Chapter 4 Empty House_1

Arriving at the door, Pei Ye lightly knocked on the beast-shaped knocker, only then did he bow his head to examine his appearance, he couldn't help but chuckle at his disheveled state. But there were times when he practiced martial arts that were far more embarrassing than now, so it couldn't hurt if Uncle Lin found it amusing.

Having had his laugh, he then looked up to wait patiently. However, time ticked by without anyone coming to answer the door.

Uncle Lin preferred to do things himself, so there were no servants like gatekeepers or coachmen in his residence. But given his keen senses, he should have been able to hear the mischievous young man at the gate.

Pei Ye knocked several times more, but when no one responded, he decided to leap gracefully over the wall of the courtyard. As he approached Lin Lin's bedroom, he noticed a strip of candlelight piercing through the curtain of rain.

Was Uncle Lin not asleep? Then why didn't he answer the door?

Pei Ye walked over with a frown, the bedroom door was ajar. He softly knocked on the door frame, "Uncle Lin?"

But there was no answer from within the room. Pei Ye peered inside to find it empty.

His brow furrowed even more, he strolled into the room. He noticed the bed covers thrown off, the light from a candle on the floor, he looked down - the pair of shoes by the bed was untouched.

But turning his head, he noticed that only the scabbard of the sword, which usually hung by the bed, was left.

A chill ran through him, Pei Ye looked around solemnly, he noticed the fire stone was quite a distance away from the bed, implying that the candle flame was lit by Lin Lin with his True Qi.

He could just imagine the scene where Lin Lin woke up abruptly, snapped his fingers to light the fire, and then drew his sword to rush out of the room.

What could be so urgent?

Just as this question rose in his mind, an answer that made his heart skip a beat involuntarily escaped his lips, "Lin Yue!"

Lin Lin, who had lost his wife early, doted on his only daughter. The girl, named Lin Yue, was about the same age as Pei Ye, quite gentle and lively. However, she was born with a deformity in her left arm, where the hand should've been there was only a lump of flesh, a sight that tugged at one's heartstrings.

He remembered Lin Lin saying that if Lin Yue had not been crippled, she would've been an excellent prospect for the martial arts.

Now that he thought of this possibility, Pei Ye disregarded the customary reservations between men and women, and rushed to Lin Yue's room, only to feel his heart sink - Lin Yue's door was also wide open, but there were no lit candles inside.

Pei Ye quickly lit the candle, the room was empty, the young girl's quilt was thrown open, the shoes were still placed in front of the bed.

Perhaps Lin Lin heard some horrifying sound in the middle of the night, grabbed his sword and went to investigate. But a fragile seventeen-year-old girl, awakened from her sleep by some monstrous noise, would she have dared to throw back her covers and venture off to investigate?

So, the root cause must be Lin Yue - for some reason, she had left the room, Lin Lin, whose senses were extremely keen, noticed something was off, then ultimately got up to rescue his daughter.

But why would Lin Yue leave her room in her nightgown, barefoot?

A sense of familiarity suddenly washed over him, Pei Ye looked down, wasn't this exactly... like himself?

A spine-chilling wave crept up his spine and made Pei Ye's body shudder.

What on earth happened?

Though Pei Ye was eager to find Old Xiang for a detailed inquiry and to investigate the origin of his forehead's fire mark, the status of Lin Family's lives was unknown, so he had no time for other concerns. Pei Ye ran back into Lin Lin's room, rummaged out a sword, the reassuring weight of it in his hand comforted him a bit. Struggling to read the blurry tracks, he pursued the traces of Lin Yue and Lin Lin.

The footprints of Lin Yue only extended for a short distance outside the door, then a man's boot print appeared on the ground, clearly she had been abducted. They were about four to five paces away from the courtyard wall, but the man carrying Lin Yue managed to leap over it in a single stride, followed by Lin Lin's footprints.

Pei Ye also leaped over the courtyard wall, but outside the wall was a vast field. The water flow was rapid, the soil was soft, and the crops obstructed the vision, making tracking extremely difficult.

Although Pei Ye was anxious, he forced himself to stay calm and think clearly: Since Lin Yue and he both sleepwalked, would their destinations also be the same? As he had just passed the north gate of the city, maybe Lin Yue had headed north too.

Following this rough direction, he searched bit by bit, spending quite a bit of time before he found a track leading north. Pei Ye followed the traces, after the field was a river beach, the footprints were much clearer here. Two people had leaped across the river, Pei Ye had no such agility, he dove in and swam across.

After crossing the river, there was a plain, the tracks started to get clearer, but a phenomenon that bothered Pei Ye started to emerge: the stride length of the man who had abducted Lin Yue remained constant, it seemed like he still had strength to spare. Even though Lin Lin was anxious about his daughter and his footsteps showed his urgency, in his desperate attempt to catch up, he was falling behind further and further.

Pei Ye had no True Qi, he could only rely on his leg muscles to sprint through the rainy field, he was much slower than both of them.

Finally, at the time nearing dawn, the rain grew weaker, roosters started to crow, Pei Ye arrived at a group of trees, the tracks entered here.

The woods was deadly silent, there were no sounds of fighting, a faint smell of blood wafted into his nose.

Pei Ye gripped the hilt of his sword, and cautiously entered.

The woodland was not large, so it didn't leave Pei Ye much time to prepare. A bloody and flesh-torn body came into view.

It was Lin Lin.

The scene was deserted.

Pei Ye approached the corpse, an unsheathed steel sword was lying beside it, it was the one Lin Lin usually carried, there was no blood on the blade.

The face that used to be naturally stern had turned pale and twisted, his eyes were bulging out and crimson, there were two tear stains on his cheeks, the expression left on his face looked like anxiety, anger, disbelief, but mainly agony.

Pei Ye stood quietly for a few moments looking at this face, then looked down.

Lin Lin was wearing white pajamas, already stained red by the blood. His arms, chest, abdomen and legs had a total of nine claw marks, some were slash wounds, and some were puncture wounds. The fatal injuries were two large wounds on the neck.

Pei Ye slowly crouched down to examine the wounds.

The claws of wolves and leopards weren't this sharp, and not this long either. The teeth of a tiger could leave such biting wounds, but it wouldn't rely much on claws in a fight. These beasts would pin down their prey and bite to kill with one bite, they wouldn't leave so many claw marks, and furthermore, there were no hairs left behind.

More importantly, even five tigers together wouldn't be a match for Uncle Lin.

Perhaps, there were no beasts at all, some peculiar weapons in the world were shaped like claws, and could be worn on the hands.

But Pei Ye quickly dismissed this speculation, not just because of the obvious bite marks on the neck but also due to the difficult-to- discern claw prints on the ground.

His face grave, Pei Ye unfastened Lin Lin's clothes revealing a palm print on his abdomen that had turned black, half of which had been ripped open by claw marks.

Pei Ye's face changed, he gently pressed the palm mark, and the flesh and muscles underneath felt as soft as mud.

Uncle Lin was first struck by this palm, then encountered the beast. This palm had broken four of his ribs, and practically smashed his internal organs into pieces. At this point, if he were indeed facing a tiger, he would have had no strength to fight back.

A very heavy yet vicious palm.

But what truly sank Pei Ye's heart was the location of the palm strike - hit dead center in the pit of the stomach, without any deviation. Apart from it, the entire corpse didn't bear any other man-made wounds.