In the Lin family’s hall, Lin Runru’s roar was full of anger, “It won’t even let a small girl go; it’s simply deranged!”
The female disciple who died was a branch member of the Lin family who was less than ten years old. Her mother had already fainted from crying. When Lin Xuanzhi arrived and saw a small body covered by a white cloth, unspeakable anger rushed out from his heart. You Ming and Yin Xingli also rushed over. Yan Tianhen, who had been sleeping at Yan Zhonghua’s house for the night, also came over with Yan Zhonghua.
You Ming lifted the white cloth and couldn’t help clenching his fist when he saw the broken, torn-up corpse. Even a demon wouldn’t be so cruel and vicious.
However, they overlooked the fact that although men with Yin constitutions were great nourishment for corpse puppets, it wasn’t as though the second-best thing — women, who originally possessed more Yin Qi anyways — couldn’t be used as well. It’s just that their effects wouldn’t be as good as men with Yin constitutions. Girls’ constitutions held more Yin Qi than women’s, so they were clearly the corpse puppet’s targets.
You Ming cursed and told Yin Xingli, “Check whether the child’s womb is still there.”
Yin Xingli looked like he couldn’t bear to, but he still went forward to check. After examining the body, Yin Xingli shook his head. “The womb is gone.”
“Sure enough.” You Ming asked, “Who’s been responsible for this matter all this time?”
Lin Runru answered, “The Law Enforcement Hall is responsible, but Hall Master Lin Bubai’s first wife is Ji Lanjun. In order to avoid arousing suspicion, he has now recused himself from this matter, so I have handed over the specific responsibilities to Third Elder.”
“Where is the Third Elder?” You Ming looked around and frowned. “How come I’ve never seen the Lin family’s Third Elder after every incident?”
Third Elder had always arrived late on the crime scenes. By then, You Ming was long gone, so he immediately realized that this person was often absent.
Lin Runru’s expression darkened as soon as he heard this. He ordered a disciple next to him, “Go and call Old Three over for me. To think that he can sleep so well even after such a grave incident!”
After a long time, a neatly-dressed Third Elder rushed here.
When he saw Third Elder, Lin Runru said angrily, “Old Three, back then, you said you wanted to be responsible for this matter. Why couldn’t you arrive in time every time an incident occurred?”
Lin Runru singled out Third Elder and criticized him as soon as he opened his mouth, but Third Elder wasn’t angry. Instead, he showed a smile and replied, “Family Head’s words seem to imply that I was deliberately shirking my responsibilities. I merely saw that there are countless talented people here much more powerful than me, so I didn’t want to stay here and provoke their disdain.”
Lin Runru got angry. “What nonsense are you still talking about when the situation has already become like this? I let you set up guards and arrange traps inside the Lin family, yet this happened right under your nose. What on earth were you doing?”
Third Elder showed a very innocent expression. “I’ve already arranged the arrays and increased the patrol staff. I don’t know what that thing is. It’s too powerful. It can freely stroll around the Lin family like it’s nothing; what can I do? The deceased is a Lin family disciple, so I’m also very heartbroken.”
Lin Runru was very disappointed when he heard Third Elder’s glib tongue. He bitterly lamented, “Old Three ah, Old Three, you really don’t care about your family’s affairs anymore. You were never like this before.”
In the past, when it came to managing the Lin household, Third Elder had always diligently haggled over every cent and competed over every insignificant matter, as if he was afraid of someone else snatching away his achievements. In particular, he was wary of Lin Xuanzhi’s rising status in the Lin family and even tried his best to make Lin Zezhi the Lin family’s Young Master. However, after a few years of not seeing him, today’s Third Elder had already become like this — idle and leisurely, as though he didn’t care about everything.
Yan Tianhen felt that his vision was a little blurry. When he closed his eyes and opened them again, he was suddenly startled. Third Elder’s face looked as though it had been drawn on. His eyebrows were slender and drawn with a single brushstroke. His face seemed to be dusted with powder, and his lips were a brilliant red, as though painted on with blood.
“Ah!” Yan Tianhen screamed, “There’s a ghost!”
Lin Xuanzhi reacted fast and quickly caught Yan Tianhen, who nearly fell backwards. Everyone’s gaze uniformly fell on Yan Tianhen.
Yan Tianhen pointed to Third Elder and cried, “He’s not alive, he’s not alive!”
Everyone’s sight then fell upon Third Elder. Third Elder’s expression immediately darkened, and he shouted, “Nonsense, what do you mean by this?”
Yan Tianhen said, “You clearly have a dead person’s face!”
However, as soon as his words fell, when he looked again, the face that could scare a ghost to death was already gone, and Third Elder was still that Third Elder. There didn’t seem to be any problem with him.
Yan Tianhen was also stunned. “How can this be? I saw that very clearly just now–“
“Perhaps you’re too sleepy, so your vision was blurry?” Third Elder mercilessly interrupted Yan Tianhen’s words. “It’s not a good thing to have blurry vision at such an early age. You’d better go back and rest quickly.”
Yan Tianhen, “I am not, I do not!”
You Ming sneered, “Whether it’s true or not is not up to you. We’ll know once you let me check it out.”
Looking at the approaching You Ming, Third Elder couldn’t help but retreat nervously. “What do you want to do? Don’t come over here!”
