Han Anbo tried to recall, saying, "The details are fuzzy. I just remember entering the Deceit Village, making an offering to some Goddess, and then fighting the Deceitful Mother. In the end, it was Li Qingxian who saved us."
"That’s right. I remember Li Qingxian gave me a Wooden Talisman Person—no, two of them. They helped us," Deng Hex said.
"Yes, he’s a Fate Master. Thanks to him, we would’ve all died here otherwise."
"I also remember that Ye Han seemed to have..." Deng Hex, dressed in his Junior Tenth-Grade White Horse River-Stepping Official Uniform, stopped mid-sentence. He glanced at Ye Han lying on the ground and shut his mouth.
"Uncle Xiaozhou, you were trapped too?"
Zhou Henn said, "I was fighting an endless stream of Demons and Ghosts for three or four days. It felt like an Illusion Realm. Thankfully, you resolved the Deceit when you did. Otherwise, I would have been completely drained and left to die. Are your marks gone?"
"Gone." Yur Ping threw open his tunic, revealing his pale belly.
Li Qingxian glanced at his own stomach. Nothing there. But in the next instant, he remembered the Yellow Springs Mark had moved. He immediately turned his back to the others and pushed up his left sleeve.
A yellow cloud and a five-petaled yellow lotus were silently imprinted on the middle of his arm.
Li Qingxian cursed inwardly. ’Just one more and we can start a card game.’
JINGLE... JINGLE...
Everyone looked toward the sound. A White Bone Horse Carriage was flying through the sky. Four black paper lanterns hung from the corners of its roof, the candlelight within them flickering.
"They’re here," Zhou Henn said.
The others scrambled to their feet, not daring to breathe.
Li Qingxian stroked the new bracelet on his left wrist, already thinking of what to say.
The Black Lamp Vehicle landed, and people filed out one after another. There were twelve in total.
Each person carried a black paper lantern in their left hand, and all were dressed in Night Guard Uniforms. The lowest-ranking among them wore the Green Robe with Black Wolf Embroidery of a Junior Ninth-Grade officer, while their leader wore the Cloth with Elephant Embroidery and Crimson Robe of a Senior Fifth-Grade official.
They wore Military Officer’s Uniforms, yet they didn’t resemble the typical battle attire of Night Guard Military Officers.
"Greetings, Lord Zhou," the Fifth-Grade Official at the head of the group said with a smile.
"Lord Guo." Zhou Henn cupped his fist in greeting to Guo Xiang, the Deputy Disciplinary Officer of the Black Lamp Department.
He was a square-faced, middle-aged man of about fifty with bright eyes. On his back, he carried a circular disc half the height of a man, wrapped in blue cloth and affixed with three yellow Spirit Awakening Talismans.
Li Qingxian could tell at a glance that the man was a Fate Master. The large circular disc on his back had to be a rare "Great Fate Disc."
The Black Lamp Department was nominally under the Night Guard’s authority but actually operated independently, its status equal to the Night Guard—a fact few knew. Since their numbers were small and their duties complemented the Night Guard, they were stationed within the Night Guard Office.
All team leaders in the Black Lamp Department were Deputy Disciplinary Officers of at least the Senior Fifth Grade, and every single one was a Fate Master.
Guo Xiang’s gaze swept over the group before finally landing on Li Qingxian. "So you’re the Li Qingxian who resolved half a Deceit?"
"That I am, sir."
Guo Xiang suddenly gave Li Qingxian a once-over. "Ninth Grade?"
Only then did Li Qingxian sense it himself—his Spirit Platform was brimming, his Magical Power was stronger than ever, and his eyesight had sharpened. No wonder he had been able to see Zhou Henn so clearly from such a distance.
"I was fortunate to resolve the Deceit and had a minor breakthrough," Li Qingxian said.
Just then, a young official in an Eighth-Grade uniform with a rhinoceros patch, who had been standing beside Guo Xiang, hurried forward. He rushed to Ye Han’s side and said loudly, "Disciplinary Officer Guo, Ye Han is my friend! Please, take a look at him."
Guo Xiang strode over, gave Ye Han a quick glance, and said, "It’s only excessive blood loss. Nothing life-threatening."
As he spoke, he bent down and placed a hand on Ye Han’s wrist, feeling the wound there. He frowned, carefully observing Ye Han’s hair, skin, and overall condition. "He was severely affected by the Deceit this time. His Fate Grid has been damaged. He will need a long rest."
As Guo Xiang finished speaking, he lifted his left hand. An invisible force raised the unconscious Ye Han into the air. With a gentle wave, Ye Han flew through the door of the Black Lamp Vehicle and vanished.
Guo Xiang’s smile vanished. He surveyed the group and withdrew a palm-sized token from his Qi Fortune Silver Fish Pouch. It was forged from pure gold and covered in black, tadpole-like runes. In the center, the character for "Imperial" was carved in red.
"The Black Lamp Department is acting on imperial orders to formally investigate this Deceit incident. We ask all our Night Guard colleagues to cooperate fully. The entire process will be recorded by a Sound Bowl and monitored by a Lying Insect. I advise you all to choose your words carefully."
