Chapter 136: The Evil Artifact

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“How about coming with me to investigate?” I said. The case was extremely complicated, but if Hu Xiaoyu helped, that meant I would also have the support of the White Lotus devotees behind her. Things would become much easier.

“All right.” Hu Xiaoyu nodded. But the moment the words left her mouth, she wanted to slap herself. Why had she agreed to him?

Hu Xiaoyu and I left the room. Just then, someone came walking toward us.

He was a young man with flat features and shoulder-length hair draped over his back. He wore a strange outfit and wooden sandals—an unmistakably Japanese appearance.

Japan was a tiny island nation in the seas near China, and it had always been fiercely ambitious.

When the young man noticed me looking at him, he suddenly stopped and gave me a polite nod.

“You know him?” I asked Hu Xiaoyu after the young man entered the suite at the end of the corridor.

“Miyamoto Koji. He’s from the Japanese Miyamoto family. Over the past few years, he has cultivated quite a few puppets in Bailing. The lover of the woman you placed the Yin-Gathering Seal on is one of them,” Hu Xiaoyu said.

I raised an eyebrow. The Japanese were stirring up trouble in China. What on earth was the National Security Bureau doing?

Japan had always produced evil cultivators. Could the evil aura on the sea maiden be connected to Japanese evil cultivators?

“I’ll go back and make some preparations. Tomorrow night, I’ll go with you to Pearl Town.” After saying this, Hu Xiaoyu left the hotel.

I left as well, deep in thought all the way. The more I considered it, the stranger the Japanese seemed.

I called Zhao Zheng. He sounded extremely pleased when he answered.

“Zhao Zheng, help me investigate a man named Tian Erlong from Qinglin City. I want to know everything about him.” Zhao Zheng specialized in gathering intelligence, so this was an easy task for him.

“All right. Give me a moment,” Zhao Zheng replied.

A burst of rapid keyboard tapping followed.

“I’ve found it. I’ve sent it to you,” Zhao Zheng said.

I opened the information and frowned.

Six years ago, this man had been nothing more than a petty thug. Then, seemingly overnight, he had risen to prominence, taking control of several leading enterprises in Qinglin City. Mysterious funds and powerful forces stood behind him.

The source of the money was difficult to trace, because it had entered China only after passing through multiple money-laundering operations.

There was evidence, however, that he was very close to the Japanese businessman Miyamoto Koji.

“Pearl Town, the sea maiden, the sea maiden’s uncle, Tian Erlong, Miyamoto Koji…” I stroked my chin. Was there a connection between them?

“Hmm… The Japanese youth I saw earlier was dressed in traditional Japanese clothing. Generally speaking, Japanese people who dress that way come from some traditional faction or family of influence.”

“Zhao Zheng, investigate Miyamoto Koji for me as well. I want his complete dossier,” I said into the phone.

Before long, I received another message.

“Big Brother Qin, is that you? It’s Ye Luo.”

Ye Luo’s voice suddenly came through the phone.

“Yes, it’s me. How have you been?” I thought of the baby-faced, abundantly endowed girl, and my mood brightened considerably.

“I’m fine, but I miss you terribly. Where are you? I heard about what happened in the capital…” Ye Luo was an inveterate chatterbox. Without waiting for my reply, she launched into a nonstop stream of words.

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After she talked for nearly half an hour, I promised to visit her. Only then did she finally let me hang up.

I began looking through Miyamoto Koji’s information. The intelligence stated that he was born into the Japanese Miyamoto family. He was the illegitimate son of Miyamoto Xiongying, the current head of the family, and the daughter of a minor clan. He was also the heir to the Japanese Evil Claw school.

“Well, well. An illegitimate son of the Miyamoto family. The Evil Claw school seems to be one of Japan’s three great schools of sorcery,” I muttered, raising an eyebrow.

…

Pearl Town lay beside the sea, and the thunderous crash of waves could be heard in the distance.

The town was not large, consisting of only two intersecting streets.

It was already deep into the night. Apart from two or three dim streetlamps along the roads, the entire town had been swallowed by darkness.

The moment I entered Pearl Town, I raised an eyebrow. The whole place was shrouded in a dense layer of yin energy, creating an unnerving atmosphere.

The town resembled a dead land, utterly devoid of vitality.

A town with so many residents should not have been like this.

Under such concentrated yin energy, even a living person would soon have the energy invade their body, causing their internal organs to fail and killing them.

