Stranger Danger

Chapter 151: Bloody Shirt

“Bloodstains? Did you find any clues?” Ye Qing asked.

Xu Banren shook his head. “No. We searched the area but couldn’t find anything suspicious.”

“How many people did Li Zhou come into contact with?”

“Eighteen.”

Ye Qing knitted his brow in concentration. “So, Li Zhou died when he tried to take off his shirt. What about the others? Did they feel any discomfort or something?”

Xu Banren shook his head. “Unclear. Everyone seemed fine when I left the scene, but I suspect that something bad will happen when their clothes are soaked through.”

“I think so too,” Ye Qing nodded in agreement.

The two were chatting as they walked. By the time they reached Cockcrow Alley, Ye Qing had more or less pieced together a rough outline of the situation.

“My lord!”

A dozen or so Pacification Sentinels were guarding the scene, and they saluted Ye Qing as soon as they saw him. Ye Qing waved them off and asked, “Did anything happen while the Lieutenant was gone, Zhou Xi?”

A thin but tough-looking man in black armor reported, “Everything's still fine, my lord, but the bloodstains on the victim’s shirts—well, clothes, since some of the bloodstains had spread to their pants—are still growing larger.”

“Is this everyone who has made contact with Li Zhou?”

Zhou Xi nodded. “Yes, my lord. All eighteen people are present and accounted for.”

“Good.” Ye Qing entered the clearing where the eighteen victims were waiting. There were people from all ages and genders. They were all huddled together and shaking in fear and worry. The spreading bloodstains only added to the eeriness of the situation.

“Argh!”

It was at this moment a middle-aged man suddenly screamed out in pain. When the blood completely soaked through his clothes, it suddenly came to life and squeezed him tightly. It was like watching a flesh sponge being squeezed by a vice grip. The man’s face turned purple almost instantly, and every vein on his body was popping out of his skin. It was absolutely horrifying to look at. At this rate, the bloody clothing was going to crush him into a pulp!

Ye Qing frowned and took a step forward. He appeared beside the man and attempted to grab the bloody clothing. Unfortunately, he wasn’t fast enough because the bloody clothing abruptly doubled its efforts and popped the victim like a balloon.

Ye Qing lifted an eyebrow and unleashed his astral qi, burning as much blood and gore as he could before they could fly too far. He managed to prevent himself from being dirtied, but two Pacification Sentinels who were standing a little too close got hit by a tiny splotch of blood.

The bloodstain slowly began to spread just like the victims.

“My lord…”

The two Pacification Sentinels blanched and stared at Ye Qing with a pleading look on their faces. But before Ye Qing could react, another person let out a bloodcurdling scream.

“Aaaaaaaaahhhh!”

The good news was that it wasn’t because another victim’s clothes were completely soaked through. The bad news was that the group of victims finally realized what they just saw and screamed on top of their lungs. One man was so panicked he started tearing away at his shirt, completely forgetting that he would die if they so much as touched the fabric.

“Don’t touch it!” Ye Qing yelled, but he was just a little too late. The man abruptly turned stiff and hit the ground like a log. He was dead.

The victims panicked even more. The sudden deaths were driving them toward the brink of insanity.

“Please settle down and stay calm, everyone.”

Ye Qing immediately wrapped them in a gust of invisible force to prevent them from moving. Then, he said slowly, “I am a Patrolman of the Pacification Bureau. I promise you I will find that Stranger and save you all, so please, calm down.”

He had imbued his voice with a tinge of spirit. Like a soothing wind, it slowly chipped away at the victims’ fears until they finally settled down once more.

After he was done placating the victims, Ye Qing turned to Zhou Xi and ordered, “Zhou Xi, go gather some men to evacuate the civilians and lock down this area immediately. Also, inform the others to isolate anyone whose clothes look like they’re about to be soaked through immediately. Obviously, they should take care to avoid the bloodstains.”

“At once!” Zhou Xi replied and stepped away to carry out his orders.

“Lieutenant Xu, have we questioned these people?” Ye Qing turned to Xu Banren next.

Xu Banren waved his hand, and a Pacification Sentinel walked over to hand Ye Qing a book. It contained a record of the victims’ statement and all info and clues they had collected so far.

Ye Qing read through the book carefully before humming in thought, “It looks like Li Zhou is definitely patient zero. Everyone else caught it after they made contact with Li Zhou.”

“Li Zhou had no parents, wives, or children, and his neighbor is the first person to make contact with him. With that in mind, it should be reasonable to assume that the source of the bloodstain is inside Li Zhou’s house or somewhere around the area.”

Xu Banren nodded and shot Ye Qing an astonished look. He didn’t expect Ye Qing to figure this out so quickly.

Ye Qing did not notice Xu Banren’s look not because he was distracted, but because the Lieutenant’s expression rarely changed. It was probably because he was a half-corpse. “Come, let’s check out Li Zhou’s house.”

