Voices in the Fog

Chapter 302: Voices in the Fog

“But the people from Oxheart Village were taken away by the Supervisory Heavenly Office!”

Captain Cao’s words struck Li Huowang like a blow. “How is that possible? Why would the Supervisory Heavenly Office take Bai Lingmiao’s family?”

But then he pulled himself together. “Wait—maybe it’s not the real Supervisory Heavenly Office. Maybe it’s someone else impersonating them!”

But whether real or impersonated, it was nothing good for Bai Lingmiao’s family.

Li Huowang had already seen, through Hongda, that the Supervisory Heavenly Office’s people didn’t care how many they killed, as long as they got the job done.

As for impersonators—that went without saying. The options only ranged from bad to worse.

“Which way did they go?” Li Huowang demanded, his face grim as he asked Captain Cao. All he could do now was chase after them as fast as possible, and hope he could catch up.

“Seems like they headed toward Shangjing. I don’t know how far they’ve gotten.”

Seeing Captain Cao’s trembling hand point westward, Li Huowang pressed his foot into the saddle and swung himself onto the horse, galloping off in that direction.

Watching Li Huowang’s retreating figure, Magistrate Wang let out a long breath. At that moment, his advisor leaned in.

“Sir, this is suspicious, wouldn’t you say? Could there be something between those two groups?”

Magistrate Wang waved his hand in irritation. “Suspicious or not, what does the Supervisory Heavenly Office’s business have to do with me? Raise the sedan chair! Back to the office!”

The da-da-da of hooves rang out as Li Huowang rose and fell in a steady rhythm on the horse’s back. His mind was a tangled mess, a stream of guesses surging up from within.

“What if it’s not the Supervisory Heavenly Office? What if it’s another—”

“Heh. Don’t jump to conclusions. If you ask me, this doesn’t feel like another faction’s doing.”

Li Huowang instantly turned his head to look at Red Center, who was lying in midair, yawning with boredom.

“If I ask you? Is there even half a true word in your mouth? The more you say that, the more I suspect the Supervisory Heavenly Office is being impersonated by the Zuowandao.”

“Suit yourself. We Zuowandao trick people openly and honestly. We never have to relocate to do it.” Red Center sat up and stretched. “Heh. Besides, who says we never tell the truth? Lying is nine-tenths false and one-tenth true. If it’s all lies, who’s going to believe you?”

Li Huowang ignored him and pressed on, his mind already preparing for whatever might come next.

He rode for several more days. Though Li Huowang’s body was tough enough to endure, the horse was still flesh and blood and needed rest.

One evening, Li Huowang tied his horse to a tree, climbed into the branches, and closed his eyes.

He didn’t know how long he’d slept when the Black Tai Sui’s whispers woke him. When he opened his eyes again, it was completely dark.

He shook his dizzy head vigorously, climbed down from the tree, and patted the neck of his horse, which had been sleeping standing up.

The sound of hooves resumed, echoing far down the empty dirt road.

Just as Li Huowang was wondering how long this life of sleeping in the open would last, and whether he could even find them, he spotted something.

Kneeling by the roadside in the dim moonlight, he examined the dense pattern of footprints in the dirt.

Counting the number of prints and their various sizes, Li Huowang instinctively knew this had to be the group he was looking for.

When he spotted flecks of blood mixed in with the footprints, his excitement surged. He pulled on the reins. “Hyah!”

Perhaps slowed by their numbers, the group wasn’t moving fast. After an hour of hard riding, the footprints became clearer.

To avoid alerting them, Li Huowang dismounted, blending his body’s color into the earth, and crept forward slowly.

The pitch-black sky gradually gave way to deep blue. Just as dawn was about to break, Li Huowang finally found a cluster of prisoners huddled together in a forest, dozing.

Every single one of them—men, women, old, young—wore wooden cangues around their necks. They looked exactly like heavy convicts.

At first, Li Huowang wasn’t sure these were the people he was looking for. But when he saw a beautiful woman who bore a seven- or eight-out-of-ten resemblance to Bai Lingmiao, he knew he hadn’t made a mistake.

Although they looked haggard and their clothes were ragged, they all had intact limbs. The weight that had been pressing on Li Huowang’s chest lifted slightly.

“Good. As long as they’re alive, there’s still a chance to fix this.”

But Li Huowang didn’t immediately reveal himself. Instead, he began circling the area, searching for their escorts.

If they were enemies, he would fight. If they were the Supervisory Heavenly Office, he would negotiate. Either way, he had to save these people.

After circling several times, he saw no one.

“That’s impossible. There’s no guard? If there were no guard, the Bai family would have run away long ago.”

Just as Li Huowang was racking his brains over this, he heard a bizarre clack-clack-clack coming from behind him—like something rattling inside a bamboo tube.

He turned his head slowly. In the dim forest, a thin white morning mist had begun to rise. The clacking sound was coming from within that mist.

The rattling grew closer. The sleeping Bai family members began to stir. When they heard the sound, fear crept into their eyes, and some of the children started crying instinctively.

Li Huowang could even smell a pungent, fishy stench. He could clearly sense something moving inside the white fog, but he couldn’t make it out.

Fortune or disaster, there was no avoiding it now. Refusing to wait passively, Li Huowang tightened his grip on his sword hilt, held his breath, and cautiously ventured into the white mist.

Inside the fog, the clacking grew louder. Li Huowang followed the sound.

Clack-clack-clack. Clack-clack-clack. Accompanied by that eerie noise, a wooden doll’s head wobbled out of the thick white dawn mist—wearing a little black watermelon-cap, with rouge smeared on its cheeks.

Clack-clack-clack. Each time the wooden head drifted, that strange sound came from inside it.

The moment Li Huowang saw this thing, every hair on his body stood on end. But he didn’t strike immediately—he could sense that the wooden head wasn’t looking at him.

“What in the hell is that thing?”

As Li Huowang clenched his teeth, fully alert to the approaching round wooden head, an intensely powerful gaze descended from above, sweeping down from the crown of his head and pressing on him so hard that even breathing became difficult.

Li Huowang jerked his head up.

A vast, mournfully smiling face—pale, tinged with a sinister allure—slowly descended from the hazy mist above.

When it revealed itself fully before him, he finally saw what it was.