The sun rises in the east, but it is difficult to see the light.
Chapter Sixty-Two
The carriage swayed, and the sounds of crying gradually filled the air. Zhou Yulin slowly opened her eyes.
"Waaaaah, I'm so young! I don't want to go into the city lord's mansion. I heard that the city lord has a blue face and fangs, and he's terrifying. If I go in and make a mistake, I could lose my life."
"Shh, do you want to die? Discussing the city lord is forbidden in Jinyang City. How many heads do you have?"
"Yeah, yeah, she's just going in to be a maid, not someone's personal maid. Why are you so concerned about your master's affairs?" The group whispered among themselves.
The carriage stopped shortly afterward, and Zhou Yulin and the others were ushered off by the steward. "Is it already evening?" Zhou Yulin looked up, somewhat surprised. Just now, through the window, she had seen that it was still noon. "This is noon in Jinyang City." The woman beside her glanced at the dark and gloomy city and reminded her, "You should ask less of these ignorant questions in the future."
The woman looked her up and down. "My name is Cuiyun. What's your name?"
Zhou Yulin replied, "Zhou Zhao."
Cuiyun gave Zhou Yulin a strange look and muttered softly, "How come it has the same name as my goddess's nickname?" Her voice was very soft, but it still reached Zhou Yulin's ears.
The carriage stopped at the city gate. It seemed that the person in charge stepped forward and handed the documents to the soldiers. Zhou Yulin was instructed to keep her head down, but when she brushed past the soldiers to enter the city, she still felt demonic energy on them. After the documents were issued, the gate slowly opened.
A wave of overwhelming demonic energy washed over them. Zhou Yulin frowned, finally realizing the gravity of the situation in Jinyang City. This was no ordinary demon; it was at least a lord-level demon, equivalent to a cultivator at the Great Perfection of the Nascent Soul stage.
As Zhou Yulin secretly observed her surroundings, the supervisor noticed Cuiyun looking around suspiciously. "Hey! Did I tell you to look up?"
Cuiyun immediately knelt down and begged for forgiveness, "I was wrong, I was wrong, I will never dare to do it again next time."
The steward frowned, glanced at Cuiyun, and said, "Fine, if you didn't resemble that person so much, you wouldn't deserve to die today."
Zhou Yulin quickly grasped the key words: that person, which person?
The city lord's mansion was in the east of the city. The group walked for a while before arriving. There was no one on the street. Jinyang City was eerily like a ghost town.
The city lord's mansion is probably where ghosts live.
The mansion appeared to be newly built, but for some reason it was located opposite a mass grave. Just a few steps from the door was the mass grave.
As the manager led the group inside, the pungent, heavy smell of blood made the women turn pale and feel nauseous.
"Ahhh!" The woman must have stepped on something. She looked down and saw that it was half an arm. She was so scared that she almost fainted.
"What are you yelling about?" The manager calmly kicked the severed arm into the bushes beside him. "If you don't do a good job, this is what will happen to you."
"No wonder the price was so high. I thought it was a good job, but it turns out it's money to buy your life." A low sob came from behind Zhou Yulin. Among the group, Zhou Yulin was the most composed.
Therefore, when the supervisor redistributed tasks, it was Zhou Yulin's turn last. "You, you're brave enough, so you can follow behind the master and serve him!" Although Zhou Yulin was a little surprised, she nodded calmly.
After assigning tasks to several people, the steward went on and on with a long list of instructions, such as that the master disliked noise and preferred quiet, that one must walk quietly at night, and that the master was a light sleeper, so waking him up might result in his neck being snapped. Zhou Yulin found these rules and regulations daunting, let alone memorizing them.
Fortunately, the person in charge didn't seem to expect them to remember, and waved them off to their respective posts.
Zhou Yulin, who remained where she was, met the manager's gaze. "Come with me."
"As servants, we still need to remind you a few things: don't think that just because you're beautiful, you can seduce your master."
The manager's words were pointed, and Zhou Yulin lowered her head, replying, "I dare not have such thoughts."
The steward was relieved. "See that severed arm? That's what happened to that maid who broke the rules."
Zhou Yulin nodded in agreement, and in his heart, he gained another impression of this city lord he had never met before: fierce and cruel.