However, You Ming was determined to go there, and Third Elder couldn’t do anything about it either. You Ming first pinched and tore at his face, pulling it into various shapes, then took out a medicine bottle and splashed some water on his face.
“What are you doing?” Third Elder angrily rubbed his face.
You Ming’s face showed a little confusion. He raised his eyebrow and put away the bottle. “Just now, I felt that you haven’t woken up, so I threw some water on you to wake you up.”
After Third Elder angrily cursed a few more times, he said to Lin Runru, “Family Head, don’t tell me that you’ll allow these people to be rude?”
Lin Runru hurriedly mediated, “It’s all a misunderstanding, a misunderstanding. It’s getting late. Why don’t you go back early and rest?”
The Third Elder warned, “No matter how good my temper is, my tolerance is still limited. Next time, don’t blame me for being rude!” After saying that, he turned and angrily walked away.
Just as Yan Tianhen was about to doubt what he’d just seen and believe that his vision really did become blurry, he saw Third Elder’s head turn 180 degrees and give him a strange smile, and the pale powdered face was exactly the same as what he had previously seen.
Yan Tianhen, “…The fuck!”
Fuck, Third Elder definitely wanted to scare him till he peed his pants ah!
However, this time Yan Tianhen learned to be good. He didn’t say anything else about Third Elder’s strangeness under Lin Xuanzhi and You Ming’s suspicious gazes. After a moment, he indeed saw Third Elder’s head slowly rotate back, while the others seemed to be entirely unaware of this.
Yan Tianhen took a deep breath and tried to calm down his pounding little heart, feeling that its burden was slightly heavier today.
You Ming frowned. “Ah Hen, what’s the matter with you today?”
Yan TIanhen shook his head and said nothing.
Seeing this, Lin Xuanzhi asked, “Is there truly nothing wrong with Third Elder?”
You Ming said, “Just now, I poured some form-revealing water on his face. If there is something wrong with that face of his, it must show traces.”
Fifth Elder shook his head. “Although Third Elder doesn’t usually seem to have a good temper, he harbors no disloyalty towards the Lin family.”
Yan Tianhen was still in a frightened state.
After thinking about it, Lin Xuanzhi said, “Since the arrays set up by Third Elder have no effect and can’t trap those things, let’s redo them.”
You Ming side-eyed Yin Xingli. “He definitely knows how.”
Yin Xingli did not refuse either. “I can only try first, but I can’t guarantee it.”
Not only did Yin Xingli know how to make a trap array, but Esteemed Lan Yue was also an expert at this. It seemed that knowledge about arrays was included in the prophet family’s inheritance. However, according to Yan Zhonghua, South Land’s Divine Clan, the Shuiyun family, was the family most skilled with arrays, and South Sovereign Shuiyun Nichang was the foremost expert in arrays. When Shuiyun Nichang was mentioned, You Ming’s expression turned very ugly.
Generally, Yan Zhonghua didn’t like chatting with people, so he left first after a few sentences.
After he left, Esteemed Lan Yue asked You Ming, “What did you do at night these days? You look like a mess.”
You Ming leaned dispiritedly against the chair. “Nothing ah, just can’t sleep.”
Esteemed Lan Yue frowned. “Do you not feel well somewhere?”
You Ming shook his head and didn’t speak. After a while, he asked, “Shixiong, do you think I especially like to court death ah?”
“…What made you suddenly have a clear understanding of yourself?”
You Ming, “…”
Of course, You Ming was still his junior martial brother after all, so he still left You Ming some face. “Why? Did you quarrel with King Ye?”
“Quarrel?” You Ming curled his lips in self-mockery. “It would be nice if it was a quarrel.”
Esteemed Lan Yue felt that the matter was a little serious, so he asked, “If you two didn’t quarrel, then why do you look like a dead dog?”
You Ming sighed and spoke bitterly, “Shixiong, didn’t you say before that Yan Zhonghua is especially soft-hearted towards me at all times?”
Esteemed Lan Yue didn’t even think about it when he replied, “If he wasn’t particularly soft-hearted towards you, he would’ve already killed you a long time ago when you were repeatedly harassing him.”
You Ming, “…”
Yan Tianhen had a thoughtful expression.
You Ming became even more dispirited. He hung his head as he got up and left. He looked like he’d been abandoned. Esteemed Lan Yue looked at his back and called out to him a few times, but You Ming pretended not to hear it, shrinking into his shell as he slowly walked out. Esteemed Lan Yue simply ignored him after that.
“How did my master become like this overnight?” Yan Tianhen was very puzzled.
With You Ming’s personality, although his temper couldn’t be considered good, he was also quite forgetful. He could quickly fling unpleasant matters to the back of his mind. Furthermore, if anyone dared to make him unhappy, he would immediately make the other party even more unhappy to cheer himself up.
The fact that he could wilt into such a state was truly very rare.
Feng Jingyu Tsk’d twice, standing on Yan Tianhen’s shoulder as a little yellow bird. He shook his head and remarked, “I ask the world: what is love? It’s nothing more than one person besting another.”
Since You Ming didn’t want to talk about his own matters, then the others would put them aside for the time being. After all, the number of messy affairs right now couldn’t be counted, so they really didn’t have so much energy to delve into the love and hate relationship between these two people.