Vows of Immortals

Chapter Six

 "There's something wrong about this place," Wei Ying quietly mused, tapping his chin, deep in thought.

"No shit," Feng Xin grumbled under his breath, "This place is full of perverted men. How could there have been fifty of them going around killing women with no prayers being sent to Heaven or any calls for help from anyone?"

"Feng Xin's right. In fact, crudely speaking, shouldn't there be a brothel here? But as we were walking along the streets this afternoon..." Xie Lian trailed off.

"There were no brothels," Lan Zhan finished for him.

"There's two things that don't make any sense. Firstly, the inn is full of people, which means that there are currently a lot of people visiting. Which also suggests that these people do not know about the killings of these women — if they did, they wouldn't have come to the village in the first place. Plus, there were no prayers sent by any families or villagers asking for help. If this is happening in such large masses, someone or something must be preventing word from getting out, and pressuring the villagers to keep quiet," Wei Ying said.

"Secondly, the men earlier had said this issue had only started a few weeks ago, which means that by right, the river we found should've been covered in corpses with the smell of blood evident in the area behind the village. But there was no smell, and very little corpses in the river. Those corpses in the river were indeed female, which proves that those men weren't lying. But where did the rest of them go?" Wei Ying frowned.

"Just because the corpses in the river were female, it doesn't mean they weren't lying about the whole thing," Feng Xin shrugged.

"They have no reason to exaggerate the situation — they have no reason to lie. What good use would it bring them to say that there were fifty other men doing this too for the past few weeks, when it just makes them look even more suspicious because there were only a few corpses in the river?" Xie Lian explained.

"In a summary, we need to find out why this issue started in the first place, who or what is preventing this news from getting spread out, and where did the rest of the corpses go," Wei Ying concluded.

Mu Qing huffed, "And we haven't even started on the issue with the disappearing palace maids."

"I think we should still infiltrate into the palace tomorrow," Hua Cheng said, "And while we're inside, the three of you can investigate this second issue."

The six of them just sat quietly on the floor, thinking about any possible leads or clues to answer their questions. But the more they thought about it, the more vague the situation seemed. Up till now, there weren't any suspects or any incidents that could point to what has been happening.

"Also," Wei Ying suddenly spoke, gaining the full attention of the other five, "This isn't related to the two issues at hand. But I just wanted to ask — isn't Nan Yang's official title Nan Yang Jiang Jun? But if I heard correctly earlier, Qing Ge called him Ju Yang?-" Wei Ying wasn't even done with his sentence yet, before he got cut off by Mu Qing's wild cackling.

"Ahaha, ahaha, ahahahahaha!"

"Mu Qing, this isn't the right time to do this," Feng Xin groaned, face turning red for the millionth time tonight. Hua Cheng also started snickering, and Xie Lian could only sigh helplessly.

Lan Zhan looked at Wei Ying with a raised eyebrow, and Wei Ying shrugged his shoulders, confusion evident on his face.

"Wei Gong Zi, Han Guang Jun, have you both ever heard of the grand tale of Ju Yang Jiang Jun?" Mu Qing asked in excitement.

"Fuck you, Mu Qing..." Feng Xin groaned again, covering his face with his hand.

Mu Qing effectively ignored him, eyes lighting up as both Wei Ying and Lan Zhan shook their heads, and started, "A long time ago, Nan Yang Jiang Jun was once called Ju Yang Jiang Jun. However, there was a careless emperor that wrote the word 'Ju' wrongly — instead of writing '俱阳', he wrote '巨阳'. Hence, all the '俱阳' temples had changed their names to '巨阳'. The news of this travelled quickly throughout the whole mortal realm, and soon enough, all the temples were renamed '巨阳'!"