Killing Dao Fruit
Chapter 180 - 177: A Feast of Slaughter, Arriving Late

Chapter 180: Chapter 177: A Feast of Slaughter, Arriving Late

Shanyang City, Xue Mansion.

Although the night had already deepened, Seventh Master Xue, Xue Jieyan, still sat in his study, Wenxing Hall, handling the family affairs assigned to him.

Outside Wenxing Hall, ancient trees were strong and twisted stones were rugged, forming ponds that nurtured dozens of goldfish... every creation was ingeniously unique and full of craftsmanship.

The furnishing within the hall was even more luxurious, not to mention the scholars’ calligraphy and paintings that were worth a fortune.

Just take the casually placed brushes on the desk, the materials were all from spirit monsters, one brush alone was worth a commoner’s yearly food supply.

Just a wall apart, inside and outside the large courtyard, were two completely different worlds.

Bang!

When Xue Jieyan came across the report from the manager of the garden, he suddenly slammed the desk in a fit of rage:

"How preposterous!

The number of maids these scoundrels casually bully to death is really too many, even the back garden is nearly full?

Utterly ridiculous, the face of my Xue family is about to be completely lost!

These lazy servants need to be taught a good lesson.

Just a short distance from the city lies the Turbid River, will you die from exhaustion from taking a few more steps to dispose of the bodies in the Turbid River?! Sneaking around, such unfilial conduct!"

He picked up a cup of tea and gulped down some top grade Yangxian tea that had been redirected from tributes, barely managing to suppress his anger.

Picking up another document from the desk, he nodded slightly:

"The proposal from the granary manager is quite insightful.

The grain stolen by ’I’m here’ from my house cannot simply be stolen for nothing.

I need to write a note, calling for grain from the official granaries of nine counties and one state to be drawn, to fill up my family’s granary.

That’s right, in Ninghai State there’s a treasure warehouse specifically for supplies for the Long Water Camp.

Many of the grains in the treasure warehouse are top quality spirit grain, and there is also Spirit Rice and Spirit Grain grown in the land where Earth Qi converges. At least thirty percent of these should be drawn to replenish my family’s supplies.

I haven’t been able to attend to it due to Donglou’s serious illness a few days ago, I must make up for this deficit.

These common people are pitiful, but does my Xue family deserve such misfortune? The commoners are but weeds, and my Xue family is the sky of Dengzhou Prefecture!"

Just at that moment.

Dudu... Dudu...

Suddenly, a faint sound of a suona came from the room’s door, and he frowned, casually rebuking:

"Who is outside? Playing the suona late at night? Disturbing the peace!"

However, after the rebuke, the suona sound continued.

And it got louder and louder, the distance to the study also grew shorter, until it stopped in front of the door.

"Which servant is being so thoughtless?!"

Xue Jieyan walked to the door with some irritation, and flung it open.

After opening the door, the weird suona sound abruptly stopped.

However, to his surprise, he found not a single person outside the door, only a solitary blood-red sedan chair.

Seeing this scene, a chill suddenly shot down his spine, as if an icy snake was slowly crawling into his collar along his back.

He could not help but shout in his heart:

"What on earth is this? Where is my family’s Clan Energy? How could demons and ghosts possibly enter the Xue family?!"

But at that moment, even if he wanted to close the door again, he could not do it at all.

Paralyzed, he could only watch as the red curtain of the blood-colored sedan was slowly lifted.

Revealing a bride inside, wearing an embroidered phoenix wedding dress with a red veil over her head, and holding a pale Ghost Child in her arms!

Suddenly, Xue Jieyan saw the Ghost Child in her arms slowly turn its head, giving him a faint smile, revealing a set of sharp teeth as terrible as a shark’s.

It seemed there were still remnants of flesh between those teeth.

"Aah!"

With a scream, Xue Jieyan, the seventh master of the Xue family, fell backwards, his head hitting the ground heavily, and he lost consciousness in an instant.

He seemed to completely forget that he himself was also a second realm Daoist Soldier who specialized in the family’s "Hundred Birds Battle Formation".

But a moment later, he suddenly awoke with a start.

He found himself still sitting behind the desk, with the document requesting additional grain in front of him.

"Was this... just a nightmare I had?"

He rubbed his cheeks vigorously with his hands.

Even though he reassured himself like this, a heavy gloom quietly crept into his heart.

All because three days ago, strange things began to happen in the Xue family’s large mansion.

Key figures in the family, one after another, would wake up with unexplainable hysterics, either speaking nonsense or attacking anyone they saw.

First, it was a few foreign stewards, then Xue family clansmen, and later key members of the direct lineage, totaling more than a dozen affected.

They might not hold high positions, but the majority were Daoist Soldiers who served as the backbone of the Xue family.

After these people fell ill, even the top doctors from Dengzhou Prefecture could not cure them, nor did the Borrowed Technique of Divination Skill have any effect.

Connecting the dots between that terrifying nightmare and the odd happenings within the house naturally caused him to ponder more.

"If worst comes to worst, I will let those wastes from the Imperial Dragon Guard come to the mansion tomorrow to take a look.

If these wastes can’t even catch ’I’m here’ and they also fail to resolve the mansion’s strangeness, they’ll be beaten to death without further discussion!"

By now he was still unaware.

His family’s eldest young master, Xue Donglou, and the chief steward, Xue Ping, had already offended Imperial Dragon Guard to death and were waiting for the glad tidings of a successful assassination from the Killing Temple.

Knock, knock, knock...

At this moment, there was a sudden knocking on the door, causing Xue Jieyan’s heart to jump, nearly scaring him out of his wits.

Until a familiar voice came from outside the door:

"Yan’er, open the door."

