Chapter 464: Frostdew Town

"Oh? Well, well, it seems there's some insider information!" He Lingchuan clapped his hands and laughed. "I love insider info. Come on, tell me quickly, how is it not beneficial?"

"This item was specifically requested by those above!"

"Above?" He Lingchuan asked, surprised. "Who exactly is 'above'?"

Master Wan fell silent.

Jiao Yu suddenly asked him, "Were you responsible for killing the courier from Lingxu City?"

Master Wan was terrified, shaking his hands repeatedly. "Not me, not me! I don't know anything about a courier!"

He Lingchuan brought the topic back. "There are hundreds of porcupines. How did your nephew kill them all?"

Master Wan remained silent.

He Lingchuan suddenly pinched open his jaw and forced a pill into his mouth. The medicine dissolved into saliva and slid down his throat; Master Wan couldn't even spit it out. "This medicine will keep you conscious for the next two hours. No matter how much you're tortured, you won't faint," He Lingchuan said flatly. "When the truth comes out, you're dead either way. The only difference is whether you want your grandchildren, just a few years old, to die with you."

Master Wan wailed with a mournful face, "If I confess, then they'll definitely die."

"Are you saying even the Crown Prince can't protect them?"

Master Wan lowered his head and said nothing.

Jiao Yu licked his paw. "I'll go get his grandson and eat him on the spot."

Wan Xian Neng was greatly alarmed. "No!" He swallowed again. "Envoy, if you can guarantee my grandchildren's safety, I'll risk everything and tell you everything!"

"I promise on behalf of the Crown Prince." He Lingchuan agreed without any psychological burden; after all, it would be the Crown Prince of Chiyan who fulfilled the promise, not him.

Wan Xian Neng lowered his eyes. "My nephew, Wan Song, is very talented. He originally studied in a Taoist sect but was expelled after accidentally killing a fellow disciple. For those few years, he was frustrated, and I helped him out financially. Later, he went off on his own, and I didn't hear from him for many years; I thought he had died out there. But then, the year before last, he suddenly returned home, full of success, having amassed a substantial fortune."

"As you know, my business was failing back then, and my family was struggling financially. I even had to secretly sell some belongings just to cover the expenses for such a large family. When Wan Song heard about it, he came to me, wanting me to join him in a business venture!"

He Lingchuan raised an eyebrow. "A business of killing people and monsters?"

"M-mainly killing monsters," Wan Xian Neng said with difficulty. "My work often involves building roads and bridges in the deep mountains, so I frequently encounter mountain demons and wild monsters. Although this is a monster kingdom, these creatures live and die in the mountains, left to their own devices. Zhidao Township rarely interferes with them, nor can it control them. So Wan Song got the idea to target them, saying that some nobles in Lingxu City needed a type of 'blood bead,' which is formed from the essence and blood of a monster's entire body. Since no one cares about wild monsters anyway, we'd refine them into blood beads. It was much faster money than working hard to clear mountains and build roads!"

Jiao Yu suddenly asked, "How many monsters have you killed?"

"Not counting that nest of porcupines..." Wan Xian Neng thought carefully. "Probably sixty or seventy or more. If they were small ones like bat demons, five would count as one."

*Crack, crack.* The fierce tiger subconsciously scraped its claws on the ground. Sixty or seventy in less than two years? The relevant records in the prefectures and counties seemed to be just the tip of the iceberg.

Seeing its gaze, Wan Xian Neng shivered.

"Don't scare him. He just finds monsters," He Lingchuan said to Wan Xian Neng with a smile. "Continue. You originally only targeted isolated monsters, right?"

"Y-yes, to avoid suspicion," Wan Xian Neng whispered. "Anyway, they sometimes kill each other and die. No one investigates that."

Let alone monsters, humans sometimes fight fiercely and kill their own kind. What's the big deal if a few dozen monsters die in the wild each year?

"Then why did you wipe out over a hundred porcupine demons last year? Weren't you trying to avoid attracting attention?"

Wan Xian Neng couldn't help but sigh. "Killing over a hundred porcupine demons at once was certainly because we wanted to mine bloodstones for money. But also, the number of blood beads submitted last year fell short of the quota, so we had to rush production at the end of the year."

"How many blood beads do you have to submit each year?" He Lingchuan asked him. "Do you have any on hand? Let me see."

"At least ten. They said, to avoid trouble, not to exceed twenty at most." Wan Xian Neng pointed to the study table. He Lingchuan walked over, followed his instructions, opened a secret compartment, and pulled out a brocade pouch.

Inside the pouch was only one round bead. Just as Steward Lu had said, it was perfectly round, the size of a pellet. He Lingchuan took it in his hand and squeezed it; it was surprisingly elastic.

Now, whenever he obtained a strange item, he would bring it close to his divine bone necklace to see if it had any need for it. However, the divine bone remained silent, clearly unimpressed by the item.

"How many blood beads can be refined depends on the monster's size and cultivation. It takes several porcupine demons to refine one red pill."

"Can this be refined from humans?" He Lingchuan sniffed the red bead; it had a faint, pleasant scent.

"No," Wan Xian Neng replied with a bitter smile. "Otherwise, would we bother to painstakingly hunt monsters? Beiga can casually fight a battle and have countless living captives."

