Chapter 6

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Double release!

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After Wenren Heng left the inn, carrying his umbrella, he went to another inn on the same street.

Compared to the other inn, this one hadn’t lit the lanterns outside and even upstairs was pitch black. If there hadn’t been a small, sad candle lighting the lobby, the whole inn would’ve appeared as if it’d been swallowed by the night. Standing amidst the falling rain, the building seemed to exude an aura of lonely suffering.

He looked at it for a moment and then went inside.

All his subordinates were waiting and immediately came out to welcome him. The one leading them was a man around thirty, with extremely ordinary features. Ordinarily, he would’ve been the kind of person who was immediately forgotten after introducing himself, if not for the scar lining the left side of his face, adding a somewhat fierce air, allowing him to be easily remembered.

When the scarred man reached Wenren Heng’s side, he said in a quiet voice, “Sect Master, that room that had been set on fire has long since been repaired. When we went upstairs, we didn’t find anything that was left behind.”

To Wenren Heng, this was not unexpected. Even if they had searched for clues on the day of the incident, there was a high chance everything would’ve already been burned away.

He put away his umbrella and looked at the people in the lobby.

He had brought only five men with him when he left, two of whom he had left with his Junior Brother, with the remainder having been sent here. Although the men were few, they were all from Jianghu, bodies full of killing intent. The moment the innkeeper saw them, he was so scared he lost control of his bladder.

The innkeeper had been woken up in the middle of the night by the men and had hastily put on only his inner robes. His face deathly pale with legs trembling, he sat on the bench in fearful anticipation as he looked outside. But who could’ve guessed that who should come but a cultured and refined young sir. He stared foolishly for a moment before calling out, “Noble sir, please spare my life. This lowly creature really doesn’t know who set the fire!”

“There’s no need to be afraid. I have only a few things I want to ask, and I’ll leave after I’m done,” Wenren Heng said. “I should’ve come in the morning, but there were some things I couldn’t put off, so I could only come and disturb you at night.”

The way he spoke wasn’t bad, and he was refined and courteous. The innkeeper’s heart which had been high up in his throat slowly calmed back down, and he stood up after conversing for a while. Wenren Heng delicately asked the other about that day’s events. Unfortunately, much to his dismay, the innkeeper had not seen any suspicious people or occurrences at the time.

Seeing the other becoming silent, the innkeeper swore, “It’s true! The room suddenly caught on fire! And other than that injured young sir, I saw no one else ever enter or leave that room. Besides, my inn has been burned so badly that I can’t even do any business. If I knew who had actually set the fire, I wouldn’t let them off!”

Wenren Heng rubbed his head and walked around the inn once before deciding that there was no need to stay any longer. Leaving some coin, he took his men and left.

In the past few days, the rain had been falling in long and continuous bursts and the pavements had already accumulated some water. From the rainfall came soft and light ripples in the water. Since it was already very late at night, there was not another soul in sight on the streets other than them. Listening to the sound of rain pattering on his umbrella, Wenren Heng asked, “These past few days, there hasn’t been anyone following?”

The scarred man replied, “No, only our men.”

“No one’s been following…” Wenren Heng muttered.

The scarred man asked, “Do you want some subordinates to go ask some common people tomorrow, see if they remember anything from that day?”

Wenren Heng said, “No need. I just thought it somewhat strange.”

It was strange that someone was able to injure his Junior Brother. Even more strange was that after injuring him, the perpetrator didn’t stay to make sure he was dead and simply set everything on fire. And even after his Junior Brother was rescued, there was not a trace of the other person, as if the instigator just decided to let him go[1].

He wrinkled his brows.

“For these next few days, take care to pay more attention to movements behind you, see if there’s anyone following. And send some people to ask after Miracle Doctor Ji’s whereabouts. I…” As Wenren Heng was speaking, a familiar figure appeared ahead. The moment he saw the person, he went forward and asked, “What’s wrong with you?”

“This subordinate is incapable.” Rushing over, the man in black kneeled on one leg. Not daring to delay, he let out everything in a rush.

After the Sect Master left, they had received orders to guard the young sir. He had gone to the bathroom for barely the length of time it took to finish half a cup of tea, only to return and discover the door to the young sir’s room wide open and that the young sir and his colleague had both disappeared. He had already searched everywhere but had seen neither hide nor hair of either party, not even a signal that his colleague could have left behind.

Wenren Heng had already had the man stand up long ago, walking and talking, and before long, they had returned to the inn. Looking at the room which bore no trace of a struggle, Wenren Heng’s expression did not change, but a trace of heaviness could be detected within his eyes.

