The wind and snow wove a dance outside the house.
The strong cold current sliced through the heavens and earth like a steel knife, never ceasing its mournful howl.
Zhang Yunwu discarded the bloody axe, and with a limp leg, he blundered open the frozen window sashes, allowing the piercingly cold wind to assail his bedridden, withered old mother on the bed.
In a corner of the room, his wife's body was gradually growing cold.
The torn and tattered clothes outlined her enchanting curves.
Her delicate neck was almost severed by the axe, with only a flap of bloody skin connecting her head to her body. The sticky, pungent red had spread across the side of her severed neck sticking to the ground.
Just yesterday, she was the talk of the neighbors for her beauty.
But now, she was buried treasure lost forever.
Beside her lay their six-year-old daughter.
The little girl clutched half a torn rag doll; her rear skull had accidentally been cracked against a sharp table corner during her parents' scuffle, still dripping with blood.
"Bitch..."
Zhang Yunwu gasped for air, his breaths hot with the scent of fresh blood, exhaling white heat in the icy fog of the snowstorm, and his bloodshot tiger eyes were filled with tears.
The tears streamed down his dark cheeks, the wounds inflicted by his wife now salted, causing them to tremble.
Stinging too were the once beautiful memories the couple shared.
"You whore! Why did you betray me!!" He pounded furiously on the windowsill, sharp icicles fell from the eave, like silver-white petals dancing in the air.
In a trance, the familiar yet estranged face of his wife appeared before him.
Sometimes gentle and kind, at other times wanton and seductive...
Sweet and unspeakable memories entwined like vines, tightly constricting his heart, causing a pain so intense he could hardly breathe.
"My child..."
The bedridden old woman's lips quivered, her breaths faint.
Zhang Yunwu's bloodthirsty eyes regained a trace of clarity.
He turned to look at his dying old mother, his expression a mix of agony and struggle, finally shakily picking up the bloodstained axe from the ground and walking towards the bed.
"Mother, your son has killed someone and can no longer honor you as your son should, let's depart this world together. In the next life, I will repay you for your kindness in raising me..."
Suddenly, Zhang Yunwu paused.
He glared fiercely towards the door.
But at some point, a tall figure had appeared in the doorway, standing in the open corridor outside.
The figure was somewhat lean.
Standing amidst the whistling blizzard, it looked like a ghostly shadow.
The yellow-green flame flickering atop the Tung oil lamp, side by side with the cold wind rushing in, cast a shaky light on the blood covering the ground—an extraordinarily eerie sight.
Seeing the familiar figure outside the door, Zhang Yunwu's eyes bulged like copper bells, his countenance cycling through shock.
Shock, anger, disappointment...
"It's you!?"
"So it was... you!!"
Zhang Yunwu's body shook even more violently, his eyes full of resentment and rage, spitting blood with every word he uttered.
"Jiang!"
Zhang Yunwu raised the blood-drenched axe.
"I will slaughter you!!"
——
"Jiang!"
"Jiang Mo!"
As the door was kicked open with a bang, a shrill voice seething with rage yanked Jiang Shouzhong from his nightmare.
Jiang Shouzhong bolted upright in bed, the thick quilt that had been covering him also sliding to the ground, the cold air rushing in slicing at his skin like a knife.
So cold!
The man shivered violently and hurriedly snatched up the cotton quilt to cover himself.
What crappy weather.
It's both rain and snow again.
At the moment, his head was still in a heavy, confused state, seemingly still immersed in the aftermath of the nightmare, the sound of his own rapid heartbeat clearly echoing in his ears.
"I've been calling out for half an eternity and you don't make a peep, I really thought you were dead," Jia grumbled as he walked into the room, holding a charred sweet potato in his arms for warmth.
The shoe-last-faced man's surname was Lu, given name Renjia.
He was over thirty.
But his face made him look like a man in his forties.
Like Jiang Shouzhong, he was a Dark Lantern of the Liushan Division.
Jiang Shouzhong, now more awake, glared annoyedly at this irritating colleague and said coldly, "Close the door!"
He turned his head and pulled off a green shirt from the coat rack.
In the round brass mirror on the table, as round as a moon, his handsome, youthful face was reflected, looking exceptionally pale with beads of sweat the size of soybeans on his forehead.
Jiang Shouzhong stared at his own reflection in the mirror, momentarily lost in thought.
The scene that had dissipated from the nightmare was already becoming blurry, but that sense of panic lingered in his heart and refused to leave.
It almost seemed as though the axe had genuinely split his own head.
A thread of pain spread throughout various parts inside his skull.
It was that strange dream again.
Jiang Shouzhong felt helpless and, without reason, recalled the contemptuous expression of the fortune-telling girl from the day before and mocked himself, "Perhaps in my dreams, I am a shameless treacherous villain?"
Lu Renjia stamped his feet hard, shaking off the slush clinging to the edges of his shoes before closing the door.
"It's unusual for you; you're normally up early. Why so late today? Been drinking?"
Shoe-last face perked up his frost-reddened nose and sniffed, not detecting the smell of alcohol, he said with suspicion, "You didn't play the role of a high monk last night and went to the Spring Rain Building to preach to the ladies, did you? Let me tell you, those girls are beyond your control; each and every one of them is a cunning and fierce tiger or wolf—only Jia here can barely subdue them." As he spoke, he purposefully straightened his lean body, his face full of bluster.
"What brings you here so early in the morning?"
Jiang Shouzhong slowly regulated his breathing and began to put on his clothes and wash up as his consciousness cleared up.
"Of course, there's a case," Lu Renjia urged, stuffing half a packet of tea leaves from the table into his bosom as he did so, "Damn this freezing weather, I was thinking of heading to the Spring Rain Building to warm up with the ladies."
"What case?"
Jiang Shouzhong noticed the other's small actions and shook his head helplessly.
This guy never changed his bad habits.
It was said that he had once gone undercover in the thieves' guild for two and a half years, where he developed these habits.
"A murder occurred last night. I don't know the specifics, but we'll find out when we get there," he replied.
"About a demon?"
"Isn't that obvious? If it didn't involve a demon, would they need us Dark Lanterns to take action?"
Lu Renjia curled his lips.
In the second year of Xuan You's reign, Demon Energy resurfaced.
More than two hundred and forty years had passed since the last recorded fox demoness was slain in the "Chronicles of Thousands of Demons".
The peace of over two hundred years made people gradually forget the fact that demons had once existed on this continent. Even upon encountering any relevant documentary evidence, they would laugh it off, claiming that the so-called "demons" were nothing more than fanciful myths concocted by their ancestors.
With the sudden resurgence of Demon Energy, the entire population plunged into panic.
Animals became spirits, and the rocks, grass, and trees began to develop spirituality.
Fortunately, since the resurgence of Demon Energy was centered around the Ten Thousand Mountains, far away, the court was able to effectively control and manage the situation. The responsibility of the Dark Lanterns was to investigate the cases related to demons.
Since his transmigration to the Dazhou Dynasty, Jiang Shouzhong had encountered many demons, but few were truly formidable.
Apart from the massacre in Anhe Village that he experienced half a year ago, most of the demons he encountered were fairly weak, like the three small fish he had dealt with at the ancient temple the day before.
"Right, did Zhang Yunwu come looking for you last night?"
Lu Renjia suddenly asked, "That son of a gun, he promised to join me for drinks at Yangdong Tower last night, but he stood Jia up. I waited forever and he never showed."