What in the world?!

Lin Sui’an was furious. What was this about Hua Yitang being “next”?

Has he been eating your rice or something?

“Take them down!” Ming Shu and Ming Feng charged forward first, trading blows with the two ghost-masked figures in a flurry of sounds. As for the constables from the Yangdu prefecture yamen — their blades flashed impressively, their battle cries were louder than anyone else’s, yet they hung back at the periphery, circling around like background performers in a drama, completely useless.

Suddenly, Ming Feng let out a yell, spat a mouthful of blood, and went flying sideways. The constables scattered instantly — no longer even bothering with background-performer duty, every man sprinting away as fast as he could.

Nothing to fear but a teammate who brings you down!

Lin Sui’an came flying forward with her blade. “Jin Ruo — stay with me!”

Hua Yitang appeared to shout something, though Lin Sui’an didn’t catch it. She heard Jin Ruo giving chase behind her, but suddenly the light ahead went dark — Ming Shu had been defeated as well, his massive body launching into the air and crashing down toward Lin Sui’an like a falling tree.

With no time to think, Lin Sui’an stepped forward, arms rising to catch him in mid-air — holding Ming Shu in a perfectly executed princess carry. With no time to check his expression, she set him aside without ceremony, pushed off the ground, and launched herself into the air. Qian Jing swept in broad, forceful arcs down toward the Black Ghost mask.

“Clang—” The two blades met in the air, ringing out a shower of sparks. Qian Jing’s dark green blade hummed without cease, yet couldn’t press down even a fraction.

Black Ghost’s feet shifted slightly. Both hands gripping the blade, he flipped it upward — and Lin Sui’an felt a terrifying force surge back along Qian Jing’s blade toward her arms. She was deeply alarmed. Her body went taut and she bounced back, withdrawing the blade and curling her body as she landed, backing three steps — thump thump thump — before barely managing to absorb the force.

The impact of this clash was no less shocking than the moment she’d first discovered she had martial skills. The person before her had strength that matched hers — or exceeded it!

Black Ghost also seemed mildly surprised. He twirled a flourish with his blade, stepped to the side, and studied Lin Sui’an through the mask, a low laugh coming from behind it. “To think this generation’s holder of Qian Jing is a tender little maiden.”

“Rubbish — I am the future holder of Qian Jing!” Jin Ruo’s shout came from somewhere in the distance. Lin Sui’an glanced sideways and saw that Jin Ruo had somehow ended up locked in a fight with Red Ghost at some point. And as bad luck would have it, both of them had the same combat style — slinking, low-to-the-ground attacks, every move targeting vital spots below the waist. At first glance it looked like two mangy dogs brawling in the street, yet the match was perfectly even, and the battle fierce.

If Jin Ruo was giving it everything he had, she couldn’t back down either!

Lin Sui’an shook out her tingling arms and attacked again. This time she stopped meeting force with force — she mentally reviewed the Ten Pure Sect techniques, made a quick decision, and chose “Swift Wind Scattering Autumn Leaves,” a wide-area attack style. She treated Black Ghost as a group of enemies, striking once and shifting positions, fighting like a guerrilla. But this style of attack didn’t suit her body’s instilled muscle memory, making execution feel sluggish. Each time she changed positions, her body would automatically revert to a powerful force-heavy approach, and her agility would dip slightly. Black Ghost immediately caught onto Lin Sui’an’s weakness and seized on that one split-second window — his blade swept horizontally at Lin Sui’an’s neck.

Both were moving at extreme speed. The moment the blade-wind cut through skin, blood droplets were flung into the air like scarlet beads. Lin Sui’an’s pupils contracted sharply; her fingertips went ice-cold. A surging killing intent flooded up from within her, and her body moved on its own — both hands gripping Qian Jing in a frenzied series of wild slashes.

But this was exactly what Black Ghost had wanted. His strength matched hers. His combat experience was far richer. Three rapid slashes broke apart her attack; Lin Sui’an felt her arms stiffen, Qian Jing nearly flew from her grip, and in the flash of blade-light before her eyes, she was a hair’s breadth from being cut in two by Black Ghost.

