บท 104: Blood Traces
Huo Xue, hearing the words of the mission leader, nodded enthusiastically and dismounted from his lizard in a fluid motion.
"They are fishermen who lived among the rice fields and rivers that flow into the village," Huo Xue pointed to the slightly less than a dozen mortals on the backs of his lizard and the other two who had accompanied him to gather witnesses.
"...we didn't ask much since our priority was to bring them to you leader Tie, that has the means to verify the truth of their words."
"Some of them even stayed in the village for a while when the demonic Gu master was here..." Huo Hou Hui, with his frail and weak body, dismounted from his large orange lizard, which seemed even bigger compared to its frail owner.
"Did any of the mortal fishermen see the demonic Gu master and the wives who followed him before they arrived at Yu Village?" Huo Tie asked with an authoritative voice, not even bothering to look at the poor mortals who didn't even bother his eyes.
In fact, even if they had caught his attention, from the perspective of the Huo clan, the status of these mortals was not much different from the livestock raised by the clan—perhaps even lower since the meat of the livestock was a delicacy served in exquisite dishes, which couldn't be said for these mortal fishermen.
"S-s-sir Gu Master..." A skinny middle-aged man with the classic appearance of a fisherman hardened by a difficult life spoke, hesitating and trembling with fear. "...my friend and I were fishing in the stream near the road when the demon bastard passed us on his way to the village."
The similarly-looking man right behind him, on the back of the brown lizard, nodded after a bit of hesitation.
The other mortals brought along remained silent, not daring to speak or even breathe too loudly since the Gu Master hadn't asked them to.
Huo Tie listened quietly with an impassive expression on his face while looking at a Gu in his aperture, one of the few given to him personally by Elder Xi specifically for ensuring the success of this mission.
"Their descriptions match the information we received from Elder Xi," Huo Tan, who commanded the lizard that the two men were on, said quickly. "...of course, leader, you can verify this for yourself."
He crossed his strong, muscular arms over his chest, his serious and rough expression contrasting with his face, half of which was deformed by ugly burns that even made the dark brown hair on that side of his head fall out.
"Both of you, come here so I can make a more precise confirmation of the truth of your words..." Huo Tie didn't change his expression as he took out a red ant-shaped Gu from his aperture.
It was clear that the Gu he was going to use was to test the truth of their words, even though he believed this verification was largely unnecessary since these mortals, who would fall to their knees begging for mercy if he spoke a little more harshly, wouldn't dare lie to him lightly.
And even considering things like them being blackmailed or controlled by a Gu, it was unlikely. If a Gu had been used to control them, they wouldn't be here in the first place, or a Gu capable of altering their memories would only render his Gu useless.
But still, Huo Tie didn't hesitate to perform this unnecessary test since it was mission protocol that he had grown tired of following.
Moreover, just considering the almost nonexistent probability that they might provide false information that he hadn't checked and could lead to the mission's failure, he didn't want to imagine the punishment he would receive.
"Tell me what you saw without the slightest lie...." Huo Tie extended his hand with the Gu, which began to burn like a small warm red flame. "...if you speak the truth, the flame will grow and flicker gently."
"If you lie, it will weaken and turn green...understood?" Huo Tie asked the two mortals, who nodded fearfully.
"When did you see these demonic Gu masters? How many of them were there? What did they look like? Did you exchange words? If so, what did he say?" Huo Tie fired off one question after another at the two mortals, who looked increasingly worried.
"We saw them a few days ago heading towards the village, sir! There was a young man under twenty and three girls of similar ages..." The middle-aged fisherman quickly blurted out everything he knew without hiding anything.
Huo Tie, with his hand extended and the flame in his palm flickering gently and growing healthily, just listened quietly.
"He had dark red eyes that I felt carried the aura of a bloodthirsty killer... and I was right in thinking it!!" Not wanting to appear suspicious for not saying anything, the other fisherman, skinny to the bone, quickly spoke up, worried.
"And the girls' appearances...?" Huo Lee asked as he looked at them with his yellow lizard eyes, flicking his split tongue in the air.
