Chapter 50: The Young Master is Angry

Flowing Fire Prefecture, Shidong Village.

The villagers here mainly relied on the crops grown in the red mud fields for their livelihood. Every month, they also answered the call of the Red Fire Sect to work in various mines.

“Wang Laoqi? He’s dead. As for how he died, don’t ask me, and I won’t bother telling you.”

A villager wearing a headscarf answered Yun Heng’s inquiry impatiently. He waved him off and lowered his head to continue hoeing the ground.

Although Yun Heng’s face remained calm, Jiang Keke, who was holding A Xiang’s hand, felt a surge of fear.

‘Young Master is angry.’

As the book boy closest to Yun Heng, Jiang Keke knew that his expression didn’t stem from the villager’s coldness.

It was something deeper — a simmering rage over something irreversible, suppressed beneath a tranquil surface.

“Which one is this?” Yun Heng asked softly, forcing down his irritation as he looked at Jiang Keke.

“The… seventeenth one.”

After arriving at Shidong Village, Yun Heng had first set up a detailed array to search for demonic energy.

He performed his official duties strictly by the book — after all, Ding Huairou was monitoring him through the monster hunting mirror.

He couldn’t openly neglect the duties of the demon inspection department.

Once he confirmed that no demonic traces remained, Yun Heng began asking the villagers about Wang Laoqi’s whereabouts.

The results of his inquiry were startling. The moment the villagers saw the demon inspection department token at Yun Heng’s waist, they treated him like a harbinger of plague, avoiding him at all costs.

He had questioned seventeen villagers, and every single one gave him the same answer: Wang Laoqi’s entire family had met a tragic end.

Even if Yun Heng wanted to convince himself this was just an excuse to avoid talking to him, it was unrealistic.

“That member of the seventy-two seats who helped resolve the trouble here… was he wearing an eagle-beak mask?” Yun Heng looked at the Red Fire Sect disciple who was leading the way, his expression calm.

“He… he was,” the disciple answered in a low voice, not daring to look Yun Heng in the eye.

Yun Heng rubbed his temples. “I have some private matters to attend to. You may leave.”

As if granted a divine reprieve, the Red Fire Sect disciple cupped his hands in farewell and fled on his flying sword as fast as he could.

“Young Master, could it be… that Xuan Sun was the one who killed Wang Laoqi?” Jiang Keke asked tentatively once the disciple was far away.

“It is highly likely. Otherwise, the local villagers wouldn’t harbor such intense hostility toward members of the demon inspection department.”

Yun Heng looked at Shidong Village with a complicated gaze. The post-disaster reconstruction was largely complete.

In his past life, Yun Heng had actually been on fairly good terms with Wang Laoqi.

After Wang Laoqi acted as his guide to a hidden realm, Yun Heng had helped him break through to the golden core stage as a gesture of gratitude, extending his lifespan to 500 years.

Wang Laoqi’s son had also possessed a once-in-a-century talent; under Yun Heng’s guidance, he reached the nascent soul stage just before turning 200.

If he remembered correctly, the boy had even married the daughter of a small cultivation clan three or four hundred years later.

Yun Heng was no ‘noble’ person, and ten thousand years of time had made him forget many things.

However, he remembered certain trivial details of life quite clearly, especially the happy smiles on people’s faces.

“Could I trouble you to take me to Wang Laoqi’s grave for a moment?” Yun Heng asked softly, approaching the villager who had walked away earlier.

The villager originally intended to refuse.

But as he looked at the young man who had humbled himself so much, and saw the several glowing high-grade coins in his hand, his words died in his throat. Finally, he let out a long sigh. “Follow me.”

“Thank you.” Yun Heng bowed slightly.

Standing before Wang Laoqi’s grave, Yun Heng silently apologized for the intrusion.

He cast a temporary spell on his eyes, using his powerful mental energy to elevate the strength of his divine sense. He ‘saw’ the three corpses inside the grave.

Wang Laoqi’s wife and son were desiccated husks, consistent with an attack by a monster leech. However, Wang Laoqi’s own body was still intact. It was clearly the work of a human.

Closing the spell, Yun Heng looked at the small mound of earth and the stone tablet inscribed with the name ‘Wang Laoqi’ — a monument so ordinary it was painful. His heart was a mess of emotions.

After a long silence, Yun Heng spoke softly. “I’m sorry. It was I who killed you.”

A golden core stage monster leech should not have attacked this place. Xuan Sun should not have been responsible for patrolling this area.

In other words, everything that had happened was the result of the butterfly effect triggered by Yun Heng changing history.

He had expected this day to come, but he hadn’t expected it to happen so soon or so suddenly.

“Keke, after we finish up here, we need to make a trip to the Heavenly Way Academy.”

Elder Lan of West Ridge, also known as Lan Lan — one of the Four Crazies — was the person Yun Heng knew to be most skilled in the deduction phase in this world.

Yun Heng bent down and took several boxes of osmanthus cakes from his storage bag — cakes his mother had packed for him when he left home.

He also pulled out many food items he had bought in the upper three provinces: jade stalk rice, morning dew tea… stack after stack, pile after pile.

Residents of the lower three continents generally only ate coarse grains.

