Chapter 152: Chapter 152
Back when the child-snatcher cases were rampant in the outer city, how many parents who’d lost their children had knelt before the yamen gates, weeping and wailing, begging for the culprits to be found?
The constables had talked a big game about issuing warrants and launching manhunts — but in practice, it was all thunder and no rain. Not a shred of real action.
To claim the Luo clan knew nothing would be self-deception.
Even if they hadn’t dirtied their own hands, they had most certainly turned a blind eye and tacitly allowed the whole affair to proceed.
‘No matter what role the Luo clan played — one look at my Intelligence will tell me the truth.’
With that thought, Shen Xiuhan was about to call up the system —
When Tang Jin, seeing his prolonged silence, panicked. Fearing Shen Xiuhan meant to cut the grass and dig up the root, his expression went fierce. He ground out:
“Master Shen, I know another earth-shattering secret!”
Shen Xiuhan’s thoughts paused. He half-raised an eyelid and glanced at the man.
Tang Jin’s chest heaved violently, his throat bobbing, visibly wrestling with himself.
Shen Xiuhan didn’t push. He simply waited.
In the unnerving silence, Tang Jin’s lips moved once, twice — then closed. Finally, he threw caution to the wind.
“Master Shen — your father’s death… was Bai Fufeng’s doing!”
BOOM.
Shen Xiuhan’s face transformed.
A killing intent so dense it was nearly solid erupted from his body — sweeping outward like a cold front, blanketing Tang Jin from head to toe.
The very wind seemed to freeze.
“Every word. Every detail. The truth.”
Shen Xiuhan’s voice was quiet, but it came as though drifting up from the depths of the Nine Abysses.
Tang Jin’s whole body shuddered. He felt as though he’d been plunged into an ice cellar. Cold sweat poured down his back.
He didn’t dare hold back an ounce. Swallowing hard, he recounted — word for word — what Bai Fufeng had said upon arriving at the island that day.
Shen Xiuhan listened in silence. When it was done, the five fingers resting on Cold Granary clenched tight. His voice rang like frozen iron.
“So what you’re saying is… Bai Fufeng was passing through the outer city, saw an old fisherman’s daughter, killed the man, took the girl back for pill-refining — and my father happened to witness it. Bai Fufeng, afraid of exposure, beat him to death?”
Tang Jin stole a glance, then lowered his eyes and nodded.
“That’s what Bai Fufeng said…”
Bai Fufeng…
The Bai family!
Shen Xiuhan drew a deep breath. River wind flooded his lungs, carrying the salt-tang of water.
He pressed the churning killing intent back down, inch by inch. His gaze shifted to Tang Jin, and his voice leveled out.
“Give me an identity token. Something that lets me board Dongyi Island without being questioned or tracked.”
“Uh…”
Tang Jin blinked. He clearly hadn’t expected this request, and he hesitated.
“A token’s a small thing, but… the island’s defense is tight, patrols are constant. And your likeness — yours and Ji Ning’s — is already posted on the bounty boards there. Every guard knows your face. If you go in rashly, you’ll be recognized on the spot.”
“I have my own way.”
Shen Xiuhan’s tone was flat but brooked no argument.
“Well… all right.”
Tang Jin bit down, his eyes darting. He ventured:
“I don’t have the token on me. I’d have to go back to the island to get it. When I do… I’ll bring it to you in Changyun. How’s that?”
Shen Xiuhan looked at him. His gaze was calm as still water — yet seemed to pierce through skin and bone, all the way to the marrow.
He understood the man’s concern.
Tang Jin was afraid that once the token changed hands, Shen Xiuhan would turn around and kill him, then take the head to the yamen for the bounty.
The excuse of “going back to the island to fetch it” was just a lifeline for himself.
Honestly, Shen Xiuhan did want to put a sword through him.
Kill Tang Jin. Use the Tortoise-Breath Phantom-Face Art to wear his face. Waltz onto Dongyi Island. Then find an opportunity to seize the Diaohailou true disciple’s inheritance.
