chapter 2 part 2

He slept through the night, up until sunrise.

"DONG DONG DONG! DONG DONG DONG!"

The sound of frantic knocks arose.

Lu Sheng abruptly opened his eyes, shot up from the bed and looked towards the door.

"Who is it?!"

"Young Master…! There's been trouble…!" It was Little Qiao's voice.

Lu Sheng hurriedly got off his bed to open the door. Outside, Little Qiao stood there with a terrifyingly pale face, devoid of all color. The fat cheeks on her baby face were currently trembling uncontrollably.

"Xu… Xu… Xu…"

Seeing this, an ominous sense of crisis began to rise in Lu Sheng's heart.

"Just what happened? Take a deep breath!" He raised his hand to pat Little Qiao's back vigorously.

Only then was Little Qiao able to breathe normally.

"The Xu family… Lord Xu's family's all finished!!" She said in one breath, sobbing.

Lu Sheng was stupefied.

Little Qiao speedily helped Lu Sheng into his outer robes. Without saying another word, they both sped towards the outer manor.

The patriarch of the Lu family, Lu Fang, was standing outside the manor. He had his hands behind his back, a hint of a tremble on his crestfallen face.

Three huge black double horse carriages waited next to him.

Lu Sheng, along with his other cousins within the manor, hastily paid respects to Lu Fang before promptly boarding the carriages.

Lu Fang and Lu Sheng sat together, father and son both silent as they faced each other. Neither spoke a word while on the carriage.

Lu Fang was over sixty years of age. With a white beard, skinny build and handsome features, he looked more like a distinguished scholar rather than a businessman.

The horse carriages advanced without slowing down. It wasn't long till they arrived outside the Nine Links City's gates.

Lu Sheng alighted from the carriage, and was shocked by the scene before his eyes.

To the left of the carriageway outside the city gates, ten corpses lay neatly on the snow. From young to old, from men to women… they were all of the Xu family!

All of them were clad in robes custom-made for the Xu household. Xu Daoran lay in the middle of the third row.

His face was ashen, his body stiff and eyes shut tightly. His expression was one of extreme fear, just as if he had seen something immensely terrifying before his death.

Lu Sheng saw the constables maintaining order at the scene. He saw his own father, Lu Fang, standing in front of an old man's corpse, not saying a word with his fists clenched tightly.

The Prefect, having heard the news, was also present, his face as white as the snow surrounding them.

Lu Sheng took a deep breath and walked slowly to stand next to a constable. "How did they die?"

That constable recognized him and knew who he was. He sighed.

"All of them died in their own manor, hung by seaweed from the house beams. No idea where the seaweed came from…"

"Yiyi! Yiyi!!"

A cry of alarm suddenly sounded out from behind. Obviously, little cousin Yiyi had fainted.

Lu Sheng heaved a deep sigh, recalling what Xu Daoran had said to him only the day before.

He had just returned from solving cases in the fishing villages…

Fishing villages…

Water ghost…

That bizarre piece of cobblestone…

In that moment, many thoughts went through Lu Sheng's mind.

In actuality, he had only been in this world for a couple of days, and did not have any deep attachment to Xu Daoran. Therefore, he only felt a sense of regret and shock at the moment. However, he did not feel the grief others would have expected of him.

It's not that he had never seen corpses before.

Rather, it's just that he had never seen this many corpses before.

"Where is Priest Chi Ling of the Xu household?" He heard Lu Fang asking the senior constable.

"In another area. The corpse has been split into many chunks, one of which has even been gnawed at by a beast…" the senior constable replied in a low voice.

A spell of silence.

Be it the Lu family, the Prefect or the commoners looking on from the city gates, they were all silent.

"Priest Chi Ling is quick with his sword, and is even a cut above Uncle Zhao…" Lu Fang gradually lowered his voice.

Uncle Zhao was the strongest martial arts master employed by the Lu family. Priest Chi Ling was stronger than Uncle Zhao, and yet he was killed.

This was no longer a simple murder case, but a grave danger that was enough to threaten everyone present!

Of all the people present, who would dare say that he was mightier than the Xu family?

No one would dare say so, not even the Prefect.

Lu Sheng stood silently on the roadside. He'd initially thought that this world was very safe and was but an imitation of the ancient China, that's all. There were some surprising occurrences, but nothing too serious.

But now, it seemed…

He touched the cobblestone that was in his sleeve pocket.

The cobblestone was shockingly hot at the moment.

He took out the cobblestone, hesitated for a bit, and then lightly threw it away.

This item might just bring calamity upon him.

The Xu family had a foundation as robust as his own Lu family, and yet was entirely wiped out in the span of a single night.

This caused Lu Sheng to be greatly alarmed in his heart.

He deliberated, and suddenly walked over to the right of the cobblestone, bent over, and picked it up.

"Psss."

Unknowingly, his forefinger had been accidentally cut by wild grass jutting out from the snow-covered ground.

It was a special kind of grass. The sides of its leaves were sharp as the edge of a blade.

Lu Sheng's finger was immediately sliced and bled, a few drops of blood dripping onto the cobblestone.

"Young Master?" Little Qiao followed closely behind him, somewhat anxious, with tears streaming down her small face. Clearly, Xu Daoran's death was a huge blow to her.

Lu Sheng's body was frozen on the spot.

A series of extremely unique syllables suddenly floated across his mind.

"Welcome to the Deep Blue Skills Cheating Device."

In a moment, Lu Sheng's eyes went into a daze. Quite a while passed before he was back to himself.

He stared at the translucent, bluish square frame floating before his eyes. Astonishingly, in it he could see his name and all skills he currently mastered.

'Isn't this… the little cheating device I wrote for a mobile phone app?!'

Lu Sheng felt like he was going mad, having one hallucination after another.

It was bad enough that he had been reincarnated into this Young Master of a wealthy family, who barely had the strength to truss a chicken. As if that wasn't enough, he was actually having all sorts of hallucinations now!

In his previous life, he had downloaded a little game called Chronicles of Flying Swords and Heroes when he was bored. However, because the game was too difficult, he had programmed a simple cheating device to modify his martial arts in the game.

He had named it the Deep Blue Cheating Device. Come to think of it, the voice he had heard earlier was his own, recorded through a voice-changing device.

Never did he expect…

Lu Sheng looked resolutely into the space within the square frame.

The space was remarkably simple. There were only numerous small boxes, packed densely together.