“How many people have gone missing in this town over the past few months? How many have died?” I asked Hu Xiaoyu in a low voice.

“Fifty have disappeared, and twenty-five have died. All of them died during the hauntings,” Hu Xiaoyu replied.

“Only twenty-five?” I was somewhat astonished. With yin energy this dense, shouldn’t the death toll have been two hundred and fifty—or even higher?

“Are you saying too few people have died?” Hu Xiaoyu shot me an exasperated glance.

“With yin energy at this concentration, do you think this is normal? Let’s split up. You investigate this street, and I’ll investigate the other.”

“All right.” Hu Xiaoyu nodded.

I headed toward the home of the sea maiden’s uncle.

The sea maiden’s uncle was named Lin Huogen, a name steeped in rustic charm. Yet in Pearl Town, he had been among the first people to become wealthy by raising pearl oysters.

Lin Huogen’s house stood on the town’s eastern street. It was a large villa with an imposing main gate, flanked by two stone lions intended to ward off evil.

The villa had clearly been neglected for a long time. Weeds had overgrown the front courtyard.

I vaulted over the wall and landed in the yard. Through the tightly shut doors of the main hall, I could see a faint light shining from within.

I closed my eyes and sensed the area, but could not detect the slightest trace of life.

In a flash, I appeared before the main entrance. With a gentle push of my hand, the door opened a narrow crack.

Peering through it, I narrowed my eyes. The main hall had been arranged as a mourning hall. The weak light came from the electric funeral candles.

A redwood coffin stood in the center of the hall. Two rows of funeral wreaths flanked it, while on the table at the front rested a black-and-white memorial portrait. The man in the photograph was unmistakably Lin Huogen.

I slipped into the hall. There was no one inside.

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I swept my gaze around the room, then suddenly fixed it on the funeral text spread across the coffin. Beneath it was a date—three months earlier.

In other words, Lin Huogen had died three months ago. Dead was one thing, but he still had not been buried after all this time.

After three months, his corpse should have been severely decomposed. Yet, in fact, I could not smell even the slightest odor of decay.

A thought struck me. I placed my hand on the coffin lid and sent a surge of magic power through it. The lid slid aside.

Looking inside, I saw Lin Huogen lying there, his face covered in black qi. His body had long since grown cold and rigid, yet there was not the slightest sign of decay.

“This corpse is about to rise,” I muttered.

Evil energy had permeated Lin Huogen’s entire body. Since his death, the corpse had remained undecayed. Given a little more time, the possibility of a corpse transformation would be extremely high.

I slapped the coffin lid aside and lifted Lin Huogen’s corpse into the air, setting it down on the floor.

A faint white radiance covered my eyes as I scanned the corpse from head to toe.

“Huh?”

I had discovered something. I turned Lin Huogen’s body over, then flicked my Blood Fiend Blade across his clothes, slicing them open.

My pupils contracted.

On Lin Huogen’s bluish-black back were three tiny black holes arranged in a triangular pattern.

I struck through the air with my palm. Three streaks of black light shot out from the holes and struck the wall with three sharp clangs.

At that very moment, Lin Huogen’s corpse suddenly began to rot at an astonishing speed. In an instant, a foul stench filled the air, and putrid fluid poured from the body.

I held my breath and murmured, “That can’t be right. The degree of decomposition in this corpse is at least a year’s worth.”

But Lin Huogen had still appeared in Sanshui Fishing Village only six months ago.

“Unless he actually died a year ago.” My heart jolted.

I went to the wall and stared at the three pitch-black needles. Evil energy swirled around them.

“What kind of magical artifact is this? Could it be a Japanese cursed weapon?”

I removed the three black needles and wrapped them in a piece of cloth.

Then I glanced at Lin Huogen’s utterly decayed remains, took out a talisman, and tossed it onto the corpse. In an instant, roaring flames engulfed the body and burned it to ash.

I gathered the ashes into a box, placed the box inside the redwood coffin, and sealed the coffin with its lid.

I stood where I was for a long while, deep in thought, then walked out of the villa.

Just then, I heard voices coming from the neighboring house. Instinctively, I concealed my presence and crept beneath the window.

“Little Red, let’s do it,” a man said in a thick local accent.

“You shameless brute. Didn’t we just do it at noon?” a woman replied coyly.

“Noon is noon, and night is night. Heh heh.”

A moment later, the woman cried out in surprise. The large bed began to creak and sway, followed by the sound of heavy breathing.

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