The air in the Deserted Village suddenly grew cold, as if summer had turned to winter in an instant.
Zhou Henn nodded. "Rest assured, Lord Guo. When it comes to this Deceit incident, we will hold nothing back." After saying this, he shot a glance at Li Qingxian.
Li Qingxian remained silent.
Guo Xiang ordered, "Li Ming, you investigate the area. Wang Buku, you’re in charge of the questioning."
"Yes, sir!"
The young man who had claimed to be Ye Han’s friend walked over. He scanned the group and said, "My name is Wang Buku, a Warrior in the Black Lamp Department. Please follow me into the Black Lamp Vehicle. I will question each of you individually."
After he finished speaking, Wang Buku’s gaze swept over the Qiankun Bracelet on Li Qingxian’s left wrist before landing on Li Qingxian himself.
Their eyes met.
Wang Buku appeared to be in his early twenties, with a sharply defined face. His nose was a little too large and his bridge too high, giving it a distinctly crooked bend. His bangs hung down over his forehead, hiding a palm-sized burn.
His eyes, which had seemed bright and frank, held a peculiar glint the moment he looked at Li Qingxian.
Li Qingxian simply smiled. "You must be the Wang Buku from Duke Rong Mansion? I’ve heard of you."
"Mr. Gangfeng is a respectable man," Wang Buku said, then turned and strode toward the vehicle’s door.
Han Anbo hurried forward a few steps and shot Li Qingxian a meaningful look, then glanced at the Qiankun Bracelet.
Li Qingxian smiled faintly. He had also realized that Wang Buku recognized the Qiankun Bracelet.
The group, including Zhou Henn, followed Wang Buku into the vehicle.
The moment they stepped through the door, the world before them changed. They stood in a sprawling, three-courtyard estate, complete with pavilions, terraces, rock gardens, and flowing streams—it had everything.
Yur Ping, Deng Hex, and Zeng Youqian’s eyes went wide. They gaped, looking left and right with expressions of utter amazement.
Li Qingxian felt a flicker of curiosity himself, but Zhou Henn and Han Anbo remained perfectly calm.
Wang Buku settled the six of them into different rooms inside a three-story, red-lacquered wooden building. Then, accompanied by two Seventh-Grade Daoist Cultivators, he began the interrogations, starting with Yur Ping.
Li Qingxian inspected his room, finding it no different from an ordinary one. He then walked to the doorway and looked out from the third floor.
The estate itself wasn’t remarkable, but the scenery surrounding it was identical to the outside world, as if the residence had been built right in the middle of the Deserted Village.
Li Qingxian gently stroked his Qiankun Bracelet, pondering how to handle the situation.
The Lying Insect was extremely rare, supplied only to a select few agencies of the Imperial Court.
Normally, a Lying Insect is silent. But the moment it detects a lie, it lets out a piercing shriek, explodes, and dies.
Since Lying Insects were already scarce, the fact that they died after detecting a single lie made them all the more precious.
The Ministry of Justice, which presided over trials, believed Lying Insects could be abused or misused. Therefore, they only considered its reaction as a reference, not as definitive evidence.
The Factory Guard, however, was a different matter. They almost always treated the Lying Insect’s reaction as hard evidence.
’The Lying Insect isn’t foolproof. If I don’t say anything, or if I’m vague or cleverly evasive, it won’t be able to detect a lie...’
As Li Qingxian pondered, his bracelet tapped lightly against the railing. He remembered he hadn’t taken inventory yet, so he sent his consciousness into the Qiankun Bracelet.
This Ancient Treasure was exceptionally profound. The space inside was enormous—currently hundreds of feet long, wide, and high, like a colossal warehouse—and would continue to expand as its user’s Cultivation grew.
Ye Han had previously gifted him one hundred pellets of Spirit Gold, claiming it was all he had. But inside the bracelet, there were another hundred. This second batch alone was worth one hundred thousand taels of silver.
In addition to the Spirit Gold, it also stored a great many gold ingots, golden leaves, golden melon seeds, silver notes, broken silver, copper coins, antiques, jewelry, paintings, Jade Artifacts, fine silks, and other valuables.
Beyond that, there was a jumble of miscellaneous items: food, clothing, medicine, armor and weapons—all sorts of daily necessities.
And all sorts of other odds and ends.
Just as Li Qingxian was preparing to take a closer look, he heard a familiar, soft cry from the next room.
Li Qingxian reacted instantly. He pushed open the door to the next room, helped Ye Han sit up in bed, and retrieved a Sound Insulation Talisman from his Qiankun Bracelet to block all sound from entering or leaving the room.
Ye Han, his face deathly pale, came to his senses. He shivered violently upon seeing Li Qingxian. His gaze shot to Li Qingxian’s left middle finger, then to the Qiankun Bracelet on his wrist, and his eyes widened in shock.
Ye Han started to speak, but Li Qingxian put a hand on his shoulder and whispered, "You wouldn’t want the fact that you got more than a dozen of our Night Guard brothers killed to be known by the entire Night Guard, the whole Divine Capital, or the entire world, now would you?"