At that life-or-death instant, a dazzling rain of golden radiance fell from above — a shower of gold leaf pieces. Even in the midst of bloodlust, Black Ghost couldn’t help but be momentarily startled at the sudden sight of so much gold. In that one moment of distraction, Ming Shu and Ming Feng charged in and intercepted Black Ghost’s blade. Lin Sui’an escaped death by a hairsbreadth, staggering back several steps, soaked in sweat, her entire body going weak.

That strange debilitating exhaustion had appeared again — and at the worst possible moment!

“Lin Sui’an — hold on! Reinforcements are on their way!” came a shout from above. Hua Yitang, who had apparently climbed up the big tree at some point, had just been throwing those gold leaves.

Lin Sui’an nearly choked on her own blood. What was this spendthrift wastrel doing?!

Miraculously, the moment she did spit out that mouthful of blood, the exhaustion lifted somewhat.

Ming Shu and Ming Feng were already injured, and after no more than five exchanges they were clearly at a disadvantage. What made it worse was that Jin Ruo was also faltering, his face growing whiter by the moment. Hua Yitang clearly saw this, and dug another fistful of gold leaves from his robes, flinging them wildly into the air. “Whoever helps me seize the criminals — the Hua Family shall reward them handsomely!”

The effect was extraordinary. The constables who had been hiding at the periphery came surging back all at once, as if injected with fighting spirit, and surrounded the two ghost-masked figures — barely managing to hold the situation.

Shouts rang out from the street. Elder Zhang led the way, and Ling Zhiyan came charging in with a squad of yamen clerks, heading for Black Ghost. Lin Sui’an’s spirits lifted. She reversed direction and drove into the fight around Red Ghost. Jin Ruo and the constables had long since been worn down to nothing; when they saw Lin Sui’an arrive, they were overjoyed and cleared a path for her to take the lead. Lin Sui’an sent Qian Jing spinning in an airtight weave of strikes, layering the pressure on Red Ghost. Only when she fought him directly did she realize that Red Ghost’s fighting style was nearly identical to Jin Ruo’s — but more practiced and more difficult to pin down, crafty and nimble, and as the battle ground on, he steadily retreated, edging back toward the Nine Initial River.

“Cut off the retreat — he’s trying to run!” Jin Ruo roared, and was the first to block Red Ghost’s escape route behind him. Lin Sui’an saw his pallid face and crimson eyes and had already guessed at the reason.

Jin Ruo knew Red Ghost. He’d been unable to take him down — likely because of the psychological weight of it.

But if Red Ghost was from the Ten Purity Sect, there was a way to handle this. Lin Sui’an narrowed her eyes. Her blade-work grew faster and faster, and she focused her full attention on Red Ghost’s footwork. Within five or six exchanges, she had identified a pattern. She suddenly unleashed a violent sweeping slash, the ferocious blade-wind ringing through the air with a loud hum.

A large, wild strike like this would naturally fail to land on the nimble Red Ghost — but it was designed to slow Lin Sui’an’s own blade speed. For Red Ghost, this was the perfect moment to escape. Red Ghost was not about to let it pass: his body went nearly flat to the ground and came cutting in, the short blade blazing toward Lin Sui’an’s ankles.

Right here. Predicting your prediction.

Stance break!

The instant Lin Sui’an’s feet left the ground in a leap, Qian Jing had already dropped onto Red Ghost’s attack path — and with a crack, it severed Red Ghost’s wrist. The bloody hand and Red Ghost fell to the ground together, and the constables swarmed in, pinning Red Ghost down.

“Ming Feng!” Suddenly, across the way, Ling Zhiyan let out a fierce shout. Lin Sui’an snapped her head around just in time to see Ling Zhiyan shield Ming Feng, taking a blow from Black Ghost that sent him staggering. Black Ghost plunged headfirst into the Nine Initial River and vanished without a trace.

Ling Zhiyan’s face went black with fury. He directed every constable and yamen clerk to dive into the river to search — but there was nothing to search for anymore.

Hua Yitang shimmied down the tree trunk with both arms and legs, dusted off his robes, and walked up to the tightly bound Red Ghost. He reached out to lift the ghost mask. “Let’s see what kind of ghost you really—oh?”

