Jianmen swiped his right hand in the air, the two rodents were instantly incinerated in mid air, and from their ashes, small traces of clear smoke arose and dissipated.
This particular storage unit was very likely the one Shawn used to store the antique scroll - but all signs in the storage unit showed that it was likely no longer there: things were scattered all over the place like somebody went through them looking for something and without putting anything back. There was an opened thick lead box on the ground with its lock completely broken, and from it Jianmen could sense a small trace of the unclean energy that he detected earlier. The two rodents he just anihilated were clearly under the influence of this unclean energy, yet the lingering energy was so weak that it only increased their ferocity but did not change or mutate them any further.
Jianmen picked the lead box up and examined it closely - the box was well crafted per civilian standards, and it was quite heavy due to its being completely made of lead. There were two magical arrays that seemed like they were supposed to seal the energy radiated from whatever's inside the box.
Jianmen sighed then tried to cast the detection spell again, but this time the silver ball of light rose into the air and just exploded - this was a sign of the small traces of energy and other kinds of track left in the space had already depleted or clouded by noise and was no longer detectable by this spell. Jianmen was trying to detect the tracks of Shawn before because he was familiar with the "energy signature" of Shawn - this is something everyone has, civilian or powered, which comes from their innate Qi and lifeforce and/or the kinds of power they wield. And everyone's "energy signature" is unique enough for someone who knows how to read it to distinguish it from those that were leftover from other people, or just generally left by other things. But the problem Jianmen had now, was that the leaked energy from whatever that was inside of the lead box had clouded the traces of other energy signatures.
But this was definitely not the end of Jianmen's search - Shawn's energy signature disappeared, but the traces of the unclean energy was very clear and very traceable. So he cast another detection spell, and followed the silver ball of light out the building of Bulky Stud Storage Space.
The silver ball of light flew through the street, under the sky that was starting to light up. And shortly it flew into an old and rundown building between the signs of Old Earl's Personal Storage and Uncle Luo's Warehouse. The building did not have any signs or even one unbroken window on it, which was representative of the state of the neighborhood he was in.
Jianmen followed the ball of light into the building, and after walking by some marks of urine by the feet of some pillars and walls, broken rags, empty cheap alcohol and beer bottles on the floor, he was met with the sight of stains of blood on one of the dirty walls. The stain was dark red but still red, meaning that the stains were not too old.
And by the wall that had the stains of blood on it, laid two broken glass bottles and pieces of broken glass all over the floor. The ball of light continued on its trajectory, then took a sharp turn to the left and led Jianmen into a spacious empty room.
The room was no cleaner or tidier than outside, plus, there were a few bigger pieces of blood stains on the floor: it was as if someone was bleeding on the floor and some other people just dragged them away on the ground, and the people doing the dragging did not care enough to come back and clean up the blood. The stains of blood led to a nearby room - seeming like the person who got beat up was dragged into it.
Jianmen did not know what to make of this, but the silver ball of light was already at the end of its effective lifecycle and exploded. Jianmen cast another detection spell, and another silver ball of light just floated around the air and then flew towards the door to a nearby room, the same room the stains of blood led to.
Before he followed up on the ball of light, Jianmen knelt down and picked up a very small piece of white fragment. It was a piece chipped from a human tooth, which indicated that there was a brutal beating going on, and the one getting the beating was possibly dead. And now Jianmen became worried about Shawn.
The silver ball of light exploded in the other room, right before the pillar at the center of the room. And at the foot of the pillar, was a man in bloodied and torn up clothes lying face up. Jianmen immediately rushed to the side of the man to check on him - it seemed that the man was alive, but barely. His eyes were two bloody holes and his eyeballs were missing, and his chest area was exposed due to his clothes being torn up, and a symbol was carved into it.
"Help me..." the man spoke in an extremely low voice and air inside of his lung was seeping through his mouth like he was a loose balloon.
��I'm sorry." Jianmen sensed the man's condition with his Xuanli and power of mind and will - there was nothing he could do for the man now with his current level of power, and he was not sure he could even if he recovered to a better state and regained more of his power.
"Help ..." the man did not event get to finish his next plea, the last droplet of his life force was finally spent, and Jianmen could see the faint glimmer of light, that was an indication of a person's soul, left the man's body and dissipated into the air.
"I wish I could help you. And I am so sorry." Jianmen sighed, stood up and bowed to the dead man's body, then he knelt down and placed his right index and middle finger on the man's right temple, and slowly, he pulled out a thin, light blue ribbon made of energy.