There was only one scream. After it faded, the entire Inquisition returned to silence.
Once they'd retreated from the inner hall to the outer courtyard, Cheng Shi's eyes stopped watching the hall and instead swept cautiously over the surrounding area.
He feared the scream might be nothing more than a distraction—and that the real danger lay elsewhere. His expression was deadly serious.
Zhang Jizu shared the thought. But when he noticed Cheng Shi guarding the periter, he instinctively shifted his own gaze toward the hall interior, complenting Cheng Shi's watch zone perfectly.
Just because of that Lord's involvent, after a few rounds of tentative probing, the two had sohow clicked into seamless cooperation—neither seriously entertained the idea that the other would betray them.
Zhang Jizu was here on a bodyguard mission, so he'd never pull a Grand Marshal Hu Wei and eliminate the person he was supposed to protect. As for why Cheng Shi trusted him so readily—it probably ca down to that Lord upon the Bone Throne.
He could hardly imagine the expression on that Lord's face if He found out His own Chosen One had killed the protection target—and then, upon Cheng Shi's next audience in the Fishbone Hall, the two ca before Him to "litigate."
He disliked commotion; He'd almost certainly not allow such a situation to occur.
So Cheng Shi wasn't worried about Zhang Jizu causing problems. What concerned him were his other three teammates—big problems, possibly.
Why had people who'd walked together the entire way vanished after entering the compound, leaving only a single scream for the two of them?
It was too strange. Defied all logic.
Cheng Shi cautiously felt out every change in the surroundings and whispered:
"Can you sense any [Ti] fluctuations?"
Zhang Jizu's eyes narrowed. He shook his head slightly.
"You suspect Scorpio is hunting?"
"It's not impossible."
"But I haven't detected any residual [Ti] projections. At least not in the courtyard."
Cheng Shi frowned, then his eyes darted: "It's been a while. Go in and check?"
"Sure. You take point."
"?"
Cheng Shi shot him a sideways look, silently indignant:
'Isn't that exactly what I used to pull when I was a priest? How is this guy so practiced at it?'
"You're not afraid of death—why don't you go first?"
Zhang Jizu explained with perfect seriousness:
"First, I'm a priest. I naturally lack offensive capabilities and am unsuitable for scouting ahead."
"Second, even though I am His follower—guarding [Death]'s gate and selecting sacrifices—I can't casually perform needless exchanges. It's a matter of devotional sincerity."
"Third—"
"Third—I'll go first! Master, stop chanting! I'll take point, okay?"
Cheng Shi hurriedly interrupted the incantation, face dripping with exasperation as he strode forward.
'What kind of person is this? Blabbering like a Buddhist monk.'
'Going on and on about "devotion." I don't think it's devotion you're worried about—it's your career prospects.'
Seeing Cheng Shi agree to his plan, Zhang Jizu followed with a squinty-eyed smile.
And so the two retraced their steps from the outer courtyard, returning through the sa path. Upon reaching the spiral staircase, Cheng Shi stared up at the dim second floor and suddenly bellowed:
"Big bro—still alive up there?"
The hollow sound echoed through the hall for a mont. No one answered.
Cheng Shi furrowed his brow. He held his scalpel across his front while pinching the ring between his fingers, ascending one step at a ti.
Zhang Jizu followed closely, continuously studying the footprints on the stairs. He murmured:
"Sothing's not right."
"The inner hall door was wide open. We're not far from the courtyard. There's no way we wouldn't have heard stomping of that intensity. And besides—he clearly knew people were behind him. Why didn't he call for help while being chased?"
Cheng Shi paused mid-step without turning back:
"First possibility: the footprints are a projected outco from the [Ti] assassin. He overwrote the result of a chase from a projected tiline onto the present. We wouldn't hear stomping from another tiline."
"Second possibility: soone annihilated the sound."
"Since you didn't detect any [Ti] residue, the second option seems more likely."
"Of course, Scorpio might be skilled enough to erase residual traces."
"But regardless—it ans our tourist group has officially disbanded."
"Tsk. Just monts ago we were on a nice city walk together. Turn around, and the knives co out. Human nature—truly hard to read."
"At least we liars are straightforward. Never a malicious bone in our bodies."
'Didn't you just claim to be a Wood Elf from the Plant Protection Association? Now you're a liar?'
'Dropping the act, are we?!'
"..." Zhang Jizu's eye twitched violently. He had no coback.
The two crept forward with utmost caution. Before long, they reached the second floor. The windows all appeared to have been sealed. Only slivers of light leaked through gaps in the boarding—far too dim to illuminate the space.
