The Attack of the Wastrel

Hey guys, great news!  Two more top-performing sneak peek Chinese novels licensed from Zongheng have left VIP-only and are available for you to read, each with fifty chapters and a 2/day schedule!  These novels are Yama Rising, translated by Minotauruz (who did the great translation of Demoness' Art of Vengeance) and Star Odyssey, translated by OMA who did Warlock of the Magus World and City of Sin!  Both are veteran and highly capable translators, and I'm excited to bring this to y'all.

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The one who had discovered his body was Xiao’er who had come to deliver water to him to take a bath. Blood was everywhere on the ground, scaring the life out of him. Boisterous discussion had ensued all night at the inn where the Gold Class Warriors were staying, wondering if there would be a fourth victim. Fear spread quickly throughout the Spirit City overnight.

It was difficult for Warriors to cultivate to begin with; for one to become a Gold Class Warrior, his physique had to be exceptional. It was incomprehensible that three Gold Class Warriors had died out of nowhere and it was also a huge loss. Even if the Chancellor had not activated anyone to investigate the murders, all of the Warriors in the Spirit City had formed up groups of their own accord to catch the murderer.

The people who bore the brunt of the accusations were the visitors that had come to the Spirit City. Some of them had been subject to interrogation from the residents of the Spirit City, and whoever that refused to cooperate had even been subject to strong spiritual pressure. At the same time, the Chancellor had put up a notice for the visitors of the Spirit City to undergo checks by the city guards; whoever refused would be barred entry from the Spirit City forever.

Though the visitors wanted to protest, they had no choice but to give into the Spirit City’s requests from the pressure that the all the residents were giving them. They felt like they were criminals even though they had not done anything that betrayed their conscience.

Yet, these measures were to no avail. Even though the city guards had spent all night and day patrolling, the murders still occurred every day. Everyone was afraid that they would be the next victim.

“What exactly does this perverted murderer want? Isn’t he afraid of retribution by using such ruthless ways to kill people?” Qiao Yeshu exclaimed and destroyed the stool beside her out of anger. “If I manage to catch him, I will tear his organs out of his body so he can have a taste of his medicine!”

Rong Yuan glanced sideways at him, “If the murderer was afraid of retribution, he would not do something as evil as this.”

Rong Yuan squatted down to examine the body of the sixth Gold Class Warrior victim. It was similar to how the others before him had died – his organs and brain had been removed from his body. He wondered if the murderer had done it out of habit or out of fetish, because every murder had been extremely bloody. After witnessing a scene like this so many times, people were getting used to it. They could even eat whilst looking at the brutal scene in front of them, which was what Wei Lingshu was doing – eating fruit while waiting for Rong Yuan to finish examining the body.

This time, the victim had been a woman. Other than her, another one of the victims had been a young child. Gu Lingzhi took a cloak out of her Storage Ring, wanting to cover their bodies. However, her eyes widened as she squatted down and bent her body towards them.

“What’s this?”

Rong Yuan turned his head and when he saw Gu Lingzhi getting closer to the bodies, he reached his hands out to cover her eyes so that she would not be traumatized by such a brutal scene.

Gu Lingzhi gently pushed his hands away, “I’ve already seen it, there’s no point covering my eyes now.”

She annoyed the upset look on Rong Yuan’s face and fixed her eyes on the child’s body once again.

Previously, due to the brutality of the scene, she merely swept her eyes across the bodies and did not bother to give it a second glance. Now that she took a closer look, she realized that something was wrong.

At the place where the child’s head had been split open, it had not been a clean job. Other than the traces of someone that had used their fingers to dig at the brain, there were also teeth marks.

Could it be…?

She made a wild guess in her heart, but she had to first ensure that her eyes were not playing a trick on her, so she examined the wound on the head again. It was still pulsating with the residues of disrupted spiritual energy that had created the wound in the first place. She swept the child’s hair to one side to examine the edges along which the head had been split open, where she realized that there was a line of tiny depressions. If she had not looked at it closely, she would not have realized that they existed. But they were not depressions. They were bite marks. What was strange was that the bite mark did not align with how human teeth looked like. It was much wider.

Following this mark, she realized that there were similar bite marks on the skull. They were all around the skull at the edges where it had been split open. This discovery gave Gu Lingzhi a terrible feeling in her bones, causing her face to pale.

“Elder Gu, did you find anything new?” Wei Lingshu rushed over to ask when he saw Gu Lingzhi holding the child’s head whilst in deep thought.

Gu Lingzhi saw the fruit that Wei Lingshu had eaten half of and wondered to herself if he would still be able to finish it if she told him what her thoughts were. With this thought of playing a prank on him, she felt much calmer than she did earlier. She pointed at the depressions on the child’s head and purposely lowered her voice, “Look, does the shape of these depressions remind you of a bite mark?”

