STOTTD | Chapter 8

Chapter 8

“This damn thing even has a rollback reset?!” Zhou Xin shouted as she ran away, hiding under the osmanthus tree at the side.

Shen Ji Bai held up his knife to block, but the Qi-Eating Spirit偏ed downward and crashed straight into his stomach. Only a loud “thud——” was heard, and he was knocked flying into the courtyard wall, then fell to the ground!

Then, the Qi-Eating Spirit suddenly turned around and charged straight toward Zhou Xin! She circled around the osmanthus tree a few times, and the Qi-Eating Spirit chased after her for a few rounds.

It was not impossible to keep up this “she ran, it chased” routine.

But the Qi-Eating Spirit was too smart. It suddenly stopped, and Zhou Xin, unable to stop in time, turned a corner and bumped head-on into a strand of green-black hair.

She hurriedly swung her sword to cut it down, turned and ran back, and while running, bit open the wound on his finger and drew a talisman on his palm.

Just as she ran back in front of the Qi-Eating Spirit, Zhou Xin tentatively raised her palm and slapped straight toward the black smoke.

With a “hiss——”, the black smoke dispersed and vanished.

Zhou Xin was overjoyed, thinking to herself, the Evil-Dispelling Talisman really works!

“Lord Shen! Cooperate with me!”

Before the words had even fallen, Shen Ji Bai had already understood the trick. He leaped into the air and swung his knife down at the Qi-Eating Spirit.

The person and the spirit once again became locked in relentless combat.

This time Zhou Xin did not keep watching the show. She tucked the peachwood sword back into her waist, drew a talisman on the palm of her other hand as well, and used both palms to strike at the green-black hair that had turned into black smoke.

All the black mist swirling in the air dispersed completely. The Qi-Eating Spirit was so enraged that it let out a long howl of “Heh——”, and its counterattack became even fiercer.

It gathered back its green-black hair and instead fought Shen Ji Bai with bare hands. Zhou Xin then seized every opening to slash at its head, successfully cutting down several strands of green-black hair, then turned her hand and slapped them apart, before continuing her sneak attacks.

Compared with Shen Ji Bai, who was turning it into a bald head, it seemed to hate Zhou Xin, who was scattering away its green-black hair, even more. Suddenly it turned around, reached out to seize Zhou Xin, and violently grabbed her wrist and twisted hard!

A sharp pain shot through her wrist, and with a loud “clang——”, the peachwood sword fell to the ground.

Taking advantage of that, it raised its hand, the curved claws going straight for her throat!

“Help!”

Zhou Xin endured the pain in her wrist and kept backing away.

But how could her movements be faster than the Qi-Eating Spirit’s?

In an instant, the sharp claws had already locked onto her throat. A strong foreign-body sensation surged at her throat, choking her so hard that she unconsciously parted her lips, and even breathing became very difficult.

At this critical moment, a sharp blade tip pierced out through its forehead!

“Heh——!”

“Heh——!”

The pressure around her neck disappeared, and Zhou Xin dropped heavily to the ground. She saw the Qi-Eating Spirit’s head pierced through from back to front by the dragon-patterned knife, its body trembling uncontrollably, thick black qi pouring out from its head!

Its illusory body also shattered along with it, completely turning into a mass of black cloud, merging with the thick black qi, and revealing a black human shape.

“It’s showing its true form, quickly use the Demon-Sealing Bag!”

A faint glint moved in Shen Ji Bai’s eyes. He immediately unfastened the pouch at his waist, opened the seal, and raised it up.

Zhou Xin held two fingers upright in front of her, her lips moving as she chanted the incantation, and shouted, “Take it in!”

Only then did the black human shape turn into rolling black smoke, spinning as it was sucked into the Demon-Sealing Bag, accompanied by a shrill howling sound, “Heh——!”

In an instant, the black cloud disappeared without a trace. The surroundings instantly fell silent, almost as quiet as a cemetery.

Shen Ji Bai tightened the mouth of the bag and hung it back at his waist.

Zhou Xin asked, “Lock it up in the Demon Tower?”

He did not answer, but instead asked, “Does Lord Lingyun have a better way?”

“Actually, I do.”

Hearing this, Shen Ji Bai almost imperceptibly raised one brow slightly, as if he did not quite believe she had that ability.

