At the end of the street, a stretch of wealthy area unfolded.
The Le Mansion was amid that area.
The horse carriage went past the Roskew Street and pulled into the leafy neighborhood.
A grayish-white stone wall surrounded the Le Mansion, describing a sprawling ellipse.
The mansion's gate was black, with red lanterns hanging above at each side. In front of the gate were a duo of stone lion statues coated with white snow.
The horse carriage pulled up before the mansion before Le Xaan got out of the vehicle. Someone probably heard the sounds. The gate was opened and an attendant walked out, welcoming Le Xaan.
Once he walked in, Le Xaan saw a man and a woman to the right above a stone bridge.
The young man was handsome with soaring sleek eyebrows and piercing eyes and had a scholarly air about him.
The woman beside him was gentle with a refined aura and exquisite facial features. And she had a thin and tall figure.
Le Xaan hesitated for a moment before walking over to greet the two of them.
"Brother Xavir, my sister have been waiting for you for so long. Why do you not come earlier?" He stepped onto the bridge while beaming.
The young man looked over his shoulder and saw Le Xaan, replying with a smile,
"Xaan, don't blame me for that. I had been investigating a case on orders before. After it had been solved, I rushed back immediately. I couldn't defy the orders from my superior, after all."
"A case? Is there any major case recently? Even you was dispatched to deal with it?" Le Xaan knew well the position this young man, Xavir Taron, held.
The Justice of the Peace in Toonqy County under the control of Gourian City.
He would only act on the head of the county's orders, comparable to the Commissioner of Police in a county in modern times.
"A case around a few fishing villages. It was already solved now." Xavir Taron smiled amiably at Le Xaan."But, Xaan, when would you come and give me a helping hand? You promised me before that you would aid me in the public security planning of the Toonqy county? "
How could Le Xaan still remember what this body's previous owner promised? So, he laughed and changed the conversation topic immediately.
"Fishing villages? Don't tell me it's about the rumors that river spirits emerged?"
"Why would you also believe in those rumors? Just a man went mad after being exposed to too much stimulus and went around murdering innocent people. He had already been executed by me." Xavir Taron shook his head and said casually, "The case was solved, so let's talk about something else. Xaan, do you still remember what I promised Yeeli last time?"
"Go to the Redlotus Temple to worship the gods and have a spring picnic?"
Le Xaan answered straight away.
"Your memory is always good regarding things to enjoy." Then, Xavir Taron continued with resignation, "You are no longer a child. This year, you would turn nineteen, right? Find a job to do. That would be better than fooling around everyday."
Xavir Taron had watched Le Xaan grow since he was young. Since the Xavir and Le families had a cozy relationship, he always treated Lee Xaan as if he were a younger brother.
That was the reason why he urged Le Xaan right now.
Le Xaan shook his head with a smile.
"Brother Xavir, what kind of job do you want to me take up, working for the royal court or doing business?"
"Joining the court is better. And that's what your dad looks forward to. And even your uncles have been anticipating your support to them.
You're the Le family's eldest son, after all."
Xavir Taron went on.
"Don't talk about that, please. I'm still too young. I am in hurry, right?"
Le Xaan seemed to pay no heed to Xavir Taron's instructions and hastily rebutted.
Xavir Taron and Le Yeeli were rendered speechless and gave up pressing him.
Le Xaan was in no mood to continue the conversation on finding a job, so he bid his farewell and went back to his bedroom followed by Qiki.
After returning to his bedroom, he changed his clothes and then went to the backyard of the mansion, bringing that pebble with him. He didn't even bother to greet his father.
In Gourian City, the name of the Xavir family carried the same weight as that of the Le family. They were a large family, with many clansmen holding all sorts of important positions in the city's government.
Le Xaan reckoned Xavir Taron as a good guy, honest and kind-hearted. And he was in deep love with his sister, Le Yeeli, as far as Le Xaan was concerned.
Xavir Taron treated Le Xaan amiably as if the latter were his biological younger brother.
However...
Le Xaan recalled the green cloud of smoke and what he heard from the guardians of the city gate while pinning the pebble with his fingers.
"Are there really ghost, demons and immortals on earth?"
He watched the heavy snow wafting in the air above the yard, feeling somewhat restless and anxious.
"Perhaps as Xavir Taron says, it was all made-up stories."
He shook his head, but still wished the other way around.
At dusk, he went back to his bedroom and slept after washing up.
Today he had been turning over those strange things in his mind and thus now he felt a little tired.
He didn't wake up until the dawn the next day.
Knock, knock, knock...
A hasty spate of knocks rang out.
Le Xaan opened his eyes, sat up and looked toward the door.
"Who is it?"
"Something goes wrong, Young Master!" It was Qiki's voice.
Le Xaan hastily walked over and opened the door, and was immediately greeted with Qiki's ashen face.
The flesh on Qiki's chubby face was trembling violently.
