Chapter 453: Disappearing Light

Wang Mazi could never understand it. "I know this area very well; I must have walked it at least thirty, if not fifty, times. I don't know what came over me that night, how I ended up here by some strange force."

He pointed east. "Wudou Town is over there. I was going back to Shuangyi Town. It's impossible that I would have ended up at the medicinal field."

Wudou Town and Shuangyi Town are not far apart. Detouring to the medicinal field would more than double the distance.

Even on a rainy day, how could this countryman, walking a familiar path home, have deviated so much?

Soon, they arrived at Ox Head Mountain.

"That night, you entered the mountain from here?" He Lingchuan understood why Wang Mazi was injured the moment he stood at the entrance. This type of valley, also known as Rolling Stone Valley, was strewn with round stones, both large and small. It would be easy to slip while walking here.

"Yes, I slipped right here." The carriage couldn't enter the mountain, so Wang Mazi, riding a rock goat, gestured. "When the Wind-Boring Beast arrived, I rolled into the bushes over there."

"Where was the lantern?"

"Up ahead."

The rock goat moved forward according to Wang Mazi's directions, bouncing higher and higher among the scattered rocks.

Along the way, He Lingchuan found a small piece of torn cloth caught in a rock crevice, unsure who might have snagged it there. The mighty tiger, meanwhile, found several strands of hair on a tree branch that were clearly not human. General Antelope came closer, sniffed, and said sadly, "Those are my children!"

"They indeed went up."

Finally, the rock goat stopped halfway up the mountain. Wang Mazi said, "It should be around here."

He Lingchuan followed and, upon seeing it, frowned.

The rock goat had stopped in a small, open-air hollow, barely large enough for four or five people. If the mighty tiger were to jump up, it would be cramped, with no room to turn around.

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

It took a deep breath, and its body visibly shrank.

It continued shrinking until it was the size of an ordinary goat, then it lightly leaped into the hollow.

"..." *Do Wind-Boring Beasts possess such a skill?* He Lingchuan was speechless. *Why didn't it use this at the yamen earlier, instead choosing to smash the windows?*

"No, it shouldn't be here. This place is neither high nor low; the light must have been aimed at the mountainside."

He Lingchuan looked up. The rock wall directly above was very smooth, not a place where humans could stand.

"But you had thirteen companions, and seven or eight Wind-Boring Beasts were chasing you. How could such a small place accommodate all of them?"

Wang Mazi gave a wry smile. "The constables said the same thing. But I'm really not lying, Lord He; I truly saw a light right here!"

This valley was not deep, and the constables had searched it, but found no traces inside.

The mighty tiger suddenly approached the rock wall and sniffed: "It smells a bit fishy."

He Lingchuan reached out and scraped the rock wall, pushing aside grass to reveal a faint reflection on the protruding surface.

"Some traces of dried mucus."

Wang Mazi also took a look: "Maybe a slug crawled by."

There are countless small mollusks in the mountains and forests; wherever they pass, they leave mucus trails.

Other than that, the place was completely clean and empty.

The rock goat made two huffing calls, showing some unease. He Lingchuan reassured it, "I know, I remember."

Not long after he had entered the Chi Yan territory, someone had tried to steal his rock goat at night and even push Taozi off a cliff. One of the two sheep thieves died, and the other fled, disappearing after reaching the cliff. However, similar mucus traces were found at the bottom of that cliff.

It seemed that whatever was at the bottom of the cliff back then had also appeared here a dozen days ago, taking away over a dozen countrymen and seven or eight Wind-Boring Beasts.

How fortunate! If Taozi hadn't coincidentally disrupted the sheep thieves' plan, his rock goat would have disappeared this way too.

"Alright, alright, this official matter has turned into a personal vendetta." *So, they had already tried to provoke him!* "I will get to the bottom of this."

Official business and personal scores must be settled together.

General Antelope asked curiously, "How did it become your personal vendetta?"

"My rock goat was nearly stolen shortly after I entered Chi Yan territory. It seems connected to the perpetrator here."

General Antelope looked him up and down, then realized, "I knew something felt off. Where are you from?"

"I'm from Fu State."

"Such a small place?" General Antelope didn't understand. "Why doesn't the Young Master use Chi Yan people?" The old fellow had no sense of occasion with his questions. He Lingchuan shot him a glance. "Perhaps he doesn't trust them?"

General Antelope was immediately speechless.

Next, He Lingchuan investigated more carefully.

There were no bloodstains, no severed limbs, not even any signs of struggle or fight. He Lingchuan felt that it wasn't too outrageous for the constables to consider Wang Mazi a suspect. In most cases, the last person alive is the most suspicious.

Mighty Tiger Jiao Yu suddenly spoke. "Why don't we summon a mountain spirit and ask? That would clear things up."

He Lingchuan snapped his fingers: "Good point, go ahead and summon it."

So the mighty tiger vigorously scratched the ground, then faced southeast and let out three long roars.

The tiger's roar echoed through the mountains. He Lingchuan felt the solid rock beneath his feet tremble. The forest immediately fell silent: no wind blew, no trees swayed, no birds chirped, and even tiny insects in the rock crevices hushed.

He Lingchuan noticed that the copper plaque on Jiao Yu's neck was glowing again, helping it transmit its roar wider and further than usual.

