The carriage rumbled along the mountain road.
Lin Xue was absent-minded the whole way, constantly rolling up her sleeve to check how much the poison on her left arm had spread.
Zhang Zongnian, seeing her distracted appearance, tried to reassure her, “Miss Lin Xue, don’t worry. You’ve already applied my medicine. You’ll have no problem making it to my Senior Brother. As long as he’s still at the Divine Physician and hasn’t gone out to gather herbs, it’ll be in time to expel the corpse poison for you.”
He really shouldn’t have said anything—Lin Xue actually became even more anxious after hearing him.
She asked, “But what if your Senior Brother went out to gather herbs and isn’t at the Divine Physician? Then what should I do?”
Zhang Zongnian let out an “Ah?” as if he’d only just thought of this. He reached out his left hand to scratch his head, mouth agape, unable to answer.
Lin Xue’s heart immediately tightened with panic.
She pressed, “Does your Senior Brother go out to gather herbs often?”
Zhang Zongnian waved his hands, shaking his head. “No, no, not very often.”
Lin Xue felt slightly more at ease.
Zhang Zongnian continued, “Just three or four times a month, that’s all.”
Lin Xue’s almond-shaped eyes widened instantly, and her just-settled heart leaped up again.
Three or four times a month is “not very often”?
That’s actually pretty darn frequent!
Almost once a week—so the chance of not running into him at the Divine Physician is about one out of seven!
Which meant she had around a fourteen percent chance of dying from the poison due to missing timely treatment.
That chance was already way too damn high!
Luckily, Zhang Zongnian followed with another line that put her at ease: “Miss Lin, don’t worry. Even when my Senior Brother gathers herbs, he only goes during the day. It’s nighttime now; he should be at home sleeping. As long as we hurry and get there before dawn, we’ll be fine.”
Lin Xue patted her chest and breathed a sigh of relief. “That’s good, that’s good.”
But then, as if something occurred to him, Zhang Zongnian added, “Though sometimes, if my Senior Brother gathers herbs until too late and can’t make it back, he might spend the night somewhere else. You never know.”
Lin Xue clutched her chest, nearly fainting.
If you can’t say anything comforting, just keep your mouth shut!
She pointed at Zhang Zongnian, her finger trembling. “You, shut up! Don’t say another word!”
Zhang Zongnian immediately shut his mouth tight.
In the silence, the carriage rolled on for a while.
Lin Xue suddenly remembered the Storage Pouches she hadn’t yet checked.
Since she had nothing to do anyway, she might as well use her blade to open them and see if there was anything useful inside.
She first took out the three Storage Pouches from the Demon Slaying Division Officers and drew Zhanfeng, preparing to cut them open.
Ever since she learned that the blade of the Xuesha Daoren was tainted with corpse poison, she’d developed a psychological shadow towards the fearsome demon blade and was now reluctant to use it.
Zhang Zongnian noticed the pouches in her hand and a trace of sorrow appeared on his face.
He asked, “Those are my colleagues’ Storage Pouches, right?”
Lin Xue nodded. “Yes. I took them from their corpses.”
Zhang Zongnian said sadly, “My colleagues, like me, are all poor folk. There’s nothing of great value in those Storage Pouches. Miss Lin Xue, may I shamelessly ask if you could give me those pouches? I’d like to bring them to their families.”
“These are their keepsakes. Now that they’re gone, leaving something behind for their families gives them something to remember them by.”
Lin Xue, hearing his words, could only hand over the three Storage Pouches.
Zhang Zongnian took them and said, “On behalf of them and their families, thank you, Miss Lin.”
He held the pouches, lifted his head to look at the moon in the night sky, and sighed with sorrow,
“Wang Fan, Lao Hei, Da Zhuang… The few of us have been old coworkers for many years. Who would have thought that tonight’s mission would end like this—such a tragic death, separated by life and death. I’ll never drink with them again.”
Lin Xue asked curiously, “This mission was so dangerous, why did only a few of you come? Why not bring more people?”
Back on Blue Star, whenever the police deployed for a dangerous task, they would send truckloads of fully armed officers and SWAT teams to overwhelm the criminals with sheer force.
But here, there were two spell-casting demon cultivators in Li Jia’ao, yet the Demon-Slaying Bureau sent only five people.
