The Red-Clad Madman

The evil cultivator's trembling finger poked at the waist of the corpse on the ground. The dark red token was stained with blood. "The... the Blood Fiend Token! You just need a drop of blood to..."

As I thought.

Li Nanzhu noted silently. Otherwise, there was no way to explain how they had killed someone and were immediately discovered by other evil cultivators.

Feng Qingping had already taken the token and was examining it closely.

The token was dark red throughout. A hideous ghost mask was carved on the front, while the back was covered in complex runes. She tried to inject spiritual energy, but the token didn't react at all.

"It... it needs blood..." the evil cultivator stammered an explanation. "Drip it onto the eyes of the ghost mask..."

Naturally, Li Nanzhu and the others wouldn't use their own blood for the experiment. Who knew if this evil cultivator was lying or if there was some kind of trap?

Feng Weilan's blade pressed down slightly, carving a thin line of blood on the evil cultivator's neck. "Contact your superiors."

"N-no, I can't!" The evil cultivator was scared out of his wits. "Only the lords at the Golden Core stage or above can actively contact the higher-ups. People like us can only send messages in case of an emergency..."

Li Nanzhu suddenly thought of something and pulled out the storage bags she had seized from the previous evil cultivators. "Look at this!" She poured out several similar tokens. Zhao Tiezhu's was the darkest in color, while the others were much lighter. "The evil cultivators we killed before had these too!"

Feng Qingping quickly compared the tokens. "These are child tokens; they can basically only receive messages."

She pointed at Zhao Tiezhu's token. "This one should be a mother token with a higher level of authority. It can actively contact others and notify the child tokens."

Li Nanzhu frowned. "Then how do you contact them in an emergency?"

"Crush... crush the token..." the evil cultivator replied shakily.

"So they're single-use items..." Feng Qingping tucked them away. She had already checked, and there were no tracking methods on them. Although it was a pity they could only be used once, in a situation where communication jade slips were useless, having them was better than nothing.

Li Nanzhu narrowed her eyes. This evil cultivator was a bit too cowardly... No, wait, this should be the reaction of a normal person. The behavior of the Golden Core evil cultivators they met before, who committed suicide immediately, was what was abnormal...

She looked at the evil cultivator again and noticed that although he was terrified, his eyes lacked the fanaticism seen in those Golden Core evil cultivators.

She suddenly realized what was wrong—these low-level evil cultivators didn't seem as crazy as the higher-ups?

"Your 'lord'," she intentionally used a respectful term, "how does he usually command you?"

The evil cultivator clearly breathed a sigh of relief. "The lord rarely gives orders in person... it's always through the Blood Fiend Token..."

As the interrogation went deeper, Li Nanzhu's brow furrowed more and more. The high-level cultivators of the Blood Fiend Sect all possessed a sickly fanaticism, while these low-level evil cultivators seemed more like normal people.

"Interesting..." Feng Qingping toyed with a Blood Fiend Token. "The higher the cultivation, the crazier they get?"

Li Nanzhu suddenly thought of the pyramid schemes from the modern world—usually, the people at the top were the clearest, while the ones at the bottom were brainwashed the most. How was the Blood Fiend Sect completely reversed?

"I'll ask you something else." Li Nanzhu stared at the evil cultivator, not letting a single change in his expression escape her. "Have you seen a male cultivator in red robes around here?"

The evil cultivator's eyes darted around frantically. "I... I haven't..."

"Hmm?" Seeing that he was still being dishonest, Feng Weilan's blade immediately drew blood from his neck. Even Suisui made a gesture as if to bite his neck off.

"I really haven't!" Cold sweat broke out on the evil cultivator's forehead. "Except for those from the Hehuan Sect, I've only seen you all in the past half-month..."

Feng Qingping suddenly performed a hand seal, and the array disk shot a beam of green light into the evil cultivator's brow. "Still lying."

A flicker of flame ignited on Li Nanzhu's fingertip. "I'll ask one last time: the red-robed cultivator. If you don't talk, the thing my Senior Sister put in your head... will be enough to put you in a world of hurt."

"I'll talk! I'll talk!" Feeling the sharp pain in his mind, the evil cultivator completely broke down. "A month ago... there was a red-clad madman... who blew the West District sky-high..."

"Speak in detail." Feng Weilan's blade moved half an inch closer.

"H-he specifically targeted the blood-fiend crystals..." The evil cultivator's teeth chattered. "He blew up three refining rooms... killed one of our Golden Core leaders and seven or eight people at the Foundation Establishment stage... even the lord couldn't catch him personally..."

Li Nanzhu was shocked. With that style of doing things, it was eighty percent likely to be her Fourth Senior Brother, Jiang Yifan!

"Why did he kill your people?" Feng Qingping asked coldly.

"I... I really don't know the specific reason!" The evil cultivator shook his head in terror, cold sweat soaking his black robes. "I only heard that madman say something about 'mysterious yin iron'... saying we occupied a place we shouldn't have..."

Li Nanzhu and Feng Qingping exchanged a look, seeing understanding in each other's eyes.

Knowing the original story, Li Nanzhu immediately understood the crux of the matter. Her Fourth Senior Brother, Jiang Yifan, was obsessed with smithing. He had come here because of rumors of a mysterious yin iron mine, only to find it occupied by the Blood Fiend Sect—or perhaps he had even discovered the news was fake.

With that senior brother's personality... blowing up a few refining rooms was light work!

Feng Weilan's blade remained steady. "Where is he now?"

"D-don't know..." The evil cultivator shrank his neck. "Some say they saw him in an old mine shaft a long time ago, but that place collapsed ages ago..."

Feng Qingping's array disk suddenly glowed with a warning light. "He's still lying."

"I really only know this much!" The evil cultivator suddenly broke down and wailed. "The lords above issued a gag order... saying anyone who dared to leak even half a word would have their souls extracted and refined..."

Hearing this, the three of them frowned. Just what did Fourth Senior Brother do to make the higher-ups issue a gag order? While the three were thinking, the evil cultivator saw their expressions soften and couldn't help but speak.

"I... I've told you everything I know! Can you let me go now?" A fawning smile appeared on the evil cultivator's face. "I promise I won't say anything! I only joined three months ago, I really haven't done anything bad!"

Li Nanzhu crouched down, her eyes curving into crescents. "Of course—"

Squelch!

A flash of blade light passed, and a line of blood instantly split across the evil cultivator's throat. His eyes widened as he clutched his spurting neck in disbelief.

"Safe travels." Li Nanzhu flicked the blood droplets off her dagger, her smile remaining unchanged. "Have a nice trip."

The evil cultivator twitched and collapsed, his black robes soaked in blood. Feng Qingping looked at the dark mist rising from the corpse and frowned. "Wrapped in yin malevolence... he must have tortured and killed at least eighty people. How could there be any innocent cultivators in this place?"

What was bone-chilling was that the moment the corpse hit the ground, it shriveled up, turning into skin and bones even faster than before. The blood that seeped out burrowed into the rock crevices like a living thing, moving so fast that even Suisui didn't have time to intercept it.

"Something's wrong..." Feng Qingping's array disk vibrated violently. "The speed at which the ground is absorbing blood... is at least three times faster than before!"