บท 199: Once again, Shen Family (4)

Having left with nothing else to say, An Fei departed from the perplexing and unusual ragged stall owned by Shen Haoren.

The young girl backtracked through the entire dark alleyway with an impatient heart, only releasing a sigh of relief when she found herself standing in the crowded western streets of the Harmony Road.

"Xiao Hei, what do you think of this matter? Shen Residence?"

The young girl asked her partner with a dark voice, her countenance flickering with anger and skepticism.

An Fei stared at her thumbs then onto the darkening sky, her heart deepening with another sigh blossoming from her chest.

Caw!

The little raven shrieked with caution, its wings ruffling the young girl's shoulder.

"I think so too, ah."

An Fei muttered, electing to depart from the Harmony Road to think things over.

Swiftly purchasing a bag of cured jerky for the small fox to gnaw on, the young girl's figure slipped away from Bone Spirit Town's road of commerce without a single sound.

…she didn't know that a pair of observant and surprised eyes monitored her general whereabouts ever since she departed from the hidden sewer stall.

The mysterious owner of the eyes frowned upon directing another glance at the last position An Fei had been in the Harmony Road.

Mumbling to themselves whether to take action or not, the shadowed figure nibbled on his lower lip before writing on a piece of paper and attaching it to the leg of a carrier pigeon.

Perhaps that person would know what to do next?

–

"Why does the Shen Family want to see me so urgently?"

The next day, An Fei had unsurprisingly stepped onto the Purity Road, one of the streets that she had yet to investigate since she had arrived at Bone Spirit Town.

The young girl's eyes flickered with a touch of amazement when she entered the street, her eyes carefully observing their surroundings.

The Purity Road was unlike the other streets she had toured, for the road itself wasn't constructed from cobbled stone, but a paved mineral.

The ground was smooth and flat to the touch, devoid of any blemish or structural compromise.

The color of the road was a light brown, and numerous wooden carriages raced along either side. The colorful neighing of energetic horses, and the chants of the carriage drivers were the only living sounds within the Purity Road.

An Fei could not discover any streetside stall regardless of her search; it was as though small-scaled enterprises were banned on the street.

"Long Shen Tian Xing… Burnt River Weapons Storehouse… Ice River Hall Branch…" the young girl read the nameplates of the buildings to herself in a quiet voice.

Caw!

The second difference between the Purity Road and the other principal streets of Bone Spirit Town was the style in which the buildings were constructed.

Compared to the uniform, wooden structure of the other streets, the buildings of the Purity Road spanned a diverse range of creations.

Some were made of cobbled stone, whilst others were carefully manicured from fragrant and rare wooden materials.

An Fei noticed a rare few that were constructed almost entirely from a metallic substance, but the architectural design of these buildings were thankfully, relatively uniform.

A triangularly planed roof of tiles, with a uniform arrangement of beams, joists, and angular structures at regular intervals.

The only issue the young girl could immediately discern regarding the Purity Road's buildings…

…were the names on the signboards above each building!

Ice River Hall Branch… was that supposed to be a secular martial arts sect of the jianghu? And what was with this Western Xing Clan Medicinal Branch?

Branch this, Branch that – was this Purity Road completely overtaken by foreign entities that spanned the entirety of Bone Spirit Town and so much more?

"Xiao Hei, what do you think of these buildings?" the young girl released a light sigh.

"Don't you think that this… Bone Spirit Town… is lacking? Besides, where is this Shen Residence that I'm supposed to find answers at?"

Caw!

The little raven tilted its head in puzzlement, the crimson eyes flashing with a tender violet hue before returning to normal.

The little creature lightly boxed the young girl on her neck with its wings as though to express its confusion.

"I guess so… since you only lived in that forest…"

An Fei heaved a heavy sigh, her mind abuzz with a conflicted consciousness.

Part of the young girl wished to blindly charge out of the Bone Spirit Town in one direction in hopes of finding another city, whilst the other sought to obtain clues from an encounter at the Shen Residence.

Oh well!

The young girl tightened her grip on the strap of the leather bag, before marching forward into the depths of the Purity Road.

As she was wearing loosely fitting hanfu instead of the linen coat that covered the majority of her body, An Fei was unable to bring along the twin butterfly swords.

The sash of the dress couldn't sustain such weight without slipping off and unraveling onto the ground, prompting the young girl to bring only the qama with her on this trip.

She had a premonition that the qama possessed an interesting trait that couldn't be found within the butterfly swords – one that terrified her soul just by its presence.

"So… that's the Shen Family's residence…?"

An Fei came to an abrupt halt, her head tilting slightly to the right, creating an adorable appearance.

The young girl, little raven, and the small fox blinked as they stared to their front, their minds gradually recovering from the momentary shock.

They had toured into the ends of the Purity Road, and a monarch of a building stood before them at the final reaches of the street.

The manor's perimeter spanned a total of four hundred meters to the visible eye, with a hundred meters on each side.

The wall was constructed from a mixture of bricks, clay tiles, and a dark, metallic horizontal beam that stretched across the entire length of the perimeter of the manor.

An iron gate guarded the residents at the center of the frontal wall, with two powerful guards standing as the keepers.

A large iron plaque hung from the roof of the frontal wall, decorated with an insanely large flourish at the end of the 'Shen' character.

"That's really unusual, I've got to give it that…"

An Fei's lips twitched as she glanced at the calligraphy of the signboard of the Shen Manor.

Fiddling with the small fox using her fingers, the young girl took a deep breath before striding towards the gate of the Shen Manor.

"Halt!"

Before she had closed to a distance of five meters, a barricade of spears stormed towards her body from either side.

With a startled yelp, An Fei's body instinctively moved backwards, increasing the gap until she felt considerably safe.

The two guards had rushed forth, their three-meter long spears drawn to the ready as they glared at the intruder.

At such a sigh, the young girl's lips twitched once more in exasperation.

"Your Shen Haoren fellow wanted me to come to this Shen Manor…" An Fei hesitated, before settling with a cold demeanor.

"But yet the guards don't have such eyes – aih, there's no point coming to this place after all."

At the remark, the two guards unexpectedly didn't reply with a suspicious attitude and display an act of arrogance; on the contrary, they revealed a startled expression, leaning to whisper to the other directly before the young girl's bemused glare.

"Someone's actually looking for Fourth Young Master Shen?"

"No way, Young Master's words weren't false?"

The two guards communicated with the other for a few breaths of time, before the guard on the left took a step forward to gaze at An Fei's figure.

Placing the extended spear into a passive posture, the guard clasped his fists before the young girl, before asking in a respectful tone.

"The Esteemed Young Lady here…"

"Your Shen Haoren wanted me to see some Second Elder of your residence," the young girl dryly muttered whilst raising an eyebrow.

Young Master's predictions were true!

The twin guards lowered their spears at the fastest speed they could muster, before stepping forward to display a low bow towards An Fei.

Not only that, they directly opened the gate without asking a further question, their arms energetically motioning for her to enter.

"Esteemed Young Lady, please forgive our rudeness!"

…huh?

An Fei's lips twitched for the third time in the span of an hour, and the young girl could only resign herself to the fate of being ushered into the Shen Residence without another word of complaint.