He picked up the Thunder Summoning Talisman that had fallen to the ground, “This is the method?”

Zhou Xin awkwardly let out two “hehe” laughs, “…This official did not say that.”

Crushing the talisman paper into a ball and throwing it aside, Shen Ji Bai walked expressionlessly to the stone table under the osmanthus tree and sat down, showing no intention of saying anything else.

The bright moonlight brushed past the branches and fell on him, making his temperament seem even colder, as if everything around him had nothing to do with him.

Zhou Xin hesitated for a moment, then sat across from him.

Those cold eyes swept over the tabletop. Shen Ji Bai turned his head, stingy enough not to spare even a shred of his side glance.

Zhou Xin sensibly closed her mouth, completely giving up on the foolish idea of easing their relationship. She picked up the teapot on the stone table and poured herself a cup of tea, finishing it in one gulp.

Shen Ji Bai said, “The tea is cold.”

“It quenches thirst better when it’s cold.” As she spoke, she poured another cup.

“I heard Lord Lingyun has recently been in seclusion to cultivate?”

She rubbed the bridge of her nose guiltily and said with his face saving at all costs, “It was all an accident. This official also did not expect the Thunder Summoning Talisman to fail.”

He sneered, “Wherever Lord Lingyun goes, there are truly accidents everywhere.”

Zhou Xin took a deep breath. After calming herself, she changed the topic, “How is the record check for entering and leaving the city going?”

At that, Shen Ji Bai’s face darkened slightly, and he turned his head to look to the side, as if he had not heard her question.

Zhou Xin laughed lightly, “Could it be that Lord Shen did not even find anything?”

Shen Ji Bai: “…”

He said a little unnaturally, “…There were no suspicious persons.”

That’s it?

It’s been seven or eight days and he still didn’t find a damn thing, and he still has the nerve to imply things about her!

She silently rolled her eyes, but then suddenly realized something belatedly. A thought flashed through her mind.

Her expression became rarely serious. “Since you can’t find the person, then could it be that, perhaps, it is a, ”

Shen Ji Bai immediately understood what she meant: “A demon?”

The tracks of demons and evil beings were strange and elusive, coming and going without a trace. It was not strange that Shen Ji Bai could not find out anything.

Besides, the effect of enhancing cultivation with a demon core was greatly reduced for humans, but just the opposite for demons.

Thinking of this, Zhou Xin simply told him everything about the loss of the thousand-year demon core.

As Shen Ji Bai listened, his expression grew increasingly solemn.

After she finished speaking, he lowered his eyes and thought for a while, peeling back the layers to analyze:

A person, even if memory is damaged and everything is forgotten, would not lose the skills honed through countless trials.

That is a bodily reaction deeply ingrained in the bones, fused into the blood.

The person in front of him was not at all Chao Nanyi.

Since her appearance, within Dongdu City there had first been the hamster demon causing trouble and injuring people in the market, then the Qi-Eating Spirit entering a residence and committing violence. Now, Master Linghe had also discovered that someone had stolen the inner core of the King of Ten Thousand Foxes.

All of this could not be separated from her sudden appearance.

Moreover, on the night the King of Ten Thousand Foxes escaped the Demon-Sealing Tower, Lord Lingyun happened to be on duty at the Dali Temple, so naturally he would be the first to rush out in pursuit.

But sealing the fox king was an extremely dangerous matter. With his cultivation, if no one else assisted her, success was almost impossible.

Yet she did not seek help from anyone, and even rejected the yamen runner’s suggestion to go to the Taiqing Temple to ask Master Linghe to take action, insisting on acting alone. Could it be because she had other helpers?

And this helper was the person who had dug out the fox king’s inner core!

Then, the one who let the King of Ten Thousand Foxes go would be…

He slowly raised his eyes and looked at the person sitting opposite him.

That person was resting her chin in both hands, her brows slightly furrowed, her eyelids drooping downward, as if she had fallen into deep thought.

After a moment, she suddenly slapped the stone table hard. “No, there’s another possibility!”

Shen Ji Bai: “?”

“Lord Shen couldn’t find any clues from the entering and leaving the city records, which means… this person is not an outsider, but someone living in Luoyang City.”

