[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-lord-of-the-immortal-food":3,"chapter-lord-of-the-immortal-food-lord-of-the-immortal-food-chapter-4":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"chinese","Lord of the Immortal Food",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},2313127,4524,"Chapter 4: Chapter Four: The Empty House","lord-of-the-immortal-food-chapter-4",4,"\u003Cp>Arriving at the gate, Pei Ye lightly tapped the beast-shaped knocker, then remembered to look down at his own appearance and couldn’t help but smile faintly. But back when he trained his fists, he’d been far more disheveled countless times—let Lin Bóbo laugh at him a little.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After laughing, he lifted his head and waited in silence, but moments passed, then minutes, and still no one came to answer.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Lin Bóbo always did everything himself, so the courtyard had no gatekeeper or stable boy, yet with his acute senses, he should have heard.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Pei Ye knocked again several times; seeing no response, he leapt cleanly over the courtyard wall and arrived before Lin Lin’s bedroom, where a flicker of candlelight pierced through the heavy rain.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Was Lin Bóbo not asleep? Then why didn’t he answer?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Pei Ye frowned and walked over—the bedroom door was open outward. He gently tapped the doorframe: “Lin Bóbo?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But no one answered inside. Pei Ye leaned in and saw no one.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>His brow tightened further. He entered the room and saw the quilt overturned, the candle still lit beside the bed. He bent down—the shoes were still there, unput on.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But as he turned his head, the sword hanging at the bedside was gone—only the scabbard remained.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>His heart clenched. Pei Ye scanned the room solemnly and noticed the flint placed far away; the candle beside the bed had clearly been lit with true qi.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Pei Ye could almost picture the man jolting awake, flicking his fingers to ignite the flame, then snatching his sword and rushing out.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>What could be so urgent?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The moment this question surfaced, an answer leapt from his lips, making his heart skip: “Lin Jue!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Lin Lin had lost his wife early in life and had only one daughter, whom he cherished deeply. The girl, Lin Jue, was about Pei Ye’s age, gentle and lively, but born with a congenital deformity—where her hand should have been, only a fleshy lump remained, deeply pitiable.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He still remembered Lin Lin saying that if Lin Jue hadn’t been deformed, she would have been an excellent martial prospect.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Now, facing this possibility, Pei Ye forgot propriety and sprinted to Lin Jue’s room—only to feel his heart sink: her door, too, stood wide open, and no candle burned inside.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Pei Ye lit a candle in the room—empty. The girl’s quilt was overturned, her shoes still placed neatly by the bed.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Lin Lin might have heard some dreadful sound in the night, grabbed his sword, and risen to investigate—but a frail seventeen-year-old girl, startled awake from sleep by a terrifying noise—would she really throw off her quilt and go out to investigate?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>So the root lay with Lin Jue—she had left for some unknown reason, and Lin Lin, with his acute senses, had sensed something wrong and rushed out to save his daughter.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Then why had Lin Jue pushed open the door wearing only her undergarments, barefoot?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A sense of familiarity surged into Pei Ye’s mind. He looked down—wasn’t this exactly like… himself?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A chill climbed from his tailbone to the crown of his head; Pei Ye shivered violently.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>What exactly was happening?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Pei Ye wanted to find Lao Xiangzi and question him thoroughly, to investigate the origin of the fire mark on his forehead—but Lin Lin’s family’s fate was now uncertain, and he had no time for distractions. He ran back to Lin Lin’s room, pulled out a sword, its heavy weight settling in his hand, steadying him slightly. He strained to discern the faint traces and followed the two’s path.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Lin Jue’s footprints extended only a short distance beyond the door, then vanished, replaced by the boot prints of a man—clearly abducted. This spot was still four or five zhang from the wall, yet the man, carrying Lin Jue, leapt straight up and landed beyond the courtyard wall in a single stride, followed by Lin Lin’s footprints.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Pei Ye leapt over the wall too—but outside lay open fields, the ground slick with rushing water, soft and sinking, obstructed by crops—tracking was impossibly difficult.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Though anxious, Pei Ye forced himself to calm down and think: if Lin Jue had left in the same sleepwalking state as himself, might their destination be the same? He himself had just passed the northern city gate—perhaps Lin Jue had headed north too.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Following this general direction, he searched slowly, painstakingly, until he finally found a path leading north. He followed it—past the fields came a riverbank, where the footprints became far clearer: both had leapt across the river. Pei Ye lacked such skill; he bent low and swam through.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Beyond the river lay flat land, the trail unmistakable—but a troubling detail emerged: the abductor carried a person yet maintained even strides, as if effortlessly strong. Lin Lin, consumed by worry for his daughter, left footprints full of urgency, yet despite his desperate pursuit, he fell farther and farther behind.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Pei Ye had no true qi—he could only rely on leg strength to sprint through the muddy fields, far slower than the two ahead.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Just before the hour of Mao, the rain weakened, and roosters crowed. Pei Ye reached a grove—the trail ended there.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The forest was silent, no signs of struggle. A faint scent of blood filled his nose.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Pei Ye gripped his sword hilt and stepped forward slowly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The grove was small, offering him no time to prepare—before him lay a blood-soaked, mangled corpse.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was Lin Lin.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The scene was empty.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Pei Ye approached the body. A blade without a scabbard lay nearby—Lin Lin’s usual sword, its edge unstained with blood.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The once-commanding face was now pale, twisted, almost unrecognizable. His eyes bulged red, cheeks streaked with two trails of tears. His expression held anxiety, fury, disbelief—but mostly, agony.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Pei Ye stood silent for several breaths, then clenched his lips and looked downward.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Lin Lin wore a white nightgown, now soaked in blood. Nine claw marks marred his arms, chest, abdomen, and legs—some gashed, some pierced. The fatal wounds were on his neck: two enormous blood holes remained.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Pei Ye knelt slowly, examining the wounds.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Wolves or leopards lacked such sharp, elongated claws. Tiger fangs could leave such bite marks, but tigers rarely fought with claws—they pinned prey and killed with a single bite, never leaving so many claw marks, and no fur was left behind.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>More importantly, even five tigers wouldn’t be a match for Lin Bóbo.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Perhaps… there was no beast at all. Some strange weapons resembled claws, designed to be worn on the hand.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But Pei Ye quickly dismissed this theory—not only because of the genuine bite marks on the neck, but also the unidentifiable claw prints on the ground.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Pei Ye’s face darkened as he parted Lin Lin’s clothing, revealing a blackened palm print on his chest and abdomen—half of it already severed by claw marks.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Pei Ye’s expression changed. He gently pressed the palm mark—the flesh beneath was soft as mud.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Lin Bóbo had been struck by this palm first, before the beast attacked. The blow shattered four ribs and nearly destroyed his internal organs. If he’d truly faced a wild beast afterward, he’d have been too weakened to fight back.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A powerful, vicious palm strike.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But what truly sank Pei Ye’s heart was the exact location of the blow—centered directly on the dantian, perfectly aligned. The entire corpse bore no other human-caused wounds.\u003C\u002Fp>",1232,"2026-06-20T13:17:09.438Z",1,"Qwen3-Next 80B","34ac329f6bc2282869092888be389affd7740c82f03d51fcffffb03b54a99a70","lord-of-the-immortal-food-chapter-5","lord-of-the-immortal-food-chapter-3",771,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Flord-of-the-immortal-food-cover.jpg"]