As an official entity, it could use its primal power to summon a mountain spirit.

So everyone waited quietly. Half an incense stick of time passed.

A quarter of an hour passed.

He Lingchuan stood up and brushed off the grass clippings from his palm: "It seems the mountain spirit doesn't intend to come."

"Ignoring a summons from a superior? Does this mountain spirit wish to be punished?" Cang Ying spoke from the side.

With Jiao Yu's loud voice, there's no way the mountain spirit couldn't have heard.

"What kind of monster is the mountain spirit here?"

"It's a giant ground sloth," General Antelope replied. "Hundreds of acres of mountain forest, including Ox Head Mountain and the official medicinal field, are its territory."

He Lingchuan asked in surprise, "Isn't that thing extremely slow? Can it even be a mountain spirit?"

"You're thinking of a tree sloth," Cang Ying corrected him. "Ground sloths are larger than bears, with claws two feet long. While their movements are slow, their tough hide is impervious to blades and spears. I've heard that the mountain spirit here has three hundred years of cultivation, and the villagers have even built a shrine to it."

Hearing this, Wang Mazi hesitantly asked, "Are you gentlemen speaking of the Wushuang Mountain Spirit?"

"Wu..." *Is that a combined name for Wudou Town and Shuangyi Town? These people are so lazy with their names. Doesn't the mountain spirit mind?* "Probably. What's the problem?"

"I heard from a fellow prisoner that the plaque worshipped in the mountain spirit's shrine broke a few days ago."

"The Wushuang Mountain Spirit died?" He Lingchuan was startled.

He knew about this. When the old turtle demon in Immortal Spirit Lake had been killed by the Crocodile God, the plaque at the water spirit's shrine had also broken.

These sheep thieves are quite arrogant, daring to kill even a mountain spirit.

Hmm, calling them sheep thieves is no longer appropriate.

Jiao Yu suddenly understood: "No wonder it couldn't be summoned."

"Does the town know about this?"

Wang Mazi scratched the back of his head: "I don't know."

General Antelope gruffly said, "I haven't heard either. Those government fools are truly incompetent! They occupy positions without performing their duties, unable to gather any useful information."

"We need to see them alive, or see their corpses," He Lingchuan said, looking at the valley. "How could over twenty large living creatures simply vanish, without leaving a single trace?"

These past few days, he had also looked through the case files left by Fu Shanji.

Honestly, there wasn't much information. With his studious nature cultivated in Panlong City, he finished reading it in less than half an hour.

The manpower Fu Shanji could deploy far exceeded He Lingchuan's capabilities, so he had ordered various northern counties to compile statistics.

There were no direct clues in the messenger's disappearance case, but compiling the statistics revealed scattered disappearances across Chi Yan.

Dushan County: two people and three monsters disappeared.

Baishan Yuan: one monster disappeared.

Kuli: one girl disappeared, along with three suspected monsters from the same bat demon den.

There were also fourteen or fifteen unlisted locations.

However, some missing persons' entries were later marked with "armed conflict" or "found," indicating these additions were made afterwards.

By this reckoning, at least ten humans and over twenty-three or twenty-four monsters had disappeared, but because these incidents were scattered across Chi Yan, they didn't seem particularly significant.

Beijia's laws were stricter on conflicts between demons and humans, whereas infighting within demon tribes remained rampant despite repeated prohibitions.

It was their nature, impossible to suppress.

Next to the data, Fu Shanji had circled in red and added a note:

"Disappearance of monsters does not necessarily mean disappearance of humans."

This statement seemed to lack context, but a closer examination of the statistics from various regions confirmed that locations with missing monsters did not necessarily have missing humans.

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

Why did Fu Shanji collect these statistics from various places?

He Lingchuan had not fully understood at first, but after hearing Wang Mazi's account and learning that the Wushuang Mountain Spirit's plaque had broken, he now understood perfectly.

What was the connection between these missing individuals within Chi Yan, including the messenger from Lingxu City? Unfortunately, Fu Shanji was killed by his elder brother before he could find the answer.

Wang Mazi also chimed in, "Yes, yes, they all just vanished, completely gone. I don't know how it happened!"

"All of them?" He Lingchuan's gaze narrowed slightly. "Are there other disappearance cases?"

Wang Mazi swallowed: "Sir, can you really save my life?"

"The more truthful information you provide, the greater my chance of catching the real culprit."

Wang Mazi knelt before him again. "You were sent by the Crown Prince's Mansion. Please spare my life directly! I'll serve you like an ox or a horse!"

Although the tiger demon was fierce and the eagle divine, there was no doubt that He Lingchuan was the one in charge.

General Antelope kicked him, sending him sprawling on his back. "Hmph, do you think I'm not here?"

However, its kick was measured; Wang Mazi merely felt a painful jolt to his head. Otherwise, with its full strength, it could have easily killed him.

He Lingchuan was unmoved: "That depends on your performance."

Wang Mazi racked his brain. "There's one thing I'm not sure if it counts as a disappearance case, but it's truly very strange."

He Lingchuan noticed a clear hesitation in Wang Mazi's expression. "Tell me about it."

"Over a year ago, I heard about a strange incident in Zhitian Village, about thirty *li* from here." Wang Mazi licked his lips. "People from around here rarely leave their hometowns. If it weren't for my many acquaintances, I doubt anyone else would have heard of this."