“Haha, at this rate you’ll be henpecked forever!” Lin Shuxuan laughed heartily, then glanced towards Tang Doudou meaningfully. “Brother Tang, do you have a wife at home?”
“My home is completely cold, if not for that, how could I live in such a free and unfettered way? If I took a wife, I’d definitely take care of my wife and stay at home to support the family. There’s no way I’d keep wandering outside.”
“I never would’ve thought that despite Brother Tang’s unrestrained temperament, you were actually someone this romantic. The lady that catches Brother Tang’s heart will be very blessed.”
Tang Doudou smiled slightly. This Lin Shuxuan really was a social flower. No matter what she said, he had a way to continue the conversation naturally.
During this time, several new couples had already successfully formed. As Tang Doudou watched those men smiled with foolish grins on their faces as they hugged the embroidered balls, she started feeling vexed. If things went on like this, how long would it take for her to finally find Baili Yu?
“That’s right, Brother Tang, speaking of strange occurrences in Hibiscus Garrison, I recalled another strange thing. Is Brother Tang interested in hearing it?” Lin Shuxuan was facing the tall stage but he had been keeping an eye on Tang Doudou’s expression this entire time. When he saw her vexed expression, he immediately tried to find a new and interesting topic.
“A strange thing? It couldn’t be that someone saw a ghost, right?” Tang Doudou suppressed her feeling of frustration and responded with a smile.
When Lin Shuxuan saw that she seemed interested, he smiled as well. “Although no one saw a ghost, the rumors were similar.”
“Oh? Then please tell me in detail.”
“So three months ago…”
When Tang Doudou heard that it took place three months ago, her heart leapt and she nervously picked up the cup to take a sip before asking, “Was it something that happened three months earlier?”
“En, it was about three months ago. For some reason, someone’s wrist was slit in the middle of the night. Apparently, the person it was done to said that he hadn’t felt anything. It wasn’t until he woke up in the morning that he found out there was a wound on his wrist and that the blood had been stopped with an extremely high quality hemostatic.
“Brother Tang, don’t you agree that this matter is strange?”
Tang Doudou said, “It’s very likely that it was a person doing it though? If it was a person, then there’s nothing strange about it. There are plenty of unorthodox practitioners on the Jianghu. They were probably collecting the blood to cultivate some dark technique. It’s fortunate that this person seems to have some conscience and took the trouble to stop the bleeding after collecting the blood. I heard that there were a lot of people who were so crazy as to suck a person completely dry.”
“Haa, Brother Tang, if that were really the case, why would I bring this incident up?” Lin Shuxuan tapped his fan on his palm in a mysterious way.
“There’s more to it?”
“Of course. After that person woke up and saw that his injury had already stopped bleeding, he stopped worrying about it. However, the next day, there was another injury right next to that first injury… This repeated for several dozen days until that person’s body was filled with wounds and he had no more blood in his body!” Lin Shuxuan chuckled. “How’s that? Strange enough?”
It was strange. Tang Doudou remarked in surprise, “So that person wasn’t doing it out of good intentions. He had planned from the very start to keep getting fresh blood from that man?”
“It’s very likely. I heard the government’s coroner say that those cuts were very precise and seemed to have been made by an experienced person.” Lin Shuxuan then shuddered. “More importantly, after that first case, County Magistrate Tao sent people to protect the most likely second victim, but the result still turned out the same. No matter how many people guarded the person, he still ended up dying from being bled dry.”
“The person that did this was definitely very skilled,” said Tang Doudou. “Is it still happening?”
“This is also a strange part. At the start, it had happened frequently, but lately the occurrences have decreased. It’s probably because that dark art has been complete!”
The two continued to converse like this for half the day. Tang Doudou managed to faintly get some clues. She didn’t dare to be too obvious in her goal so whenever they broached the subject, she would take the initiative to soon direct the conversation to another topic in order to avoid arousing Lin Shuxuan’s suspicions.
As time passed, Tang Doudou saw that they didn’t show any intentions of going down to fight over the embroidered balls and were only here to watch the show. Soon, she started getting drowsy. Just as her eyelids were about to close, she vaguely saw a person’s figure.
Although it wasn’t very clear, she instantly recognized that figure and abruptly stood up to jump off the stage.
“B-brother… Tang…” Lin Shuxuan, who had still been chattering nonstop, only saw a blur before Tang Doudou disappeared from sight. His jaw dropped. There was no way Tang Longbiao only learned ‘a little martial arts,’ just this qinggong was already on a godly level!
“Young Master Jun, this Tang Longbiao is probably not that simple!” The men behind him finally reacted and started discussing this.
“Humph, of course I know that he’s not simple. Since he’s also probing us, let’s just see who slips up first! All of you, be careful! Don’t let him notice anything, especially you, Li Ziyu, got it!?”
“I got it, Young Master Lin.”
“What exactly did he see? He didn’t even say goodbye…” muttered Lin Shuxuan. Then he stood up and said, “You guys stay and watch this place, I’m going to go follow him.”
“This…”
Lin Shuxuan glowered at them. “You guys had better listen to me, otherwise I’ll send you guys to that place. Let’s see if you guys dare to misbehave then!”
When ‘that place’ was brought up, their faces immediately paled and they went silent.
Lin Shuxuan gave another humph, then got up and walked off the stage while fanning himself with the fan.
Nearby, County Magistrate said to the imperial envoy, “This Young Master Lin is very suspicious!”
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