Chapter 5: Strange Happenings in the Li Clan Residence
After creating the first Shadow Servant, the rest was much easier.
In the following two days, Su Chen created five more Shadow Servants; this time, however, they were the five Tortoisesh.e.l.l Camp leaders.
Because Shadow Origin Substance wouldn’t raise one’s strength, getting stronger Shadow Servants required that the original target themselves be more powerful.
Even though the five Tortoisesh.e.l.l Camp leaders were only of average strength, their usefulness would greatly increase when paired with Shadow Concealment. They could use it to sneak behind a target’s back, unleash a fatal strike, and then disappear, allowing them to a.s.sa.s.sinate even those of a higher tier in strength. If used properly, they would definitely be frightening a.s.sets.
In order to achieve maximum damage output, Su Chen had even incorporated the Armor-Piercing Awl and the Raging Inferno Fists into the Hemolytic Totem.
Only three Origin Skills could be added to the current Hemolytic Totem, including the Shadow Concealment conferred by the Shadow Origin Substance.
As for Chang Er, even though his strength was somewhat lower, he would still be useful as a spy and had his own value, so Su Chen added in the Snaking Mist Steps and Whitetower Teleportation. He didn’t need to kill anyone, but he did need to keep himself safe.
Both the Armor Piercing Awl and the Snaking Mist Steps were loaded on, not pa.s.sed down. As such, they could only use them, but couldn’t pa.s.s them on to anyone, and they couldn’t raise the power of those skills.
Even so, to those people, their strength had increased by a huge amount.
Unfortunately, the Shadow Origin Substance was contained within the black stones, not something Su Chen could refine himself. As such, the amount of Origin Substance he could use was limited. He had already expended quite a bit of Shadow Origin Substance in his back-and-forth experiments; now, after creating six Shadow Servants, the amount he had left wasn’t high.
Su Chen didn’t want to waste all of his precious Shadow Origin Substance on a few low-level targets, so he stopped making more Shadow Servants after these six.
Five a.s.sa.s.sins and one spy was more than enough for the time being.
Once the sixth Shadow Servant was complete, Su Chen had pretty much arrived at the Crow Region.
The Crow Region was in the south of Long Sang Country. To its west were the wastelands, to its east was the Spectre Forest, and to its south was Skirmish Lake. It was a combat-rife landscape. Only to the north were the conditions slightly better, yet even then the roads were treacherous and filled with bandits. Because of this, it had the largest territory and the weakest government influence amongst the four border regions of the country.
Clear River City was located near the northern area of the Crow Region; it was named so because there was a clear river that flowed through the town.
The strange events that had been happening in Clear River City were due to the clear river in the city.
After arriving at the Crow Region, Su Chen and his entourage finally arrived at Clear River City.
Upon arriving at the outer reaches of the city, they found Li Shu, Ming Shu and Zhou Hong already standing on the side of the road, waiting for them. They seemed to be craning their necks in antic.i.p.ation. A few others stood behind them; they should be the new recruits from Clear River City.
After Su Chen had gotten the job as a Knowledge Executor in Clear River, the three of them had closed down their businesses in Long Coiling City and had settled down in Clear River.
Upon seeing Iron Cliff’s figure fade into view, the three of them simultaneously went forth.
“Young Master is finally here,” Li Shu smiled slightly as he said. “We ran over as soon as we heard the news, but surprisingly Prince Su was two hours late.”
“We were lucky on the way here and happened to pa.s.s by a Thousand Kilometers Red about to bloom. It was going to ripen in only two hours, so I waited a bit. Sorry about making you wait,” Su Chen said as he stepped off of the carriage and stretched lazily.
“We should wait for you even if it take some time,” Li Shu replied.
“Right, were you all able to take care of the matters that I asked you to handle?” Su Chen asked.
Li Shu replied, “We began to prepare as soon as we got the message. There should be more than enough s.p.a.ce for these a hundred people. Thankfully, because of Young Master’s foresight, we bought a property outside of the city. If it were inside the city, we might be in for some trouble.”
“I’ve already had my fair share of trouble just trying to get here,” Su Chen sighed.
Walking along with over a hundred people in tow had attracted quite a bit of attention. But with Su Chen’s status as a Knowledge Executor over in Clear River, along with the fact that his captives were all bandits, no one made it too difficult for them.
The large compound they had bought for Su Chen wasn’t far from the main city. The river ran in front of the palace, with mountains at the back. An apricot grove wasn’t far from where they were, and Clear River City was to the west.
There were two large stone lions in front of the main entrance, and a placard hung over the top, written in large characters: “Su Palace”.
