Boom—
A thick, powerful bolt of lightning tore through the heavy clouds with brutal force, making the sky shudder.
In an instant, a sheet of hot rain came pattering down.
Rainwater seeped through the cracks in the cave ceiling, drawing out one fine silver thread after another.
Listening to the rolling thunder outside, Tang Jinxian panted softly.
Her grip on the saber tightened a little more.
Her mature, alluring figure, usually rippling with supple grace whenever she moved, was now taut as a piece of warm, lustrous jade.
“Are they all dead…”
Her gaze swept over the several corpses around her, and the woman’s eyes dimmed.
Among those bodies, two were members of Yancheng’s Patrol Office—her trusted subordinates.
The rest were bailiffs sent by the county yamen to assist with the case.
She had thought it was only a minor case. She had never imagined it would turn into this.
Tang Jinxian’s heart was filled with guilt and frustration.
Over the past two months, several cases of missing women had occurred in Yancheng one after another. When their bodies were discovered, all of them had suffered inhuman abuse and humiliation.
After a thorough investigation by the Patrol Office, it was confirmed to be a spiritual calamity case.
What was a spiritual calamity?
More than two hundred years ago, strange objects had appeared in this world, seemingly from another realm. At first, they were called “anomalous objects,” but later they gradually came to be known as “spiritual objects.”
They were neither yao nor demons, yet possessed the power to slaughter living beings.
Once used by humans, they could create disasters.
There had even been a small nation, weak and powerless, with no means to respond to spiritual calamities. In just a few short months, the entire country was destroyed, corpses strewn everywhere, turned into a hell on earth.
For this reason, the Great Qian Dynasty specially established the Patrol Office, dedicated to investigating and suppressing spiritual calamity incidents.
At present, what Tang Jinxian was investigating was precisely such a spiritual calamity case.
In this case, the missing or murdered women all shared one common trait.
They were between thirty and thirty-five years old.
Full-hipped and ample-bosomed.
And on the day they disappeared, all of them had been dressed in white.
They were also widows.
The investigation had made no progress for a long time.
As the newly appointed Chief transferred in directly from the capital, Tang Jinxian had become the head of Yancheng’s Patrol Office without any local experience, making it difficult for her to command respect.
Her subordinates were outwardly respectful, but in truth many were unconvinced.
Some even obstructed her in secret and slacked off deliberately.
To establish her authority and quickly put a stop to the tragedies, she simply took over the case herself and decided to serve as bait in person, luring the snake out of its hole.
Because she herself also matched the killer’s target profile.
Sure enough, the other party took the bait.
However, during the pursuit, just as their group had ventured deep into this cave, they encountered a collapse and an explosion.
They had clearly fallen into an ambush.
If not for the protective talisman her mother-in-law had given her, she would likely already have died, gone to the underworld to reunite with the husband who had died at the banquet on the very day of their wedding.
“This operation was confidential. Only a few people within the Patrol Office knew about it, yet the killer set an ambush in advance… And what triggered the explosion was clearly the ‘Heaven-Shocking Thunder’ specially issued to the military and the Patrol Office…”
Tang Jinxian tried hard to calm herself, but a terrifying thought had already risen in her heart. “Could the culprit behind this spiritual calamity case be someone from the Patrol Office?”
Once that thought appeared, and then she considered how the case had previously made no progress for so long, the woman felt a chill crawl up her spine.
She gritted her silver teeth and stood up, trying to find an exit.
Beneath her cloth blouse, her abundant chest rose and fell violently with her breathing.
As if it would break free of its restraints at any moment.
Just then, a pile of shattered stones beside her suddenly rustled.
Tang Jinxian whipped around, holding her saber horizontally before her.
Only to stare in astonishment as a “corpse” slowly sat up.
“Mu Jiang?”
Seeing the man’s face clearly, Tang Jinxian was greatly surprised and doubtful.
This fellow was actually still alive?
The reason she remembered the name of a mere bailiff was, first, because one of her subordinates had reported that among the people sent by the county yamen to assist, one was a fool.
At the time, displeasure had risen in her heart.
It was one thing for those people in the Patrol Office not to cooperate and be unable to spare manpower. But for a county yamen to actually send a fool to fob her off?
Unfortunately, the situation had been urgent, so she could only make do.
Second, because this name reminded her of a piece of palace gossip from ten years ago.
At that time, in order to ally with Great Qian, the Kingdom of Xiyue had offered up a princess for a marriage alliance.
The young new emperor of Great Qian saw that the princess was extraordinarily beautiful and liked her greatly, so he conferred upon her the title of consort.
Who would have thought that this fourteen-year-old princess had contracted a strange illness? If women touched her, nothing happened, but if a man came too close, that man would suddenly suffer a splitting headache, unbearable in its agony.
The new emperor summoned countless divine physicians, yet none could solve it.
He also suspected that a spiritual object was causing trouble, but no result came of the investigation.
Later, the State Preceptor told the emperor through divination by heavenly derivation that this woman had another man fated by heaven to be her husband, and only that man could touch her. Either he had to give up the princess, or kill her destined husband.
After the emperor heard this, he merely smiled and paid it no mind.
He also stated that one could not wantonly kill the innocent because of some absurd divination. That was the act of a foolish tyrant.
