sinovels Chapter 9: The Bloodbath at the Inn
Chapter 9: The Bloodbath at the Inn
The tavern's courtyard was small, but it contained dead bodies.
The first thing you see is four dwarfs lying in the middle of the courtyard.
They lay side by side, heads facing outwards and feet facing inwards, forming a neat cross.
The four men were dressed in bright red, yellow, blue and green brocade jackets, and wore heavy gold bracelets and necklaces on their wrists, ankles and even necks, and huge gold earrings on their ears.
Their faces had the features of adults, yet they were deliberately painted with childlike rouge, and the corners of their mouths were all turned upwards, frozen in a chilling smile.
Each person had a clean, sharp sword wound in their throat, the blood already congealed.
"As expected, they are the four children of Paradise Cave."
The Thousand-Armed Rakshasa's voice was somewhat hoarse.
These experts in poison and even concealed weapons were killed in such a swift manner before they could even unleash a single move.
Who exactly is this person?!
The two bypassed the strange cross and headed towards the main house.
Two more people lay slumped in the shadows of the porch.
The man on the left was extremely burly; even in death, he stood there like half an iron tower.
His cheekbones were high and his face was purplish-red. Most striking was that he only had one right arm, and his empty left sleeve was fluttering slightly in the wind.
It was none other than Cha Meng, the chief镖头 (bodyguard/escort) of the Golden Lion Escort Agency.
The man on the right was the complete opposite; he was withered and thin, as if a strong gust of wind could blow him away. His face was deeply wrinkled, like a knife cut. He was none other than Yu Erguaizi, who possessed superb lightness skills.
The two men had the same fatal wound.
Also at the throat, a clean, sharp sword wound, the blood already congealed.
The Thousand-Armed Rakshasa's expression truly changed.
Cha Meng's Golden Lion Palm and Yu Erguai's lightness skill are both top-notch in the martial arts world, and their martial arts skills are even superior to hers.
Judging from the scene, the two did not seem to put up much resistance, and were even killed by a sword through the throat before they could even put up a fight.
Just how skilled was this killer with his swordsmanship?
She couldn't help but look at Xue Bufeng, her voice tense with an unprecedented strain:
"Do you... know who killed them?"
"What does it matter if we know or not? Those who deserved to die are already dead. Now, let's see if there are any who didn't deserve to die."
Xue Bufeng did not answer directly, but simply stepped over the threshold and entered the dining room.
The dining room was a complete mess.
The tables and chairs were in disarray, the cups and plates were broken, and soup, wine, and blood were spilled all over the floor.
The most striking feature is the roof.
—A large hole was smashed through the sturdy wooden beams and tiles, and pale sunlight slanted down from the hole, illuminating an unusually large object below.
That's a person.
That was a woman.
Or rather, she was a very fat woman.
She was so fat that she looked like a water bucket, and the layers of excess fat almost burst her gorgeous dress.
But from her eyes, which still retained a touch of allure even in death, one can vaguely imagine that she must have been a breathtaking beauty when she was thin.
Even Xue Bufu, upon seeing this, couldn't help but sigh inwardly at the ruthlessness of time.
After a moment of reflection, Xue Bufeng looked at the comical yet terrifying corpse, smiled again, and asked Thousand-Handed Rakshasa:
"Can you tell how she died?"
Thousand-Armed Rakshasa frowned, suppressing his nausea as he stepped forward to examine the body more closely.
She immediately recognized that the "fat beauty" had fallen from the roof first, and the huge impact had broken her neck and caused the floor beneath her to collapse, embedding her in the crater.
However, besides the impact wounds from the fall, there was a clear bruise under the ribs that went deep into the bone marrow; this was the real fatal wound.
"It looks like he was kicked to death, and he was very skilled in martial arts, but this kick wasn't a famous skill in the martial arts world. It's hard to tell who did this."
"If you can't tell who killed her, can't you also tell who killed that bodyguard?"
Xue Bufeng turned his gaze to an inconspicuous corner of the dining room.
Following his gaze, Thousand-Handed Rakshasa noticed a corpse huddled in the corner, dressed in the uniform of the Golden Lion Escort Agency, looking like a high-ranking escort.
However, his death was extremely gruesome. His chest had completely collapsed, as if he had been struck head-on by a huge iron hammer, and his facial features were distorted and dislocated due to the enormous impact.
He was still clutching a broken piece of chain gun tightly in his hand, but the gun head had flown off somewhere.
Upon seeing the injuries, Thousand-Handed Rakshasa's pupils constricted sharply, and he exclaimed in disbelief:
"This is the Seven Losses Fist?! Is...is this the infamous bandit Sun Kui, known as the Purple-Faced Second Brother? Didn't he elope with the wife of the head of the seventy-two waterway docks in Jiangnan twenty years ago and disappear without a trace? How could he be here!"
She suddenly looked around:
"Could it be... that he's also here for the Golden Silk Armor? Then, what about the Chief's wife...?"
Xue Bufu raised his chin at the obese woman embedded in the floorboards, his tone mocking:
"Isn't that beautiful woman, once famous throughout Jiangnan, whom Sun Kui risked offending all seventy-two waterways of Jiangnan to take away, right here?"
The Thousand-Handed Rakshasa stared wide-eyed at the bloated corpse, finding it impossible to reconcile with the legendary, stunningly beautiful woman from Jiangnan he remembered.
After a long pause, she murmured, "This..."
"Women are always fickle, and so are their bodies."
Xue Bufeng's gaze swept over Thousand-Handed Rakshasa's still beautiful face, paused, and then added:
"But thankfully you didn't turn out like her, otherwise you wouldn't be able to wear the golden silk armor."
The Thousand-Armed Rakshasa glared at him fiercely, then returned to the main topic:
"I don't care about those old romantic entanglements! I just want to know, where is the Golden Silk Armor? Now that they're all dead, has the Golden Silk Armor fallen into Sun Kui's hands?"
Xue Bufeng shook his head, his gaze returning to the bodyguard whose chest had caved in.
Not far from his body, another person lay dead.
The man was a hunched-over old man, dressed simply, like a typical shopkeeper in a small town. His dough, originally dark purple, was now slowly turning ashen.
He held in his hand the very tip of the chain gun that the bodyguard had taken from him, but the sharp edge of the tip wasn't aimed at anyone else; instead, it was deeply embedded in his own throat.
His face showed no pain or struggle, only a sense of relief.
"He, he was the Purple-Faced Erlang... He's dead too, or did he commit suicide?!"
The Thousand-Handed Rakshasa was completely stunned!
She had seen so many dead people today that she had become somewhat numb.
Even so!
Seeing this bizarre suicide scene still sends a chill down my spine. I can't understand what happened here at all!
Why did he commit suicide? He probably already had the Golden Silk Armor.
"Perhaps he saw something more terrifying than death, which is why he would rather commit suicide to escape than live any longer."
Xue Bufeng's voice remained calm.
The Thousand-Armed Rakshasa immediately turned his head and stared intently at him:
"What is it?"
"What could possibly make the once-famous Purple-Faced Second Master of the martial arts world commit suicide without hesitation?!"
Xue Bufeng still did not answer, but walked to a relatively intact square table in the center of the dining room.
Strangely, elsewhere in the dining room, tables and chairs were overturned, and cups and plates were broken.
But this table alone seemed to be detached from the situation.
In the very center of the table sat a pot of wine and a wine glass, half-filled with amber liquid.
He picked up the wine jug, gently swirled it, and listened intently to the sound of the wine sloshing around.
"This pot of wine has just been poured into a full glass."