Chapter 38: No Need to Run Away

She didn't know any medical arts; if the City Lord wanted souls, she could release all the souls inside the Triangle Flag, but she couldn't guarantee those souls would return to their bodies...

Or rather, it should be that it was fundamentally impossible for them to return.

Ruan Xing scratched her head. Forget it, she would simulate one more time and just go ask him directly what he wanted. If it really was souls, she would take Hu San and Sword to run away; she had already gotten forty thousand taels of Silver anyway, so this job wasn't a loss. Although it was a pity to lose the future profits of the Red Head Gang, she didn't have the life to spend that money if she couldn't hand over what the City Lord wanted.

And this time, after Ruan Xing chose to view the memory, she felt both surprised and that it was very reasonable.

So that was it...

She entered the City Lord Mansion under the guise of delivering a gift to the City Lord, and once she reached him, she asked point-blank: "What exactly is the explanation you want?"

The City Lord was an old man with white hair and a white beard, but he was groomed meticulously, looking like a scholar with a very Confucian temperament. He looked at Ruan Xing with a kind smile on his face, "Sit down and let's talk."

Ruan Xing had already tried before; no matter how she cursed him, he wouldn't get angry. If she tried to attack, she would instead be restrained by the dozen or so Qianling Guard hidden around and thrown out of the City Lord Mansion's gate, so she simply sat down to listen to what the old man had to say.

"Are you a disciple of Hongtou Daoren?" the City Lord asked.

Knowing that Hongtou Daoren and the City Lord were highly likely to be enemies, Ruan Xing naturally wouldn't get involved with him, so she denied it: "Of course not."

Although the things she learned were all learned from Hongtou Daoren, she indeed hadn't formally apprenticed under him.

"Heh." The City Lord didn't seem to believe her and chuckled twice, "How does that Daoist treat you?"

In reality, she had only met Hongtou Daoren once... the time she killed him.

"I'm not familiar with him."

"Then where do you usually live? What do you eat?"

Ruan Xing was speechless. Since the old man wouldn't get angry, she couldn't help but snap: "Are you a leader visiting the grassroots in the countryside? We are currently discussing matters regarding the Red Head Gang! I've already answered several of your questions; can you answer mine as well?"

The City Lord looked at her like an old man watching a mischievous child, and he laughed: "I just wanted to know what your living environment was like in the past."

Seeing Ruan Xing remain silent, the City Lord shook his head and continued: "Since you don't want to answer, then listen to me; let me tell you a story."

He changed to a more comfortable position, leaning back in his chair, his gaze drifting past Ruan Xing toward the distance.

"Four years ago, when I was just appointed as the City Lord of Jiangning City by the Emperor and was bringing my family to take up the post, there was heavy rain on the road that delayed our journey, so we stayed for one night at the foot of a mountain ten miles outside the city. That day happened to be my birthday, and my six-year-old granddaughter secretly went into the forest to pick flowers to celebrate my birthday, but she didn't expect to encounter a poisonous snake in the woods. It was a Daoist coming down from the mountain who saved her. I offered the Daoist gold and silver as a reward, but the Daoist refused. He said my little granddaughter had the potential to cultivate the Dao and wanted to take her to be a Daoist child."

"I only had this little darling after I was sixty; how could I bear to let her go cultivate the Dao and suffer? So I declined the Daoist's good intentions, and the Daoist left. Unexpectedly, a quarter of an hour later, my little granddaughter suddenly fainted and wouldn't wake up no matter how much we called her. I was just about to rush into the city overnight to find a doctor to diagnose her when that Daoist appeared again, saying my little granddaughter had been scared out of her soul and needed a ritual to calm her spirit. After he finished the ritual, my Nannan woke up, but she clung to my chest crying incessantly, and my heart ached terribly."

"The Daoist said Nannan's soul was unstable and she would continue to have symptoms of soul loss in the future, so it would be better for her to apprentice under him to cultivate the Dao, and he could calm her soul and stabilize her spirit at any time. At that time, I was burning with anxiety and didn't see the Daoist's sinister scheme; instead, I thanked him profusely and let him take Nannan away..."

"Later, I found out he was Hongtou Daoren of the Red Head Gang. Nannan was just a tool for him to threaten me. Sometimes I requested to see Nannan, but he would never agree. I haven't seen my Nannan for four years. I knew in my heart that she was likely already in grave danger. Seeing you today, I am even more certain of this thought. He is dead, and the one who took over for him is actually you, a little child. Nannan should be your senior sister, right? Have you seen her? Can you tell me if she... passed away peacefully?"

The elderly man in his sixties had tears in his eyes. In the middle of the night these past few years, his dreams were filled with his little granddaughter's innocent smiling face. He felt guilty toward his son and daughter-in-law; he wanted to keep Nannan by his side to cherish her, but instead, he caused Nannan's death...

