Players: All NPCs in the Sect Are Moles

Outside the city, deep within a blocked fissure.

Somewhere far away, a dirt-covered [Tomb Raider] scrambled through a pile of rubble and, at last, finally made it inside.

The cave within was somewhat dark and damp.

"Heh, these markings, this pattern… I'm onto something!"

As a free-to-play player specializing in "tomb raiding and grave robbing," he had done his own research into Mechanical Techniques. Because of this specialization, his [Jianghu Identification Skill] had also received a focused upgrade.

At least when it came to tomb raiding and mechanisms, he could identify simple things directly, unlike the standard [Jianghu Identification Skill] which required a full analysis to reveal an item's true nature.

The path ahead was blocked, but a knock on the stone wall revealed it was hollow—there was clearly something behind it. He immediately scanned every rock on the wall with his [Jianghu Identification Skill (Tomb Raiding & Mechanisms)]. Sure enough, one seemingly ordinary protruding rock was identified with the entry: [Mechanism]!

Then came a flurry of dazzling moves: a press, a twist, and finally, a sharp pull!

"CLICK—RUMBLE…"

With a grinding of gears, the seemingly solid stone wall slowly slid aside, revealing a secret passage.

"Heh heh, knew it! Nothing's too hard for me!"

[Tomb Raider] smugly rubbed his nose and slipped into the secret passage.

The walls of the secret passage were covered in sinister murals. They depicted crowds of people kneeling at the foot of a golden mountain, tearing out their own organs as offerings.

Atop the golden mountain coiled a giant serpent, formed from countless gold ingots.

"Tsk, tsk. This aesthetic… all these gold ingots… I love it! So tasteful!" [Tomb Raider] snarked, holding up a tinder-cord as he ventured deeper.

Soon, he found his way to a stone chamber that resembled an archive, its shelves overflowing with all sorts of ledgers.

[Tomb Raider] casually pulled one out and flipped it open. His eyes nearly popped out of his head.

[Item: Tongli Money Shop Ledger]

[Excerpt]:

Third day of the fifth month [Land Seizure]: Mr. Zhao of the west side, owed three hundred taels of silver with compounding interest, mortgaging his ancestral home and five mu of fertile land. Unable to repay. Handed over to the [Bone-Breaking Lineage]. Deed has been stored.

Twelfth day of the sixth month [Entrapment]: Mr. Wang of Wang's Cloth Shop, experiencing cash flow issues. Lured into taking a high-interest loan as planned.

Note: Subject has been addicted to the Jile Bureau's special Paradise Powder. Requires daily dose of the white powder to sleep. Has not yet agreed to transfer the shop's deed at a low price.

Fifteenth day of the seventh month [Patricide]: Li Hanlin, eldest son of the Li Family, seeks to seize power prematurely.

Transaction: Assist him in contacting 'Itinerant Physician' and 'Ghost Hand Mr. Zhang' to deal with the 'old man' of the house (Mr. Li).

Reward: Upon completion, thirty percent of the deeds to the Li Family's northern paddies will be transferred to the money shop.

Second day of the eighth month [Insider]: The steward of the An Mansion. Lost five hundred taels of silver in an underground gambling den, now in massive debt.

...

"Holy shit! This isn't a ledger, it's a goddamn Spirit Stone jackpot!"

The more [Tomb Raider] read, the more horrified he became. Every transaction was backed by bloodshed and ruined families.

Suddenly, his gaze fell upon a blurry entry: "Eighth day of the eighth month [Silencing]: Alley behind the abandoned western sluice gate, silence the An Fam..." The rest of the writing was smeared, as if by some liquid.

'No name is mentioned, but the time and place…' [Tomb Raider]'s intuition screamed at him. 'This is a huge scoop!'

Without a second thought, he took screenshots and immediately posted them to the [City Watch Channel].

[City Watch Channel]:

[Tomb Raider]: [Image][Image][Image] Boys! I hit the jackpot! I really hit the motherlode!