The city lord's mansion was dimly lit and gloomy, with only a few streetlights. Zhou Yulin followed behind the steward and saw some maids, but they were all in a hurry. The steward stopped in front of the Fengyue Pavilion. "I'll see you off here. You can go in by yourself from here on." The steward's eyes darted around, unwilling to talk to Zhou Yulin any longer, and he ran away as if he were seeing her off, not like he was leading the way.
Zhou Yulin sensed that the demon inside was a lord-level demon. After hesitating for a few seconds, she withdrew all her spiritual power and stepped into the Fengyue Pavilion. As soon as she closed the door, a powerful demonic aura pressed down behind her. The newcomer did not appear, but a cold voice fell first, "Newcomer?" The tone was completely flat, like that of a dead person.
Zhou Yulin immediately bowed tremblingly and replied, "This humble servant has come here to serve the master as instructed by the steward."
The voice remained silent for a long time before commanding, "There's a corpse in the room on the left. Bury it for me."
Goodness, no wonder they need someone brave.
Zhou Yulin thought it would be some kind of tea-serving or water-carrying job, but it turned out they were looking for a burial worker.
An ordinary person would have been terrified, but Zhou Yulin, who was used to life and death, was not afraid, but felt a little creeped out.
She continued to feign fear, trembling as she said, "Yes, sir, I understand."
A shovel fell in front of Zhou Yulin, the meaning of which was self-evident.
Zhou Yulin picked up a shovel and went into the guest room on the left. As soon as she pushed the door open, a female corpse came into view. The woman looked to be in her forties. Before she died, she was still tightly clutching something in her hand. When Zhou Yulin got closer, she found that it was half a piece of black cloth, which looked like someone's clothes. She dragged the person out, but felt that something was not right.
There were no signs of demonic attack on this person.
She bent down and saw bloodstains on the woman's chest.
Just like his own death years ago, he died from an arrow piercing his heart.
After dragging the person to the backyard, Zhou Yulin picked up a shovel and dug a large pit.
Just as they finished burying the person, a figure covered them up, and silently, the demon appeared.
Zhou Yulin's heart was pounding, and her palms were sweating. But the demon seemed to have done nothing; he simply stood there for a long time.
Just as Zhou Yulin felt her legs were about to go numb from standing, the person behind her silently left.
For some reason, Zhou Yulin had sensed a touch of sadness in the air just now. Zhou Yulin completely filled the hole with soil with a shovel, thought for a moment, then found a wooden board in the room, dipped it in ink, and prepared to write a few large characters.
Just as he was hesitating, that cold voice slowly came, "Dongfang Min."
"Her name."
Zhou Yulin wrote the name neatly on the wooden board—"Tomb of Dongfang Minzhi".
"Everything is done." Zhou Yulin picked up the shovel, and the voice, like a persistent ghost, said, "Clean up a bit, and make me a pot of tea. Not too hot, not too cold, the best Longjing tea."
There's a lot going on.
Zhou Yulin has hardly ever served anyone. She's definitely a top fighter, but when it comes to serving others, she's really not good at it.
She carefully considered in her mind that she needed to know the current situation so that she could make predictions about the future.
This is her greatest advantage, and also her only advantage.
The earliest news of the fall of Jinyang City reportedly arrived two months after the actual capture. The news was tightly sealed off by those within the city, and by the time my senior brother led his men there, the city was said to be entirely under the control of the demon race. The team that went was commanded by our master in a time of crisis; it consisted of elite disciples from the Xuanling Sect, and no one could have imagined that they would be completely wiped out. Even the news was delayed in reaching the outside world.
It wasn't until one of the disciples' soul lamps went out that the master realized something was wrong.
It took another half month to count from beginning to end, so Zhou Yulin realized that although the events in Jinyang City seemed ordinary, there must be someone behind the scenes stirring things up, and a powerful expert deliberately concealing the truth.
What secrets are hidden within Jinyang City?
Zhou Yulin had never heard of this small place before.
Oh, she suddenly remembered; she had actually heard it once before. Her senior brother had mentioned that he was from Jinyang City. Before he was six years old, before being sent to the Xuanling Sect, her senior brother had grown up in Jinyang City.
Zhou Yulin quickly brewed the tea, but unfortunately she soon realized that she didn't know where the city lord lived.
