Chapter 102: Chapter 100: The Tiger Is Dead, but Its Peril Remains

Screams erupted by the Eight Trigrams Pool.

A handyman had picked up one of the Tiger Ox Dog Teeth. The moment his hand placed the tooth into the basket at his side, he screamed and fell backward.

THUD!

He landed flat on his back, a pool of fresh blood seeping out from behind his head.

He died on the spot.

It was a perfect fulfillment of the Soldier’s earlier words: ’A Tiger Ox? If these handymen try to wash it, I’m afraid a few more will die, won’t they?’

Song Ciwan could save one person, but she couldn’t save them all.

That one scream seemed to open some sort of devil’s box, as several more cries rang out in quick succession.

Every person who screamed had, without exception, picked up a piece of the Tiger Ox’s skull.

Each of them let out a single scream before falling flat on their backs.

The cause of death was identical for all: a cracked skull from the impact, their heads shattering as they died.

Though the Tiger Ox was dead, its lingering might was still enough to kill many a mortal.

The gruesome scene horrified the other handymen still at work. They all straightened up, glancing left and right, terrified that the person next to them would be next, and even more terrified that death would claim them too.

In the Washing Room, there was never any peace and quiet; it was a stage for all the world’s tragedies.

Having been in Su Yang City, Song Ciwan was already accustomed to such tragedies. Facing them again now, she felt both pity and a sense of calm.

The Stewards began shouting for the handymen who had already collected enough corpse pieces to hurry to the Grass Washing Room.

They said, "What are you shouting for? No screaming! Go, hurry up! Fill your basket and leave immediately!"

With the Stewards herding them out, how could the handymen dare to linger? They couldn’t wait to get away.

A large group of people left quickly, and Song Ciwan blended into the crowd, heading for the Grass Washing Room in Earth No. 9.

She would have liked to linger a moment longer to pick up a few more pieces of the Tiger Ox skull. The things were fatal to mortals on contact, but to Song Ciwan, they were an excellent source of Malice.

But a rational analysis told her that staying in the Washing Room long-term was more important than gathering a little extra Malice now. Thus, she had to restrain her greed and leave quickly.

After the large group of handymen had all left, the only things remaining by the Eight Trigrams Pool, besides some scattered bits of flesh, were the most important parts: the Tiger Ox’s skull bones.

Various bone fragments were scattered on the ground. The few Stewards exchanged glances.

A Steward who appeared to be the leader said, "Forget it. Five handymen are already dead. These wretches aren’t worth much, but it’s still not good if too many die at once."

As he spoke, he pulled a pair of gloves as thin as a cicada’s wings from his robes with a pained expression. "Gentlemen," he said as he put them on, "it’s our turn."

Seeing him put on his gloves, the other Stewards immediately took out their own. The gloves were all uniformly transparent like cicada wings. They all carefully put them on and began clearing the various bone fragments left by the pool.

Pairs of translucent, pearly-white gloves reached out, picking up the bone fragments from the ground.

As the number of bone fragments dwindled and the gloves reached out more and more, faint yellow scorch marks began to appear on some of them.

One of the Stewards suddenly exclaimed in anger, "Damn these wretches! My Cold Frost Gloves will be ruined after a few more uses!"

...

The handymen didn’t know what happened next at the Eight Trigrams Pool. The survivors, filled with the relief of having escaped disaster, entered the Grass Washing Room and began their work in a routine fashion.

One man was callously triumphant. "The Tiger Ox... Laozi figured it out long ago. A Demon Beast with a tiger’s head and an ox’s body. The ox body is one thing, but you absolutely can’t touch the tiger head! Heh, just as I thought. See? Everyone who touched the tiger head is dead, right?"

Someone beside him quickly asked, "You knew beforehand? How did you know?"

The triumphant handyman said, "Laozi has been in this Washing Room for a full year and a half. A year and a half! All thanks to this brain and these eyes. How do you think I know? The fact that I’m still alive proves I know!"

To have survived in the Washing Room for a year and a half, and still be alive and kicking... no wonder he dared to boast so smugly. He truly had the right to be proud!

Song Ciwan couldn’t help but steal a few more glances at the man. Listening to his conversation, she committed his name to memory: others called him Tree Mazi!

Tree Mazi was a talkative man. As long as someone was asking, he could go on and on without end.

Song Ciwan listened in while keeping her head down, washing the Tiger Ox fragments. When she was finished, she had been stained with one jin and one tael of Malice!

Song Ciwan didn’t delay. She sold the Malice on the spot, welcoming a long-awaited increase in her Lifespan.

[You have sold one jin and one tael of Spirit Communication Stage Demon Fiend Malice and obtained one hundred and ten years of Lifespan.]

With one hundred and ten years of Lifespan flowing into her, Song Ciwan felt a surge of vitality course through her entire body.

She was inside the Grass Washing Room of Earth No. 9. In her ears were the chattering voices of the handymen. All she could see were numb, unfeeling people and the mangled corpses of Demon Fiends. The scene was both horrifying and absurd.

Yet, amidst this absurdity, Song Ciwan seemed to find an extraordinary sense of peace. The improvement in her quality of life felt as if it could cleanse even her Divine Soul.

In the mid-afternoon, the work was finished, and the Stewards came over to pay the wages.

It was also a daily wage: two hundred wen per person, per day. The pay was a full double what it had been in Su Yang City!

As for the dead handymen, the Stewards had people drag them out to be buried. Death was the end of it all; there was no compensation for their families.

Song Ciwan, under the guise of her Mu Dalang persona and carrying her newly earned wages and a set of Sheep Demon Lungs, left the Washing Room alone.

She currently had three active personas she used in the outside world.

One was Xin Mian, a Male Cultivator in the Qi Refining Stage. Another was Song Xun, a Female Martial Artist in the Bone Forging Stage. The last was Mu Dalang, a down-on-his-luck Demon Cleaner.

As for her various Divine Envoy and Divine Venerable personas, those were hardly worth mentioning. They were played at random with no specific backstory, and she could switch between the titles of Divine Envoy countless times in a minute.

At this moment, Song Ciwan was unaware that her motley collection of personas, which seemed so chaotic and random, were actually on the minds of many people.

And not just "Human" minds.

For example, the "Starlight Divine Envoy" who had once taught Yu Lin the Mountain-Breaking Fist wasn’t just being gratefully remembered by Yu Lin alone.

Outside Pinglan City, Third Master Luo swayed with every drunken step, a gourd hanging from his waist.

The gourd at his waist swayed too, and a thin, ghostly female voice from within it wound around his ears, nagging him until his head throbbed.

"Go to Pinglan and help me find the Divine Envoy again. I just remembered I have another question that I didn’t get to ask him properly!"

Third Master Luo’s eyes were hazy with drink. He snapped irritably, "I already told you, he can’t be found! Besides, Pinglan is a major city. Ye Lingguan is there. Is that a place you can just go? You’ve got some nerve!"

"But I have you, don’t I? You can take me! If that Old Man Ye could really foresee everything, would he have let the Dragon Maiden wreak such havoc on Su Yang?"

"He can’t even compare to the Hengshui Old Dragon. Pfft!" 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

Luo San was speechless.

’She’ll be the death of me,’ he thought.

At the same time, in Pinglan City, Xie Yunxiang was thinking about his good brother, "Xin Mian."