Cheng Shi poked his head out and found the entire floor shrouded in darkness. Near the stairway entrance, several rows of tall bookshelves blocked his line of sight. Through gaps between the overlapping shelves, he could faintly make out objects arranged on the floor deeper in—and what looked like decorations on the ceiling.
Beside the bookshelves were several scattered footprints. The pattern suggested Gou Feng had charged behind the shelves, doubled back, and then charged in again.
The layered footprints betrayed shock and unease. Seeing this, Cheng Shi hesitated and shrank back slightly.
Sothing might be wrong behind the bookshelves.
He signaled squinty-eyes to stay alert, then pulled a spherical magic lamp from spatial storage and lobbed it high. It arced over the bookshelves and crashed into the second floor's depths.
The orb bounced on the floor with a series of thuds, rolling until it struck a corner wall—and burst into brilliance. Bright light flooded the entire second floor in an instant. Cheng Shi, prepared, shielded his eyes to avoid the glare, then quickly lowered his hand and looked.
But that single look sent cold sweat streaming down his spine.
"What is..."
Peering through the gaps between the maze-like bookshelves, the first thing he noticed was the ceiling—densely packed with infant corpses, covering every inch. They were curled into fetal positions as if still in the womb, each wrapped at the ankle by an umbilical cord-like tendril and dangling upside-down from the ceiling.
The sealed space was windless. These eerie infants should have been motionless. But as sounds gradually erged, they began swaying to the vibrations—slowly, rhythmically—like strings of horrifying human wind chis.
Cheng Shi was genuinely startled. He instinctively retreated a step, only for a hand to press against his back and push him forward again.
Zhang Jizu walked up with a furrowed brow, his eyes sweeping over the hanging grotesque infants. Not a shred of shock in his expression—only deepening confusion:
"Evil infants?"
"Sothing doesn't add up. Didn't you say the evil infants were split open and burned?"
"..."
That one sentence nearly blew Cheng Shi's earlier lie wide open. It instantly purged the terror from his mind, replaced by the involuntary curling of his toes against the floor.
He didn't dare turn around for fear of revealing a crack. Face stiff with awkwardness, he kept walking forward while saying:
"...That was the punishnt thod from a specific era. Perhaps it's been changed by now."
"That does make so sense." Zhang Jizu nodded lightly and matched his pace.
"Still—if evil infants represent the Theocracy of Growth's rejection of faith, why would they hang them here instead of destroying them?"
"To , this looks more like a heretical ritual than any thod of disposing of evil infants."
Cheng Shi couldn't answer that. He deflected with a laugh:
"You're overthinking it. What if it's not that complicated?"
"Maybe after the Inquisition was abandoned and funding dried up, the staff just wanted to air-dry so jerky to eat. See—doesn't that make a lot more sense?"
Zhang Jizu didn't argue, but he did add: "Air-drying at requires open windows for ventilation. Sealing them shut doesn't really track."
"..."
'Dude—I cracked a joke to lighten the mood. You didn't have to be that rigorous...'
Cheng Shi twitched his mouth shut and redirected all his attention to the "human wind chis" overhead.
The hanging dead infants were clearly arranged in a pattern. They were spaced at identical intervals and even ford so kind of symbol.
Out of prudence, Cheng Shi didn't touch them. But he wondered whether soone was genuinely blaspheming [Birth] here—and this place was a secret sacrilege ground.
Then again, he recalled the Theocracy of Growth. This church that glorified "conception" didn't seem to value newborns as highly as the "birth"-focused followers of [Birth] did. Combined with the stigma of "evil infant," perhaps they really did dispose of evil infants this way after all?
After all, he hadn't actually been able to read those files.
And Brother Mouth still refused to make a peep.
'Cold-blooded! Heartless!'
If this truly was the Theocracy of Growth's thod of dealing with evil infants, the approach was admittedly crude.
But that fit the pattern. Life Era civilization had never been refined. It had always been rough.
As [mory] had said—the gods of [Life] were rough too.
While Cheng Shi studied the ceiling, Zhang Jizu wasn't idle. With narrowed eyes, he kept nudging Cheng Shi forward, observing their surroundings as they walked.
Just as they erged from the bookshelves into the open space behind—both froze in their tracks.
Because there before them, on the floor, spread an appallingly vast pool of blood.
And in that still-warm lake of crimson, a severed hand lay forlorn to one side. The body that should have been attached to it sat slumped on the floor between two rows of bookshelves, leaning against the wall with its eyes already closed.
"!"
The two stared at the corpse. Their gazes sharpened simultaneously, faces darkening in unison.
Gou Feng!
This follower of [Birth] apparently hadn't even survived half a day in his own Benefactor's trial.
...
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