Just as she was hesitating in the courtyard with her tea, she heard a man's deep, cold voice beside her, "Turn left, go straight, I'm in the room on the left."
"This person is like a ghost," Zhou Yulin thought to herself.
If it weren't for the fact that people have shadows, she would have thought that this person had simply evolved into thin air.
Zhou Yulin gently knocked on the door. For some reason, her palms started sweating as soon as she realized she was about to meet this person face to face. This was a demon above the lord level! How long had it been since she had seen a demon? She had almost forgotten.
"Come in." The man's deep voice was very pleasant to hear. For some reason, Zhou Yulin felt that the voice sounded somewhat familiar. It was probably because it was so different from the person she knew. So, it was just a thought, and it quickly vanished like a bubble.
She lowered her head, pushed open the door, and a chilling wind swept in. The room was dark because there were no candles lit, and one could not see their fingers.
Zhou Yulin carefully carried the tea, afraid that she might step on something she shouldn't.
"Put it on the table, you can go now." In the darkness, the voice seemed to linger in every corner of the room.
You really can't do this job without a certain level of mental fortitude. Zhou Yulin didn't see the so-called city lord, so she put down her tea and left the room.
Once she stepped out of the room, Zhou Yulin's heart, which had been hanging in suspense, gradually calmed down. Although she didn't see anyone, the magic testing stone on her chest was burning hot.
This wasn't just a lord-level demon; it had reached the level of a demon king. Zhou Yulin lowered her eyes, her palms sweating profusely.
How could a demon king-level being have entered Jinyang City without a sound?
If the barrier wasn't broken, how did the demon get in?
Zhou Yulin was lost in thought for a moment, and only came to her senses when she bumped into someone as she walked out the door. "I'm sorry." Zhou Yulin was about to help the other person up when she saw that the other person looked distressed and as if she was about to cry at any moment. "Sister, I don't want to die, can you save me?"
The maid looked similar to Zhou Yulin, also a newcomer. She stood there hunched over, her face ashen. "The manager wants me to deliver food to the dungeon, but the dungeon is full of dangers. I heard that thirteen maids have died this month. I don't want to die."
Zhou Yulin met the maid's hopeful gaze. The maid gripped her hand tightly. "Could you make a trip to the dungeon for me?"
After a few seconds of silence, Zhou Yulin replied, "Okay."
The maid couldn't hide the excitement on her face, but then Zhou Yulin called out to her, asking, "What time is it now?" The maid paused, afraid that Zhou Yulin had changed his mind, but she didn't expect that he just wanted to ask for the time, and she couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.
Following the maid's instructions, Zhou Yulin quickly obtained the food and headed towards the dungeon.
In October of the 548th year of the Celestial Calendar, Senior Brother had been in the city for over a month. In his previous life, Senior Brother had just entered the city when he was ambushed. The timing matched up, and Zhou Yulin thought that this person was probably in the dungeon now.
Therefore, she would certainly not let this opportunity slip by.
As expected, Zhou Yulin successfully fooled the guards and entered the damp and dark dungeon.
You could hear the echo of each step you took.
Amidst the roars of ferocious beasts and the cries of the living, she calmly continued forward amidst these echoes.
With a whoosh, the lamps lit up. The dungeon contained cultivators from Jinyang City as well as ferocious beasts. Zhou Yulin followed the directions given by the maid without looking to the side and arrived at a room in the corner.
A person was sitting on the pile of straw. Unfortunately, Zhou Yulin could not tell from the back that it was her senior brother. She put down her food and was about to leave when she heard the person recite a poem in a low voice: "Heaven has endowed me with talents that must be put to use, not just straw pillows and a bed."
Zhou Yulin looked up at the figure's back and still reminded him, "Dinner's ready."
The man slowly turned around. His frizzy hair was tangled, but one could still vaguely see that he used to wear a hair crown. His fox-like eyes widened suddenly when he saw the newcomer, as if in disbelief, and he was almost about to exclaim in surprise.
Zhou Yulin was also somewhat surprised. She glanced at Linghu Miao, who was extremely down on his luck but still maintained his charming demeanor, and raised an eyebrow. "Second Senior Brother."
Linghu Miao burst into tears of joy. She hadn't expected her junior sister to appear here. While she was overjoyed, she was also filled with worry. So, the words of concern she was asking turned into a question: "How did you end up here? Who let you come? Do you know how dangerous this place is?"
