Eighty-Eight: Hearing the Name of the Godslayer Again

After Chen Sheng departed, a mass of black mist suddenly churned out of nowhere, as though it had spilled forth from some other dimension, abrupt and uncanny. In the haze, a colossal stone platform began to appear and disappear by turns.

On that platform, a golden blade stood planted at an angle.

Warm blood flowed from it, trickling all the way to the platform’s edge before dripping down into the void.

The already rotten wooden pillars now looked as though a single gust might scatter them to the wind, their surfaces riddled with cracks that made no sense at all.

The fourteen characters carved upon them had also grown blurred beyond recognition.

Only the murderous aura had become even more intense. It set wind rising across the stone platform for no reason, the whistling gale blowing apart a patch of black mist and revealing a corner of the guillotine that had never before been shown in the mortal world.

That corner of the platform was covered in fissures, and within the cracks one could almost make out flesh and blood.

It was deeply eerie.

This guillotine seemed alive.

The black mist churned again, once more veiling that corner of the stone platform. Yet the murderous aura still sought release, and so another patch of mist was blown aside. This time, the exposed section of the platform revealed not cracks, but a carriage.

Inside that carriage, a revenant trembled all over, terror filling its eyes.

If Chen Sheng could have seen it, he would have recognized it at once: the mysterious merchant from before.

And this carriage was one of the compartments of the Underworld Hunt Wagon.

...

Rustle, rustle, rustle. Hearing that sound drawing nearer and nearer, Chen Sheng saw, some several hundred paces away, the grasses and trees there suddenly spread apart, as though something were being forced out from within.

Then that scene of vegetation parting appeared beside him in an instant, as if the distance of several hundred paces had been traversed in a blink.

And then a figure emerged into his view.

"There’s nothing strange ahead on the road, and no ghosts either. Still... maybe we shouldn’t go on. Better to wait a while," said Qian Duoduo as her form appeared. She twisted her neck, straightened her head, and then continued.

Her invisibility was not the sort of concealment ghosts used against the living.

That kind of invisibility was merely a basic ability possessed by all ghosts; it could only keep ordinary people from seeing them. Anyone with living vitality could still perceive them.

But her invisibility could erase her form entirely even from the eyes of other ghosts. Even fierce spirits, so long as they had not unleashed the power of their execution weapon, could not see her.

She had escaped the Black-Faced Reaper’s cleansing twice by relying on this.

It could be said to be her greatest trump card.

She would never have used it unless absolutely necessary. This time, she had made an exception for Chen Sheng.

The one flaw in this invisibility was that once concealed, she became like a living person and could be obstructed by grass, trees, and the like. Unless she remained perfectly still, she was easy to expose.

This was because the ghost art she had obtained was missing half of itself.

"Did something happen farther ahead?" Chen Sheng asked.

"In the town a bit farther on, there are many trainee officers from the Bureau of Public Security, all armed with guns. It seems they’re trying to arrest someone," Qian Duoduo reported what she had seen.

"Aren’t you a ghost? You’re afraid of that?" Chen Sheng glanced at her impassively.

"But didn’t you say we should avoid unnecessary trouble as much as possible?"

Chen Sheng had already forgotten when he’d said that, but he could still salvage it. "No matter. They’re not here to arrest me. I’m sure my colleagues at the bureau will be reasonable and simply let us pass."

Since Chen Sheng said so, Qian Duoduo naturally had no objections.

However, before Chen Sheng even reached the town she had mentioned, he was stopped by a police car.

Three officers got out. Two were male, one was female. The female officer held the highest rank of the three: a senior officer.

The two male officers were junior officers. As soon as they stepped out, both immediately raised their guns at Chen Sheng, their faces taut with nervousness.

But before Chen Sheng could speak, the female officer had already ordered them to lower their weapons.

The order came from a senior officer, so the two junior officers obeyed at once. Yet when they looked at Chen Sheng, their gazes remained fiercely guarded, with not a shred of goodwill.

A tree is known by its shadow, a person by his reputation. The name Chen Shenshen was, to many officers, practically synonymous with the words bandit and desperado.

To brazenly seize one hundred thousand gold coins and a carriage in full view of hundreds of trainee officers, and still escape cleanly—how could such a man be anything less than vicious?

What's more, Chen Shenshen had once descended from the imperial mountain of the previous dynasty—White Cloud Mountain!

"Chen Shenshen?" The female officer looked at Chen Sheng, her own gaze still wary, but unlike the two junior officers, she carried a trace of goodwill toward him.

"That's me. May I ask how I should address you, Officer? Oh, and if you’re here to investigate Golden Branch Town, you’d best not go. The town was previously controlled by a ghost, but that ghost has now fled, and the living have fled too. What remains in town are a pack of ferocious ghosts teetering on the edge of rampage," Chen Sheng said. Seeing that the two junior officers were not in a right state, he decided to earn some favor first.

He could have run the instant they opened fire, but the attitude of those two junior officers after getting out of the car made him uncertain.

Recalling what Qian Duoduo had just said, Chen Sheng felt that there must be some hidden development here.

Usually, such developments came with generous rewards. How could he possibly let that slip by?

"You know about Golden Branch Town? We received a report that a town had fallen into a ghost town. I never expected it to have such an explanation," the female officer said in surprise. Then she laughed. "I’d heard about what you did before and was still hesitating over whether to help you, but now there’s no need to hesitate. You’re indeed worth my helping hand. My surname is Xu. You can call me Sister Xu."

Hearing this, Chen Sheng knew he had guessed right, so he pointed at the two junior officers and asked, "Officer Xu, what’s wrong with these two colleagues? Why did they point guns at me just now?"

"Don’t blame them. After all, you’re a level-one wanted criminal now. Bringing back your corpse earns a reward of fifty thousand, but capturing you alive only earns ten thousand," the female officer surnamed Xu said with a smile.

"That kind of bounty system exists?"

Chen Sheng was stunned. This healing game’s damned planner really knew how to have fun! One outrageous move after another.

"Naturally. Only when you’re dead can the Yan family truly be at ease."

"Could the officers in that town have been arranged by Yan Shidong and the others?" Chen Sheng guessed.

The female officer surnamed Xu looked surprised, but the smile on her face only grew brighter. "Well, of course."

"Did they really have that much authority?" Chen Sheng could not help asking. If so, then the game’s design here was rather unreasonable.

"In normal circumstances, of course not. But who told you to kill Ling Tianquan? With the Ling family backing them, they can do whatever they please!"

"Then can you help me?" Chen Sheng asked on purpose.

He had discovered the advantage of this game’s intelligent NPCs: there was no need to stupidly follow a fixed process just to obtain information.

No wonder everyone who had played this healing game praised it endlessly!

At Chen Sheng’s challenge, Officer Xu merely smiled faintly, then said in a voice full of pride, "I didn’t introduce myself fully just now. My full name is Xu Guanyan, of the Xu family."

Chen Sheng nodded. He naturally did not know this Xu family, but from Xu Guanyan’s proud tone, it was clear they could stand toe to toe with the Ling family behind Ling Tianquan.