The two men he had left behind were relatively skillful. To be able to steal away his Junior Brother in such a short amount of time must mean that the perpetrator was someone with very high martial arts. The perpetrator either was able to defeat his subordinate in a move or two or had captured the man sometime in the past day and replaced him, waiting for exactly this opportunity to steal a person away.

If it was the first, his subordinate’s martial skill was good enough that he should’ve at least left behind some clue. Thus, it was more likely to be the second possibility.

The fact that the disguise was able to fool his eyes must mean the person’s technique had already reached a certain degree of perfection. With such a bold and daring move, they wouldn’t recklessly leave town out of anxiety. And his Junior Brother had been hit in his sleep acupoint, with no ability to fight back. If the perpetrator had decided to steal him away alive, his life shouldn’t be in danger at the moment.

In a flash, Wenren Heng made his decision and said, “Bring some men to search nearby carefully for any signs. If none can be found, immediately return.”

The scarred man gave a, “Yes,” and immediately left to give the order.

Wenren Heng walked around the room and discovered that his dagger was missing. Thinking of his Junior Brother in someone else’s hands, his face turned pitch-black.

A short while later, the scarred man returned with the others and told him that nothing had been found.

Wenren Heng then called over one of his men and muttered a few words in his ear. After the man left, Wenren Heng indicated to the others to leave and guard the door, leaving only the scarred man by his side.

The scarred man wasn’t stupid, and after the others left, he said, “Xiao-Jia[2] was replaced?”

Wenren Heng said, “It’s possible. Later, return to the road we came from to search.”

The scarred man’s expression was dark, privately thinking that the only things they’ll find are likely to be corpses.

The man couldn’t hold in his amazement. They had all spent nearly the entire day together, and the perpetrator had the skill to not let the mask slip for a single moment. He wrinkled his brows and asked, “In Jianghu, who has this much strength?”

“Who knows who exactly he offended…” Wenren Heng muttered. After a pause, he asked, “Has there been movement recently from the Demonic Sect?”

The scarred man said, “No.”

Wenren Heng nodded and poured himself a cup of tea but didn’t drink it for a long time.

Seeing this, the scarred man didn’t dare to disturb him and wisely shut his mouth.

 

At the same moment, separated by a mere wall in an empty room, Xiao-Jia was sitting tied to a chair by Ye You, feeling completely miserable. He desperately wanted to leave the room, grab onto the Sect Master’s legs, and weep. But seeing as that young sir had already fallen back asleep and his own acupoint had been hit, he probably wouldn’t be released until tomorrow morning.

Naturally, Ye You wasn’t actually asleep. Using the dagger, he had poked a small hole in the wall and had been lying curled up on the bed looking through it. He had listened to Wenren Heng’s back-and-forth with rapt attention. And only after waiting for a while to confirm that they weren’t going to speak any further did he decide to give up.

If his guess wasn’t wrong, then Wenren Heng’s next step was to search the inn. Ye You tsk’d in his heart, and, carrying the dagger, he lazily sat up.

From the conversation and Wenren Heng’s attitude, Ye You at least knew that Wenren Heng harbored no ill intentions towards him. Perhaps this guy was aware of his identity, seeing as he mentioned the Demonic Sect at this critical moment, presumably it has something to do with Ye You.

Yes… Although the information wasn’t much, at least he managed to drag out something useful, so Ye You was relatively satisfied.

Seeing the other getting up, Xiao-Jia immediately blanched, fearing that he was coming for another round.

Ye You didn’t pay him any mind and left the room without a word. Meeting the frightening gaze of the black-clothed men, Ye You sauntered over and kicked the Sect Master’s door open.

The two men inside vigilantly stood up, immediately looking to see who’s stepping inside with his collar open and bandages peeking out — thankfully, this article was visible, or else the black-clothed men outside wouldn’t have dared recognize him.

A visible flash of surprise passed through Wenren Heng’s face. He had thought of countless possibilities but never did he think that this person would just walk back on his own.

While he had previously looked calm, his heart had felt an extraordinary sense of urgency. At this moment, all his previous anxiety seemed to have returned to his chest all at once, truly leaving him a bit sore.

He hoarsely said, “You…”

Without waiting for him to finish speaking, Ye You haphazardly threw the dagger onto the table in front of him and then shamelessly climbed onto bed, closed his eyes, and went to sleep.

Wenren Heng, “…”

The subordinates, “…”

For an instant, the room was deathly still. The black-clothed men outside cautiously clung to the doorframe and looked inside. Seeing the Sect Master looking at them, they pointed at the room next door, indicating that that was where this person had come from.