In remote areas like Shidong Village, they could only improve their diet with a few bags of rice distributed by the Red Fire Sect once a year.

Yun Heng vaguely remembered that Wang Laoqi’s son loved sweets. The first time he had taken Wang Laoqi’s family to the upper three provinces, they had been full of praise even for the most ordinary meals.

A fire-starting talisman flashed at Yun Heng’s fingertips. A roaring fire rose toward the sky, crackling loudly.

“Let’s go. We’re going to pay a visit to Wang Laoqi’s older sister.”

Yun Heng stood up and led the way toward the village exit. Wang Laoqi wasn’t the only one who knew that path. His sister knew it as well.

“Sister Keke,” A Xiang whispered, squeezing Jiang Keke’s pinky finger. She bit her lip as she watched Yun Heng’s back. “Why is Yun Heng… unhappy?”

“It’s nothing,” Jiang Keke said gently, stroking A Xiang’s head. “One of the Young Master’s friends has gone somewhere very far away, and he’s feeling a bit sad.”

A Xiang tilted her head. She looked at Jiang Keke, then at Yun Heng, and then back at the small mound of earth.

‘But… it doesn’t smell bad here… It’s not exactly fragrant, but… hmm…’

A Xiang thought for a long time but still couldn’t find the words to describe the scent of this place.

Many years later, when A Xiang smelled that strange yet familiar scent again, she would suddenly realize it was the scent of the Mean — an energy that was neither good nor evil, but destined and unpredictable. Of course, that would be a story for another time.

‘Forget it. Tonight, I’ll give Brother Yun Heng the candied haws I hid a few days ago. That should make him happy!’ A Xiang thought happily, putting the matter out of her mind for now.

***

Nanfeng Town, Qimeng Pavilion.

This building was a crooked, three-story wooden structure. The exterior paint had long since been eroded by wind and sand into a mottled dark red, resembling dried blood.

The name was beautiful, but because the wooden plaque had been blackened by smoke, the ‘evening’ radical of the character for ‘dream’ had cracked.

From a distance, it looked more like ‘Qiluo Pavilion.’ Every night, two dusty, faded red lanterns were hung out.

Within their glow, the sweet scent of cheap powder, the sour smell of sweat, the bitterness of fire poison burns, and the pungent smell of medicinal water used to treat ‘guest towels’ wafted from the backyard… All of it pointed to the fact that this was a den of pleasure no different from those in the mortal realm.

And it was the lowest end of its kind.

“Dear guest, don’t mind our humble environment. The girls inside are all poor souls with tragic pasts who have kept themselves pure.”

“They are only working to save money to redeem themselves or support their families. And the interior… well, it’s a whole different world…”

The Madame introduced the place enthusiastically to a clean-cut scholar, the likes of whom she rarely saw even once a year. Her eyes welled with tears; she truly looked as if she pitied the women inside.

Yun Heng had not allowed Jiang Keke and A Xiang to come along. He had told them to wait ten miles away. Thus, the Madame assumed he was some young master from a wealthy family looking to experience life.

Entering the main hall, Yun Heng immediately spotted a yellowed price list on the wall. It was divided into three categories: ‘listening to music and accompanying drinks,’ ‘spring night behind red curtains,’ and ‘overnight stay.’

Each category was further subdivided by the woman’s beauty, age, and whether she was ‘clean.’

At the very bottom, there was a line of small text: ‘Injuries and illnesses to be handled by the guest; life and death are not the establishment’s responsibility.’

“Ahem, ahem.”

The Madame noticed Yun Heng’s gaze and coughed awkwardly with a forced smile. “That’s just to prevent some guests from using their high cultivation to skip out on the bill~”

Yun Heng glanced at her and offered a sincere suggestion. “Actually, if you really want to attract customers, you should at least make the exterior decor more exquisite.

Otherwise, even if you use arrays to drive away mosquitoes and flies, low-level cultivators can easily smell the medicinal soup.”

“Don’t we know that?” The Madame sighed helplessly.

“But most of our regulars are bottom-tier cultivators and miners… Just cleaning the scents off them is already a significant expense… I don’t mean to offend you, but I hope you won’t say things like ‘why don’t they eat meat’ in front of my girls.”

Although the Madame wanted Yun Heng as a customer, his words carried the detached, critical tone of the upper class.

He might not have meant any harm, but he clearly didn’t understand the realities of the bottom tier. If he held the girls to such standards, it would easily cause conflict.

It was better to explain the truth beforehand and lower his expectations than to risk a negative review or a dispute.

“My apologies.”

Yun Heng remained silent for a long moment before apologizing to the Madame.

“Oh, no need for that,” the Madame said, waving her hands repeatedly before putting on another smile. “I wonder if there’s a girl who has caught your eye?”

“I don’t know the lady’s specific name. However, before she came here, her surname should have been Wang.”

Yun Heng took a letter out of his storage bag, one he had prepared on the way.

“I would like to ask you to find the girls here with the surname Wang. If one of them reacts to the signature on this letter, please bring her to speak with me.”

The signature on the letter was simple:

‘A friend of Wang Laoqi, Yun Heng, is looking for you.’