"They were really beautiful!" He replied immediately, recalling the girls who had been the source of some of his fantasies and dreams in the past few days.
"One was tall, with a cold expression but very beautiful, with long silver-white hair like her pale skin... and a voluptuous body!" The other fisherman spoke with an expression and vulgar gestures that could disgust any woman.
"The other was quite short, the shortest of the four, with an elegant air to her figure, black hair, blue eyes, and skin as pale as jade..." The first fisherman said, trying not to sound like a lustful bastard like his friend.
"Oh, and something that was hard to miss even with the loose rags she wore was that her belly was swollen like she was pregnant!"
Huo Tie continued to listen quietly, nodding slightly as he watched the large flame flicker happily in his palm, indicating that they were telling the truth.
"The last one had short, dark purple hair, green eyes and seemed quite young, even though she was taller than the one with black hair. She couldn't be more than fifteen... but she was also quite pretty, I must say!" Seemingly wanting to worsen his already bad impression as a lust driven man, the fisherman spoke again, almost drooling as he imagined the girl.
"Did he speak to you? If so, what did he say?" Huo Tie repeated his question, looking at the two of them.
"Yes, he spoke! He asked, 'How far is Yu Village?' After we answered, he just continued on his way," he said, earning an angry look from his friend, who seemed to question where this "we answered" came from when only he had spoken to the Gu master.
But the flame in Huo Tie's palm continued to flicker strongly and gently, not seeming to care about small details that weren't entirely true but not entirely false either.
"He wasn't with three hairy men, was he?" Huo Hei, who had been silent this whole time, asked before Huo Tie could.
The two mortal fishermen looked at each other, puzzled for a moment, unsure how to answer this question.
"No..." they murmured softly, almost in unison.
"Ah! Well, Leader Xin had a strange lust for hairy women... so maybe, since he couldn't find, well... women, he took those hairy men as sex slaves!" The fisherman, sinking even further into the image of a lecher, spoke as if realizing something obvious.
But seeing the flame neither turn green nor diminish, but instead continue to flicker gently, and the nods of agreement from the other mortals, the Gu masters of the Huo Clan only exchanged complicated looks, not wanting to imagine too much about Leader Xin's actions with the hairy men.
Well, except for Huo Tie, who throughout the entire process had an impassive expression on his face, since just because the flame didn't die out didn't mean it was true; it only meant that the person speaking believed it to be true.
"Well... let's continue," Huo Tie said before proceeding to ask even more questions to the two fishermen, who answered without complaint for over ten minutes, addressing all his inquiries.
Huo Tie stops after confirming that he has heard and verified all the information the two fishermen know, which isn't much, since after seeing the demonic Gu Master heading to Yu Village, they didn't dare to get close.
"How many of you saw his actions or those of his wives in Yu Village?" Huo Tie asks, seeing six mortals raise their hands with a mixture of excitement and fear.
"This young woman claims to have interacted with one of his wives, correct?" Huo Xue eagerly interjects, excited to contribute to the mission.
In fact, he is genuinely thankful for his luck, as he found the young woman purely by coincidence when she was hiding with an old lady in a house near the forest south of the village.
"Master Gu, I am....was a midwife in the village..." she says as she bows gracefully.
"And as these two have mentioned, the black-haired girl Yi Ling, one of the demonic Gu Master Yi Zhan's wives, was pregnant and needed care..." She speaks, pointing at the two fishermen with some disdain but using their words as a basis for her own.
"So, under the command of the wife of Leader Xin, several midwives including me took care of her..."
"Yi Zhan... Yi Zhan... tell me, what were the names of the other two wives?" Huo Tie asks, stroking his beard and looking at the flame in his palm that indicates she is telling the truth.
As he says this, he tries to recall any nearby Yi clans but fails, which isn't a significant issue since these are likely false names given their status as demonic Gu Masters, but it doesn't hurt to verify.
"Yi Lan is the young woman with purple hair, Yi Xiu is the tall one with white hair, and of course, Yi Ling is the black-haired one who is pregnant," she replies to a nodding Huo Tie, who continues to verify the truth of her words by observing the flame.