At that time, the second senior brother had been missing for more than a year, but Zhou Yulin never thought that this person had actually been to Jinyang City during his disappearance.
Remembering what Yu Yao'er had said to her, Zhou Yulin looked at Linghu Miao with some extra emotion in her eyes, "Where have you been for more than a year?" These were the words Zhou Yulin had imagined saying a thousand times in her mind.
"Second Senior Brother, I've been looking for you for a long time." With just one simple sentence, Linghu Miao's anger was extinguished without a trace.
"I'm sorry." Linghu Miao forced a smile. "My second senior brother had some things to attend to and was afraid of implicating you, so he left."
Seeing Zhou Yulin's tearful eyes, Linghu Miao, who never felt sorry for a woman's tears, felt a pang of guilt. "Don't cry, Junior Sister. I'm just missing, not dead. I'm still alive and well."
Linghu Miao had just offered a few words of comfort when Zhou Yulin burst into tears, choking out, "You might as well be dead."
Linghu Miao touched his nose guiltily, "If you had told me earlier that you wanted your senior brother to die, I would have written you a will before I left."
Zhou Yulin wiped away her tears and quickly recovered. "Write it down, write it down that you want to leave the right to inherit the throne to me."
Linghu Miao blinked, somewhat surprised. "You knew all along?"
Zhou Yulin sneered, "Senior brother, are you still trying to hide it from me and inherit your family's multi-million dollar throne?"
Linghu Miao muttered, "That big mouth of mine, Master!"
"Not my master."
"Huh?" This time it was Linghu Miao's turn to be a little surprised.
"You told me yourself that you'll become an idiot in the future."
Junior Sister's ability to curse was as strong as ever, leaving Linghu Miao both amused and exasperated. She could only respond irritably, "Fine, fine, that's how you bully your second senior brother. It's truly disheartening—"
“Abandoning your sister and brother, Second Senior Brother, you are the one who is heartbreaking.” Zhou Yulin glanced at Linghu Miao. The young man’s fox-like eyes were smiling, and he had a gentle demeanor. There was no trace of sadness in his eyes. He even touched his chest and said with great self-righteousness, “Without Second Senior Brother’s hard work and dedication, you would not have grown up to be this big.”
"Tell me, how did you get arrested?" Zhou Yulin looked at her second senior brother, who was huddled together. He said calmly, "It was an accident. I heard that there was a woman in Jinyang City who was very accurate at fortune telling, so I came to ask her. Unexpectedly, I witnessed the crime scene and got arrested."
"What was that woman's name?"
Linghu Miao answered without hesitation, “Dongfang Min, Dongfang as in the sunrise in the east, and Min as in keenness.”
Dongfang Min?!
Zhou Yulin frowned. Wasn't that the name of the female corpse he had just buried?
Linghu Miao noticed that her junior sister's expression was off and asked, "What's wrong?"
“I just buried a woman with the same name.”
Linghu Miao's lips twitched, and he still struggled to ask, "Died from an arrow through the heart?"
Zhou Yulin nodded, "Yes, and he looks to be around forty years old, with a lot of calluses on his hands."
Linghu Miao closed her eyes, unwilling to believe the truth. "One of us witnessed the murder, and the other helped bury the body. Junior sister, we have no face to go back to see our senior brother."
Zhou Yulin found this strange; how did this get involved with her senior brother again?
“Your senior brother is from Jinyang City.” Zhou Yulin nodded; she knew this.
"Do you know that your mother was alive before your senior brother was sent up the mountain?" Zhou Yulin had never heard of this before. She had never heard Xuan Qingxian talk about his family. Even when he was drunk, your senior brother still maintained his composure and never overstepped his bounds.
Back then, there were rumors that the eldest brother was the master's illegitimate son.
However, Zhou Yulin never believed these rumors.
"The eldest brother's mother was Master's first love. The two were betrothed since childhood, but their relationship became distant after the birth of the eldest brother. This woman's surname is Dongfang, and her given name is Min."
The moment the words were spoken, Zhou Yulin froze on the spot, her hands and feet turning ice cold.
Outside the dungeon, the first snowflake fell in the cold wind, swaying and landing on the wooden sign, slowly blurring the three characters "Dongfang Min".
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