After the Immortal Disappeared

Wangg Mazi still couldn’t figure it out. “I know this place like the back of my hand. I’ve walked it thirty, if not fifty, times. I just don’t know what came over me that night, what possessed me to come here.”

He pointed east. “Five Stars Town is over there. I was going back to Shuangyi Town. There was no reason for me to end up at the medicinal fields.”

Five Stars Town and Shuangyi Town were not far apart; detouring to the medicinal fields would have more than doubled his journey.

Even on a rainy night, how could this countryman stray so far from a path he knew so well?

Soon, the group arrived at Niutou Mountain.

“That night, you entered the mountain from here?” Standing at the entrance, Hee Lingchuan understood why Wangg Mazi had been injured. This type of gorge was also known as a Rolling Stone Valley, filled with round Stone Eggs of all sizes. It was easy to slip and fall while walking on them.

“Yes, I slipped right here.” The carriage couldn’t enter the mountain, so Wangg Mazi gestured from the back of a Rock Sheep. “When the Wind-Drilling Beasts came, I rolled into those bushes over there.”

“Where was the lantern?”

“Up… up ahead.”

The Rock Sheep moved forward as Wangg Mazi directed, hopping higher and higher among the jumbled rocks.

Along the way, Hee Lingchuan found a small, torn strip of cloth in a rock crevice, though he had no idea who might have gotten stuck there. Meanwhile, the Tiger Demon found a few strands of fur on a branch—clearly not human.

General Antelope came closer and sniffed, saying sorrowfully, “It’s my children!”

“They did indeed go uphill.”

Finally, the Rock Sheep stopped halfway up the mountain. Wangg Mazi said, “This should be the spot.”

Hee Lingchuan came up and frowned.

The place where the Rock Sheep had stopped was just a small hollow in the mountainside, barely big enough for four or five people and completely open to the sky. It became crowded when the Tiger Demon jumped up, leaving little room to even turn around.

As for General Antelope, it suddenly demonstrated a peculiar skill:

It took a deep breath, and its body began to shrink at a visible rate.

Only when it was the size of a normal goat did it leap lightly into the hollow.

Hee Lingchuan was speechless. ‘So Wind-Drilling Beasts have this trick up their sleeves? Then why didn’t it use this back at the Government Office instead of smashing the window?’

“I don’t think so. It wasn’t way up high or down low. The light just seemed to be shining on the mountainside.”

Hee Lingchuan looked up. The cliff face directly above was extremely smooth, not a place where a person could get a foothold.

“But you had thirteen companions, and there were seven or eight Wind-Drilling Beasts chasing you. How could a place this small possibly hold all of them?”

Wangg Mazi gave a bitter smile. “The Officials said the same thing. But I’m not lying, Master Hee! I really did see a light here!”

The valley wasn’t deep, and the Officials had already searched it. There were no traces of anything inside.

The Tiger Demon suddenly moved closer to the cliff face and sniffed. “There’s a foul smell.”

Hee Lingchuan reached out and scraped at the cliff face. Pushing aside some blades of grass, he saw a faint reflection on a protruding section of rock.

“Traces of dried slime.”

Wangg Mazi glanced over. “Probably just a slug trail.”

The mountain forest was teeming with soft-bodied critters, all of which left behind slime trails.

Other than that, the place was completely clean. There was nothing.

The Rock Sheep bleated twice, a little uneasy. Hee Lingchuan soothed it, saying, “I know, I remember.”

Not long after he had entered the Chiyan Realm, someone had tried to steal his Rock Sheep in the night and had also tried to push Taozi off a cliff. Of the two sheep thieves, one died and one fled. The one who escaped disappeared after going over the cliff, but the same kind of slime trail had been left at the bottom.

It seemed the thing that had been at the bottom of the cliff back then had also been here more than ten days ago, and it had taken away over a dozen countrymen and seven or eight Wind-Drilling Beasts.

‘That was a close call. If Taozi hadn’t coincidentally foiled the sheep thieves’ plan, my Rock Sheep would have vanished just like this.’

“Alright, alright. This has turned from official business into a personal grudge.” So they had already crossed him before! “I will get to the bottom of this.”

‘Time to settle both the public and private scores at once.’

General Antelope asked curiously, “How did this become a personal grudge for you?”

“Just after I entered the Chiyan Realm, my Rock Sheep was almost stolen. It seems to be connected to the culprit here.”

General Antelope looked him up and down, then had a realization. “I knew something felt off. Where are you from?”

“I’m from the Fu Kingdom.”

“Such a small place?” General Antelope was confused. “Why wouldn’t the Eldest Prince use Chiyan People?”

‘This old goat really doesn’t care about time or place,’ Hee Lingchuan thought, shooting it a glance. “Probably because he can’t trust them?”

General Antelope was suddenly at a loss for words.

Hee Lingchuan proceeded to inspect the area more closely.

There was no blood, no severed limbs, not even any signs of a struggle or fight. Hee Lingchuan felt that the Officials deeming Wangg Mazi the culprit wasn’t entirely unreasonable. In most cases, the last one left alive is the most suspicious.

The Tiger Demon, Jiao Yu, suddenly said, “Why don’t we summon the Marsh Warden and ask it? That should clear things up.”

Hee Lingchuan snapped his fingers. “Good point. Go ahead and summon it.”

So the Tiger Demon scratched the ground forcefully and let out three long roars toward the southeast.

As the tiger’s roar echoed through the forest, Hee Lingchuan could feel the solid rock beneath his feet tremble. The woods fell instantly silent. The wind stopped blowing, the trees stopped swaying, the birds stopped chirping, and even the insects in the rock crevices went quiet.

Hee Lingchuan noticed that the Copper Token on Jiao Yu’s neck was glowing again, helping its roar travel farther and wider than usual.