“We’ve already searched the house, my lord, but we weren’t able to find anything,” said a Pacification Sentinel who was following Ye Qing around.

“I know. I just want to take another look. It won’t take too much time anyway,” Ye Qing replied before ordering, “Lieutenant Xu, why don’t you take the men and search around the area some more? Who knows, you might find something this time.”

“As you command!” Xu Banren saluted and took his leave. Having witnessed Ye Qing’s strength several times at this point, he wasn’t worried about his safety at all.

After everyone was gone, Ye Qing stepped into Li Zhou’s house and began searching for clues. Li Zhou was a tailor, so his house was absolutely packed with clothes and fabric. Whenever a wind blew, they would flap around like a throng of ghosts. It was pretty eerie even during the day.

Ye Qing spread his spirit and began searching for anomalies. The house, the yard, and everything else immediately appeared inside his mind.

To Ye Qing’s surprise, he wasn’t able to find anything. “Strange. The Stranger has to be here somewhere, right?”

Ye Qing pondered for a few more minutes in hopes of arriving at a genius solution to no avail. In the end, he had no choice but to take out the Annon Sutra. He was hoping to solve the case by himself, but reality was a cruel mistress. She had jabbed a finger into his face and told him directly, “You suck!”

After spitting a mouthful of blood on the piece of vellum, Ye Qing asked, “Where is the Stranger who killed Li Zhou hiding?”

The blood wriggled, and bloody text began appearing on its surface:

“I encountered a strange incident today. Bloodstains had suddenly appeared on the victims’ shirts, and when they had spread to every article of clothing, the clothes suddenly came to life and strangled their victims to death. Worse still, attempting to remove the clothes would result in death as well.”

“I theorized that a Stranger is behind this incident and followed the clues to the place where I believe the Stranger is most likely hiding, but unfortunately I wasn’t able to find anything.”

“What should I do? I just became a Patrolman yesterday. If I cannot solve this case perfectly, my reputation would suffer, and people would look down on me. Seriously, what should I do?”

“Maybe I just have bad eyes. I should search through Li Zhou’s house once more!”

“...”

Bro, you don’t have to attack me like that.

The Annon Sutra was done, but the information it provided made Ye Qing want to roll his eyes. It might as well have said nothing at all.

Of course, the information wasn’t completely useless. It more or less confirmed that the Stranger was definitely in Li Zhou’s house.

“But… where is it hiding?”

Ye Qing felt a headache when he gave the house another look. There had to be hundreds, if not thousands of clothes and fabric in this house. It would take forever to search them all.

Suddenly, an idea occurred to Ye Qing, “Wait, what was I thinking? I don’t need to find the needle in a haystack. I can just burn it all!”

He assumed a stance and threw out a punch. When in doubt, do!

Buzz…

The air vibrated, and the doors, the windows, the clothes and every other item in the house suddenly caught on fire. At the same time, Ye Qing spread his spirit out once more.

“Got you!”

Just when the dark red flames were about to burn everything into ash, a tattered shirt suddenly flew out of a pile of discarded fabric. A bloodstain appeared on the left side of the shirt, but it was spreading way, way faster than the one plaguing the victims. In just the blink of an eye, it was soaked through to the point where blood was dripping from the hem of the shirt, and the smell of iron quickly permeated the room.

That wasn’t all. When the blood hit the floor, it immediately dyed it red like adding ink to clear water. It wasn’t long before the entire house was covered in blood, and a violent and ominous aura pressed against Ye Qing from all sides.

“Oh my, you’re a Hatred-class Stranger? What a joyful discovery!” Ye Qing grinned widely as he examined the bloody shirt. How could he not be happy when a new silver dragon-serpent rune was about to enter his pockets?

Since returning from the Firewind Valley, he had been focusing on refining his true qi and astral qi, so he hadn’t used a single silver rune. Currently, he had accumulated nine—and soon to be ten—silver runes in total. Every time Ye Qing checked out his runes he felt proud and giddy not unlike a wealthy businessman who was checking out his account book.

Glug, glug, glug…

Blood began bubbling out of the floor, the walls,the rooftop and other places. They were thick and horrible-smelling. The next moment, they sprayed toward Ye Qing like water sprinklers.

Ye Qing moved his body slightly and summoned the Burning Wind. It instantly evaporated the rain of blood into nothing.

“You’ll have to try harder than this!” He shook his head.

Before he could finish, what looked like bloody pimples started popping up all across the room. Their sizes varied, and the way they squirmed looked absolutely disgusting.

The pimples exploded, and more bloody shirts appeared and flew to the ceiling. It wasn’t long before they ceiling was absolutely dominated by bloody shirts. The stench of blood was positively choking, and it was as if they were trying to turn the world itself into blood.

It was at this moment wisps of blood qi surrounded Ye Qing from all sides. It looked like they were trying to enter his body. However, Ye Qing simply smirked with his hands behind his back. He looked completely unconcerned with the bloody shirts’ attempt to corrupt him.