[Tomb Raider]: Look at this! It's Tongli Money Shop's secret ledger! It's full of records of how they've ruined people and seized their assets! This has to be tied to countless lives! A whole bunch of the city's gentry are gonna go down for this!

[Tomb Raider]: I bet I can get at least 5 low-grade Spirit Stones from Miss Su for this! I'm rich!!!

The channel fell silent for a second, then completely erupted.

[Big Boss]: ??? WTF! Is this one of those legendary 'RNG gods'? Lemme get some of that luck!

[I'm Broke]: I'm done! I worked my ass off busting ten grannies and grandpas for short-weighting and false advertising, and the authorities only gave me a few hundred copper coins! And you get to start with Spirit Stones from Miss Su?! It's not fair! I wanna crawl into holes! I wanna dig up graves, too!

[OneSwordToRuleThemAll]: Get real. What's the use of Spirit Stones for you guys? You don't even have a Cultivation Technique to guide qi into your body. To you, a Spirit Stone is just a rock that glows a little. What are you gonna do, use it as a flashlight? @[Tomb Raider] I'll give you ten thousand copper coins for your five Spirit Stones!

[Tomb Raider]: Heh heh, no deal! Only ten thousand copper coins for five Spirit Stones? Am I a beggar to you? For that little, I'd rather hoard them until I have my own fated encounter. Or hey, how about you let me 'see' that Cultivation Technique of yours? I bet my aptitude is good enough. Let me learn the skill, and maybe I'll consider giving you one!

[OneSwordToRuleThemAll]: I'm out! Go on and eat the dust of a mighty first-level Qi Refining Cultivator! I'm definitely hitting level two during this event and leaving you noobs even further behind!

[I'm Broke]: WAHHHH, I want to learn Cultivation too! I want to be able to do Qi Refining! But the Guixi Sect's entry requirements are way too high! It already costs a fortune just to set your character stats and choose a sect, but then they squeeze you for even more to join the Guixi Sect! They're not leaving any room for us poor players to survive!!!

...

「On the streets of Anhe City.」

A player named [Loudmouth], who had just joined the City Watch, was eating noodles at a street stall while scrolling through the channel feed.

When he saw the screenshot and its contents, he couldn't help but exclaim, "Holy shit! That's shady as hell! On the eighth of the eighth month, at the abandoned sluice gate, they took out that woman from the An family?! This is a goddamn serial murder case! Fuck, that lucky son of a bitch is gonna get the Spirit Stones! Dammit! Still, maybe I can snag some assist credit later."

His voice happened to reach the ears of a haggard-looking man at the next table.

It was Mu Ling.

Ever since An Qinyao's death, he'd been like a man whose soul had been ripped out. Although her death had been confirmed as a murder, and Miss Su had promised to investigate, he couldn't sit still for a moment. He spent his days wandering the streets or lost in thought, desperate to find even the smallest clue.

Over the past few days, he had noticed this group of "City Watch" members. Their behavior was bizarre, yet they seemed to possess a unique means of communication all their own (the City Watch Channel).

'He didn't know how they did it. Perhaps, as Miss Su's subordinates, they had been granted some kind of immortal Divine Technique?'

But when he heard the player utter the words "abandoned sluice gate," "eighth of the eighth month," and "that woman from the An family," a terrifying light flared in his once-dull eyes.

He whipped his head around, his gaze fixed on the City Watch member (the player). He didn't approach to question him, but those words had already been seared into his mind...

Eighth of the eighth month… the west side of the city… the abandoned sluice gate…

Mu Ling's pupils trembled violently. A long-buried fragment of memory was forcefully pieced together in his mind.

'The day before it happened… before Qinyao left the house, she had a shy, expectant smile on her face. She'd said, "Mr. Mu, the knotted buttons on our wedding clothes still aren't quite right… Anyway, I want to give you a surprise tomorrow…"'

The knotted buttons!

If you wanted to buy the best knotted buttons, there was only one place in all of Anhe City: Yun Jin Workshop, on the west side!

And that so-called "abandoned sluice gate" was on a remote river channel not far behind Yun Jin Workshop!

