Chapter 467: Shuanglu Town

"This thing is specifically requested by the people above!"

"Above?" He Lingchuan wondered, "Which above?"

Wealthy Merchant Wan didn't make a sound.

Jiao Yu suddenly asked him: "The Lingxu City messenger was killed; was it you?"

Wealthy Merchant Wan was panicked, shaking his hands repeatedly: "Not me, not me, I don't know anything about any messenger!"

He Lingchuan brought the topic back: "There are over a hundred porcupines; how did your nephew kill them all?"

Wealthy Merchant Wan still didn't make a sound.

He Lingchuan suddenly pinched his chin and stuffed a pill into his mouth.

The medicine turned into liquid and went down his throat; Wealthy Merchant Wan couldn't spit it out. "This medicine will keep you awake for the next two hours, no matter what torture you suffer, you won't faint," He Lingchuan said lightly. "The matter is exposed, your end is death anyway. The difference is, do you want your grandchildren to be buried with you?"

Wealthy Merchant Wan cried: "If I confess, they will definitely die."

"You mean, even the Crown Prince can't protect them?"

Wealthy Merchant Wan lowered his head and didn't speak.

Jiao Yu licked its claws: "I'll go grab his grandson and eat him on the spot."

Wan Xianneng was shocked: "Don't!"

He swallowed again: "Special Envoy, if you can protect my grandchildren, I will peel off my skin and tell you everything!"

"I promise on behalf of the Crown Prince," He Lingchuan promised without any psychological burden. Anyway, the one who fulfills the promise is the Crown Prince of Chiyan, what does it have to do with him? Wan Xianneng lowered his head: "My nephew Wan Song has high talent. He originally practiced in a Daoist sect, but was expelled after accidentally killing a fellow disciple. For those few years, he was frustrated and I supported him. Later, he went out to wander alone, and there was no news for many years. I thought he died outside, but he suddenly returned to his hometown the year before last, full of spring breeze, and had saved up a thick family fortune."

"You also know, at that time my business was already failing, and the family was also stretched thin, even having to steal and sell some household goods to maintain such a large family's expenses. When Wan Song heard about it, he came to the door and wanted to drag me to do a business with him!"

He Lingchuan raised his eyebrows: "A business of killing people and monsters?"

"Mainly, mainly killing monsters," Wealthy Merchant Wan said with difficulty. "The jobs I took were often opening roads and building bridges in the deep mountains, and I often encountered mountain monsters and wild monsters. Although we are a monster country here, these guys are born in the mountains and die in the mountains, living and dying on their own. Zhitian Township rarely manages them and can't manage them. Wan Song set his sights on them, saying that a noble in Lingxu City needed a kind of blood bead, which is condensed from the essence and blood of monsters. Anyway, no one cares about monsters in the wild, so we refine blood beads from them. Making money is much faster than working hard to open mountains and build bridges!"

Jiao Yu suddenly said: "How many monsters have you killed?"

"Excluding that nest of porcupine demons..." Wealthy Merchant Wan thought carefully. "There are probably over sixty or seventy. If it's as small as a bat demon, five count as one."

Clack, clack, the fierce tiger subconsciously scratched the ground. Over sixty or seventy in less than two years? The relevant records of the prefecture and county seemed to be just the tip of the iceberg.

Seeing its gaze, Wealthy Merchant Wan shivered.

"Don't scare him; he's just a monster-finder," He Lingchuan smiled at Wealthy Merchant Wan. "Continue."

"Yes, yes, mainly targeting lone monsters," Wealthy Merchant Wan lowered his voice. "To avoid suspicion. Anyway, they sometimes kill each other and die. No one pursues this."

Not to mention monsters; sometimes humans fight and kill each other. Dozens of monsters dying in the wild in a year, what's the big deal? "Then why did you wipe out the whole nest of over a hundred porcupine demons last year? Didn't you want to avoid attracting attention?"

Wealthy Merchant Wan couldn't help but sigh: "Wiping out over a hundred porcupine demons at once was certainly because we wanted to mine Shi Luo and sell it for money. On the other hand, it was also because the blood beads handed in last year were not enough to meet the standard, so we had to rush the work at the end of the year."

"How many blood beads do you have to hand in a year?" He Lingchuan asked him. "Do you have any in your hand? Let me see."

"At least ten. Above said, to avoid trouble, it's best not to exceed twenty." Wealthy Merchant Wan pointed to the desk in the study. He Lingchuan walked over, opened the secret compartment according to his instructions, and grabbed a brocade bag from inside.

There was only one round bead in the bag.

Just like steward Lu said, round, the size of a pellet.

He Lingchuan squeezed it in his hand, and it was actually very elastic.

Now he would bring any strange object close to the divine bone necklace to see if it had any needs.

However, the divine bone was quiet, obviously not looking at this thing.

"How many blood beads can be condensed depends on the monster's size and cultivation. Several porcupine demons can be refined into one red pill."

"Can this thing be refined with humans?" He Lingchuan sniffed the red bead; it had a faint fragrance.

"No," Wealthy Merchant Wan smiled bitterly. "Otherwise, why would we work so hard to catch monsters? Beijia can fight a war at will, and there will be countless living captives."

"Then why are there repeated deaths or disappearances of humans?"

"I don't know." Now that things had come to this, Wealthy Merchant Wan no longer avoided it. "Perhaps, they were used as bait?"

