Chapter 237: Imminent Storm
“My master isn’t back yet. If you’re his friend, you may wait inside for him,” the old housekeeper offered politely.
Lin Jin shook his head and bid goodbye. Before leaving, he left the housekeeper with a message to convey to Lu Bin that Lin Jin was looking for him.
This situation was uncertain right now and Lu Bin might just be in hot water himself. If Lin Jin stayed at Lu Manor, he might draw danger over here too. What if the a.s.sa.s.sins were brave enough to attack even in such a place?
It would be bad to trouble that inn again. After brief consideration, as Lin Jin still had to stay in the city for a few more days, maybe even more than a week, it was better to rent a secluded house.
He didn’t lack money anyway.
So that was settled then.
There was a specialized store in the city with designated brokers who provided such services. All they needed was money. To save trouble, Lin Jin gave them full authority over the matter. Only, it still took time because they had to walk around to several locations for Lin Jin to decide on a place to stay. Fortunately, they managed to get everything done before sunset.
The house was good and secluded enough. Though slightly old, everything inside was new and the place was neatly kept. After paying up, the broker left happily. This place was his for now.
Xiao Huo and the white ape went around sniffing everywhere to familiarize themselves with the place. Lin Jin went directly inside. After running about the entire day and exhausting his spirit energy in the morning, he needed good quality sleep.
“Xiao Huo, White Ape, stay outside and guard the place. If it’s a friend, let them in. If it’s an intruder, just immobilize them. If you can’t keep them alive, just kill them,” Lin Jin instructed before dropping down and falling asleep.
He was too tired.
He didn’t expect that controlling the psyche golden needle from several thousand feet away would consume so much spirit energy. He ended up overexerting himself. Speaking of which, even during the ancient times of immortals, a skill like this would still be cla.s.sified as something amazing.
Soon, there was snoring.
Xiao Huo and the white ape each took one side. One lay on the floor while the other sat up straight as they guarded the place. Xiao Huo behaved of course. The white ape was a playful one but due to his fear of Lin Jin, he dared not disobey Lin Jin’s orders.
Time pa.s.sed quickly. When the sun rose again the next day, Lin Jin was completely rested.
Mm! Ugh! Ah!
Lin Jin did a few stretches and felt the joints in his body crackle as he did. His physical body felt much stronger after this sleep.
Opening his eyes, Lin Jin got up and went outside.
But just as he reached the door, Lin Jin could smell the foul scent of blood.
Out in the yard, he saw five people lying on the ground side by side in an orderly manner. Two of them were physically injured, one of them had his chest punched in while the other was covered in bite marks. Clearly, the white ape and Xiao Huo had killed them. The other three were bleeding black blood from their nose and mouth. They must have committed suicide by consuming poison.
At the sight of Lin Jin, Xiao Huo and White Ape began making gestures. Lin Jin knew these villains must have intruded deep into the night. Both of them were killed and after the other three were caught, they simply committed suicide with poison in fear of exposing their ident.i.ties.
A suicide squad?
Lin Jin was baffled. He examined them carefully and then asked Xiao Huo and White Ape. Though these guys couldn’t speak, Lin Jin could more or less understand them.
If his interpretation was correct, unlike the a.s.sa.s.sin from yesterday, these five men were just spying but didn’t manage to escape Xiao Huo and White Ape’s detection so they ended up dead.
In other words, Lin Jin was being supervised and the other party was powerful enough to send over a suicide squad.
Was this still about He Yu’s treatment?
Things were getting serious.
Looking at the neatly arranged corpses, Lin Jin started to worry. After thinking it through, he decided it was best to report this to the officials. Lin Jin knew it was difficult for him to get out of this mess now and there might be greater problems coming up. But he wished for none of it.
The other party was already using such underhanded tactics from the beginning but suffered continuous losses. From there, they would either mellow down or increase the intensity of their attacks.
Lin Jin thought about it. Since there was this saying about the country’s fate being at stake, the person who despised seeing He Yu recover the most should be Jade Dragon Kingdom’s current emperor. Sealing up the palace and restraining Lu Bin was most probably this emperor’s doing too.
So, would he be the person who keeps sending a.s.sa.s.sins after him as well?
If that were the case, Lin Jin would be in grave danger. To be targeted by a nation’s leader was definitely not good news. Lin Jin even foiled that person’s plans several times in a row.
But Lin Jin thought it shouldn’t be possible either.
How could a nation’s patriarch be this mediocre?
Moreover, there were plenty of other more effective ways to deal with Lin Jin. Why did he have to choose the most underhanded one?
This didn’t make sense.
To be brutally honest, if Lin Jin were to become an emperor, it would just be too easy to order a person’s removal.
Something told him that these incidents had nothing to do with the emperor.
So he would report this to the officials. Or he could take care of these corpses himself and stay silent, but that might be a trap because no matter how one looked at it, these five people were obviously the ones who came after Lin Jin.
Wasting no more time, Lin Jin reported this to the authorities.
Things were better this time as they got acquainted yesterday. There wasn’t any extra questioning. The constables asked him what happened, the coroners took the body away, and the scribe recorded the information.
Lin Jin obviously had to make another trip to the government office.
The procedures were done much quicker this time and Governor Zhang Mengliang showed up halfway through. After knowing that Lin Jin was a good friend of Lu Bin’s he was very polite to him.
However, since this incident involved five deaths, they had to be extra careful according to the rules.
Lin Jin didn’t know about the actual process so he could only weave a lie, saying the five men forcibly invaded his house and two were bitten to death by pet beasts while the other three killed themselves by drinking poison.
Zhang Mengliang exclaimed, “A suicide squad.” This was definitely a serious case. Governor Zhang pondered before saying, “Appraiser Lin, this is getting serious. I understand that you’re just protecting yourself but five human lives were involved. We will investigate the specifics on our end so for the meantime, you have to stay inside the city and refrain from going out.”
Though it sounded like a kind reminder, he was in fact requesting that Lin Jin keep them updated and that officials would be in his home to supervise him.
Lin Jin had no objections.
After the longest time, Lin Jin finally came out of the government office.
Lin Jin was in a pa.s.sive position right now. A thought came to mind and he went over to the previous inn he was staying at to give the innkeeper his new address in case someone came looking for him.
Lin Jin feared that Lu Bin or He Qing might come searching for him.
He was currently hoping that either one of them would show up so he at least knew what was going on.
“Forget it. There’s no rus.h.!.+” Lin Jin thought carefully and then mumbled to himself. “He Yu won’t die with my psyche golden needle around. Let just see how long they can hold out. Also, tonight, the Visitation Hall would reopen so He Qing will show up no matter what. I’ll just have to ask her what’s happening by then. For now, I need to stay calm.”
Putting a hand behind his back, Lin Jin maintained an aloof appearance but deep inside, he knew that a storm was brewing. Whether he wanted it or not, he was now being dragged into the mess.