She analyzed with certainty, “Or to narrow it down further, someone who was on duty at the Dali Temple that night.”

Shen Ji Bai narrowed his phoenix eyes, his gaze cold and sharp. “If Shen has not remembered wrongly, Lord Lingyun was also on duty that night.”

“Is Lord Shen suspecting that I watched over the whole affair and stole from myself, and then directed this little show?”

Zhou Xin laughed in anger, “That fox king’s demon core is not some good thing. Its hallucination power is number one in the world. If this official had taken it, I’d probably still be trapped in an illusion and unable to get out!”

“Besides,” she muttered in a low voice, “the master already probed this official’s spiritual platform, and there was clearly no trace of a demon core.”

Shen Ji Bai gave a low “mm”, and said nothing more, but he did not seem very convinced.

“Heh.” Zhou Xin gave a cold laugh.

This guy was really something.

He helped clear the evil spirits from his own family one moment, and the next he could turn around and accuse her. No wonder he accepted the pine-flower wine and still went to Master Linghe to snitch, he had no understanding at all of what it meant to refuse a bribe.

A corrupt official, a pure, heartless, dog-like corrupt official.

Forcing down the urge to curse, she rolled her eyes and pulled the topic back to the case.

“After the demon core leaves the body, it has to be used immediately for cultivation. Once it is cultivated with, the spiritual platform will change in some way. Lord Shen might as well check who was on duty that night and organize a list.”

Shen Ji Bai did not agree immediately, but instead asked, “Why would he go to such lengths to harm the hamster demon?”

“Originally, this official also couldn’t figure it out, but now…”

Zhou Xin paused, then said meaningfully, “Maybe we got the direction wrong from the start?”

Shen Ji Bai: “?”

“Lord Shen might as well investigate carefully who all entered and left Changfeng Tavern that day. Could that evil cultivator be taking the risk for someone inside the tavern? For example, the scholar whom the hamster demon attacked first?”

Zhou Xin analyzed it step by step, almost without holding anything back.

Hearing this, Shen Ji Bai lowered his eyelids, and no one knew what he was thinking. After a while, he raised his eyes and looked over, her expression becoming exceptionally serious.

“Why is Lord Lingyun so concerned about this case?”

“Doesn’t investigating a case come with a reason? Isn’t that the duty a Tangsi should fulfill?” Zhou Xin looked puzzled. “Besides, all beings are equal, a monster’s life is still a life.”

Shen Ji Bai looked at her deeply. “Evil spirits create chaos, how can they be compared with humans?”

“Are only demons the ones creating chaos?”

Shen Ji Bai slightly narrowed his eyes. “Mostly humans.”

“Exactly.” Zhou Xin said, “The human heart is a ghostly domain too. The evil of demons is something the human heart cannot even compare to. Whether human or demon, there are good and evil distinctions, how can one lump it all together in a single saying?”

After she finished, Shen Ji Bai’s slightly narrowed phoenix eyes narrowed even more. Only then did she remember that Chao Nanyi hated monsters very much, and these words would certainly arouse his suspicion.

Perhaps when he said this, he was deliberately probing her.

Zhou Xin cleared her throat, turned away somewhat unnaturally, picked up her teacup and drank tea, and did not speak again. Shen Ji Bai looked at her with an unreadable expression, and likewise said nothing more.

Under the cold moonlight, those dark eyes flickered slightly, and the ice that had long been layered in the depths of his eyes actually seemed to be gradually melting.

“The identity of that scholar has already been found.”

Shen Ji Bai, who had only been listening to Zhou Xin’s analysis one-sidedly and had shown no intention of sharing any clues, suddenly loosened his lips, displaying the proper awareness of a colleague working together on a case.

“He is the son of Zhang Guangji, the richest man, and the number one talent of Dongdu City, Zhang Qingqing, who obtained the qualification to take the imperial examinations only after being recommended by the Minister of Justice.”

“That name is pretty good!” Thinking of that clean and handsome face, Zhou Xin only felt that he matched his name, true to it in every way.

“And then? Did you send people to investigate her home? Any new clues?”

Shen Ji Bai: “No clues at all.”

“Why?” Zhou Xin asked.

He suddenly raised his eyes, looked straight at her, and said each word slowly, as if deliberately testing her: “He, is, crazy.”