Night fell. After a moment of hesitation, Ren Qing followed the human head with light steps.
He wasn't worried about exposing himself to the Hundred-eyed Man, because the human eyes in the snail and the fish's belly were dead things, merely influenced by a Magic Technique.
Otherwise, he would have received the Hundred-eyed Man's Information Flow the moment he touched them.
What mainly concerned him was the significant commotion coming from the direction of East City. A large number of constables had already begun to block off the streets, making him faintly uneasy.
Ren Qing didn't want to let the clue to the Hundred-eyed Man slip away. He kept a distance of several hundred meters from the head, relying on his Repeater ability to follow silently.
PLOP.
The head fell into a gutter used for collecting rainwater and continued toward South City. It wasn't fast, but it was extremely stealthy.
Ren Qing gripped the short blade at his waist, the pupils in his eyes rotating around each other.
He only used a blade because it felt comfortable in his hand.
Compared to the other districts, South City was far more chaotic, a place where good and bad mingled. More than half the corpses found here were the result of gang brawls.
Although the Government Office had attempted crackdowns, the situation hadn't improved in the slightest. On the contrary, it had only gotten worse.
But this also gave rise to South City's bustling nightlife. Nearly every street had a brothel, and the scent of rouge permeated the air.
Gambling dens were also plentiful, and it was inevitable that these dens of vice were guarded by gangs.
The head led Ren Qing to a place very close to a residential area, so its tightly shut doors and windows drew no attention.
When the head slowed, he adjusted his pace to match.
The head rolled into a dilapidated City God Temple. Ren Qing found a small grove of trees to hide in, watching from the cover of the undergrowth.
A moment later, a man who was constantly glancing around furtively entered the ruined temple.
'The Hundred-eyed Man?'
'No...'
A suspicion began to form in Ren Qing's mind.
He continued to wait patiently, taking out a pig's eye and swallowing it. The warmth kept the qi and blood flowing rapidly throughout his body.
About the time it takes to drink a cup of tea passed.
The man walked out of the ruined temple. He had wrapped the head in a linen cloth and was cradling it in his arms, preparing to head toward the residential area.
Ren Qing got a clear look at the man's face by the light of the moon.
He looked to be about twenty-five or twenty-six. His exposed skin was covered in knife scars, and his eyes held a vicious glint.
He had only taken a few steps, carrying the cloth-wrapped bundle, when he saw a figure in the distance.
The figure was shrouded in the shadows of the trees, their face impossible to make out, but they radiated an intimidating aura.
The man stopped in his tracks. He stared, his expression a mixture of alarm and suspicion, then instinctively drew the cleaver from his waist.
"I am Lu Ping of the River Mud Association. May I ask who you are?"
Ren Qing's voice was cold. "Government Office. I have some questions for you."
Hearing this, Lu Ping retreated several steps, a bad feeling rising in his heart.
"Sir, are you a Forbidden Guard?"
Ren Qing didn't answer. He continued to stare, slowly closing the distance.
"Sir, I haven't committed any crime! And the River Mud Association has recently..."
"What are you holding?"
"I didn't kill him!"
Lu Ping's face went deathly pale. With a violent shudder, he dropped the head on the ground.
Under the terrifying pressure from Ren Qing, he threw all caution to the wind. His skin writhed, and several new eyes opened on his forehead.
Ren Qing thought of the copy of the No-Eyes Technique he had found in the bookshop. 'This isn't a coincidence,' he realized. 'The Hundred-eyed Man is spreading it intentionally.'
'The Hundred-eyed Man is controlling some Cultivators to collect human eyes for him, while the rest are just disposable pawns meant to distract the Forbidden Guards.'
'It's even possible the Hundred-eyed Man has never shown up at all, using this Magic Technique to muddy the waters throughout the entire city.'
'At least a good number of these headless-body cases were likely committed by people practicing the No-Eyes Technique, mixing truth with lies and making it hard to sort out.'
