Free Web NovelChapter 48: Chapter 48: Oily Fragrance
Fu Juemin waited by the street for a while until Cao Tian finally returned with a group of men.
The two men sent out earlier to report to the authorities and search for people, Qian Fei and Ma Dakui, were both among them.
"Young Master!"
The group hurried over to Fu Juemin. The moment Qian Fei saw him, he let out a long sigh of relief.
"Thank heavens, you’re all right..."
"Have the men from the police department arrived?"
Fu Juemin tossed him the opened pack of "Silk Road" brand cigarettes in his hand and asked directly. freewёbnoνel.com
"They’re here."
Qian Fei wiped the sweat from his brow, speaking quickly. "Deputy Director Zhou is leading the team. Even County Magistrate Hu is here.
By the time we came over, the chaos at Post House Street and Datong Road was mostly under control..."
Qian Fei paused, then added in a low voice, "Nearly every shop along the street was smashed up, and many students were injured... This is going to be a real headache for County Magistrate Hu."
Hearing that the situation at the assembly’s street corner had stabilized, Fu Juemin felt a measure of relief and turned his gaze to Ma Dakui.
Ma Dakui naturally knew what he wanted to ask. He reported succinctly, "Second Master has arrived with his men. He’s waiting for you at the South Market Street Corner."
"Good."
Without wasting another moment, Fu Juemin immediately called for the men to head to the South Market Street Corner.
Qian Fei, quick-witted, hailed a nearby rickshaw and brought it before Fu Juemin. "My apologies for the inconvenience, Young Master. Our car is still stuck on Post House Street and can’t get out..."
Fu Juemin nodded and got into the rickshaw. Qian Fei and the others jogged alongside it.
As the son of Fu Guosheng, the wealthiest man in Luan River, he was used to being chauffeured in a car. This was his first time riding in this iconic vehicle of the era.
The nimble rickshaw puller took off, moving quickly and steadily. His speed through the city was hardly any slower than a car’s.
Before long, they reached the South Market Street Corner. From a distance, Fu Juemin saw his second uncle, Fu Guoping, standing in the middle of the street with a large group of burly men in practical attire, all holding guns. They had the imposing air of fierce bandits entering a city.
Passersby all steered clear, keeping their distance. A few merchants who recognized him as the Fu Family’s Second Master proactively went over to offer them fruits and snacks.
"Second Uncle."
Fu Juemin stepped out of the rickshaw and walked straight toward Fu Guoping.
"Lingjun."
Seeing Fu Juemin, Fu Guoping’s tense expression immediately softened a little. Then, his face grew serious again as he asked, "Dakui came and told me you discovered... a situation?"
Fu Juemin nodded and briefly recounted the whole affair to Fu Guoping.
He naturally omitted the part about how the Civility Venerable Sect had deliberately set a trap to assassinate him, saying only that he had been unluckily caught up in the events and had stumbled upon the clues by chance.
"So, according to you, this Civility Venerable Sect that’s been inciting the vagrants to riot is really the work of a Mouse Demon behind the scenes?"
Fu Guoping said pensively after hearing Fu Juemin’s account.
"The Civility Venerable Sect’s banner is embroidered with a giant rat. The Demon Fiend pulling the strings is almost certainly an old rat that’s become a demon..."
Fu Juemin stated with conviction, "That Mouse Demon should be hiding somewhere in the eastern part of the city right now."
"I believe you."
Fu Guoping looked at Fu Juemin, his brow furrowed. "But Lingjun, have you considered just how large the entire eastern district is? And how many people live there?
Even if I send out all several hundred of my men from the Civil Affairs Bureau, with the remnants of the Civility Venerable Sect and the ignorant masses providing cover, I’m afraid we’d lose half our men before we even find that beast.
And even if we get lucky and find it, in the middle of a bustling city, with so many people living close together, there are many methods I can’t use..."
"Which is why the best method is to lure the Mouse Demon out."
Fu Juemin’s eyes glinted as he calmly finished the thought.
Fu Guoping looked startled, then gave him a surprised look. "It seems you’ve already thought of a plan."
Fu Juemin nodded.
Ever since he had led Cao Tian in pursuit of the man in colorful clothes, he had been thinking about how to deal with the Mouse Demon behind the Civility Venerable Sect.
By now, he had a relatively well-developed plan in mind.
"I have an idea, but we won’t know if it’ll work until we try."
Fu Juemin leaned close to Fu Guoping’s ear and whispered for a while.
