After a few casual words, the three of them were unable to find any leads for the time being.
They had no choice but to suppress the doubts in their hearts and prepare to properly investigate the situation after dawn tomorrow.
As for today, it was better to rest first.
No one slept on the large bed in the room; it became the exclusive territory of the Spirit Civet.
The three of them each found a comfortable spot in the room, sat cross-legged, and began their nightly cultivation.
This should have been a peaceful and stable night, but as time gradually passed, a pair of eyes fixed on Hua Jian, who was cultivating in the room.
After confirming they hadn’t been discovered, a figure dressed in black, whose features were obscured, silently slipped into the room.
They drew a pitch-black dagger from their waist and quietly approached Hua Jian.
Approach. Raise hand.
Then, stab down hard!
Swish!
Crack!
The dagger sank into the floorboards beneath Hua Jian.
Hua Jian, whose head should have been pierced by the dagger, had already rolled away from her original spot and was now staring at the assassin with a wary gaze.
“Are you that ghost?”
The other two in the room were also startled by the sound and opened their eyes at the same time.
When choosing their spots earlier, the three had specifically selected a formation where they could watch over each other.
Now, the assassin happened to be surrounded in the center by the three of them.
The assassin looked up, her eyes filled with groundless hatred. She pulled the dagger from the floor and said in a raspy voice, “A pity.”
With that, she slapped the ground. A cloud of dark gray smoke instantly swallowed her.
By the time Hua Jian struck the smoke apart, the assassin had already vanished.
This person came quickly and left just as fast. Withdrawing immediately after a failed strike, they were quite experienced.
Hua Jian didn’t remember ever offending someone like this.
“She was coming for me,” Hua Jian said softly, glancing at the now-open room door.
Her position was deep within the room. The assassin would have had to pass Ling Long and Shiqi on the way, but the assassin hadn’t even lifted a finger against the other two, heading straight for her.
Combined with that fleeting glimpse of hateful eyes, Hua Jian was one hundred percent certain that the assassin’s target was her!
But why?
This was Hua Jian’s first time in this town, so it was impossible for her to have enemies here.
Even counting her previous experiences, she hadn’t formed the kind of grudge with anyone that required her death to settle.
Even if she had, that person would already be dead by now.
Everything about this matter screamed “strange.” Hua Jian was completely unable to understand the current situation.
“That was a person, not a ghost,” Ling Long said with absolute certainty, walking to where the assassin had disappeared.
A ghost wouldn’t act like that. The assassin was definitely human, and her strength wasn’t bad.
“Her strength might be at the Spirit King rank, but for some reason, she didn’t fight us directly and chose to do this instead…”
When making this judgment, Ling Long hesitated slightly. Her intuition told her that the opponent’s strength was more than just the Spirit Master rank.
But if the opponent was a Spirit King, it was truly hard to understand why she didn’t dare to fight the three of them, who were only Spirit Masters.
“Maybe she was afraid of alerting the people nearby?” Shiqi yawned. “Do you think she’ll double back for another attempt?”
“Even if she does, she won’t be able to sneak up on me. I’m not that thick-skinned.” Hua Jian, having just dodged an assassination attempt, was now very confident.
Back when the assassin was sneaking into the room, she had already discovered the other’s trail.
She hadn’t reacted simply because she wanted to see what the other person’s plan was.
In fact, she had prepared a spirit technique in her hand long ago. Unfortunately, the opponent ran a bit too fast, and she didn’t even get to use it.
“Let’s continue cultivating. We’ll tell Xia Hui about this tomorrow to put her mind at ease.”
The fact that it was a person and not a ghost causing trouble was probably good news.
Humans were easy to deal with. Just catch them and solve the problem.
But the next morning, Xia Hui did not appear outside the room, frightening Hua Jian into thinking the assassin had already finished her off.
Just as she was getting anxious and wanted to go straight to Xia Hui’s room, Xia Hui came running over in a hurry.
Upon asking, she learned that Xia Hui had slept exceptionally soundly last night. She closed her eyes, opened them, and the night had passed.
“I clearly set a time, but the bell rang several times and I didn’t wake up. I’m so sorry,” Xia Hui apologized repeatedly.
“Strange. Even if you weren’t cultivating last night, the bell should have been able to wake you from your sleep.” Hua Jian was deeply curious.