He Lingchuan frowned: "Bait?"

"New monsters that appear after the eruption of the Emperor's Flowing Pulp are often ignorant and bloodthirsty, so using living people as bait is better," Wealthy Merchant Wan said carefully. "This is what I heard from my nephew; I didn't see it myself."

So this group of people is like fishing, fishing for mountain monsters and wild monsters, the difference is that the bait used by the fishermen is earthworms and dough, while they use living people?

He Lingchuan glanced at General Ling and said coldly: "Why kill the Drill-Wind Beasts? They all have backgrounds and are not wild monsters."

"The people above added an order temporarily," Wealthy Merchant Wan smiled bitterly. "I heard that blood beads are in short supply. It just so happens that many new monsters were born due to the Emperor's Flowing Pulp twice in half a year, and the people above required us to capture them in large quantities. This kind of new monster appears in large quantities in a short time and fights and kills each other, and no one can count their life and death. For us, it is, it is a harvest season!"

He Lingchuan remembered the fighting and killing of monsters by the Sancin Lake during the last eruption of the Emperor's Flowing Pulp, the cause of which was just a piece of Emperor's Flowing Pulp paste. It was indeed as Wealthy Merchant Wan said, their life and death were not paid attention to by anyone and could not be counted, even if this was a monster country.

"We caught a lot of new monsters, but the number of blood beads condensed was insufficient, and seeing that the deadline for handing in was approaching, we had to... capture others." Wealthy Merchant Wan also knew the hidden dangers and dangers of capturing registered monsters, but at that time, he couldn't care so much. "Wan Song is very confident; he thinks we will never be exposed."

Speaking of this, he even shed tears.

General Ling was unusually silent, standing on the side without saying a word, until this moment he said coldly: "Awesome, really awesome. The lives of our monsters have become money here."

Wealthy Merchant Wan smelled danger for no reason and shook his head repeatedly: "I only take charge of receiving and passing beads; the job of hunting monsters is all done by my nephew and his men!"

General Ling insisted on a definite answer: "You mean, my children were killed by them?"

"... Yes."

General Ling said the word "good" several times.

Wealthy Merchant Wan offered another piece of information: "The headman originally responsible for hunting died in the porcupine nest last year, and the person in charge later changed to my nephew."

These guys do work that licks blood with a knife, and the risk is not small.

"Where is your superior?" He Lingchuan raised his second finger. "Also, where is your nephew?"

"Every time the deadline for handing in blood beads arrives, someone from above will come," Wealthy Merchant Wan hung his head. "A few days ago, the goods were handed over in Shuanglu Town. I don't know if that person is still there."

"What is this person's name?"

"Surname Mai, tall and thin, very gentle, but I don't know his name. We all call him Mr. Mai," Wealthy Merchant Wan didn't dare to hide it. "The delivery location is the third house in Buffalo Lane, at the east end of Shuanglu Town."

General Ling was pursuing: "The culprit... your nephew?"

"He, I can't find him." Wealthy Merchant Wan smiled bitterly. "He always comes to find me."

Seeing General Ling raise his hoof to kick, he hurriedly hugged his head: "I'm telling the truth, everything I said is true! I would never take my grandchildren's lives as a joke!"

A nephew is just a nephew, how can it be as important as his own flesh and blood?

"It seems your nephew doesn't trust you."

"He, he..."

Seeing his hesitant look, He Lingchuan laughed: "Are you afraid of him?"

"Ah..." Wealthy Merchant Wan hung his head. "Although he is my own nephew, he is also a desperate person. His character has been fierce since childhood. Who isn't afraid?"

"Since that's the case, you should have known that you would be implicated by him sooner or later."

Wealthy Merchant Wan couldn't speak.

If you walk the night road too much, you will eventually meet a ghost; he understood. But this money came too fast, he... he couldn't get off the boat anymore.

He Lingchuan ignored him and said to General Ling: "If the General has no clues, follow me first."

Now the goals of the two sides are actually divergent. He Lingchuan wants to complete Fu Shanyue's entrustment and needs to investigate upward, tracking Wealthy Merchant Wan's superior, Mr. Mai, while General Ling only wants revenge, swearing to kill Wealthy Merchant Wan's nephew Wan Song.

General Ling snorted, didn't object, but couldn't help kicking Wealthy Merchant Wan, kicking him until his mouth and nose bled and three teeth fell out.

"Stay and watch him," he said to a Drill-Wind Beast guard. "If there is any movement, directly... beat him to death!"

He wanted to say kill him directly, but seeing Jiao Yu on the side, he knew he had to leave a prisoner for the county magistrate, so he changed his words temporarily.

He Lingchuan rushed to Shuanglu Town, and those around him were either able to run or fly, truly worthy of the word 'fast', with full horsepower.

Running these few dozen miles only took more than two quarters of an hour.

The fierce tiger Jiao Yu was still panting with its tongue out, but the Drill-Wind Beasts were strolling leisurely, their chests and abdomens not rising or falling much.

The talents of both sides were different; the Drill-Wind Beasts were originally good at running, whether long or short distance.

The house in Buffalo Lane pointed out by Wealthy Merchant Wan was easy to find; the appearance was plain and low-key, the doorway was very clean, with only a few fallen leaves.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 468 =====