'That way, even if the Forbidden Guards get involved, the Hundred-eyed Man can easily slip away.'
Ren Qing asked, "How do you deliver the human eyes to him?"
Lu Ping's expression turned grim. 'If I'd known this would happen, I never would have touched that Magic Technique,' he thought. Now he was in deep, and a Forbidden Guard was after him.
"I don't know," Lu Ping said. "I just come here every three days, place the human eyes on the windowsill, and birds come and carry them away."
Lu Ping pointed to the extra eyes on his forehead. "If I don't do this, my body's mutation will go completely out of control."
Ren Qing nodded slightly.
'It seems the Hundred-eyed Man hasn't planted any spies in Sanxiang City in order to hide their identity. That makes Butcher Zhang's situation much easier to handle.'
Ren Qing continued to close in. Lu Ping said hurriedly, "I'm actually one of the more restrained ones! Those other guys..."
He trailed off as Ren Qing stepped into the moonlight. Lu Ping's mouth snapped shut, and his expression turned foul.
He had assumed this was a Forbidden Guard, the kind who even the bigwigs of the Lianhe Mud Association feared. He never expected it was just a mere Government Constable—and one who didn't even look like a full-fledged constable at that.
"Since when do Government Constables have such a long reach?"
"Pardon me, but I'll be borrowing your life."
Ren Qing quickened his pace, his Double Pupils already locked onto Lu Ping.
A savage grin spread across Lu Ping's face. He drew his cleaver and charged. 'Just a measly Government Constable. Does he really think he can beat me?'
The cleaver came chopping down from above.
As if he could see the future, Ren Qing sidestepped the blow. His own short blade left its sheath and slashed at Lu Ping.
Lu Ping reached out and caught the blade. The sound of metal striking metal rang out as the edge met his palm.
Ren Qing smoothly retracted his blade. He noticed several eyeballs growing on Lu Ping's palm. 'I didn't expect them to be so hard,' he thought.
Just then, the commotion created by the constables suddenly drew near.
The urge to retreat rose in Lu Ping's heart. "We go our separate ways. Let's just pretend we never saw each other..."
Before he could finish, Ren Qing's blade plunged between his ribs from an uncanny angle.
Lu Ping felt a sharp pain tear through his body, and his breathing grew ragged. His lung had been punctured.
In a panic, his cleaver swings grew wild and undisciplined.
Ren Qing, by contrast, was perfectly calm. 'The Forbidden Guards are probably nearby,' he thought, 'but there's still more than enough time to finish this.'
He sheathed his blade.
The rotation of his Double Pupils accelerated, and the flow of Time itself seemed to slow to a crawl.
He gripped the hilt of his blade. Under his gaze, Lu Ping was nothing but a mess of openings. Countless ways to kill him flashed through Ren Qing's mind.
Ren Qing chose the simplest.
The blade left its sheath.
Lu Ping was frozen in a posture of escape, but a thin red line had appeared on his neck, blood seeping from the cut.
His head fell to the ground and rolled several times, his face still frozen in an expression of disbelief.
Ren Qing glanced at the short blade in his hand. The edge was already blunted. If it struck anything else hard, it would likely snap.
'This blade was left behind by this body's original owner's older brother,' he mused. 'The steel is ordinary. I'll have to find a chance to get a new Weapon.'
Ren Qing immediately left the ruined temple. Hiding in the undergrowth, he watched from a distance and noticed two Forbidden Guards moving quickly along the eaves of the roof.
One of them was Miss Bai, whom he had seen in the Prison. Her appearance was jarringly normal, completely out of place.
The other, a Prison Warden, had long arms and legs, covering several meters with each step.
Their target was clearly Wang Bingquan's head.
The long-limbed Prison Warden opened his mouth and spat out a large, web-like net. It wrapped around the head, and he took his leave. Miss Bai, however, cast a placid glance in Ren Qing's direction.
Only after the two of them had left did Ren Qing emerge from his hiding spot.