He even declared domineeringly, “Across the four seas and nine provinces, all beauties are Our beauties. If We wish to grant favor, that is the mandate of heaven. Who would dare harbor improper thoughts? Who would dare contend with the Son of Heaven?”
Three months later, an assassination suddenly occurred within the palace.
Before leaving, the assassin arrogantly left behind his name.
The emperor was furious and secretly dispatched the Patrol Office to conduct a large-scale manhunt. It was said that many people with the same name were killed.
And that name was “Jiang Mu.”
It happened to be the reverse of this fool’s name before her.
…
Jiang Mu woke from a daze.
Looking around, he discovered that he was actually lying amid a pile of broken earth and stones. The surroundings were dim, with only a faint glimmer mixed with threads of rain leaking in through the crack overhead.
Not far away, an astonishingly well-endowed beautiful woman was staring fixedly at him.
“Where am I?”
Jiang Mu rubbed the corner of his brow and tried hard to recall.
But his memories seemed to be wrapped in a sheet of dark lace, chaotic and unclear, with only a few curled, blurred traces seeping out.
He only remembered that his name was Jiang Mu.
He had once been an ordinary food delivery rider, and by accident had transmigrated into a strange-path cultivation world called “Xuanming.” There, he had taken a master and cultivated, and even married a wife.
Later, a terrifying disaster had befallen that world.
All living beings had died out, turning it into a hellscape. His wife and he had not been spared.
But how had they died?
What disaster had actually occurred?
Many of his memories from the Xuanming world seemed to have been swallowed by thick fog, blurred and impossible to find.
Just as he was lost in thought, a voice suddenly drifted over. “Mu Jiang, how are your injuries? Can you move?”
“Who is Mu Jiang?”
“Is she calling me?”
Jiang Mu came back to himself and carefully sized up the other party.
The woman wore a plain white silk dress. The dress was stained with wet mud, and her soft, slender waist was bound tightly by a sash, making the two plump regions above and below it appear even more startling. Her figure was mature and voluptuous to the extreme.
That body was very nice.
At a glance, she looked exactly like the sort meant to be a widow.
He was just about to ask who she was when his expression suddenly shifted, and his gaze turned to the side.
Tang Jinxian followed his gaze.
To her shock, she saw a string of beaded ornaments lying on the ground not far away.
The ornament was strung from alternating agate and chalcedony, and a faint glow seemed to flow across its surface. It was exquisitely beautiful.
“A spiritual object?!”
Tang Jinxian was first shocked, then overjoyed.
This spiritual calamity case had been caused precisely by this object.
This object possessed the strange ability to bewitch the human heart.
The culprit behind the scenes had used it to remotely control the victims’ minds, then carried out the kidnappings and tortured them to death.
Previously, when Tang Jinxian had served as bait, it was because she sensed its fluctuations that she had pursued it all the way here.
“It seems that after the cave collapsed, the culprit wasn’t able to retrieve this spiritual object in time.”
“This is the best opportunity to seize and contain it.”
“The spiritual object and the culprit behind the scenes are bound together. As long as I successfully contain it, I can use the Patrol Office’s ‘Thread-Pulling Compass’ to track down the culprit’s whereabouts.”
“When the time comes, no matter how deeply the culprit is hiding, they can be dragged out.”
Thinking this, Tang Jinxian’s eyes shone brightly. She immediately took out a Spirit-Suppressing Talisman and walked over.
She wore a “Purifying Heart Jade” on her person, so she was not afraid of being bewitched.
At that moment, Jiang Mu was staring fixedly at the glowing string of beads, and the more he looked, the more familiar it seemed.
His sealed memories surged wildly, bringing waves of stabbing pain.
Suddenly, a flash of insight crossed his mind, and a few fragments of memory appeared.
“Don’t go over there!”
Jiang Mu suddenly shouted in a low voice.
Tang Jinxian was startled by the abrupt voice.
The heavy objects on her chest trembled violently along with it, and the outline beneath her clothes instantly rippled.
The woman turned her head and stared blankly at him.
Jiang Mu said in a low voice, “That is a spiritual treasure of the Seven Treasures Joyous Sect. It’s called the Female-Taming Ring. It can bewitch the mind, and ordinary ritual artifacts and talismans are completely unable to resist it.”
Jiang Mu wanted to get up, but his body was limp and powerless.
What Seven Treasures, Eight Treasures?
What Female-Taming Ring?
Tang Jinxian was completely baffled.
But remembering that the other party was only a fool, she figured he was just spouting nonsense and paid him no attention, continuing forward.
Why is this big-assed woman so damned stubborn… Jiang Mu was very helpless.
He kindly reminded her again:
“Believe me. Once you’re bewitched by it, the memories that follow will make you ashamed for the rest of your life.”
Tang Jinxian looked at the man’s handsome face and hesitated again.
But in the next instant, her gaze firmed.
I’m supposed to believe a fool?
Am I sick in the head?
“I have this protecting me.” Tang Jinxian patted the white jade pendant at her waist and said coldly, “That spiritual object can’t bewitch me at all.”
With that, she stepped forward.
Jiang Mu sighed.
“What comes next is probably not suitable for minors.”
“You’d have to pay to watch it.”