Chapter 61: Murderous Intent at Midnight

After Li Si finished a set of exercises in the courtyard, a familiar sound entered his ears.

Dong! Dong!

Dong! Dong!

Dong! Dong!

“Dry weather, beware of fire!” a voice drifted from afar. The call sounded especially abrupt in the evening, which had already grown somewhat quiet.

Hearing the sound of the night watch, Li Si pondered for a moment, then picked up a cloth towel from the side and wiped the sweat from his body.

After wiping himself down, he entered the study and used a fire striker to light a candle.

Under the flickering candlelight, he sat in a chair and began reading.

He planned to sleep later than usual these next few days and see whether he could wait for the ghost creature that had killed Liu Qin.

Clearly, Liu Qin’s death had been so bizarre that it was almost certainly connected to demon creatures or ghost creatures.

Moreover, Li Si had learned from Xiaoduan that demon creatures and ghost creatures did not dare remain in the county city for long, because a terrifying pressure existed there that filled demons and ghosts with fear.

Xiaoduan and Xiaoyu had only stayed because they were under Li Si’s control. Otherwise, they would have fled long ago.

That was why he found it strange.

Why would demons or ghosts still dare kill people within the county city?

At the same time, Li Si felt that Liu Qin’s death was definitely related to the book he had sold him.

Furthermore, Liu Qin knew the entire story behind the matter.

Unfortunately, for some reason Li Si could not understand, Liu Qin had not mentioned a single word of it to him.

He had some ideas in his mind, but always felt that something was missing. His train of thought simply would not connect.

At present, he did not even know whether Liu Qin’s case was truly caused by something supernatural.

That made it even harder to understand the matter clearly.

After all, Li Si had too little information. There was simply no basis from which to infer anything.

Shaking his head slightly, he cleared away his chaotic thoughts and quietly continued reading.

However, above Li Si’s head, a section of roof tiles was silently moved aside, revealing a pair of scarlet eyes.

On the roof, a man wearing a red fur coat was crouching and staring at Li Si below.

His lips stretched into a bizarre curve, exposing rows of sharp teeth. Saliva continuously dripped onto the nearby roof tiles.

As if thinking of something, the man in the red fur coat turned his head toward the courtyard.

There, a young boy was looking around vigilantly.

A wary expression appeared in the red-coated man’s eyes.

Immediately afterward, his face twisted with struggle.

His eyes became even redder, as though blood might drip from them at any moment, making his already ferocious face appear even more terrifying.

At that moment, he raised his right hand and covered his face.

His five fingers scraped downward from his forehead, leaving five deep gouges.

When his palm reached his chin, he covered his deformed mouth with his hand.

That concealment made him appear much more normal, no different from an ordinary person.

Yet saliva still leaked from between his fingers and down his chin.

From time to time, vicious resentment still flashed through his eyes.

Afterward, the man in the red fur coat once again looked toward Li Si in the study.

Several hours passed.

Li Si grew tired, blew out the candle, and went to his bedroom.

Watching Li Si’s departing figure, the man in the red coat slowly removed his hand from his mouth.

At that moment, his lips were gone.

What remained was a jawbone densely packed with fine sharp teeth, from whose corners thick saliva occasionally dripped.

The red-coated man’s scarlet eyes glared resentfully at the young boy in the courtyard.

Then he turned his head and lightly floated onto the roof of another house.

Repeating this again and again, his figure soon disappeared from sight.

What Li Si did not know was that a ghost creature had been secretly watching him from the rooftops these past several days.

But this was not really his fault.

Since arriving in this world, he had never seen a ghost creature capable of flight.

Neither Xiaoduan nor Xiaoyu could fly.

As a result, he had developed a blind spot, believing that ghost creatures could not fly at all.

Thus, he had never paid attention to the rooftops, nor had he instructed Xiaoduan to watch them.

However, having Xiaoduan guard him these past days still had its benefits.

At the very least, it made this ghost creature wary and prevented it from harming him.

Inside a dark prison cell, a gaunt woman sat atop a pile of straw with a vacant expression.

Squeak... squeak...

From time to time, the sounds of rats scurrying, gnawing, and squeaking could be heard within the cell.

All the neighbouring cells were empty.

Only she remained.

Clearly, this woman was being held in solitary confinement.

Suddenly, at a certain moment, the sounds of the rats gradually ceased.

At first, a few squeaks still remained.

Then they disappeared completely.

The prison cell instantly became deathly silent.

And it was precisely when the cell fell silent that a figure in a red fur coat appeared in the prison corridor.

No one knew when he had arrived.

“I’m going to kill you...”

A voice entered the gaunt woman’s ears.

The woman’s vacant expression changed.

Fear appeared on her face as she shouted,

“Don’t come over... don’t come over...”

“I’m going to kill you...”

“It was you, Liu Qin, who wanted to kill me... that’s why I killed you... stop haunting me...”

The woman’s face was filled with terror as she shrank trembling into a corner.

She stared fixedly at the corridor with frightened eyes.

Yet she saw nothing there.

Drip...

A drop of sticky fluid landed on the woman’s cheek.

Her entire body instantly stiffened with fright.

She did not even dare continue trembling.

Rigidly, she slowly raised her head.

There she saw a man in a red fur coat hanging upside down and staring at her.

She clearly saw his scarlet eyes and mouth full of sharp teeth.

Hehehe...

Seeing that the woman had noticed him, the man in the red coat became extremely excited.

Saliva uncontrollably flowed from between his densely packed sharp teeth.

The thick drool dripped onto the woman’s face.

She looked at him in terror, not daring to move in the slightest.

“I’m going to kill you...”

The red-coated man opened his mouth and spoke.

The voice that emerged was Liu Qin’s voice.

“Ah!!!”

A miserable scream rang out from the prison.

It carried far, far into the distance.

Several days later, Li Si received news of Madam Liu Qin’s death.

According to Luo Ye, Madam Liu Qin had died horribly.

It seemed she had gone mad and torn open her own throat.

Upon hearing the news, Li Si became certain.

A ghost creature was definitely involved.

If Liu Qin’s strange death could still be dismissed as coincidence, then adding Madam Liu Qin’s bizarre manner of death made coincidence an impossible explanation.

At that moment, Li Si sat inside a tavern, staring blankly into the distance at a grand and imposing temple.

That temple was the City God Temple.

A sense of unease arose in his heart.

A ghost creature was killing people within the city, yet the City God seemed completely unconcerned.

He feared that the ghost creature might somehow be connected to the City God.

Otherwise, there was no explanation for why that ghost dared kill people so freely within the county city.

After spending so much time in this world, Li Si had come to understand that without the protection of the City God, this county city would have fallen into chaos long ago.

Yet through this incident, he had glimpsed another side of the City God.

Perhaps the City God was not as reliable as he had imagined.