in the middle of the night?” Recalling the event, the old watchman still shivered slightly, the memory still vivid even from afar, thinking it was a corpse rising.
Meng Qi’s heart leapt with joy—this was a clue!
“Old man, did you see which street they came from? Could you recognize which coffin shop they belonged to?” He tried to suppress his excitement.
Another watchman, thinking and recalling, answered uncertainly, “They came from the North Street. There’s only one coffin shop around there.”
Meng Qi’s spirits lifted. After confirming the exact location of the coffin shop, he headed there immediately under the cover of night.
The streets were nearly deserted, the night thick and dark, and the coffin shop’s main gate already closed, hidden in darkness.
Without hesitation, Meng Qi scaled the wall and entered the courtyard, planning to “question” each one individually.
Suddenly, he caught a whiff of a bloody scent, his heart tightened, and he followed the odor toward the back door of the shop.
The door was not fully shut, slightly ajar. Meng Qi gently pushed it open, and it swung toward the wall.
Stepping cautiously inside, the first thing that caught his eye was row upon row of black coffins, neatly arranged, eerie and sinister.
Taking a deep breath, he filtered the scent through his nose, pinpointing the source of the blood.
Meng Qi stepped forward to one coffin, “Tianzhi Shang” poised, and with “Ziwu,” he lifted the coffin lid.
The lid slid off, revealing the coffin’s contents.
Inside lay a dead man, eyes wide open in terror, his face full of fear!
There was a noticeable mole on the corner of his mouth!
Cause of death: a sword wound through the center of the forehead.
“He was silenced…” Meng Qi frowned slightly, feeling the case becoming increasingly mysterious.
Following the source of the blood scent, Meng Qi lifted the lids of two more coffins, each revealing a corpse—one dressed as an apprentice, the other better dressed, likely the shopkeeper—both with sword wounds through their foreheads.
“The sword strike was swift and precise, the wound deep and narrow. The killer must be an expert swordsman…” Meng Qi deduced from the wounds, but aside from the forehead injuries, there were no other traces.
He turned to search the counter and found the account books had already been burned to ashes, leaving no purchase records.
“Has the clue ended here?” Meng Qi gritted his teeth, crouching down once more to inspect the bodies for any final clues.
Wait! Meng Qi suddenly sensed something amiss. Both apprentices had their mouths slightly open, expressions full of terror, but the shopkeeper, though terrified, had his lips tightly shut.
Gently applying pressure, Meng Qi pried open the shopkeeper’s mouth and found a small ball of paper inside!
The paper had been soaked by saliva. Meng Qi struggled with all his might to unfold it, discovering it was a torn fragment of the account book. It seemed the original entry had contained an incorrect amount of money, so instead of correcting it, the person had torn it off and tossed it away. Somehow, it was later picked up and stuffed into the shopkeeper’s mouth.
Meng Qi could almost visualize the scene: one apprentice was killed, and the other tried to flee and call for help. The shopkeeper, realizing the killer’s strength, was too terrified to move, collapsing beside a dustpan. Spotting the paper ball, he, with a resolve to die together, quietly stuffed it into his mouth and tightly closed his lips.
The writing on the paper ball was already blurred, but Meng Qi managed to decipher parts of it:
“…Guanjinyuan… Jiang Tabo… ordered one nanmu coffin… to be delivered to…”
Guanjinyuan… Jiang Tabo… Meng Qi repeated the names, pocketed the paper ball, erased his traces, left the shop, and headed directly for Guanjinyuan, a well-known inn in Maoling.
Before long, Meng Qi infiltrated Guanjinyuan. Through “questioning” the apprentices, he learned that Jiang Tabo resided in Hefeng Xiaozhu. He had arrived alone several days ago, but was frequently visited by martial artists.
Confident in his martial prowess, Meng Qi enveloped his spirit, transformed into a phantom, and directly leapt into Hefeng Xiaozhu.
In his perception, there was no presence inside the room.
Had Jiang Tabo already fled?
Carefully opening the window, Meng Qi leapt in. Before landing, he already saw the scene inside.
A young man sat half-upright on the floor, his back against the bed, eyes wide, frozen in terror. A long knife wound ran across his chest and abdomen!
He had distinctive upturned eyes and broom-like eyebrows, perfectly matching the description given by the apprentice!
“Was he also killed?”
Meng Qi immediately sensed something unusual.
The wound was charred black, as if struck by lightning, erasing the blood scent, which was why Meng Qi hadn’t smelled anything outside.
“If someone just glanced at this, it would look exactly like I did this!”
A sudden idea struck Meng Qi. He turned and leapt out the window, planning to leave immediately.
Just then, a sharp crack echoed. A stone flew from outside the courtyard, striking the steps. The sound wasn’t loud, but in the quiet night, it carried far.
Meng Qi’s spirit, energy, and focus instantly surged to their peak, and he slashed his sword toward the source of the sound.
A figure approached from outside, and upon seeing a stranger, immediately blocked Meng Qi’s path.
He was young, with dark skin and thick eyebrows, dressed plainly like a farmer, his every movement blending seamlessly with the surroundings.
The young man had extremely sharp eyesight. Through the open window, he spotted the corpse by the bed, his expression darkening instantly, filled with uncontrollable anger and hatred.
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