The city lord, his face grim, looked around and muttered under his breath, "Could it be..."
As if he had thought of something, he hurriedly drew a formation on the ground. When the formation was completed, the sound of mechanisms turning echoed from the mountain. A secret room appeared halfway up the mountain, and the city lord leaped into it.
The moment the door opened, the stronger stench in the air made Yin Ming even more convinced that there was definitely something wrong with this secret room.
Yin Ming made no further move, but instead repeatedly copied the formation that the city lord had just drawn in his mind.
About three minutes later, the city lord came out of the secret room, his face increasingly grim.
He looked around repeatedly, and finally simply closed his eyes.
Yin Ming knew that he was carefully sensing the surrounding situation. Although his cultivation level was one level higher than his, he still couldn't help but hold his breath and concentrate.
The city lord, of course, could not sense Yin Ming's presence. His brows furrowed even more as he sped towards the city.
Yin Ming and his companion waited in place for a few minutes to make sure the city lord wouldn't return before emerging from the bushes where they were hiding.
Yin Ming stood on the open ground where the city lord had been standing and began to try to depict the formation that the city lord had just drawn.
Damn it, the city lord's painting was so fluid and skillful just now, but when he tried it himself, it was nothing at all.
Eyes: I can see clearly now.
Brain: I've got it.
Hand: You two are talking nonsense!
Is it like this? Or like this? It seems, perhaps, that's how it should be?
Lingyao raised his hand to stop Yin Ming's movement, signaling him to come over.
Yin Ming then saw him quickly form hand seals, and the pattern he drew flashed with light, symbolizing the completion of the formation. The door to the secret chamber on the mountain also opened.
Yin Ming silently gave him a thumbs up. Impressive!
Without further ado, Yin Ming grabbed Ling Yao's hand and flew into the secret chamber in the mountains.
As soon as the two entered the secret room, the door closed automatically, and the oil lamps on both sides of the passage were lit automatically, their flickering candlelight barely enough to see the way ahead.
The increasingly strong stench inside the passage made Yin Ming cover his mouth and nose in disgust; the stench was truly overwhelming, almost making him vomit.
It smells a bit like rotten pork in the refrigerator, but dozens of times stronger.
Lingyao, who was standing to the side, also frowned and covered his nose. He pointed ahead and said, "That seems to be the ancestral hall of Xucheng."
The two walked to the incense table at the end of the passage. The table was covered with a dense array of memorial tablets, and there were three newly lit incense sticks in the incense burner on the table, which must have been put there by the city lord just now.
The stench seemed to be coming from behind the wall behind the incense table.
The two exchanged a glance and, in perfect unison, began searching for the mechanism, one to the left and the other to the right.
"Boom..."
Lingyao seemed to have triggered a control mechanism, and the wall slowly moved to the left, revealing the scene behind it.
The pungent stench was nauseating. Yin Ming suppressed his nausea and took out his illumination bead to shine it forward. Good heavens, the ground was covered with corpses.
"Was this all done by the city lord? That's outrageous!" Yin Ming frowned.
No wonder the city lord came so urgently to check. If the corpses on this ground were discovered and made public, how could the city's residents possibly allow such a murderer to continue serving as city lord?
But why did he kill so many people?
This secret room is quite large; it appears to have been created by hollowing out the interior of the mountain.
The illuminating bead in his hand could only illuminate a corner, but even in that corner alone, a rough estimate revealed thirty or forty corpses; it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that the entire city had been slaughtered.
Could it be that the guards and children Lingyao saw yesterday were just a handful of survivors, and all the other citizens of the city were dead, which is why Xucheng is so empty?
"Yin Ming, come and take a look." Ling Yao's voice rang out from the other side.
Did they discover something?
Yin Ming walked to Ling Yao's side, and the latter pointed to the two corpses on the ground and said, "These seem to be the two city gate guards."
Yin Ming looked at the two corpses, then looked up at Ling Yao with a puzzled expression. "Seriously? They're so rotten, how can you still tell?"
Seemingly aware of Yin Ming's inner question, Ling Yao added at the opportune moment: "Yesterday I noticed that the two guards were wearing pendants, which seemed to be their duty tokens, exactly the same as those hanging on these two corpses, especially the lotus pendant."
Upon closer inspection, Yin Ming noticed that both corpses had a sun pattern engraved on their pendants.
The difference is that one pendant has a lotus-shaped ornament hanging from its bottom, while the other pendant has a bell hanging from it, which should be an ornament made by the guardian himself.
The lotus pendant that Lingyao highlighted had a unique chip, presumably because its owner accidentally broke it.
Although this lotus pendant has a common shape and can be bought anywhere, it is indeed impossible for two pendants to coincidentally have the exact same notch.
Although the clothes on the corpse were tattered, they could still be vaguely discerned as those of a guard.
“And these corpses. Their builds, and the clothes they’re wearing… they’re the group of children I saw yesterday,” Lingyao said gravely.
How could this be? Even if the city lord killed them all last night and piled their bodies here, it's impossible for them to have decomposed to this extent overnight.
Yin Ming could faintly smell an incongruous fragrance permeating the secret room, and the temperature inside was also a bit low, as if it were specially used to store corpses, and perhaps these corpses had been placed here for some time.
What exactly happened?
"Alright, let's go back to the city lord and see what else he has to say," Yin Ming said after a moment's thought.
Although the situation is still unclear, it is definitely related to the city lord.
Yin Ming planned to go to the inn to meet up with the female lead first. The city lord had just flown into the city in a hurry, most likely to check on their group's movements at the inn.
By now, the city lord must have already discovered their disappearance, and might even have set a trap for them. Hopefully, he hasn't discovered the spatial ring where the female lead is hiding.
The city remained deserted, the inn doors were wide open, and the protective barrier that had been erected had been removed.
really.
Yin Ming and Ling Yao stepped into the inn. The city lord was sitting at the tea table, slowly pouring three cups of tea.
"You're back. Have a seat," the city lord said leisurely, slowly picking up the teacup in front of him and taking a sip.
Yin Ming was too lazy to waste words with him, and raised his Crimson Flame Sword, pointing it directly at his face: "What exactly have you done to the people of Xucheng?!"
The city lord smiled, put down his tea, and said nonchalantly, "You really did find out."
Yin Ming was absolutely furious at his attitude. Did the people of the entire city mean nothing to him? What kind of city lord was this?
"Speechless, huh?!"
The city lord smiled slightly at Yin Ming's question, but his eyes suddenly sharpened.
Seeing the situation was not good, Yin Ming quickly dodged to the left, and the spot where he was standing was pierced by a sword.
"Just as I suspected, there really is a mid-stage seventh-realm expert here. I thought you were just an arrogant spoiled brat." The city lord's attack missed, but his tone showed no surprise whatsoever.
When the barrier outside the city was broken yesterday, the city lord sensed the cultivation aura emanating from the person who broke it. Because that aura was only at the mid-stage of the sixth realm, he threatened to tell them to get out.
After all, a mid-stage sixth realm cultivator was nothing to him.
But the male voice that followed made him realize the danger, and in order to avoid any further complications, the city lord chose to show himself.
However, this doesn't mean he's afraid.
So what if he's at the mid-stage of the seventh realm? If he goes all out, he might have the strength to fight him!
"It's too early to say who wins and who loses. Now that you've discovered the secret, I have no choice but to kill you to silence you."
"I told you long ago that you're not welcome here, but you wouldn't listen. I told you to leave as early as the next day, but you still wouldn't listen. So be it..."
"I'll leave my life here!"
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