Jin Ruo was faster than him. He split the mask open with a dagger, eyes red and wide with rage. “Just as I thought — it’s you.”

Beneath the mask was the flatbread vendor who had led Lin Sui’an to her destination the first time they’d met.

This was Lin Sui’an’s third time entering the prefecture yamen’s jail — and for the first time, not as a suspect, but as an investigator.

Ming Shu and Ming Feng had encountered the carriage on their way back from investigating Qi Yuansheng. The carriage had been charging through the streets recklessly, nearly running into passersby. They had thought it suspicious and went to question it — only for two ghost-masked figures to burst out of the compartment and drive the horse into a wild gallop. If they hadn’t run into Lin Sui’an, they surely would never have stopped them.

The flatbread vendor was bound with iron chains to a post. His severed wrist had been treated, and for now there was no threat to his life — he was a key suspect, after all; under no circumstances could he be allowed to die.

Ling Zhiyan frowned and studied the household registration records in his hands, which listed the flatbread vendor’s true identity.

“Wang Hao. Ancestral home: Zuan County, Henan Circuit. Arrived in Yangdu with the refugee flow ten years ago and settled here. Residence: No. 320, Manzi Lane, South Cloud Ward. Occupation: flatbread vendor. Age: thirty-six. Unmarried. No children.” Ling Zhiyan closed the scroll, his gaze piercing. “Though from the look of things, your identity is far more than this, isn’t it?”

Wang Hao ignored him entirely. He only squinted sideways at Jin Ruo. “I never in a thousand years expected to be taken down by your hands.”

Lin Sui’an thought: Hey now, I was the main combat force here.

Jin Ruo’s face was deathly pale, fists clenched white.

Elder Zhang limped forward on a twisted ankle — he’d wrenched it running to the yamen for reinforcements, and it was now swollen like a steamed bun, but he hadn’t stopped to get it treated. His face was even more ashen than Jin Ruo’s. He bowed to Ling Zhiyan with clasped hands and said, “If we truthfully disclose this person’s background, might we ask Inspector Ling to show some leniency — and not pursue our other members?”

Ling Zhiyan’s brow furrowed. He was about to speak when Hua Yitang touched his shoulder with the folded fan.

“We only want to know information relevant to this case,” Hua Yitang said. “As for other people, other matters — as long as they’re unrelated to this case, we have no interest in asking and no desire to pursue them.”

Ling Zhiyan gave Hua Yitang a disapproving stare. Hua Yitang raised his fan to cover his face and quietly said in his ear, “That escaped Black Ghost figure is clearly a high-level martial artist. In all of Yangdu, the only person capable of going toe-to-toe with him is Lin Sui’an — and you’ve seen for yourself that her connection with these people is not simple. Antagonize them and you antagonize her. The moment Lin Sui’an decides to drop everything and walk away, this case becomes permanently unsolvable. How would you answer to the Court of Judicial Review?”

Ling Zhiyan: “You—”

“You what? If it came to a one-on-one fight, you’d need three of yourself tied together before you could take on Lin Sui’an. How else do you think Black Ghost got away? Because you weren’t enough.”

“I—”

“You and I have both seen how Lin Sui’an’s temper works — she flips at the drop of a hat, and when she goes, she goes completely, doesn’t care who you are. Are you sure you want to set her off?”

“Ling the Sixth, be a bit more flexible about these things. As long as the case gets cracked, you take a bow and walk away — leave the remaining mess for Zhou Changping to deal with.”

The prefecture jail was built with black stone walls from floor to ceiling, which had the effect of amplifying every sound. These two’s “quiet conspiring” filled the entire room with a natural echo effect and was heard by everyone perfectly clearly.

The few prison guards nearby wished they could stuff their heads into the floor. Ming Shu and Ming Feng let their eyes drift to the side, pretending they hadn’t heard a thing. Jin Ruo and Elder Zhang’s expressions grew extraordinarily complicated.

Lin Sui’an felt her entire sense of self destabilize.

