Chapter 749 - 655: We’re All Good People

Chapter 749: Chapter 655: We’re All Good People

He abruptly stopped in his tracks, leaning against the cold, damp wall, gasping heavily while cautiously glancing around into the darkness behind him.

In his line of sight, there were only the distorted, swaying shadows of trees and the wind-swept debris of garbage.

Thankfully, he didn’t see the ghost shadow of [Mask], nor the figure of the Night Watcher.

This time, he should have truly shaken them off.

But this brief safety didn’t bring any relief; the footsteps of death rang in his ears, and he had to use this last bit of time.

He stumbled into a narrow alley beside him, the putrid, damp air nearly suffocating.

Deep in the alley, at the base of the wall, a homeless man wrapped in tattered felt lay curled up in sleep, snoring, his entire body reeking with the stench of rot and grime.

Xiaojiu’s intrusion startled the homeless man, who drowsily opened his bleary eyes, his murky gaze falling upon the intruder.

The next moment, the homeless man was fully awake.

What he saw was a figure emaciated like a desiccated skeleton, his skin stretched over his face covered with cobweb-like cracks of blood, so deep it exposed the bone.

The once possibly decent clothing was long drenched and caked in dark red blood, clinging tightly to a body that seemed on the verge of collapsing.

"Ghost...ghost!"

The homeless man was scared out of his wits, screaming, scrambling backward, pointing at Xiaojiu with trembling teeth,

"Blood, you’re covered in blood..."

Xiaojiu looked at him, letting out a hoarse, raspy laugh from his throat:

"You’re right, my vitality is almost drained. So, could you lend me a bit of your life?"

"No! Don’t come any closer!"

The homeless man, driven by survival instinct, screamed as he twisted to flee.

The next second, Xiaojiu caught up from behind, his desiccated hand clamping around the man’s neck like an iron grip.

"Ugh—!"

The homeless man’s scream was cut short, his body convulsing violently.

In the darkness, there was only the faint and eerie sound of something being forcibly extracted from a body.

Moments later, the homeless man’s energy seemed to be drained completely, his limp body collapsing to the ground.

Xiaojiu started coughing violently, as if trying to vomit all the forcefully absorbed essence.

He wiped the corner of his mouth harshly with the back of his hand, an expression of intense disgust and nausea on his face:

"Pah! Filthy thing! Just like the young master said... the vitality of these Lower City People has no freshness, only a rotten, gloomy miasma!"

Xiaojiu spat a few times; absorbing this bit of vitality couldn’t stop his end, just slightly numbed the tearing soul pain, the effect akin to taking a dose of "ibuprofen."

He hunched over, as if carrying a thousand pounds, each step forward an arduous task, moving deeper into the alley to find a rusted manhole cover.

"Here it is." Xiaojiu thought to himself.

He pulled it open without a hint of hesitation, leaping down.

Splash!

The filthy, icy water instantly submerged up to his knees, the stench enough to make any healthy person vomit and faint on the spot, but Xiaojiu only furrowed his brow slightly.

All his senses were already drowned and numbed by the boundless pain deep within his soul.

Wading through the sewage, he trudged deeper into the tunnel.

After painstakingly moving about dozens of meters, he stopped.

Here, the tunnel was relatively drier, with slimy moss growing in the cracks of one wall.

He reached out with his nearly skeletal, blood-streaked hand, channeling the last bit of strength, and suddenly plunged it into the wall’s fissure.

Thunk thunk—

Loose gravel and moss fell away upon impact.

His blood and energy were long depleted, utterly immobile, relying solely on a terrifying willpower to claw bit by bit into the hard wall with his finger bones.

Finally, he gouged out a shallow pit barely big enough to accommodate the Sheepskin Scroll.

He carefully pulled from his bosom the Sheepskin Scroll, more precious than his own life, and stuffed it into the pit’s deepest nook.

Then, he meticulously refilled it with the debris and moss residues he had dug out, pressing it firmly with his palm to erase all traces of human activity as much as possible.

His strength couldn’t afford more perfection. Thankfully, in this reeking sewer, few would dare venture down.

This was what he learned from [Mask]— the underground sewers were the best place to hide things.

Having completed all this, he breathed a slight sigh of relief, then abruptly raised a hand, using two fingers to gouge out one of his own eyeballs.

No screams, only the soft, muffled sound of torn flesh.

He firmly stuffed the still warm eyeball deep into the newly buried gap of gravel.

His eyes housed a locator.

Finally, he took a deep breath of the foul, icy air, and with his other hand dug his fingers into his own abdominal wound, stirring amidst the bloody mess to soon extract a specialized communicator.

The communicator was about the size of a thumb, its surface covered with a membrane.

His fingers trembled slightly from fatigue and cold, yet his movements were exceedingly steady, slowly and resolutely inputting an intricate series of encrypted numbers.

Once the last character was entered.

Click.

He pressed the confirmation key.

The communicator’s screen glowed with a faint blue light, indicating connection.

After a while, it seemed the call was connected.

Yet, on the other end... was deathly silence.

No voices, no breathing, not even the faint static typical of communication devices, as if connected to absolute vacuum.

However, Xiaojiu knew, someone over there was listening, definitely listening.

He hurriedly cradled the communicator in his hands, lifting it high above his head, as if conducting some final sacred ritual.

Then, his knees buckled, and he heavily knelt in the icy, sticky sewage.

He bent over, pressing his hot forehead tightly against the filthy stones, forcefully kowtowing, his raspy, fragmented voice echoing in the tunnel:

"The young master’s item, Xiaojiu obtained it, but Xiaojiu is incapable, probably can’t deliver it back to the young master.

The item is hidden, please send someone to retrieve it for Xiaojiu, Xiaojiu kowtows in gratitude."

He reported while kowtowing, his voice faltering due to bodily pain and emotional turmoil:

"Also...the person the young master worried about... has gone ahead of Xiaojiu.

Young master, don’t worry... even if Xiaojiu heads below... there’s still a resolve to watch over him for you... never allowing him... to disturb your peace again..."

"..."

He gave fragmented but as clear as possible instructions, squeezing every last bit of value from within his life, offering it to the mute presence on the other end of the call.

From beginning to end, not a hint of response came from the other side, no questions, no orders, just silent listening.

Yet, Xiaojiu wasn’t bothered at all, as if this was the natural order.

Finally, he gathered all his remaining strength, once more striking his forehead heavily against the cold ground, his voice choked with endless longing and farewell:

"Please... please help relay to the young master!!

Xiaojiu... wishes the young master... eternal peace and safety... Xiaojiu... leaves now..."

With that, Xiaojiu prepared to crush the communicator.

At that moment, a voice came through.

It was evidently synthesized via a voice changer, genderless, ageless, without any tonal fluctuations, devoid of emotional color:

"Who killed you?"

Just four words.

Yet it was like the strongest heart stimulant, sending a violent shudder through Xiaojiu, a sickly blush reflecting on his face like the last flicker of a dying flame.

He suddenly bowed to the ground, his entire body almost fully prostrate upon the filthy ground, exclaiming with a voice suddenly made high-pitched by excitement:

"The one who killed me is... the Night Watcher, but the one who schemed, forcing me to my death... were [Mask] and Zuo Bai!!"

With excitement, Xiaojiu even found his breathing smoother, his voice no longer stammering.

The other side spoke no further, just said lightly:

"Understood."