They clearly underestimated the threat and paid dearly—nearly the whole team wiped out.
If they’d brought dozens of Constables, that demoness wouldn’t have dared be so arrogant.
Zhang Zongnian shook his head with a bitter smile. “Tonight’s five people are all the manpower stationed at Hengqiao Town.”
Lin Xue was shocked. “So few?”
Zhang Zongnian’s face held a trace of helplessness. “According to regulations, every Demon-Slaying Bureau station in a town should have twelve people: one Captain, one Fuwei, and ten Constables. But all this time, there’s only been one Captain and us four Constables.”
Lin Xue suddenly understood. “Ghost salaries?”
Zhang Zongnian nodded.
“Exactly. Ghost salaries. The Yang Family has controlled the Demon-Slaying Bureau in Xichuan for years. Everyone in charge at every level is from their clan. They decide how many people to recruit. Some towns have just two Constables. The extra salaries and cultivation resources are all pocketed by the Yang Family to support their descendants.”
He sighed to the sky,
“Many of us Constables in small towns have long since reached Lianqi San Chong and are ready for a breakthrough. To advance to Si Chong and enter Qi Refining Middle Stage, you must take a Lower-grade Barrier-breaking Pill.”
“Each town gets only one such pill per year, and that quota always goes to a Yang descendant or someone with ties to them. Ordinary folk like us can’t even lay eyes on it.”
“With a Lower-grade Barrier-breaking Pill, you can enter Qi Refining Middle Stage, become a Heiyi Wei, and transfer to the County Demon-Slaying Bureau with far better treatment.”
“Without a Barrier-breaking Pill, you stay at Qi Refining Early Stage your whole life, stuck in a tiny town, never more than a lowly town Constable.”
“For years, the Yang Family has monopolized all cultivation resources and Barrier-breaking Pills in Xichuan County. Any Yang child with a Spiritual Vein is born onto a smooth road, cultivating all the way from Qi Refining Early Stage to Late Stage and even to perfection.”
“These days, aside from the Yang patriarch at Foundation Establishment, there are over twenty Yangs at Qi Refining Late Stage, three at Qi Refining Perfection, and countless at Qi Refining Middle Stage. They’re the biggest cultivation family in Xichuan County, ruling the place with an iron fist.”
“We from small sects and families can only survive under their power, scraping up leftovers from between their fingers, struggling to get by, with no hope of changing our fate.”
Lin Xue listened to Zhang Zongnian’s complaints with mixed feelings.
So, the cultivation world had its own county Brahmins, monopolizing all the county’s resources and controlling every cultivator’s advancement.
Ordinary cultivators had no way forward; to progress, they could only become vassals to the powerful and work for them.
Feeling a bit emotional, she suddenly thought of something grave.
With the Yang Family this powerful, she had killed Yang Yuhai. They definitely wouldn’t let it go.
She just didn’t know when they’d find out about Yang Yuhai’s death.
Suddenly, a new wave of worry arose. She thought to herself: I have to cure the corpse poison quickly and run before they come looking for me.
The carriage continued forward.
By the moonlight, Lin Xue could already see a small town in the distance.
The town was small, without any walls.
Zhang Zongnian perked up, pointing at the town. “We’re almost there. That’s Stone Plate Town.”
As Lin Xue was looking at the town, she suddenly heard a flurry of horse hooves rushing up behind them—someone was hurrying along the night road.
She glanced back. It was three men in black. Their uniforms were similar to Zhang Zongnian’s Constable attire, but seemed much more formal.
They galloped past, also headed toward Stone Plate Town.
“It’s the County Demon-Slaying Bureau’s Heiyi Wei,” Zhang Zongnian said beside her.
He sounded puzzled, “What are the Heiyi Wei from the County Demon-Slaying Bureau doing here in Stone Plate Town in the middle of the night? Are they here on a case?”
Lin Xue’s heart tensed up. She thought: Could these people be coming for the two of us?
She quietly became alert, using her mind to steer the carriage aside and let the three men pass first.
The three galloped past the carriage and rushed into town.
The leading Heiyi Wei glanced at the carriage, gave a surprised “Huh?” then suddenly shouted, “Wait!”
All three instantly stopped in unison, wheeled their horses around, and blocked the entire road, glaring fiercely at Lin Xue and Zhang Zongnian.
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