Chapter 5: Torn Clothes

Seeing Pei Ye remembered the casual conversation when Lin Lin taught him to practice boxing.

"But it's not like this when you're actually fighting an enemy." One big and one small sat under a tree. Lin Lin used his Qi to make a jar of well-water-soaked plums ice-cold. The fragments of midsummer sunlight fell on his face through the leaves. "No one will stand still and let you attack their vital points. If you always hold the purpose of killing with one strike, you often won't succeed. In a real fight, you need to not let go of any opportunity to hurt the other party. Attack wherever you can, and build up an advantage bit by bit."

"Does it not work if your martial arts are higher than the opponent's?"

"Hmm... that would have to be much, much higher." Lin Lin said. "For example, the two of us. My martial arts are higher than yours, but if I want to hit your heart and lungs, I can't decide it with one strike. Your reaction is fast, and you will definitely be able to block it. At this time, I can only break one of your arms first before I can attack your empty gate. Calculating... it would take at least three moves."

"Ah... then those stories where one move breaks the enemy are all fake?"

"That's not necessarily true. There are many... people in the world who are unimaginably powerful." Lin Lin looked at the sky, his tone somewhat yearning. He turned his head and pointed at the wooden dummy to smile at Seeing Pei Ye. "But you can imagine, if you can standardly cut a throat or crush a heart with one palm, doesn't that mean the enemy is just like this wooden dummy in your eyes?"

Now this conversation had been projected into reality. That senior who looked incomparably powerful back then had really become a wooden dummy in someone else's eyes.

Chill, anger, and a sense of oppression that made it difficult to breathe rushed to his heart at the same time, but the annoyance dissipated a little, because he already understood at this time that even if he could arrive in time, he couldn't change the outcome, just adding another corpse here.

Grabbing the sword hilt and standing up, Seeing Pei Ye looked around.

There had always been a piece of open space paved with stone slabs in the middle of the forest, which was the ruins of a small pavilion that had been demolished.

Now a straight stick stood in the center, topped with a ghostly blue lighting flame, which seemed to be about to burn out at this moment.

On the ground in front of the flame were seven sets of boot prints. The first set belonged to the person Seeing Pei Ye had been pursuing all the way, and the other six sets stood side by side behind this person.

Looking further ahead, first were the four small bronze cups that had fallen to the ground. Old Xiangzi's words about "immortal water" floated into his mind again.

Beside the cups were four tattered and blood-stained small clothes, all torn by something like sharp claws. Their owners were all missing.

One was a long sleeping garment, which seemed to come from a wealthy family in the county; two were shorts like the ones on Seeing Pei Ye's legs, coming from two young teenagers.

The most eye-catching was the last one, the scattered and broken green silk satin. Beside it was a main body part that had been torn beyond recognition, which was a bib that was also beyond recognition.

The girl's name was on the tip of his tongue.

Seeing Pei Ye and Lin Jue were very good playmates in their childhood, but as they grew older, Seeing Pei Ye liked to go up the mountains and into the water to catch fish and hunt deer, while Lin Jue was unable to go out and liked to read various poems and stories in the house, so they met less and less.

However, whenever Lin Jue came to the martial arts school to deliver food for Lin Lin, the two could still chat for a while. At that time, the girl was Seeing Pei Ye's loyal cheerleader. Every time they competed, whether it was a casual sparring in the martial arts school or the Mid-Autumn Wu Gong Meet that attracted the attention of the whole county, Lin Jue always cheered for him loudly, and Seeing Pei Ye always naturally took every victory.

Even half a year after Seeing Pei Ye's Dantian Seed was damaged, when other companions almost stopped interacting with him, the girl still seized every opportunity to go out to visit and encourage him. Handiwork, snacks, calligraphy, and sometimes even some silver money—they had interacted over a hundred times, mostly to Seeing Pei Ye's benefit.

Seeing Pei Ye slowly picked up this small garment stained with mud and blood. The orchid embroidered on it had clumsy stitches. One could imagine how the girl, by candlelight, seriously and painstakingly used her inconvenient hands, holding her little face, trying hard to outline it stitch by stitch.

County Magistrate Chang Zhiyuan was over sixty years old and still in high spirits. His face was as strict as his personality. Although his hair and beard were already half-white, when he occasionally stared at someone, it still made people feel like a sword blade was pressing against their face.

County Assistant Feng Zhi was in his thirties, with a dark face, eyes like copper bells, thick eyebrows, and a long beard. His temperament was violent, his speech was rough, and his body was like a water barrel. When standing with the fair-skinned Lin Lin, people who saw them for the first time often confused their civil and military positions. In fact, Feng Zhi also had martial arts. If one said that Fenghuai had any martial power besides Shen Yanping and Lin Lin, it was Feng Zhi.

Immortal Platform Inspector Shen Yanping wore blue clothes and a jade hairpin, with a jade-like face and refined appearance. Although he didn't look like it, he was indeed about the same age as Feng Zhi. The reason why the Immortal Platform sent people to be stationed in each county was specifically to deal with this kind of special event. Although Shen Yanping was not a sorcerer and was a martial artist like Lin Lin and Feng Zhi, his attainments in relevant knowledge were far beyond ordinary people. At this moment, he looked at the fire symbol on Seeing Pei Ye's head, frowned with his thin eyebrows, and returned to the county government to flip through books.

The sky was already bright. Bailiffs were walking back and forth in the forest. For the scale of Fenghuai, all the bailiffs in the county had probably arrived.

This was indeed a shocking major case, and it looked like a continuation of the ruined temple case in the north of the city yesterday. A total of six people were victimized. The only corpse left was County Lieutenant Lin Lin, but the murderer didn't even leave a corner of his clothes.

Seeing Pei Ye also draped a robe over himself. The wounds inside had been meticulously bandaged. He stood with Chang Zhiyuan to answer questions. The youth's tone was peaceful, and he lowered his eyebrows to recount his experience in detail, his expression showing no joy or anger.

Feng Zhi walked over with a dark face after checking the scene.

"I've already sent people to the tailor shop to compare the shoe prints, but this kind of person must be from outside. Most likely there will be no results, unless he has a disease of not being able to stand dirty shoes." Feng Zhi said in a rough voice. "Besides... this palm is indeed extraordinary. I'm afraid we can't handle this kind of case."

Chang Zhiyuan said: "I have already sent a letter to the prefecture for help, but the messenger just reported that the rain was too heavy last night, and the road out of the mountains was destroyed by mudslides, so horses couldn't run."

"Then wait for Shen Yanping to come back and let him use the soul bird to send a letter to the Immortal Platform."

"That's the only way." Chang Zhiyuan nodded. "What about your side? What's going on with that beast?"

"The claw prints at the scene are the same shape as yesterday's, but this time the targets were four people, and it exposed that there was indeed someone planning behind it. Come and see." Feng Zhi led the two over. "This beast left bloody claw prints at all four pieces of clothing. These four people still seem to have been eaten by it, but there was no transition between one piece of clothing and another, as if it jumped over."

There was no need for Feng Zhi to explain the rest; both of them could see it. After eating Lin Jue, this unknown beast walked toward Lin Lin. This trail of bloody claw prints, from thick to thin, was slightly clearer, but it didn't eat Lin Lin. Instead, it used a not-very-effective means to kill him. ===== CHAPTER 6 =====