It held an Official Position, and by using its Primordial Power, it could presumably summon the Marsh Warden.

So they all waited quietly.

The time it takes to burn half an incense stick passed.

A quarter of an hour went by.

Hee Lingchuan stood up, brushing the grass clippings from his palms. “It seems the Marsh Warden isn’t planning on showing up.”

“Failing to appear when summoned by a superior… Does this Marsh Warden want to be punished?” Cangying spoke from the side.

With Jiao Yu’s roar, there was no way the Marsh Warden could not have heard.

“What kind of Demon is the Marsh Warden here?”

“It’s a giant ground sloth,” General Antelope replied. “Including Niutou Mountain and the official medicinal fields, this vast mountain forest is all its territory.”

“Aren’t those things ridiculously slow? How can it be a Marsh Warden?” Hee Lingchuan asked, surprised.

“You’re thinking of a tree sloth,” Cangying corrected him. “Ground sloths are bigger than bears, with claws two feet long. They might be a bit slow, but their hides are impenetrable to blades and spears. I heard this Marsh Warden has three hundred years of Daoist Practice, and the villagers even built a temple for it.”

Hearing this, Wangg Mazi weakly asked, “Are you all talking about the Five Double Marsh Warden?”

“Five…” ‘A combination of Five Stars Town and Shuangyi Town?’ he thought. ‘These people are so lazy with names. Didn’t the Marsh Warden have an opinion?’ “Probably. Is there a problem?”

“I heard from a cellmate that the tablet dedicated to the Marsh Warden in its temple broke a few days ago.”

“The Five Double Marsh Warden is dead?” Hee Lingchuan was stunned.

He had some experience with this. When the Old Turtle Demon of Immortal Spirit Lake was killed by the Crocodile God, the tablet in the Water Spirit Temple had also broken.

‘These sheep thieves are pretty brazen, daring to kill even a Marsh Warden.’

‘Hmm, calling them sheep thieves isn’t quite right anymore.’

Jiao Yu had a flash of understanding. “No wonder it couldn’t be summoned.”

“Does the town know about this?”

Wangg Mazi scratched the back of his head. “I don’t know.”

“I haven’t heard either,” General Antelope said gruffly. “Those idiots at the Government Office are completely useless! Just a bunch of freeloaders who can’t dig up any useful information!”

“We need to see the person if they’re alive, or the body if they’re dead,” Hee Lingchuan said, gazing into the valley. “How could more than twenty large living creatures just vanish without a trace?”

In the past few days, he had also been looking through the case files left by Fushan Ji.

To be honest, there wasn’t much information. With the diligent research skills he’d honed in Panlong City, he finished reading them in less than an hour.

Fushan Ji had commanded manpower far beyond his own reach and had ordered the various counties in the north to compile some statistics.

There were no direct clues in the missing Messenger case, but the statistics revealed that sporadic disappearances had been occurring all over Chiyan.

Dushan County: two people and three Demons missing.

Hundred Mountains Source: one Demon missing.

Kuli: one young girl missing, three suspected missing Demons from the same nest of Bat Demons.

There were fourteen or fifteen other places not listed.

However, some of the missing persons’ files were annotated with “armed brawl” or “found,” obviously added later.

By this count, at least ten humans and over twenty-three or twenty-four Demons had gone missing. But because the cases were scattered across Chiyan, they didn’t seem particularly conspicuous.

Beiga’s laws were strict regarding conflicts between the Demon Race and humans, but infighting within the Demon Race itself was a persistent problem that could not be stamped out.

It was in their nature and couldn’t be suppressed.

In the margins of the documents, Fushan Ji had circled a section in red and made a note:

Where Demons go missing, humans do not necessarily go missing as well.

The statement seemed to come out of nowhere, but a closer look at the statistics from various places confirmed it: in places where Demons disappeared, it wasn’t a given that humans also disappeared.

In other words, the number of missing Demons was greater than the number of missing humans.

Why did Fushan Ji collect these statistics from all over?

Hee Lingchuan hadn’t quite understood at first. But now, after hearing Wangg Mazi’s story and learning that the Five Double Marsh Warden’s tablet had broken, how could he not understand?

What was the connection between all these missing individuals within Chiyan’s borders, including the Messenger from Lingxu City?

Unfortunately, Fushan Ji was killed by his elder brother before he could find the answer.

Wangg Mazi chimed in, “Yes, yes! They all just vanished, just like that! I don’t know how it happened!”

“‘All?’” Hee Lingchuan’s gaze sharpened. “Are there other disappearance cases?”

Wangg Mazi swallowed. “Sir, can you really save my life?”

“The more truthful information you give me, the greater the chance I have of catching the real culprit.”

Wangg Mazi knelt before him again. “You were sent by the Crown Prince’s Mansion! I beg you, just pardon me from death! I’ll be your loyal servant!”

Though the Tiger Demon was fierce and Cangying was majestic, Hee Lingchuan was undoubtedly the one in charge.

General Antelope kicked him with one hoof, sending him sprawling on his back. “Hey! What, am I invisible to you?”

But it had held back, and Wangg Mazi only ended up with a painful knock to the head. Otherwise, with its strength, it could have easily kicked him to death.

Hee Lingchuan remained unmoved. “That depends on your performance.”

Wangg Mazi racked his brain. “There is one thing… I don’t know if it counts as a disappearance case, but it was very strange.”

Hee Lingchuan noticed Wangg Mazi’s expression flicker with hesitation. “Tell me about it.”

“A little over a year ago, I heard something strange happened in Zhitian Village, about nine miles from here.” Wangg Mazi licked his lips. “People around here rarely leave their hometowns. If I didn’t have so many friends I visit, I doubt anyone would have heard of this.”