Chapter 18: Deceitful Artifact

Our eyes met, Liu Junyan's slit pupils flashed, and she reached out her hands to me.

I lunged forward and crashed into Liu Junyan's embrace.

Liu Junyan swayed slightly on her feet, almost losing her balance, but she still steadied herself and caught me.

After surviving the disaster, my emotions finally broke, yet I held back, afraid to cry.

Because I know Liu Junyan was hurt more severely than I was in order to save me.

He wanted to save me, but he was bound by some kind of power inside the Dang Pu and couldn't get out.

Just a flash of a white tail, and thunder and lightning followed one after another.

What is that?

Although I can't be completely sure, I'm not stupid either; it seems akin to a heavenly punishment.

Liu Junyan actually braved the heavenly punishment to rescue me from Zhao Zixun and those eight girls.

He... saved me again.

"Seventh Lord, I... I failed to protect Xiao Jiu, I willingly accept punishment." Li Qingying's self-reproachful voice sounded from behind.

Liu Junyan's gaze fell on her right shoulder, and he said, "Qingying."

Li Qingying: "Here."

"Treat the wound." Liu Junyan said, "Take care of Xiao Jiu."

After saying that, he lowered his head and kissed my forehead, let go of me, turned, and went back into the black coffin.

I and Li Qingying each went to wash up.

My clothes were already in tatters; I took them off and threw them into the trash can, but I didn't rush to rinse off. Instead, I turned my back to the floor-length mirror and strained to look at my back in the mirror.

On my back, a blood sigil stretched across both shoulder blades, flowing like a brushstroke of a soaring dragon, grand and imposing.

It was this blood sigil that drew that sword qi, which saved me.

Sword qi...

That sword qi came from the sea, heading straight to the riverside; clearly it was summoned by Liu Junyan.

Could that be Liu Junyan's summoning of his natal magic artifact?

But if so, why isn't his natal magic artifact in the Dang Pu, but out at sea?

I couldn't figure it out, so I stopped thinking about it.

My whole body ached; I hurried to clean and apply medicine.

When I was holding the medicine box, preparing to go find Li Qingying, she happened to come knock on my door with several medicine jars.

Li Qingying's wound was mainly on her right shoulder, a deep sword cut almost reaching the bone; when the white medicinal powder was applied, she almost bit her lips bloody, yet she didn't make a sound.

My injuries were mainly abrasions and bruises from the iron chains.

My internal organs were also shaken and painful.

After applying the medicine, Li Qingying urged me to sleep early, then closed the door and left.

I lay in bed but just couldn't fall asleep.

What happened tonight was too sudden, too horrifying.

Who exactly is behind all this, pulling the strings?

Who does Zhao Zixun take orders from?

What's the deal with those eight red coffins on the river surface?

I suddenly recalled the words of those eight girls: "You are the ninth."

The ninth...

The day the old woman brought me back to the Dang Pu, she told me I was the ninth female manager of the Dang Pu, so she called me Xiao Jiu.

And what about the eight female managers before me?

Without a doubt, they are the eight who appeared tonight on the river, riding those red coffins.

They were all sacrificed.

If it weren't for Liu Junyan, I would have been sacrificed too.

I would have been nailed into that red coffin, wrapped layer upon layer with iron chains, then sunk into the river!

The more I thought about it, the more uneasy I became.

After I became too exhausted and fell into a dazed sleep, I kept having nightmares.

In the dream, a long coffin nail was driven into my forehead.

Countless iron chains wrapped around me, dragging me down into the underwater depths.

Zhao Zixun stood by the river on a warhorse, grinning at me with a sinister stare...

I jolted awake from the dream; it was already mid-morning.

My whole body ached as if my bones had fallen apart, but I got up anyway, grabbed an axe from the shop, and headed out with it.

At this time, the surrounding shops had already opened.

The broken mailbox at the Dang Pu's entrance reappeared, surrounded by large amounts of bloodstains, already drawing speculation from the townsfolk.

