Inherited 100 Million - Chapter 5

Another mummy!

This method of death was so distinctive that the three words “blood-robed person” immediately popped into Xue Yizhuo’s mind.

She instinctively thought the blood-robed person had escaped from Old Li’s house and then fled to the clinic to commit another crime. She almost wanted to comment on what a hardworking criminal he was. But Xue Yizhuo quickly realized that perhaps the blood-robed person had killed the doctor’s son first, then went to kill Old Li.

Xue Yizhuo asked the apprentice, “When did your senior brother die?”

The apprentice said, “Even the coroner couldn’t figure that out!”

There wasn’t a single drop of blood left in the body, a method that didn’t seem like something an ordinary person could achieve.

The apprentice’s lips trembled. “I heard that there are cultivators in this world… could it really be a cultivator?”

As Jun Yu had said last night, a single Liduan River separated the Mingxu Domain into Eastern and Western continents, creating a distinct boundary between the mortal world and the cultivators’ world. Xue Yizhuo didn’t know exactly what kind of river the Liduan was, but she knew that because of it, cultivators couldn’t easily cross over, and mortals could almost never get across.

This created a situation in the Eastern Continent where the occasional visiting cultivators left behind many legends, providing rich material for storybooks. Some mortals firmly believed in the existence of cultivators, some thought they were just made-up stories, and others were somewhere in between, holding a mix of belief and doubt.

The apprentice hadn’t been a believer before, but now he seemed to have no choice.

Jun Yu had said that cultivators were also people, but to the mortals of the Eastern Continent, the power they wielded made them no different from deities.

Xue Yizhuo patted the apprentice’s shoulder and wracked her brain for a dry, comforting phrase. “Don’t be too scared. With so many people in Qingping Town, only a few have died. You won’t be that unlucky.”

The apprentice’s face changed. “Other people have died too?!”

Xue Yizhuo was silent.

This information… it seemed it hadn’t spread widely yet?

Having accidentally made the apprentice even more frightened, Xue Yizhuo chuckled awkwardly and slipped away.

The people gathered outside the clinic were still waiting for the police and coroner inside to give them an answer. Xue Yizhuo knew more about the situation than the people outside, but she still didn’t have a plan. If the blood-robed person didn’t show himself, she wouldn’t be able to find him anytime soon.

Xue Yizhuo wasn’t too worried about the people of Qingping Town. Regardless of why Jun Yu and her group had initially come to the town, the Shiwai Pavilion wouldn’t stand by idly while an evil cultivator killed several people in the Eastern Continent.

While the Shiwai Pavilion held a transcendent position in both the righteous and demon sects and generally didn’t get involved in worldly affairs, the game’s official website had described Jun Yu as a person of great integrity. The righteous sects would surely not let a demon cultivator get away with this!

Xue Yizhuo had a lot of confidence in Jun Yu.

After thanking the town resident she had asked to look after Old Li, she helped him up, intending to take him to the other clinic in town.

Old Li was delirious with fever. He had been outside for a long time and heard a lot of chattering, but he hadn’t fully grasped what had happened. After they walked a little distance, he asked Xue Yizhuo again, “Why aren’t we seeing a doctor at that place?”

Xue Yizhuo answered without a hint of subtlety. “Someone died.”

“Oh, someone died…” Old Li nodded dazedly. It took him a moment to process what Xue Yizhuo had said, and his voice shot up several octaves. “Someone died?!”

The shock was enough to clear his head. “Who died?”

“The doctor’s son,” Xue Yizhuo replied.

Old Li had a vague memory of the young man. “Dr. Tang’s son? I remember him. That kid was a no-good troublemaker, always harassing cats and dogs and bullying girls… But why would he suddenly die? Was it a revenge killing?”

“Don’t ask so many questions,” Xue Yizhuo said vaguely. “Are you going to solve the case or something?”

Xue Yizhuo ultimately decided not to mention the blood-robed person. After all, Old Li had just gone through a scare last night and had gotten a cold from it. She was worried about traumatizing him.

However, Old Li didn’t like being talked down to. “Why can’t I solve the case? Let me tell you, girl, when I was young…”

“I know, I know!” Xue Yizhuo rolled her eyes. She had heard this a thousand times. “When you were young, you were handsome, dashing, and extraordinarily powerful. Okay, I’ve said it for you. Now, be quiet, old man. You’re still sick, save your strength!”

Old Li sulkily closed his mouth.

After they had walked a little further, Xue Yizhuo said, “…Old Li.”

Old Li was a bit annoyed. “What now?”

Xue Yizhuo said, “Which way to the other clinic?”

Old Li: “…”

••••

Qingping Town was small. Even though the two clinics were a bit far apart, Xue Yizhuo and Old Li, walking at their slow pace, still made it before lunchtime.

Old Li’s illness wasn’t severe, but because of his age, the doctor took a long time to examine him before prescribing medicine. After the medicine was prepared, Xue Yizhuo asked an apprentice to brew it in the clinic’s backyard. She didn’t know how to brew medicine herself, and though Old Li did, he was a little out of it after the long walk.

Xue Yizhuo, being a rich woman, had no trouble getting a private room for Old Li to rest in. With nothing else to do, she went to watch the apprentice brew the medicine. By the time the medicine was ready, the two, who had been waiting for a long time, started chatting.