There were six entrances and twelve halls within the palace, including the front court, the entrance hall, the main hall, an interior garden. It took up over four hectares of s.p.a.ce and had nearly two hundred rooms. There was a fake mountain in the flower garden, its rocks sharp and craggly, with an octagonal pavilion at the top. From atop the pavilion, one could see what was going on inside Clear River City.
Su Chen walked over and inspected the layout of the place. He casually said, “How much did you spend to get it?”
Li Shu replied, “Ten thousand taels of pure gold.”
At market value, a place as big as this was actually probably worth nearly fifty thousand taels of pure gold.
For Li Shu to have bought it with only ten thousand taels of pure gold was quite shocking. But Su Chen laughed coldly and said, “You needed ten thousand taels of pure gold? Isn’t that a bit too expensive?”
Li Shu jumped in fright. He hurriedly said, “This little one doesn’t dare try to pocket something for myself. It really is ten thousand taels of gold! That Li Clan was originally willing to sell it for five thousand, but unexpectedly the Long Clan appeared out of nowhere and began to raise the price, pulling it to ten thousand taels of gold. Forgive me for my inability!”
“The Long Clan? One of the ten great Bloodline n.o.bility Clans?”
“Yes.”
Su Chen knitted his brows. “Strange, why would they want this residence?”
“This little one doesn’t know either.”
Su Chen felt a strong sense of suspicion.
This residence originally belonged to the Li Clan from Clear River City.
The Li Clan’s origins lay in the fur trade. As they grew and expanded over time, they eventually became one of the largest clans in the city.
A year ago, something strange had happened in this residence.
The reason for the strange occurrence was not actually that strange.
One of the Li Clan’s Second Chief’s wife’s maidservants suddenly became pregnant.
Even though the Li Clan was a clan with origins in commerce, they had managed to produce two government officials and a bunch of talents; as such, they liked to pretend that they were of scholarly backgrounds.
In the end, the girl refused to admit that there was an adulterer, and eventually she was pushed to commit suicide.
The Li Clan were able to discover who the adulterer was, and so they thought that this matter was resolved.
Unexpectedly, another maidservant got pregnant not long after.
This time, the Li Clan was furious. They s.n.a.t.c.hed up the maidservant and fiercely interrogated her, but she refused to admit that she had done the deed, declaring that she was still pure.
Her stomach was so large already, yet she still continued to claim that she was pure. Naturally, the Li Clan didn’t believe her.
Not long after, however, a third pregnancy occurred.
This time, it was the Li Clan’s Fourth Young Miss.
The Fourth Young Miss had yet to be married and had an upstanding moral character. Normally, she never went outside, so how could she do something so indecent?
The Fourth Young Miss also wept and claimed that she had never even touched the hand of a male before.
This was when the Li Clan finally realized that something wasn’t quite right.
Thus, they began to think that there was a pervert hidden amongst the Li Clan, wantonly committing crimes.
For this, the Li Clan had begun to invite people over to try and catch this pervert.
They spent nearly half a year trying to catch this pervert and had invited countless Origin Qi Scholars, but came up with no leads. In stark contrast, the number of pregnant women in the Li Clan skyrocketed. Thirty or so young maidens, all yet to be married, suddenly became pregnant during this period of time, basically accounting for all of the yet-married women in the Li Clan. Of course, they all denied having an affair with anyone.
Clear River City was in an uproar over this matter as well. People began to say that there was an evil spirit or a demon within the Li Clan’s residence.
There might have been some truth to this rumor, since if it were just a pervert, they wouldn’t focus on a single clan. In addition, the women of the Li Clan would be fine as long as they weren’t staying in this residence.
Every maiden who had gotten pregnant was staying for an extended duration at the Li Clan’s palace.
Some people claimed that these demons were sending them children with evil intentions.
Under these circ.u.mstances, how could the Li Clan still dare to stay in that residence? They could only move out.
It really was quite strange; after the Li Clan’s members moved out, nothing else like that happened to them.
Thus, the rumor about demons sending the Li Clan babies became cemented in folklore.
When s.h.i.+ Kaihuang had said that something strange was going on in Clear River, this was what he was referring to.
Because of this rumor, there was no way anyone was going to want to live here. The place had been put on sale, but no one dared to enter.
Su Chen had come over this time with a specific mission, which was to figure out what exactly was going on. Before coming, he had commanded Li Shu to purchase this building. Not only could he live there, but he could also do some investigation on this case.
Unexpectedly, it seemed that someone else was interested in fighting with him over this “haunted” property.