Under the gaze of a crowd, I swung the axe, blow after blow, smashing that broken mailbox to pieces.

The townsfolk already had a taboo about me; seeing me like this now, they kept even farther away.

They probably thought I had gone mad.

Over the next few days, I stayed at home to recuperate.

Li Qingying also didn't dare go out, staying in the Dang Pu to watch over me.

It must be said, martial artists have top-notch physiques; while I lay in bed all day scrolling on my phone, unwilling to move, Li Qingying got up every morning and inevitably practiced for an hour in the main courtyard.

She has a long whip, with a red tassel attached to the tip, which makes a crackling sound when she whips it.

That morning, amid the loud whip-cracking sounds, I came across a piece of news that shocked me immensely.

【Shocked: Evergreen legal veteran Si Heng suffers a crushing defeat; newcomer Chen Lu becomes a god in one battle!】

I normally wouldn't pay attention to this kind of news, after all, we've never been involved in a lawsuit, nor do we know any lawyers.

I swiped my finger across the screen, then jerked it back, repeatedly zooming in and out on the chest pocket of the female lawyer named Chen Lu, looking back and forth several times.

Li Qingying had finished cracking her whip and came over to call me for breakfast.

I grabbed her hand: "Qingying Sis, come take a look—is this the pen I took to Gui Shi to exchange for a tiger's whip earlier?"

Li Qingying leaned in to examine it closely and said, "Indeed, it's the same one."

I puzzled: "The person who bought the pen was clearly a thin, dark‑skinned man; how did this pen end up in the hands of the big lawyer Chen Lu? Could that thin, dark‑skinned man be her father?"

"No." Li Qingying said, "It should be that Chen Lu bought this pen from the thin, dark‑skinned man."

I exclaimed in surprise: "That pen is really old, a no‑brand, and it even carries a sinister aura—how could anyone possibly buy such a thing?"

"Of course someone would buy it, and surely at a high price." Li Qingying said, "In this world there is a kind of person called a Strange Artisan, who can refine yin‑qi objects into special Strange Artifacts; when placed in the right person's hands, such an artifact exerts extraordinary effects."

Li Qingying pointed at the news on the phone and continued, "Take Chen Lu, for example—given her age, she's certainly been a lawyer for more than a year or two, yet she has always been a losing side under Si Heng; now that she's obtained this pen, she's become famous overnight—this is the Strange Artifact taking effect."

This pen belonged to Sun Laiding's grandmother.

Whether her grandmother was alive or after her death, she has always had people use this pen to help her write complaints and file lawsuits.

Now this pen has been forged into a Strange Artifact for lawyers to use—it's also a case of making full use of an object.

I asked again: "Qingying Sis, in your view, how much money could that thin, dark‑skinned man make from selling this pen?"

"I'm not sure about that." Li Qingying thought, held up three fingers, and said, "But according to market price, it probably wouldn't be lower than this number."

I suddenly sat up, eyes wide: "Thirty thousand?"

Li Qingying shook her head: "At least three hundred thousand, and if the Strange Artisan who remade it is famous, even doubling that wouldn't be much."

I…

kind of wanted to swear.

I bought this pen for five thousand.

I bought it at a premium, feeling sorry for Sun Laiding.

The thin, dark‑skinned man resold it for over three hundred thousand—pure profiteering!

No wonder his eyes lit up when he saw me pull out that pen back then.

This is the God of Wealth delivering the goods right to my door.

I began counting on my fingers: "Qingying Sis, what do you think—if I hired a Strange Artisan to work at Dang Pu and help me remodel the merchandise, wouldn't we be able to strike it rich?"

Li Qingying reached out and tapped my forehead, teasing, "Do you think Strange Artisans are as common as street trash, that you can just hire one whenever you want?"

"Furthermore, not everything can be turned into a Strange Artifact."

"More importantly, using a Strange Artifact comes with many taboos; a slight mistake could bring a backlash and invite deadly disaster…"