Ruan Xing knew this was the reason, which made it even harder to speak. With Hongtou Daoren's nature, he wouldn't keep a child who would cry, make a fuss, and need to eat and excrete by his side to affect his research. That child had likely already become one of his experimental subjects for making a Puppet...

Ruan Xing's throat felt tight, and she said: "So, the explanation you want... is her remains?"

"No!" The City Lord shook his head, "I want to wash the Red Head Gang in blood to comfort her soul in heaven, but I don't want to kill everyone. The common people at the bottom are just drifting with the tide. These three days, the small leaders with a bit of status in the Red Head Gang will all gather at the Red Head Gang's headquarters. If anyone changes their allegiance and flees, I will just consider it their fate to survive. Three days from now is the auspicious day to wash the Red Head Gang's headquarters in blood. Little girl, seeing that you are still young, I advise you best not to stay in the Red Head Gang and be buried with them."

Perhaps because talking about his little granddaughter opened the City Lord's heart, the City Lord actually revealed his true purpose and even advised Ruan Xing to flee.

Her thoughts returned to the present. Ruan Xing bit her lower lip, her face full of worry. It seemed she couldn't stop the City Lord at all; she could only abandon the Red Head Gang... Damn it, she had only been the Gang Leader for half a day! She thought she was about to live a life of luxury where she was served hand and foot, but now she had to run for her life again.

Was a good life not meant for her? Ruan Xing was unwilling. She got up and put on the clothes she had taken off during the simulation. She didn't plan to sleep tonight; she was going to check the old man's cave! If that child had really been refined into a Puppet, there might still be a turning point. That way, her soul would be stored in the Puppet's essence, unlike the souls in the Triangle Flag, which would become muddled and only have Yin Qi and resentment after three days.

Just like Sword, there would be residual memories and instinctive behaviors. Sword could recognize his brother's voice, so perhaps that little girl could also recognize her grandfather.

Anyway, she had already tested it many times in the simulation; no matter what, the City Lord wouldn't kill her within three days, so she might as well go and see. If she couldn't find the little girl's Puppet, it wouldn't be too late to run away then.

Hongtou Daoren committed the sins, and she had to deal with the whole mess; she was truly unlucky.

Ruan Xing sighed and went out the door.

All Gang Leaders and Guan had their own private residences; only Ruan Xing and Hu San—one previously lived in Qiye's hall, and the other lived in an alley in the commoner district. Therefore, except for a few scattered guards, they were the only living people in the entire headquarters now. She ran to Hu San's temporary room to call him: "Get up, drive the carriage, we're leaving the city now."

Hu San had just fallen asleep and rubbed his eyes with some drowsiness. Upon hearing Ruan Xing's words, he immediately woke up and said solemnly: "Miss, are we running away?"

Hu San didn't care about the Vice Gang Leader position he had just obtained; now that his younger brother was found, he would follow Miss wherever she went.

Why did he accept the setting of running away so easily? Did Hu San think she was planning to scam some money and run away from the start? She had just told him this afternoon to study hard and work hard! Ruan Xing looked at him suspiciously and said: "That's not necessarily true... Take the silver notes first; if it doesn't work out, we won't come back." There were eighty thousand taels in silver notes! Although she wouldn't be able to withdraw the money after three days when the City Lord destroyed the Red Head Gang and took over the assets to report the silver notes as lost, if she played the time difference, she should still be able to withdraw ten or twenty thousand at the silver shop in the next city, enough for her to live on.

Hu San replied yes, and the two quietly packed the silver notes and left the headquarters. Because of Hongtou Daoren's stingy behavior, the Red Head Gang had no guards who had cultivated Internal Strength, so no one noticed that the two had already driven the carriage out of the city under the cover of night.

Driving the carriage to the Dense Forest Labyrinth would take an hour and a half, and since she hadn't prepared a horse that could be swapped in advance this time, it would take even longer. Ruan Xing couldn't help but think, should she learn how to ride a horse...

The journey was bumpy, and it wasn't until dawn that they arrived at the Dense Forest Labyrinth. She still had countless memories of dying in this place in her mind, and for a moment, she felt a bit emotional.

While sitting in the carriage on the way, Ruan Xing had already summoned Sword, who was staying by Hong Xi's side, back through their mental connection. Sword's Ghost Escape was much faster than the carriage, and before long, he caught up with them.

After communicating with Sword through the Puppet essence, she learned that the road up the mountain wasn't just the Labyrinth. Leaving Hu San to watch the carriage and the large bundle of silver notes inside, she let Sword lead the way. They passed through an underground secret passage near the Labyrinth and finally reached the old man's cave.

In Ruan Xing's memory, she only knew the cave where the old man lived and did research, but she didn't expect that besides the road to that cave, other places were even more intricate. Only with Sword leading the way could they travel through it correctly.

It was just that Sword's intelligence wasn't very high, and sometimes Ruan Xing couldn't clearly understand his meaning. She didn't know where the other Puppets were, so she followed Sword and walked through all the territory before finding the location of the old man's other Puppets.