The apprentice was a chatterbox and a gossip. There was almost no big or small event in Qingping Town that he didn’t know about, and once he started talking, he couldn’t stop.

Xue Yizhuo could barely get a word in.

When the apprentice mentioned the words “mummified corpses,” Xue Yizhuo immediately raised her voice to stop him.

“So many people have died already?” Xue Yizhuo was shocked.

The apprentice had just said: “Including the latest one, there are already ten mummified corpses, right?”

The apprentice nodded vigorously. “I was shocked when I counted! I didn’t realize there were so many already!”

Xue Yizhuo was puzzled. “How do you know so much?”

“Oh, you don’t know, my master also works as a coroner sometimes.” The apprentice looked around and whispered, “The official coroner at the magistrate’s office isn’t very good. When they get a complicated case, the government likes to come to my master. They pay well, so my master takes the jobs, but he’s afraid that patients will find out he works on dead people and it’ll hurt his business, so he told me not to talk about it.”

The apprentice added, “I’m only telling you because you’re pretty. You have to promise not to tell anyone else.”

You’re only telling me because I paid you a lot to brew the medicine, Xue Yizhuo thought to herself.

The apprentice continued, “The first mummified corpse was the first one my master examined, and I was his assistant. I was so scared during the autopsy. From the look of the body, you couldn’t tell that the person had been so lively just the day before. When we examined him, there wasn’t a single drop of blood left. It was just like those stories about monsters sucking people dry!”

Xue Yizhuo asked, “Whose body was that?”

“A good-for-nothing tramp who was always hanging around Yangliu Alley,” the apprentice said.

The people who worked in Yangliu Alley were mostly prostitutes, so it made sense for a tramp to frequent the area.

Xue Yizhuo thought for a moment and then asked, “Are those ten people all who have died? Do you know all of them?”

“That should be all of them,” the apprentice scratched his head. “And yes, I know all of them.”

Xue Yizhuo took out a brush and paper. “Please tell me the names, backgrounds, and the places they frequented for all of them.”

The apprentice was stunned. “That would take a long time…”

Xue Yizhuo smiled brightly. “Ten taels of silver.”

The information from the apprentice ended up filling forty sheets of paper.

Xue Yizhuo’s hand ached from writing. At one point, the apprentice wanted to take the paper and help, for an extra fee. Xue Yizhuo didn’t mind spending the money, but when she saw the scrawl that was identical to his master’s chicken scratch, she immediately snatched the paper back.

Xue Yizhuo looked at the thick stack of papers, rubbing her wrist as she marveled. Although she was mentally prepared, she never expected the apprentice to be such a gossip. This was only a fraction of the information she deemed important; the apprentice had said much more than she wrote down. Had he investigated the entire ancestry of everyone in Qingping Town?

“Not really,” the apprentice said, looking a little embarrassed. “I only know so much about them because they were all pretty well-known.”

The ten people who had become mummified corpses were indeed famous in town, but for their bad reputations.

In short, they were all lazy troublemakers who didn’t do any good.

For a moment, Xue Yizhuo had the strange impression that the blood-robed person was doing the town a favor. But this thought was quickly dismissed. If the blood-robed person was helping people, then how could she explain what happened to Old Li?

How could someone like Old Li be considered a troublemaker?

Therefore, the victims’ bad behavior was not the real reason for their deaths.

Xue Yizhuo pondered for a while, then suddenly stood up. She said to the confused apprentice, “Please take care of Old Li for me. I’ll be back to pick him up before nightfall.”

She paused, then added, “Buy anything he needs. It’s on my tab.”

Bathed in the glow of a rich woman’s generosity, the apprentice was filled with reverence.

Xue Yizhuo hurried out of the clinic. The number of dead people was quite high. She didn’t know how long it would take to find the real reason for their deaths, but Xue Yizhuo could at least try to understand them and find a common link.

While she had been hoping Jun Yu and her group would handle the situation, now that the clues were laid out before her, Xue Yizhuo wanted to find the blood-robed person as soon as possible!

Xue Yizhuo pulled up her mini-map to see if any of the victims’ frequent haunts were nearby.

Three words quickly caught her attention.

Yangliu Alley.

“…Oh,” Xue Yizhuo said with a knowing sigh, putting on a profound, adult expression that said, I understand everything without saying a word.

Then, full of excitement, she headed toward her destination.

Since the location was so close, even a person with no sense of direction like Xue Yizhuo managed to get there without any issues. But when she walked into the alley and saw the scene, she couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed.

Why hadn’t she thought of this before? It was broad daylight, and the workers of Yangliu Alley hadn’t opened for business yet!

Hiding under the shade of a tree, Xue Yizhuo fanned herself with her round fan and sighed as she looked at the closed doors.

Should she knock on a door and ask, or should she wait until night to come back?

Before Xue Yizhuo could decide, a stone hit the ground with a plink near her feet. Startled, Xue Yizhuo instinctively jumped to the side.

A burst of laughter came from the courtyard wall behind her.

Xue Yizhuo looked back and saw six or seven teenagers on top of the wall. The one in front saw her looking and provocatively made a face.

Xue Yizhuo said with a blank expression, “Jiang Yuxin, the shop you’re working at is mine.”