Chapter 5: An Unstoppable Rival

When Aizi was attacked and left unconscious, He Chunhua had sent urgent messages to the leopard demon of the Western Mountains, but there was no reply at all.

He sighed: "Furthermore, urgent reports from the interior have been cut off for over ten days. The Pingning region was captured by rebel forces, and then floods hit; the post stations along the way are all unusable, and communications are completely severed. Heishui City has been busy reorganizing its troops these past few days."

He Lingchuan was slightly stunned: "Are we going to war, too?"

He had heard that there were some unusual movements in the military camp recently, but he hadn't taken them to heart. There hadn't been any major battles in Qiansong County for a long time, but sporadic skirmishes around Heishui City were a common occurrence. Most of the time, it was just the government troops going out to suppress bandits or dealing with petty thieves, and both the military and civilians were accustomed to it.

"It's hard to say." He Chunhua’s expression was heavy.

"Forget it." Looking at his father’s slightly haggard face, He Lingchuan didn't truly blame this convenient father of his. The county affairs were heavy—grain production, trade, border threats, defense, and natural disasters—none could be neglected, and he still had to guard against the rebel forces from the interior. He Chunhua rose earlier than the chickens and slept later than the dogs; he was a diligent official.

Even though he racked his brains for Qiansong County, the worst news often came from the heartland of the Yuan Kingdom!

This country was trapped in internal strife.

"Why did you call me here, exactly?"

"This." He Chunhua pried open the leopard's massive jaws.

The mouth full of sharp teeth was chilling, but He Lingchuan immediately noticed something different: "The canines are all gone?"

All four canine teeth had been forcibly extracted, leaving only bloody holes.

"The leopard demon that attacked you also used its canines to store items. Furthermore, the internal injuries of that leopard are very similar to this leopard king." He mused, "Where did you put the things from its canines? Bring them to me."

When the He family found him under the cliff at the time, He Lingchuan was unconscious and covered in blood, while the leopard was already dead.

Consequently, the He family moved both back; the living were rushed to treatment, while the dead leopard was sent for dissection. He Lingchuan had only gone out to hunt rock sheep, but he had brought back a leopard demon, so it was considered his prey. After He Chunhua had looked at the collection inside the leopard's teeth, he had given the items to his eldest son as a souvenir.

Demons also had a need for storage, but since they mostly didn't wear clothes, where could they hide things? The common practice was to refine a part of their own body into a storage space. Of course, this required the support of innate talent; for example, crocodile demons liked to use their stomachs as treasure bags, while tiger, leopard, wolf, and jackal-type demons usually refined their own canines to hide things.

Humans who understood this characteristic would, of course, gouge out the canines of the leopard demons they killed as trophies.

Opening a storage space required spiritual power, and He Lingchuan, who had just transmigrated at the time, didn't know the trick and thought the leopard teeth were truly empty.

"I left them in my room; I'll go get them right away." Now it was finally He Lingchuan's turn to talk business: "Father, there is one more thing I must report to you."

He then recounted the story of the Donglai Prefecture guards tracking the whereabouts of the sand leopard from beginning to end.

The more He Chunhua heard, the tighter his brows furrowed. When he heard the words "Donglai Prefecture," he stood up abruptly: "What did you say?"

His expression changed drastically, and he swung his hand, slapping toward him.

He Lingchuan subconsciously stepped back half a pace.

However, He Chunhua’s slap stopped in mid-air and didn't actually land.

After a few seconds, his palm curled into a fist, and he slammed it onto the table with a "bang"

"Conducting private interrogations—this is sheer madness!"

He knew this son of his was used to acting recklessly and never learned from his mistakes; he would hit a wall sooner or later. But he hadn't expected the wall to come so quickly and so accurately.

The Grand Marshal!

How could he have offended the Grand Marshal!

He Chunhua had always been described as "steady" in his official career, but in He Lingchuan’s memory, it was common for his father to get angry at him, so he wasn't very afraid. Instead, he argued: "Those two were asking around everywhere, and the city is full of loose-lipped scum. I was afraid they would track us down soon."

At this moment, he admired He Chunhua’s caution. Regarding the leopard demon incident, not only did the County Magistrate not make it public, but he also demanded that those in the know keep their mouths shut. Otherwise, the news of the "Little Tyrant of Heishui City" killing a leopard demon alone would have spread throughout the city, and those two wouldn't even have needed to ask around to find out.

Of course, there is no such thing as a secret that never leaks.

"The Zhang Hongbin case, initiated by the Grand Marshal six years ago, involved one Duke, two Marquises, and seven Earls, implicating over two thousand six hundred people. How many survivors do you think there were in the end?"

His father’s face was like dark clouds pressing down. He Lingchuan said cautiously: "It seems... not many?"

"Seventy-three people!" He Chunhua said word for word. "How many women and children were among them? Heh, in the end, only seventy-three people were left to linger on!"

A chill rose from the bottom of He Lingchuan’s heart.

Not to mention commoners, even the lives of dukes and ministers were like cheap grass—to be cut down whenever desired.

"By comparison, our family's encounter isn't even the most miserable..." He Chunhua sighed, then returned to the topic: "When you received the message from the Red and White Path, why didn't you report it directly?"

"I wanted to find out what the items were before reporting," He Lingchuan said, his expression hardening with a fierce glint in his eyes. "If these two had no background, it would be best if I took revenge on the side; if their backing was too strong, then it would be even more important not to let them know that the escaped sand leopard was in our hands."

He Chunhua had been full of anger, but after carefully pondering his son's words, his expression slowly eased, and in the end, there was even a hint of approval: "Not without reason."

Whether these two were captured or not wasn't the point; the root of the trouble was that what the Grand Marshal wanted might be in the hands of father and son.

He looked at He Lingchuan: "You’ve learned to use your brain to think about things, too."

Meeting his father’s gratified gaze, He Lingchuan grinned to avoid it: "I'll go get the things."

A quarter of an hour later.

He Lingchuan had returned with the leopard teeth and poured the stored items onto the small table.

"That's all of it."

The belongings of the sand leopard that had attacked He Lingchuan included several demon cores of varying sizes and colors, a set of daggers sharp enough to cut hair, a few pieces of mutton-fat white jade, a string of pearl necklaces, some miscellaneous items of unknown use, and even a dozen gold and silver ingots!

Demons were not just purely ferocious; they also traded with humans. It was no surprise to the He father and son that gold and silver appeared as hard currency.

"The Grand Marshal couldn't possibly want this string of beads, could he?" He Lingchuan picked up the string of beads and held it to the light.

The luster of the pearls was warm and charming, each slightly larger than a sunflower seed, faintly emitting a blue light in the sunlight. Just from taking them out for this short while, faint water vapor began to condense around the string. Being near it, one felt cool, and even breathing became much smoother, as if one had arrived at a breezy coastline.

"It has a slight effect of condensing water, nothing special." Every living thing needed water; in the dry desert, this string of beads could make a sand leopard feel comfortable, but the Grand Marshal shouldn't be interested in it.

He Chunhua’s gaze rested on the pile of miscellaneous items. During the last inventory, he had pushed these aside, but now he needed to take a good look.

But these things were fragmented and trivial—withered flowers and plants, half a piece of black musk, bones that hadn't been gnawed clean, blood-stained rings that seemed to have been taken from human victims, broken hairpins, a few packets of spices, a dozen feathers, half a comb, and...

A large pile of dried insects, dried snakes, and dried lizards.