"Then why have there been repeated human deaths or disappearances?"

"I don't know." At this point, Wan Xian Neng no longer held back. "Perhaps they were used as bait?"

He Lingchuan frowned. "Bait?"

"New monsters that appear after a Demonic Dewfall often are ignorant and bloodthirsty; using live humans as bait works better," Wan Xian Neng said cautiously. "This is what I heard from my nephew; I didn't see it myself."

So, these people were like fishing for mountain demons and wild monsters, except instead of earthworms and dough as bait, they used living humans?

He Lingchuan glanced at General Ling and said coldly, "Why did you kill the Wind-Drilling Beasts? They all have affiliations; they aren't just wild monsters."

"The superiors placed an urgent order," Wan Xian Neng said with a bitter smile. "We heard that the supply of blood beads couldn't meet the demand, and conveniently, there were many new monsters created by two consecutive Demonic Dewfalls within half a year. So, the superiors requested us to massively increase our capture efforts. These new monsters appear in large numbers in a short time and kill each other, so no one can track their life and death counts. For us, it was, it was a harvest season!"

He Lingchuan recalled the last Demonic Dewfall, when monsters fought and killed by Three-Heart Lake, all over a piece of Demonic Dewfall paste. Indeed, just as Wan Xian Neng said, their births and deaths went unnoticed and untracked, even in a monster kingdom like this.

"We captured many new monsters, but the number of blood beads refined was insufficient. With the submission deadline approaching, we had no choice but to... capture others," Wan Xian Neng said. He knew the hidden dangers and risks of capturing registered monsters, but he couldn't think of that much at the time. "Wan Song was very confident. He believed we would never be exposed."

At this point, tears streamed down his face.

General Ling was surprisingly silent, standing by without a word until now. Then he said coldly, "Impressive, truly impressive. Our lives, as monsters, have become mere currency to you."

Master Wan sensed danger for no reason and shook his head frantically. "I'm only responsible for receiving and delivering the beads; all the monster hunting work is done by my nephew and his men!"

General Ling demanded a definitive answer. "Are you saying my children were killed by them?"

"...Yes."

General Ling uttered several "Good"s in succession.

Master Wan offered another piece of information: "The original head of the hunting operations died in the porcupine nest last year, so my nephew took over as the person in charge."

These people who live by the sword face considerable risks.

"Where is your upstream contact?" He Lingchuan raised a second finger. "And where is your nephew?"

"Whenever the blood bead submission deadline approaches, someone from above comes," Master Wan said, hanging his head. "The delivery was made in Frost Dew Town a few days ago. I don't know if that person is still there."

"What's his name?"

"His surname is Mai. He's tall and thin, very refined, but I don't know his given name. We all call him Mr. Mai," Master Wan dared not conceal. "The delivery location is the third house in Water Buffalo Alley, on the east side of Frost Dew Town."

General Ling pressed, "And your nephew, the killer?"

"He, I can't find him," Master Wan said with a bitter smile. "He's always the one who comes to me."

Seeing General Ling raise his hoof to kick, he quickly covered his head. "I'm serious, everything I'm saying is true! I would never joke about my grandchildren's lives!"

A nephew is just a nephew; how could he be as important as one's own flesh and blood?

"It seems your nephew doesn't trust you."

"He, he..."

Seeing him hesitate to speak, He Lingchuan chuckled, "You're afraid of him?"

"Ah..." Wan Xian Neng hung his head. "Although he's my nephew, he's actually a desperate man. His personality has been fierce since childhood. Who wouldn't be afraid?"

"In that case, you should know that sooner or later, he'll drag you down."

Wan Xian Neng was speechless. He understood that if you walk the night road too often, you're bound to encounter ghosts. But the money came quickly, and he... he couldn't get off the boat anymore.

He Lingchuan ignored him and said to General Ling, "General, if you have no leads, please come with me for now."

Currently, the two parties' objectives were actually different. He Lingchuan needed to investigate further up the chain to fulfill Fu Shanyue's request, tracing Master Wan's upstream contact, Mr. Mai. General Ling, however, was solely focused on revenge, vowing to personally kill Master Wan's nephew, Wan Song.

General Ling snorted, not objecting, but couldn't resist kicking Master Wan, making his nose and mouth bleed and knocking out three of his teeth.

"Stay here and watch him," it told a Wind-Drilling Beast guard. "If he makes any unusual moves, just... beat him to death!" It had intended to say "kill him directly," but seeing Jiao Yu nearby, General Ling knew Jiao Yu wanted to keep a prisoner for the county magistrate, so it changed its words at the last moment.

He Lingchuan rushed to Frost Dew Town, accompanied by companions who could either run or fly, truly moving with lightning speed and full power. Covering these few dozen miles took just over half an hour.

The fierce tiger Jiao Yu was still panting with its tongue hanging out, but the Wind-Drilling Beasts walked leisurely, their chests and bellies barely rising and falling. Their talents differed; Wind-Drilling Beasts were naturally skilled at running, whether short or long distances.

The house in Water Buffalo Alley that Master Wan pointed out was easy to find. Its exterior was simple and unassuming, and the entrance was very tidy, with only a few fallen leaves.