Gu Ruiji had been secretly monitoring Agujie and personally witnessed the two hair-raising sacrificial ceremonies. However, he was unaware of what had gone wrong with the rituals, as both the priest presiding over them and Agujie appeared to be on the verge of collapse afterward.
Subsequently, Agujie regrouped his forces and set off for the royal court.
Only then did Gu Ruiji recall his Eagle Division.
Two days prior, the border market had become a ghost town. After two days of investigation, Gu Ruiji discovered the skeletons of Bear Division soldiers in Tulan, gnawed clean by spiders. Throughout Tulan, besides the dead Bear Division soldiers, there was only one female skeleton.
He questioned the shaman, who analyzed based on the clues provided: the final ritual step should have involved spiders devouring the flesh and blood of women and children before being refined into pills. However, it was evident that the spiders had consumed the flesh and blood of the Bear Division soldiers, causing the ritual to fail.
In other words, those sacrifices had escaped!
Gu Ruiji launched a carpet search, with Tulan as the center and a radius of one hundred kilometers. He found no trace of the sacrifices, but discovered that all the hidden sentries in the checkpoints along the road from Tulan to Changming Mountain had been slaughtered.
Had he not retraced his steps from Tulan, he would have remained completely unaware.
"Do you think it was those people from Linyuan?" The market had been massacred, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths, including many elites of his Eagle Division. How could a mere few hundred civilians from Linyuan, especially a group of delicate girls and children, possess such capabilities?
"No, what my subordinate means is that before the market massacre, the merchant ships of Hengyuan Chamber of Commerce had traveled back and forth between Linyuan and Liaojiang. The massacre likely occurred before the Hengyuan Chamber of Commerce's merchant ships departed from the market harbor."
"When the Hengyuan Chamber of Commerce's merchant ships re-entered the border market, Agujie had sent people to receive a shipment. My subordinate speculates that this shipment was a remedial measure to compensate for the failed sacrificial ritual. Since the remedial ritual also ended in failure, can we infer that Linyuan has already caught wind of this matter?"
"If the matter was exposed, then the market massacre could only have two possible perpetrators!"
Gu Ruiji paused, carefully choosing his words. However, after much thought, he could not find a more discreet way to put it, so he spoke directly: "The Khan or Liu Chongyan!"
Brugud's expression slightly stiffened. One was the Khan of Liaojiang, the other an envoy from Linyuan.
Compared to Liu Chongyan, Brugud suspected the Khan more.
After the merchant ships of Hengyuan Chamber of Commerce docked again, the Eagle Division searched them five times. No suspicious individuals were hidden on board, and the number of escorts was minimal. Even if Linyuan had discovered something, they could not have extended their reach this deeply.
Moreover, the perpetrators managed to slaughter an entire market, undetected, right under his nose. This would not have been a hastily assembled group.
Brugud remained silent for a while, then asked, "Where was Liu Chongyan when the city was massacred?"
"At the inn!"
Gu Ruiji licked his lips: "He was ill!"
Liu Chongyan was stationed at the market. However, the inn established by Liaojiang for the Linyuan envoy was located in the Silver Blue Grasslands, dozens of kilometers away from the market—an area governed by the brother of the consort, Mai Maiguli.
"Ill?"
"Did the shaman examine him?"
"They said it was overwork, and he was as weak as a mountain."
Brugud asked no further questions; he trusted the shamans under his command.
He felt a pang of annoyance and temporarily shifted his focus from the city massacre: "What progress has been made in investigating the identities of those people?"
"My subordinate only knows that those people share the same lineage as the priests attending to the Bear Division!"
Those people seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. Apart from that, Gu Ruiji found no other clues. If not for the Linyuan people discarding the corpses from Changming Mountain, they might never have known that such a group of madmen was hiding within their Liaojiang.
"Continue the investigation!"
"Yes!"
Gu Ruiji received his orders!
Gu Ruiji left the special operations tent. A male eagle landed on the tent's roof, a strip of paper tied to its leg. Gu Ruiji looked up, the sunlight blinding his eyes.
This eagle did not seem to belong to their Eagle Division.
The eagle lowered its head, pecked at the string binding the paper, and the rolled paper tube rolled down from the tent's roof. The eagle spread its wings and soared away. Gu Ruiji decisively picked up a bow and arrow from the weapon rack beside him, drew the bow, and shot at the eagle.
As if it had eyes in the back of its head, the eagle dodged the incoming arrow with a sideways slip, then powerfully flapped its wings, soaring high into the sky and disappearing into the clouds in an instant.
Gu Ruiji dropped the bow and arrow and picked up the paper tube that had fallen to the ground.
Brugud heard the commotion outside the tent and pulled aside the curtain. Gu Ruiji hurried to Brugud's side, handed him the paper tube, and recounted what had just happened.
Brugud unrolled the paper tube, and his pupils sharply contracted upon seeing the contents written on it.
The paper was filled with densely packed names.
These were the madmen they had been desperately searching for but could not find.
It was only a portion of them!
Yet, some of the names were enough to shake Brugud to his core.
...
Hu Jian.
Jude Village.
Huijingxian, the village master of Jude Village, knelt on the ground, trembling, looking at the figure seated with his back to him.
"Rustle~"
A sound came from outside the window. A male eagle folded its wings and landed on a tree branch leaning against the eaves!
Hearing the movement outside the window, Huijingxian lowered his head even further!
"I have, as per your instructions, surrendered the entire village to Fengluan, master..."
"How many times do you want me to repeat myself?"
A low, deep voice, with a hint of warmth and gentleness at the end of its tone, but his sharp voice blended this tone with a layer of阴鸷 (yin zhi - sinister or gloomy). The figure, who had been facing away from Huijingxian, slowly turned around. He wore a black bronze mask that covered his entire face, leaving only his eyes and mouth visible.
His eyes were cold and sharp, and he looked down at Huijingxian, as if he were an ant he could crush at any moment: "From the day you surrendered to Fengluan, she has been the only master!"
Huijingxian dared not dwell on the deeper meaning of his words or speculate without permission. He could only prostrate himself on the ground, trembling, and voice his assent.
"Do not presume to guess my intentions. What I say is what I mean, do you understand?"
"Subordinate... no, Hu understands!"
Huijingxian quickly corrected himself.
He did not understand why the man wanted him to surrender to Fengluan. It wasn't to plant a spy by Fengluan's side, but rather to genuinely offer her assistance.
The man nodded with satisfaction. Suddenly, he reached out and grabbed Huijingxian's head, circulating his internal energy to extract the Asura Ghost Qi he had injected into Huijingxian years ago.
Huijingxian shuddered all over, the fear in his heart like a surging tide, engulfing him wave after wave. His terrified eyes widened, but he still dared not resist in the slightest.
Only when the man's hand left the crown of his head did Huijingxian, like a drowned dog thrown into a river and then rescued, collapse on the ground, wet and disheveled.