When he finished, Fu Guoping’s brow was knitted tightly.
After a long moment of contemplation, he finally slapped his thigh hard and waved his hand, shouting, "Men, go and prepare at once...."
........
BANG!
A small door was violently thrown open from the outside, and the man in colorful clothes, his face a ghastly yellow, staggered in, clutching a foot-high pottery urn.
It was a pitch-black, windowless chamber.
In the center of the dark room stood an altar, with several prayer cushions placed before it.
The man in colorful clothes struggled to the altar. With great difficulty, he fumbled in his robes for a Fire Stick, tremblingly lit two incense candles on the altar, and then collapsed onto a cushion with a THUD.
The dim, yellow light of the two-inch candles barely illuminated the surrounding darkness. One could vaguely see that the floor of the small chamber was littered with pottery jars of all sizes.
Behind the altar, there was a large, half-man-high hole in the wall. The opening was pitch-black, exuding a strange, sinister chill. It was impossible to know what lay hidden inside.
"Venerable... Venerable of Compassion..."
The man in colorful clothes knelt before the altar, his face deathly pale, and shoved the small urn in his arms over.
The thick oil inside instantly poured out, flowing freely across the floor. In a moment, the entire dark room was filled with a rich, fragrant aroma of oil.
"Venerable of Compassion.. save.. save me..."
Finishing this last act seemed to drain all his strength. He was practically half-paralyzed before the altar, bloody froth bubbling from his nose and mouth as he spoke.
He had been vomiting blood the entire way here. His sternum and internal organs were nearly shattered. If not for a single, stubborn will to live, he would have died long ago on the road.
But having held on until now, the man in colorful clothes was finally at the end of his rope.
"Venerable of Compassion.. save me.. Venerable of Compassion..."
The man repeatedly mumbled the words, his voice growing fainter and fainter, until at some point, his head lolled to one side, and he collapsed to the floor, utterly silent.
Crimson blood flowed out from under him, mixing with the fragrant oil slowly spreading across the floor, creating an irregular stain.
An unknown amount of time passed.
Accompanied by a rustling and scraping sound, golden grains of rice began to pour like fine sand from the large hole behind the altar.
Immediately after, two ghostly, will-o’-the-wisp-like points of light silently emerged from the darkness.
A fat, black shadow suddenly shot out from the hole. It leaped over the altar and greedily lapped up all the fragrant oil and blood on the floor.
And then....
It bit down on the man’s corpse and, with a WHOOSH, retreated back into the hole.
Half a breath later, a series of faint, unsettling chewing sounds echoed from within the hole. In the dark room, only the two small candle flames remained, flickering gently.....
....
The eastern district’s kiln factory.
Fu Juemin and Fu Guoping stood before an abandoned brick kiln, staring down into its pitch-black opening.
After a short while, a few burly men crawled out of the kiln, wiping away sweat as they reported, "Second Master, the opening is sealed."
Fu Juemin’s eyes flickered. He took the initiative to ask, "Have you inspected every part of the interior?"
The man replied, "We’ve checked it all. It’s a top-quality official kiln!
The walls were coated with a mixture of glutinous rice juice and egg whites. Fired for over a decade, they’re as hard as cast iron. A pickaxe can’t even dent them... It absolutely meets your requirements, Young Master Fu!"
"That’s good."
Fu Juemin nodded and turned to Fu Guoping. "Second Uncle, we can pour the oil now."
Fu Guoping grunted in agreement and had his men bring over an urn the size of a wine jar. He pointed at it and said to Fu Juemin, "Smell this."
Fu Juemin blinked, stepped forward, and lifted the urn’s lid.
In an instant, an indescribable and extremely rich, oily aroma wafted out of the urn, rushing straight into his nose and mouth.
The scent was so strong he didn’t even need to breathe it in. As Fu Juemin stood before the urn, the aroma seemed like a living thing, slithering into his body through the pores of his skin.
A single whiff made it feel as if his internal organs were being soaked and saturated with oil.
"What is this?"
Fu Juemin covered his nose and mouth, staring at the lumpy, brownish, viscous substance in the urn. The oily fragrance was so overwhelming it made him feel nauseous.
"It’s the old oil paste Yongfeng Oil Workshop has been accumulating for over a hundred years. I had them bring it all over in one go."
Fu Guoping pointed at the urn and laughed heartily. "You have no idea. Just digging this old oil out of its vat caused three of the workshop’s hands to pass out from the smell..."