She pointed at other inconspicuous places on the boy’s head, “Look, here too. It follows the parts of his head that’s missing. Do you think that he had been bitten while he was alive? The area of his head that’s missing was too big, that’s why we missed out on this.”

A normal human being could only open his mouth as big as a fist, there was no way it could engulf a whole human’s head. Even if someone found these depressions on the child’s head, they would not get to the same conclusion as Gu Lingzhi, yet she could not help but feel that she was right.

“You’re right. I wanted to share my discoveries with you too,” Rong Yuan voiced out, before Gu Lingzhi felt a warm hand on her head, gently caressing her hair.

“I found out about these teeth marks a few days back; I did not mention it because there wasn’t enough evidence to prove that these are indeed teeth marks. But I see that you’ve come to the same conclusion as me today.”

Wei Lingshu turned to look at Rong Yuan and saw that Rong Yuan had brought forth a piece of intestinal organ in front of him. With a serious tone, he said, “Look at where this organ has been severed, the marks left behind suggest that it had been bitten off. On this side, it hasn’t been completely bitten off and has teeth marks on it too. Perhaps we were quick to get here, so the murderer did not have time to finish eating all her organs before leaving, leaving a small chunk behind. Nevertheless, we now know why the murderer has to kill someone every night.”

“W-Why?” Wei Lingshu stammered and his face paled. Gu Lingzhi and Rong Yuan’s guesses made him extremely scared.

Rong Yuan rolled his eyes at him, “To eat, of course.”

Rong Yuan then pulled Gu Lingzhi into his embrace and walked past Wei Lingshu, whilst adding on, “Look at the fruit you’re holding. It’s red and white, it looks kind of similar to the stained flooring.”

Wei Lingshu looked at the fruit that he was holding, its red skin and white flesh. It indeed looked like something from the brutal scene in front of him. The next moment, he regurgitated the other half of the fruit that he had already eaten. At the same time, the sound of vomiting reverberated throughout the place. Some residents who were eager to find out what happened and had happened to be at the scene vomited as well when they heard what Rong Yuan had said.

“They’re really weak,” Rong Yuan commented as he used one hand to cover Gu Lingzhi’s eyes while he used the other arm to transport her out of that place. Wei Lingshu looked at them with contempt.

They did it on purpose! They purposely said something like that whilst he was eating the fruit!

When Wei Lingshu had finally finished throwing up, he stood up shakily. Gu Lingzhi and Rong Yuan had long disappeared, not wanting to be present to smell the putrid scent of vomit. They returned to the Chancellor’s Manor to report their findings.

Within half a day, everyone in the Spirit City had found out about their discoveries. The murderer was actually a cannibal who liked to feed on human flesh! Such a scary possibility heightened everyone’s emotions.

Forget the fact that the victims had died a brutal death – they had to become someone’s meal even after they died! They would not rest until they found the murderer and ground his bones!

Wei Lingshu sipped his tea angrily as he still continued to look at Gu Lingzhi and Rong Yuan with resentment.

“Both of you were the ones who said that the murderer was a Demigod, now the both of you have made another accusation; exactly how much cultivation does the murderer have? Can you give an estimate?”

Rong Yuan drank his tea calmly and replied, “I said that the murderer may not be a Demigod Martial Artist, but the murderer probably has the cultivation equivalent to a Demigod.”

Qiao Yeshu glared at Rong Yuan, “Is there any difference in whatever you just said?”

“There is a huge difference,” Rong Yuan stated lazily whilst he put the tea cup back onto the table. “Previously, we thought the murderer would be a human being. From the looks of it now, there’s a high probability that the murderer is not human.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean… the murderer is most likely not human.”

“How is that possible?” Qiao Yeshu stood up, “In the Lost Lands, the strongest demon beast can only match up to an Amethyst Class Warrior. How is it possible that it can kill so many people without a sound? Furthermore, demon beasts are not smart, how would they have spiritual energy or such high cultivation? Even if it wasn’t caught by us for so long, how is it possible that it would be as intelligent as a human being?”

Zi Zi, who existed in the Fenlan Painting, had heard these words through Gu Lingzhi and was not happy. Furious, it raised its claws and wanted to jump out of the Painting to debate with Qiao Yeshu. However, it was immediately stopped by Gu Lingzhi.

Rong Yuan and Gu Lingzhi were not in a good position. Half of the residents believed in the Chancellor’s judgment that they were not the murderers, whilst the other half were still suspicious about them. They claimed that the murderer was not a human being, but a creature with intelligence. If Zi Zi had appeared out of nowhere, more people would start to suspect them.

“Why aren’t you letting me out? How dare they say that something doesn’t exist just because they haven’t seen it for themselves? Animals can be intelligent too when their cultivation level increases to a certain level. Some of them can even become human beings and live amongst you. How can they not know something like this?”

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