Xia Hui didn’t seem like the type of girl who liked to slack off. She should have chosen to cultivate at night instead of sleeping.
For Spirit Masters, cultivation and sleep could provide the same effects of restoring energy and relieving fatigue.
Only when they truly couldn’t hold on would Spirit Masters use sleep to replace cultivation.
“I don’t know what happened either. I was originally cultivating, but I suddenly fell asleep halfway through.”
Xia Hui’s explanation made Hua Jian smell a hint of a conspiracy.
She turned to Ling Long and Shiqi. “Let’s go to Xia Hui’s room first. I suspect her sleeping so soundly is related to that assassin from last night.”
Hearing Hua Jian’s words, Ling Long and Shiqi hadn’t reacted yet, but Xia Hui let out an exclamation. “An assassin?!”
Just how many things had happened while she was asleep? How did it involve an assassin?
“That’s right, an assassin. Let’s talk while we walk,” Hua Jian nodded.
How could Xia Hui dare to refuse? A guest had suffered an assassination attempt in her home while she, the host, had slept through everything.
If word got out, it could directly shut down her family’s inn… though her place wasn’t much different from being closed down right now anyway.
Her room wasn’t far from the guest room where Hua Jian lived; it was just down the stairs.
Opening the door to the room, Xia Hui invited the three inside. “Sorry, it might be a bit messy…”
Her words were actually a bit modest. Everything in the room was arranged in an orderly fashion, giving off a pleasing feeling.
Moreover, a faint scent of incense lingered in the room, making one want to crawl into bed and have a good sleep.
Eh? Makes one want to sleep?
Hua Jian sniffed hard and turned to ask the others, “Do you smell the incense in the room?”
While asking, she took two steps back and left the room.
The floral fragrance on her body would interfere with Ling Long and Shiqi’s sense of smell, so she had to step back a bit to remove the interference.
After she walked away, Ling Long and Shiqi gave affirmative answers one after another.
They also smelled the incense in the room. In other words, Xia Hui sleeping so deeply was not her own subjective intent.
Before making a move on Hua Jian, the assassin had come here first and drugged Xia Hui.
You have to admit, this assassin was surprisingly kind. Before acting, she actually drugged Xia Hui instead of just killing her.
Even when trying to kill Hua Jian, she didn’t even look at the other two and just went for Hua Jian.
Anyone who didn’t know better would think Hua Jian had killed her entire family.
“It seems to be this place… Ah, found it! Come and take a look!”
Ling Long searched the room relying on her keen sense of smell and finally found a pile of mostly burnt ashes by the windowsill.
After sniffing it slightly, Ling Long confirmed that these ashes were indeed left by the incense that had drugged Xia Hui.
“The assassin first took advantage of Xia Hui’s cultivation to light the incense and drug her, then headed to our room to assassinate me.” Hua Jian deduced a timeline.
The problem now was why the assassin did this, and what the assassin had to do with the inn’s haunting.
The assassin targeted her, Hua Jian, but what was the deal with the inn’s ghost?
She couldn’t figure it out. Hua Jian’s intuition told her these two things were connected, but she couldn’t find where the connection was.
To find the assassin’s trail, she asked Xia Hui to lead her on a tour of the inn, but they found nothing.
After searching the rest of the inn, there was only one place left: the room where Xia Hui’s mother lived.
Even Hua Jian knew that searching this room was very impolite, but now that she had no leads, she had to find some kind of breakthrough.
It just so happened that Ling Long and Shiqi had gone outside to gather information. It shouldn’t be a problem for her to do something a bit “naughty” at this time.
“Xia Hui, can I ask your mother a few questions? She might know more.”
“Um… I can go ask my mother. If she agrees, then it’s fine.” Xia Hui didn’t refuse directly but said she would ask for her mother’s opinion.
She knew Hua Jian had no ill intentions and truly wanted to help solve the problems they encountered, so she didn’t mind asking her mother on Hua Jian’s behalf.
Furthermore, she also had a feeling that her mother had been hiding some things from her. Regarding the haunting, her mother was definitely not completely ignorant.
If she asked and her mother refused to answer, perhaps the situation would be different if Hua Jian asked?
“Mother, the guest I mentioned yesterday wants to see you…” Xia Hui walked into the room and softly told her mother, who seemed even thinner than yesterday, about the events of yesterday and today.