Listening to this, she somehow sounded like a completely unreasonable thug.

Ling Zhiyan’s expression darkened two more shades, making him look like a rotten cabbage that had developed a worm problem. After a long silence, he finally nodded. “Very well — we’ll follow what Fourth Young Master says.”

Hua Yitang fanned himself. “Elder Zhang — go ahead.”

“Wang Hao is a member of the Ten Purity Sect,” Elder Zhang said.

“The Ten Purity Sect?” Ling Zhiyan’s expression shifted slightly. “Was the person who escaped also a Ten Purity Sect member? Who was he? What about the charred corpse? And were the earlier murders also carried out by the two of you?!”

Wang Hao spat out a mouthful of saliva. “Capable of it? Then kill me.”

“Chief Inspector, it seems this man will say nothing without being subjected to punishment,” Ming Feng said, drawing his blade to carve a piece of flesh out of Wang Hao. Ling Zhiyan grabbed him at once: “No unauthorized use of punishment!”

“Chief Inspector!”

“He wants to die. Torturing him only plays into his hands.” Lin Sui’an glanced at Jin Ruo: If you want to clear the Ten Purity Sect’s name, you need to get him to talk.

Jin Ruo’s pupils blazed with a sudden, intense flicker. He stepped forward half a pace and stared at Wang Hao in silence for a long moment before speaking. “The escaped figure with the black ghost mask stands eight chi and three cun tall, weighs a hundred and seventy jin, with a waist circumference of over four chi. No one in the Sect matches this person’s build. He is not a Ten Purity Sect member.”

Wang Hao: “To think that the Ten Purity Sect’s ancestral art of tracking and tracing, passed down for generations, would be used today by the Acting Sect Leader to serve the lackeys of officialdom. If the old Sect Leader knew, he would be furious enough to come back from the dead.”

Jin Ruo: “If the old Sect Leader knew you had betrayed the Ten Purity Sect and sold the movements of Qian Jing’s holder to the authorities — he would die all over again from the fury.”

“What kind of holder of Qian Jing is a girl who still smells of milk?” Wang Hao sneered.

With those words, both Jin Ruo and Elder Zhang’s expressions changed. Wang Hao had effectively just admitted he was the one who had sold Lin Sui’an out.

So Wang Hao was the mole inside the Ten Purity Sect — not Qi Yuansheng. Something Lin Sui’an couldn’t quite name rose in her heart. Had the direction of their earlier deductions been wrong?

“Why?!” Jin Ruo’s eyes were red and burning. “You entered the Ten Purity Sect at thirteen. You followed the old Sect Leader for twenty years. You now hold the position of Fifth Elder. I learned my skills from you — and though you never let me call you Shifu, in my heart I had long considered you to be—”

“Because I have grown too disillusioned with the Ten Purity Sect,” Wang Hao said coldly. “The Sect’s creed: root out the powerful, protect the weak, be a blessing to the people. But what has the Ten Purity Sect been doing these ten years? Running food stalls, selling flatbread, selling noodles, selling information, scraping by — no better than rats in a gutter!”

“Living peacefully, withdrawing from the world of conflict — that was the rule set by the old Sect Leader ten years ago—!” Elder Zhang shouted.

“He was unfit to be Sect Leader, and Jin Ruo is even more unfit! You sit and watch the people of Yangdu suffer in misery, yet you look away and do nothing. You treat the Ten Purity Sect’s founding creed as a scrap of paper! I haven’t betrayed the Ten Purity Sect — you are the ones who have betrayed it!”

Jin Ruo’s body lurched violently. Lin Sui’an quickly steadied him with a hand, feeling that he was shaking all over, his lips pale — clearly Wang Hao’s words had rattled him badly.

“Oh, I see now,” Hua Yitang said, putting on his most infuriatingly gleeful smile and tapping his fan. “So the figure in the black ghost mask was saying loud and clear that he wants to kill me — perhaps because in your view, the root cause of the misery the people of Yangdu have been suffering… is me?”

Lin Sui’an’s eye twitched: What is this wastrel stirring up now?

Side Skit

Hua Yitang: Everyone stand back — provoking people is my specialty.