"I heard they are half-siblings... children of a lonely Gu Master," she adds, addressing the Huo clan Gu Masters, who seem neither surprised nor concerned by this fact.
"Well, moving on..." Huo Tie says as he continues his questioning.
And so, for about an hour, he meticulously questioned the mortals, gathering numerous details and first-hand accounts of what had transpired. Although not all the information was entirely useful, it still added to the bigger picture.
One particularly important piece of information was the rather vague and imprecise descriptions from the mortals, but it did lead him to understand that this supposed demonic Gu Master Yi Zhan fights using the blood of his victims—a technique involving a Gu he hadn't heard of before. But this wasn't surprising, given the infinite variety of Gu in this world.
There were also smaller, yet still somewhat important, details like the fact that the midwife only left Yu Village because her grandmother fell ill just before the massacre. She had to sneak out of the village with the help of a guard who was her boyfriend, as the village had been closed under the orders of Li Xin, the village leader.
This, along with various confirmations from the mortals about how Yi Zhan's wives, the demonic Gu Master, strolled around the village with Li Xin's daughters, going from shop to shop like good friends, led him to conclude that Li Xin was definitely in collusion with the demonic Gu Master and tried to prevent this information from reaching the Huo clan.
However, the suspicious part of all this was that the night before the massacre, Yi Zhan requested that the most beautiful women in Yu Village be brought to his room, but they were never seen again, with rumors of women's screams coming from Li Xin's house.
Soon after, he appeared to execute the young men who had "offended" him, with Li Xin nowhere to be seen, under the excuse that he was busy, and with five individuals who Huo Tie imagined were the three hairy men and two guards at his side now.
None of the Gu Masters from the Huo Clan are buying this story because clearly, there is more that these mortals don't know.
"I survived by hiding among the corpses... I'm quite used to going without food or sleeping on the streets since I have no family," Hei Tie is pulled from his thoughts by the words of a boy no older than ten, as thin as if he were starving.
"...a-and while I was hiding among the bodies, I heard the sound of horses galloping," the boy's hoarse voice conveys the hardships he has endured.
"So I risked coming out of my hiding place and saw six horses riding in the distance towards the west!" The boy's words sound desperate as he tries to avoid the gaze of the Gu Masters.
'Hmm, riding horses... is it possible that this Gu Master lost his movement Gu in a battle or was injured while refining Gu... it could also be an ambush,' Huo Tie ponders, trying to formulate a rational explanation for the boy's words.
After all, the idea of a Rank 3 Gu Master using mortal peasants' horses instead of a Gu is simply laughable, especially considering that he still had three women with him, who were likely all Gu Masters and should have movement Gu with them.
'Besides, they headed west, which is in the direction of my Huo clan, but we didn't find anyone on the way....'
'....so it's likely they took a more isolated route or masterfully avoided us to set up an ambush.'
He looks at the flame in his palm that still burns vigorously without changing color.
'The boy isn't "lying," but it's possible he had his memory altered or saw an illusion, making him believe his words are true.'
Huo Tie shakes his head as this thought crosses his mind since such Gu is quite rare, especially for demonic or solitary Gu Masters, but he doesn't dismiss the possibility.
"So, mission leader, what do you intend to do? Move forward or search more around here?" Huo Hei asks, pulling him out of his deep thoughts once again.
Huo Tie looks around at the members of the Huo Clan and sees that they are all watching him, waiting for his orders on how to proceed from here.
"Ahh, it seems I only have two choices...." Huo Tie feels the weight of responsibility for the decision falling on his shoulders, a sensation he is quite accustomed to.
'So, do I take a gamble and hope to find clues left behind in the village to determine the exact path they took...' Huo Tie strokes his beard while storing the Gu that has been in his palm all this time back into his aperture.
'...or do I risk following the tracks and clues left by those supposed horses they rode out of the village, which would be easy to catch if we find their trail.'
Huo Tie sighs as he closes his eyes, trying to calm his heart that is feeling the weight of the decision before opening his eyes with a determined look after making his choice.
"Well, so be it, I've made my decision on what to do!"
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