"The Xav.. Xavi.. Xavir ..."
Seeing Qiki's reactions, Le Xaan had an ominous feeling.
"What's wrong on earth? Take a breath first, and then tell me!"
He patted Qiki on her back.
Qiki drew a deep breath and felt better, and then said in a sobbing voice,
"The Xavir family... The Xavirs all died!"
Le Xaan froze on the spot.
Qiki helped Le Xaan dress before the two of them rushed out of the Le Mansion.
The head of the Le family, Le Finn, Le Xaan's father, clasped his hands behind his back and stood outside the gate, shivering a little with a gloomy face.
By the side of the road were three black horse carriages.
Le Xaan greeted Le Finn and then got into the carriages along with many cousins of his.
Le Xaan and Le Finn sat in the same carriage, but neither of them was in a mood to strike up a conversation.
In his sixties, Le Finn sported a gray beard and an angular face, and he was thinly-built, appearing more like a scholar rather than a businessman.
Soon, the horse carriages arrived outside the city gate.
Once he was stepped down from the vehicle, Le Xaan was stunned by what he saw.
On the snowy ground on the left side of the road, tens of corpses were arranged neatly.
These bodies ranged from children to elders, both male and female.
All of them were from the Xavir family!
And Xavir Taron's body lay in the midst of the third row.
His face was a greenish dark color, displaying a terrified expression, as if he had seen something horrible before his death.
Some sheriffs were here to maintain. Le Xaan saw that Le Finn silently walked up to an elder's corpse and clenched his fists.
The City Chief was also there, and his face was pale as the snow on the ground.
Le Xaan drew a deep breath and slowly walked up to a sheriff.
"How did they died?"
The sheriff was familiar with Le Xaan and answered with a sigh,
"They were hanged with aquatic weeds tied around the beams in their house. But why the aquatic weeds..."
"Yeeli! Yeeli!"
Someone was screaming astonishedly. Obviously, Le Yeeli fainted.
Le Xaan gasped for air and remembered what Xavir Taron had told him yesterday.
He had just returned from solving a case around a few fishing villages...
Fishing villages...
River spirits...
And that weird piece of pebble...
Le Xaan racked his brain at that moment.
He had only been in this world for a few days and his friendship with Xavir Taron was not that grounded, and thus he was only shocked and a bit sorry, less than being distressed.
It wasn't that he hadn't witnessed someone's death, but now the number of deaths was simply too great.
"Where is Monk Redcliff of the Xavir famiy?"
He heard Le Finn asking one of the sheriffs.
"In another place, his body was torn into pieces and partly eaten by wild animals.." The sheriff replied in a low voice.
Silence ensued.
"Monk Redcliff was a top expert in using a sword, stronger than even Elder Zaner..."Le Finn muttered in a waning voice.
Elder Zaner was the strongest martial arts master that the Le family had employed.
Monk Redcliff was stronger than Elder Zaner but eventually had to face his mortality as well.
This was not essentially a murder case anymore. Put simply, the lives of all the people in the city were hinged on the forces behind it.
Who would dare to say their own family was more powerful than the Xavir family?
Including the County Chief of the Grourian City, none of them had the guts to say it.
Le Xaan stood by the side of the road without a word. He originally believed that this world was as safe as Earth in ancient times.
But now his opinion was proved wrong...
He reached into his sleeve and put his hand on the pebble.
It was heating up, rapidly.
He took out the pebble and hesitated for a moment before throwing it away.
This thing might well invite disasters.
The Xavir family, firmly-established as the Le family, had been massacred overnight.
This made Le Xaan very restless.
After a moment of hesitation, he walked toward the pebble and picked it up.
"Ssh."
It was unknown when, but his forefinger was sliced open by a blade of grass.
The edge of it was as sharp as a blade.
A few drops of blood sprinkled onto the piece of pebble.
"Young Master?" Qiki was now sobbing behind him. Xavir Taron's death was apparently a heavy emotional blow to her.
Le Xaan froze on the spot.
In his mind, a voice suddenly rang out.
"Welcome to Deepblue Cheat Tool."
Le Xaan's mind was blank for a moment.
A while later, he was able to jolt back to his sense.
He stared at a semis-transparent blue box before him, in which his name and martial arts were displayed.
"Isn't this... the chat tool that I have programmed using my phone? "
Le Xaan figured that he might have already gone crazy since he had illusions more than once.
He wouldn't complain about his transmigration into the body of a child of the affluent, but why the illusions?
In his previous life, he had played a martial-arts-related game. But the difficulty in finishing the game was too great for him, and thus he had developed a cheat tool for his own use.
He named the tool 'Deepblue Cheat Tool'. That voice that sounded just before was recorded by himself using a voice changer.
Who would have thought...
Then, Le Xaan looked at the interface inside the box.
Nothing special there. The interface consisted of a great number of small boxes...
Inside one of them, it read:
Name: Le Xaan.
Martial Arts: None.