'Could Qinyao have gone to Yun Jin Workshop that day…'

'But… if something happened to Qinyao at the sluice gate, then how… how did she end up in a room at the Yuelai Inn? How was her death staged to look like a suicide by hanging? Or… was she not dead then? Was she taken to the inn and killed there?'

Mu Ling couldn't make sense of it.

This string of mysteries tangled in his mind like a knotted rope, making his head throb.

'But… no matter how it happened, no matter how Qinyao died, one thing was certain: Tongli Money Shop was involved!'

The Shopkeeper of Tongli Money Shop… was Liu Yue!

Mu Ling shot to his feet, knocking over the bench behind him. He suddenly recalled the scene when he had gone to question Liu Yue after Qinyao's death.

That day, he had lost control, grabbing Liu Yue by the shoulders and shaking her, demanding answers. He'd wanted to know, as her best friend, what Qinyao had been doing on the day she died, whether Liu Yue had any clues.

And then, with a sharp CLINK…

…the green jade bracelet on Liu Yue's wrist had slipped off and shattered on the ground. Liu Yue had hastily gathered the pieces.

At the time, he hadn't thought much of it, feeling only guilt. He knew Liu Yue had a nearly identical bracelet; he'd even seen her and Qinyao wearing them while walking hand-in-hand. And despite his own recklessness, she hadn't rebuked him. Instead, she had said that, for Qinyao's sake, he didn't need to pay for the damage.

But now, recalling that detail—the way it fell—sent a chill down Mu Ling's spine.

The authentic bracelets they had bought from the shop had clasps designed to be extremely secure. Forget shaking, they wouldn't come loose even if you swung your arm violently.

Except for Qinyao's.

Mu Ling had modified Qinyao's bracelet himself. Though it looked mostly the same, he had carved two small swallows onto it. In the process, he had accidentally damaged the clasp's structure, leaving it loose enough to pop open with the slightest touch.

Qinyao had laughed and comforted him at the time, saying it was perfect because it made it easier to take on and off.

'But… why did the one on Liu Yue's wrist fall off so easily?! I wasn't trying to rip it from her arm! If she'd been wearing her own identical bracelet, how could a simple shake have made it fall off?!'

'Unless… unless the one she was wearing that day wasn't her own!'

Mu Ling's breathing grew ragged and heavy, and his eyes instantly turned bloodshot.

'He didn't know the exact details of the crime or how the body was moved. But he knew one thing: when it happened to Qinyao, Liu Yue must have been there! She must have taken that bracelet from Qinyao's body!'

And that was enough!!!

In that moment, Mu Ling's reason was drowned by a pure, frenzied killing intent.

He didn't care how Liu Yue had done it. He didn't care what other dirty deeds she had done. He didn't care how she had ultimately gotten Qinyao to the inn and faked her suicide.

None of that mattered anymore. He wanted her dead!

Mu Ling didn't go to Miss Su, nor did he report it to the authorities. His face grim, he headed directly for the An Mansion.

Funeral dirges drifted from that direction, played for his Qinyao. And that venomous woman was probably there right now, putting on a show of crocodile tears.

"Qinyao… don't be afraid."

Step by step, Mu Ling walked toward the An Mansion, his heart filled with resolute killing intent.

"I'm going now… to send her down to join you…"

...

The setting sun, red as blood, sank slowly behind the western mountains, painting the green bricks and dark tiles of Anhe City in a crimson blush.

In the outskirts, Su Ling'er dispatched wastrels with a blood-drenched Wooden Sword;

On the streets, Mu Ling, a cold carving knife concealed on his person, moved with the crowd toward the ancestral hall;

On the same streets, countless "City Watch" members, having heard the news, either reported to the City Lord's officials or converged on the ancestral hall;

In the yamen, City Lord Zhao Decang, having received the reports, scrambled to protect his career by hastily dispatching city guards, hoping to find some way out of the crisis;

Clues, crime, punishment, and countless bounties—at this moment, all converged on a single destination.

The An Family's ancestral hall.

There, spirit money filled the air amidst mournful cries.

Night had fallen.

And it was time for some people… to begin their final journey.