The old man needed Heart Blood for Alchemy, souls to raise the flag, and treasures containing Spirit Qi or Yin Qi to make Puppets. Therefore, he hadn't actually made many Puppets; most of the children he had tricked or kidnapped had already been laid to rest under a Medicine Field he had cultivated.

And those few Puppets whose strength was inferior to Sword's were doing the work of watering, planting medicine, washing clothes, and cooking. The few dull little children stood there; having lost their master, they were like machines in a factory that had lost power, not knowing what they should do.

There were four children in total, three boys and one girl. The girl looked about six years old and was a bit taller than Ruan Xing. Her body was a bit dirty, but her pale little face was still as young and cute as it was when she was alive. They weren't completely white like Sword; except for the lack of blood in their skin, their appearance wasn't much different from normal children.

This was probably because Sword's Puppet essence was a white jade bead.

Ruan Xing asked Sword, and in Sword's memory, this girl did indeed exist earlier than him.

She found the Puppet essences of the few. The three little boys' were a bronze wine cup, a brass small sword, and an ironwood paperweight, all carrying Yin Qi, looking like things that came out of a tomb. After refining them with blood, she let them continue to take care of the Medicine Field according to their previous action patterns.

As for the little girl's, it was a Wooden Tablet hanging around her neck, with her own birth date and time carved on it.

Although Ruan Xing had an intuition that it should be this child, she couldn't be one hundred percent sure. She simulated it one more time, and only after confirming it did she feel relieved, revealing a relaxed smile.

"That's good, no need to run away now." Ruan Xing ordered Sword to go down the mountain and take half of the silver notes from the carriage to hide in the cave.

People from the Red Head Gang always delivered things or people to the entrance of the Labyrinth and no one had ever come up to the cave. The only living person who knew the location of the cave now was Ruan Xing herself, and the others were all Puppets who had lost their own will. This place was still considered safe and could be used as her warehouse and safe house in the future.

Although the old man wasn't a good person, the Medicine Field he cultivated and the few Medicine Prescriptions he experimented with were quite useful, so Ruan Xing accepted them with a smile.

Letting Sword go back into stealth, Ruan Xing took the little girl down the mountain to meet up with Hu San, preparing to return to the city.

"The Gang Leader is gone!"

"It's bad, the Gang Leader is gone!"

"The Gang Leader has run away!"

Several servants were crying and wiping away tears as they hurried to report to the Guan.

Zhang Chenghui, who had arrived early in the morning with over a dozen Coffins to curry favor with Ruan Xing, became the first person to learn the news; with a livid face, he ordered, "Why haven't you gone to notify Gang Leader Hong and the others yet? Tell me clearly exactly what happened!"

The two trusted aides beside him ran off at top speed to deliver the message, and the several servants kneeling on the ground steadied themselves before the head old servant spoke up: "This morning we went to deliver hot water for washing and breakfast to the Gang Leader, but after knocking for a long time, no one answered, so we gathered the courage to open the door and look; there were no traces of anyone having lived in the room at all, and when we went to look for Vice Gang Leader Hu, we discovered he wasn't in his room either..."

Another servant beside him picked up the story, "I went to the Gang Leader's study to clean and saw the large chests scattered in front of the door; knowing those were the valuables sent by Vice Gang Leader Hong, I didn't dare to move them rashly and wanted to go ask the Gang Leader, but I happened to run into them, and after we spoke to each other, we realized the Gang Leader was missing; when I went back to the study and opened the chests to take a look, I discovered that all the gold, silver, and banknotes inside had vanished into thin air!"

At this moment, Hong Xi and several other Guans also hurried over; because the gang had encountered such a disaster and Ruan Xing had brought about so many changes, they hadn't dared to sleep soundly and had woken up early, but fearing that arriving too soon would disturb the little demon's rest, they hadn't dared to enter the door, and only after hearing the news were they able to arrive in time to catch the latter half of the servants' words.

"Damn it, I thought that even though this little demon is cruel, as long as she could help our gang get through this crisis, I was willing to submit to her as Gang Leader, but I never expected that she was just taking advantage of the fire to rob us, stealing our money and running away!" one Guan spat indignantly.

A Guan who had almost died during the drawing of lots yesterday immediately retorted, "Heh, you knelt so quickly yesterday; with her methods and strength, even if she were robbing you openly, would you dare to resist? You fence-sitter, talking big after the fact!"

"Enough, stop arguing!" Hong Xi gave a soft shout, interrupting the verbal sparring between the several Guans, and frowned, "The matter is not yet clear, how can you jump to conclusions so early."

"How is it not clear? She ran off with all the ready cash in the gang!"

"Now we're in a fine mess; even if we survive this crisis, how is the gang supposed to operate without money in the accounts?"

"Ha, we might as well just hand over our properties and disband the gang! Then we won't have to worry about how to deal with the City Lord!"

Thanks for the monthly ticket from Hong Hua Yi Duo~ Thanks for the monthly ticket from Book Friend 160329153720453~(End of chapter)