Wenren Heng brought some men over and used the light outside to see the situation inside, only to see Xiao-Jia wearing clothes that had been cut into strips, tied web-like to a chair. He seemed to have been tied with a lot of consideration, with the ropes occasionally showing some skin, leaving a strange kind of beauty.

Wenren Heng, “…”

The subordinates, “…”

After a while, Wenren Heng finally learned the entire sequence of events from Xiao-Jia’s trembling voice. His fellow colleague broke out in cold sweat, relieved beyond words that he had decided to go to the bathroom, or else he might have ended up in the exact same situation!

Xiao-Jia was traumatized and still hadn’t recovered. At that time, while sitting in the pitch-black darkness, that young sir laughed maniacally as he cut apart his clothes, almost cutting into skin. Xiao-Jia almost peed his pants, so afraid was he that this man’s hand would tremble and cut him into tiny little pieces.

Wenren Heng asked, “Sleepwalking?”

Xiao-Jia nodded violently. “It was truly horrifying. Sect Master, you better sleep in a different room.”

It was at this time that the subordinate who had previously left on a different mission returned. Flabbergasted, he looked at Xiao-Jia. Pulling out the drug[3] that the Sect Master had asked him to prepare, he asked, “Sect Master, do you still need this?”

Wenren Heng slowly let out a breath.

He had previously thought that the time had been so short, the perpetrator so bold, that the person had probably never left the inn. He was afraid that the person would use the confusion caused by an inquiry to escape, so he had planned to render everyone in the inn unconscious before starting to search. He didn’t think that…

“No, I don’t. You can all go rest.” He stood up and, to Xiao-Jia’s admiration, returned to the other guest room.

Ye You remained in his previous position, and it wasn’t clear whether he was really asleep or not.

As he took off his clothes, Wenren Heng helplessly thought of his Junior Brother’s previous attempts to discover his intentions. Having called his bluff, Wenren Heng had thought that the other would behave a little better tonight. Who would’ve thought that he would pull something like this. He truly hasn’t stopped since he got amnesia.[4]

He privately wished that he could give this kid a good spanking. But he knew that since getting amnesia, this person had not trusted anyone, which is why he had the audacity to do such a thing. If the same thing had happened to Wenren Heng himself, then he might’ve done even worse. So the only thing he could do was swallow his frustrations.

Wenren Heng finally looked at the person beside him, but even after much thought, he didn’t understand. He had definitely pressed his Junior Brother’s sleep acupoint, so how did this person undo it?

 

The next day, after having his medicine applied by his Senior Brother and sporting a “lantern”, Ye You left the room. Upon seeing the five men who suddenly appeared, he acted as if it was all a happy coincidence. “Who are they?”

Wenren Heng said, “They are my subordinates. They’ll be coming with us to find Miracle Doctor Ji.”

Ye You went, “Oh,” and guilelessly finished eating before following his Junior Brother as they once again set out.

Having received the orders, the scarred man began searching for Miracle Doctor Ji’s whereabouts. He didn’t expect an incident to happen so quickly. It wasn’t even noon before he received the news. And with his face grim, he found the Sect Master and said, “Miracle Doctor Ji’s at the residence of Suzhou’s Wang family. Reportedly, the Wang Patriarch has fallen prey to the Lantern-Extinguishing Poison[5].”

Ye You felt a sudden prick in his heart from out of nowhere. He lifted his head and nonchalantly asked, “Lantern-Extinguishing Poison?”

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[1] I kind of added some words to this to more accurately translate the intent of the sentence. (Chinese is a very succinct language, while English… is not.) The original Chinese said that the perpetrator just unexpectedly decided to 不管不問, lit. not care, not ask. I added the “not a trace of the other” because it’d sound a bit disjointed in English if I simply wrote, “the instigator just decided to let him go”.

[2] 小甲 “Little/young” Jia.

[3] This was actually censored in the original, but as you can see in the next lines, it’s 迷暈藥, aka a medicine that renders people unconscious. I just put drug here so that the sentence would flow better, and I thought that simply writing “knock out drug” was very not-wuxia of me.

[4] Conversely, it hasn’t been peaceful since he got amnesia. I’m pretty sure the sentence is playing a bit on these two meanings.

[5] 燈滅毒 Uh, I just translated this literally, since I’m not sure if the “lantern-extinguishing” part is euphemistic or not. I’ll fix it if the author eventually explains what it is.

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This chapter was actually really fun to translate (especially in comparison to last chapter, which was a nightmare). I felt super sorry for how Wenren Heng was throughout the first half of this, so I sped through this chapter to get to their “reunion” lmao.

Again, no guarantees when I’ll get around to the next chapter. Work suddenly got busy <del>and I also want to play some video games</del>, so next chapter might take a bit.

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