Xia Hui’s mother was silent for a long time before finally letting out a soft sigh and nodding.
“Let her in.”
“Okay!”
Xia Hui hurried to the door and brought Hua Jian into the room.
As soon as she entered the room, Hua Jian couldn’t help but shiver. The temperature in this room was even lower than in other parts of the inn.
If it really was haunted, this room was definitely the most severely affected.
Xia Hui’s mother’s state also gave Hua Jian a fright. This woman, who shouldn’t be that old, was currently emitting a thick aura of death.
If this continued, she certainly wouldn’t live much longer.
“Hello, Auntie?” Hua Jian finally chose to address Xia Hui’s mother as “Auntie.” “May I ask you some questions?”
This polite attitude seemed to surprise Xia Hui’s mother slightly. She sat up straight and looked Hua Jian over carefully.
“You have a floral fragrance on you. Are you using some kind of perfume?”
“Haha, it’s just my natural constitution. I’m actually quite troubled by it.” Hua Jian scratched her head awkwardly.
Xia Hui’s mother was silenced by this sentence for quite a while, her gaze toward Hua Jian becoming even sharper.
Anyone who didn’t know better would think she was looking at a pig that had uprooted her family’s prize cabbage.
“I once smelled a similar floral fragrance brought by merchants from the north. Unfortunately, I never encountered it again after that.”
After a long silence, Xia Hui’s mother continued to speak about the fragrance.
“Are you from the north?”
“No, my hometown is in the south, near the Central Continent’s core area.”
This sentence again left Xia Hui’s mother speechless for a long time.
She stared intently at Hua Jian, wanting to see an expression of guilt or lying on her face, but the result was… nothing at all.
Hua Jian’s expression was incredibly open and natural, with no signs of lying whatsoever.
“I see. Child, what is your name?”
“Hua Jian!”
Xia Hui’s mother’s pupils constricted. “Hua Jian? That surname is quite rare…”
Of course it was. So far, Hua Jian only knew herself as having the surname Hua from birth; all those other people with the surname Hua were given names later in life.
For example, those from the Ten Thousand Flowers Valley, and the White Flower Venerable who gave himself the name Hua Bai.
“It is quite rare, but this is the name my father and mother gave me.”
“Cough, cough. What do you want to know?” Xia Hui’s mother coughed twice and finally got to the point.
“It’s like this. I heard from Xia Hui that…” Hua Jian quickly listed the questions she wanted answered.
After thinking for a moment, Xia Hui’s mother answered Hua Jian’s questions one by one.
It sounds quite normal, right? But Hua Jian could clearly feel that Xia Hui’s mother was hiding something.
This deathly mother must know the truth behind the haunting, but she was unwilling to speak out.
After leaving the room, Hua Jian told Xia Hui her thoughts and judged that the key to the problem was actually Xia Hui’s mother.
“Your mother knows a lot, but for some unknown reason, she’s unwilling to tell us.”
“Yeah, I think so too. Actually, after the haunting started at home, Mother mentioned many times that I should leave. I also feel like Mother knows the truth, but when I ask her, she always refuses to explain clearly.”
The two looked at each other. It seemed the problem lay there.
“And did you see? After learning about the assassin, your mother’s attitude was a bit too calm.” As Hua Jian spoke, she led Xia Hui out of the inn.
This place was so gloomy and eerie; it felt like staying too long would truly shorten one’s life.
Walking out of the inn and bathing in the autumn sunlight, which still had some warmth, Hua Jian felt the cold aura on her body dissipate quite a bit.
“Do you mean my mother might be related to that assassin?” Xia Hui understood Hua Jian’s implication, but she was somewhat unwilling to believe it.
“Exactly. Think about it. If it were truly an evil assassin, why would she give up on someone closer to her and go out of her way to find me? Ling Long is indeed stronger than me, but Shiqi is weaker than me.”
Hua Jian nodded, listing her reasons one by one.
“Also, when there were no guests, the assassin never appeared, right?”
“Yeah, this is the first time……” Xia Hui’s voice became softer and softer as she also realized those obvious inconsistencies.
“In other words, this might be my problem……” Others weren’t treated like this, but she faced a cold blade as soon as she arrived. Clearly, the problem was with Hua Jian herself.
She pointed at her own face and asked Xia Hui very seriously, “Are you sure you haven’t seen me before, and haven’t seen anyone who looks very similar to me?”
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