He then chuckled at himself for being too sensitive, got up, and opened the door.

Seeing the familiar old crone outside the door, he couldn’t help feeling a surge of relief, for standing outside was no other than his own mother.

However, as he looked at the old woman, his face instantly turned ghastly pale, and he blurted out:

"Mother! Didn’t you pass away last year?!!"

The white-haired old crone didn’t say anything but slowly stretched her mouth into a smile, identical to that of the ghost baby from before, and revealed... a mouthful of sharp, grim teeth.

Xue Jiexi let out a scream and once again fell backward, knocking unconscious as his head hit the floor.

A moment later, when he awoke again, he found himself still sitting at his desk.

But this time, he couldn’t deceive himself into thinking it was just a dream, no matter what.

Without any hesitation, he stood up, ready to rush out of the study to seek help.

Yet at that moment, someone knocked on the door again.

Knock, knock, knock...

"Yanyan, open the door for mother! Hurry up and open the door!"

Xue Jieyan trembled all over, nearly paralyzed with fear.

The knocking didn’t sound like it was on the door, but as if it was striking right against his own internal organs.

Like a headless fly, he spun around the room in panic and finally dived under the desk in a state of utter desperation.

After a while, the knocking slowly faded away.

Xue Jiexi let out a slight sigh of relief and thought to himself: maybe as long as he didn’t open the door personally, it couldn’t come in.

Even though he had never seen a Weird with his own eyes, he had heard about many strange "Precept Taboos" and knew that these taboos were essential for surviving when dealing with the Weird.

However, just when he was about to get up and check, he heard the sound of footsteps beside his ear.

Not outside the door, but... right inside the room!

"Don’t find me! Don’t find me!..."

Seventh Master Xue’s heart pounded like a drum, almost jumping into his throat. He buried his head deep and prayed to gods and Buddha frantically in his mind.

After a long while.

It seemed that the Weird had indeed not discovered any living person inside the room as the eerie footsteps finally vanished without a trace.

Still reeling from shock, Xue Jieyan slowly poked his head out to check the situation, only to suddenly meet a pair of blood-red eyes.

It was the ghost child, who had been lying on top of the desk, leaning over and watching him, unbeknownst to him for how long.

"Ah—!!!"

The piercing scream tore through the night sky.

By the time people rushed in upon hearing the commotion, they found Seventh Master Xue disheveled, with a twisted mouth and askew eyes, foaming at the mouth, completely mad.

Another Daoist Soldier of the Xue family had gone mad.

The bride in her wedding dress activated the "Moon in the Water and Flower in the Mirror," cradling her "ghost child," and gracefully entered someone else’s dream realm.

...

In the blink of an eye, time had come to the evening of the next day, the fourth day after Jiang Feipeng had nodded in agreement.

"Have you heard? Four more went mad in the mansion last night!"

"I heard about it. Seventh Master Xue, Young Master Qing, Young Master Hong, Miss Yan, all these were Daoist Soldiers.

Up to today, about a dozen Daoist Soldiers have been struck with hysteria, it seems like most of the direct lineage Daoist Soldiers of the family have gone mad, right?"

Two house servants in charge of guarding the inner residence were under the darkening sky and couldn’t help but chat with each other to bolster their courage.

It wasn’t their fault for being faint-hearted.

The entire Xue Mansion had been on edge these past few days, troubled by the presence of a Weird.

Those servants and maidservants who hadn’t been in the Xue Mansion for long and who still had a way out had practically all fled clean by today’s light.

The managers had long lost the energy to control them.

Unlike the two gatekeeping house servants who served as the Xue family’s henchmen and aided in their misdeeds, Protectors like house-born sons simply couldn’t flee, nor did they dare to.

It was precisely because they backed the Xue Mansion that they committed misdeeds in the past without fear of retribution.

Staying in the mansion may not result in death, but if they left this backing, given the bad deeds they had done before, they would likely be bagged and sunk into the Turbid River immediately.

Moreover, mainly those at the core of the Xue family were affected by the incidents, while there were almost no mishaps among these lower-ranking people.

"I heard that the mansion originally wanted to keep a lid on it and deal with it internally, but today they finally couldn’t hold out anymore.

Early in the morning, they sent a document through the government of various counties to the Imperial Dragon Guard, requesting them to take full charge of the peculiar events in the mansion and to exterminate all the demons and monsters causing trouble in the dark.

Even if they assembled the manpower from the counties, they should have arrived by now, shouldn’t they?"

As he said this, he suddenly realized that his companion had fallen silent.

Turning his head, he saw a monster with glowing green eyes standing quietly behind him, holding his companion whose neck had been broken.

"Ma...manager?!"

Even though the monster’s body looked like a giant misshapen bird covered in tumors, the remnants of a human face could still be made out as belonging to the second steward, Xue Yan!

"Ah!"

A scream was cut short.

Xue Yan, devoid of any human reason in his eyes, devoured the hearts and livers of the two men, then flapped his wings and rushed into the back of the Xue Mansion.

At the same time, those dozen or so mad Daoist Soldiers of the Xue family opened their uniformly green eyes all at once.

After experimenting on the Xue family members over the past few days, Wang Yuan quickly discovered.

Frightening people into madness first, then transforming them with the "Immortal Sand Soul Returning Seal" was much simpler than causing direct mutations and much more covert, less likely to arouse suspicion.

It was only after accumulating for three days that he formally made his move today.

"Ah! Help—!"

"Someone come quickly!"

"..."

With endless chilling screams as a backdrop, a bloody massacre finally unfolded within the Xue Mansion.

And the Imperial Dragon Guard outside... arrived too late.