That would be the simplest, most direct approach.
Unfortunately…
He could change his face, but he couldn’t regrow Tang Jin’s missing right arm.
So he’d have to settle for second-best: secure a usable identity, then plan the island incursion from there.
Shen Xiuhan withdrew his gaze.
“Three days. Have it to me.”
Tang Jin looked as though he’d been pardoned from the executioner’s block. He clasped his fist again and again.
“It won’t be late, Master Shen — you have my word!”
Shen Xiuhan nodded. He was turning to leave when his steps halted. He beckoned.
“Come here.”
Tang Jin blinked, puzzled, but obeyed and stepped forward.
Shen Xiuhan raised a fingertip — a wisp of Hidden Strength coiling around it — and tapped it against Tang Jin’s body.
“Do your job. Don’t think about running.”
Footsteps faded. The blue robe dissolved into the dusk.
Tang Jin stood rooted, watching the empty mouth of the alley, his expression cycling through a dozen shades.
He drew a deep breath, then sent his Hidden Strength surging through every corner of his body — dantian, meridians, limbs, viscera — searching with painstaking care. He found nothing.
The force that had entered him had vanished without a trace, like a clay ox sinking into the sea.
But the less he found, the colder the dread grew.
At length.
Tang Jin spat a gob of blood-flecked saliva and let out a long sigh.
“So be it…”
…
On the street.
Shen Xiuhan walked homeward, murmuring inwardly.
‘Intelligence!’
【Today’s Intelligence has refreshed!】
【Intelligence 1: Luo clan patriarch Luo Changming is acting under covert instructions from Fury-Sea School Elder Pei Zu — deliberately ignoring the Bai family’s mass abduction of children. In exchange, when the Luo clan moves to annex the Ji and Han families’ estates, trading houses, and river fleets, the Fury-Sea School will lend its support.】
Of course!
Shen Xiuhan laughed coldly inside. The Luo clan was dirty, all right.
They hadn’t snatched children with their own hands, no. But Luo Changming was the County Magistrate of Changyun — charged with law, order, and the safety of the people.
Yet for the sake of swallowing the Ji and Han families’ holdings, he had willingly shut his eyes and plugged his ears, turning the outer city’s children into bargaining chips.
Aiding and abetting evil. No better than the rest.
And the one pulling his strings — a Fury-Sea School elder.
Shen Xiuhan’s brow tightened. His contempt for the sect deepened.
‘Heirs of Diaohailou’s Abyssal-Dark Peak — bearers of an orthodox ancient lineage. Forget upholding the righteous path — they can’t even be bothered to look the other way quietly. They’re actively orchestrating the cover-up. No better than the filth they shelter.’
Shen Xiuhan had considered himself, in a sense, one of Diaohailou’s inheritors.
He’d been inclined to view the Fury-Sea School — a sect founded by Diaohailou descendants — with a measure of goodwill.
As it turned out, the sentiment was entirely wasted.
Shen Xiuhan snorted inwardly, and his thoughts turned again.
‘And the Luo clan’s appetite is enormous — plotting to devour not just the Ji clan, but the Han clan too.’
The Han clan lacked a Transforming Strength pillar. On the surface, their strength in Changyun was hardly top-tier. But behind them stood the Han family of Xinyi Commandery.
A genuine noble house.
Moving against the Changyun Hans was a slap across the Xinyi Hans’ face. They wouldn’t let it slide.
‘Wait…’
A thought clicked, and clarity broke through.
‘That’s exactly it. The Luo clan fears Xinyi’s retaliation — so they’ve hitched themselves to the Fury-Sea School as a backer.’
Link by link, each side getting what it needed.
The Bai family did the abducting. The Luo clan provided cover. The Fury-Sea School held the umbrella from behind. Three houses, hand in hand, treating Changyun County as their private garden.
Pick whatever flower they liked. Pull up whatever root they pleased.
And those innocent children…
Were nothing more than the cheapest chips on the table.