"""
In Ping'an Square east of Qingshan County Town, within a modest small courtyard.
The courtyard was compact but complete, equipped with a well, cooking stove, vegetable patch, and a pigsty.
Early in the morning, old Liu lay in his rocking chair, lazily staring at the sun shrouded in fog that looked just like a fluorescent light.
"Old age, it's ultimately about getting old. But bustling about for half a month, it's as tiring as if it could cost me my life. I'm getting less and less energetic," he couldn't help but squint his eyes.
"Finally settled down."
"Once the fog clears, I'll go find the matchmaker, Zhang."
The dreadful foggy day still couldn't dampen his good mood.
"To find a concubine to warm my bed. That would be enough satisfaction for this lifetime."
"Also, I need to go ask around to see if any family has children they can't afford to keep. They can't be too old, otherwise, after I raise them, they'll still belong to someone else."A look of longing and a smile appeared on old Liu's face.
"I'll go once the fog lifts, I'll go once the fog lifts..."
He murmured softly, filled with hope, slowly drifting into sleep, and slowly passed away.
...
In the back courtyard of the County Government Office of Qingshan County.
Ever since the county magistrate disappeared, and Li Qing, the chief official, took actual control of Qingshan County,
He shamelessly moved into the magistrate's residence.
With great upheaval everywhere, no one would care about a small Qingshan County Town.
As dawn slowly broke, Li Qing struggled out of bed. His head throbbed, his eyes swollen, his limbs ached as if he hadn't slept all night.
"Someone," he called weakly with a hoarse voice.
But after shouting for a while, no one came to help him out of bed.
Li Qing, bearing his whole body's discomfort, angrily struggled out of the bedroom.
"I need to find a doctor." He clearly felt there was something wrong with his body.
He burst into the small compartment next to the bedroom, the temporary dwelling of his personal maid.
The maid, who should have woken up much earlier, was still curled up in her bed.
A maid waking up later than her master?!
Damn it!
His anger boiling, he ran to the bedside and raised his hand, intent on hitting the maid ruthlessly.
But he was met with an extremely pale face.
If not for the faint rising and falling of her chest, he would have thought she was a corpse!
"Something's wrong!" Li Qing staggered backward.
Could someone have poisoned him?
In his panic, he rushed out of the room.
Only to see the servants and guards stationed outside his room, all staggering like drunkards.
Pale-faced, with weakened qi and blood!
"Something's very wrong!"
"Someone!"
"Someone help!"
...
On the southern official road of Qingshan County Town.
A long convoy suddenly stopped, and a commotion could be heard coming from the front.
"Something happened?" Chen Mu strained to see ahead.
But the thick fog obscured everything, making it impossible to see clearly.
"Zhen Fan, go take a look up front!" Zhang Ye called out from behind the window of the carriage to the man on the horse behind him.
"Sure thing!"
A skinny man jumped off the carriage from the back and quickly disappeared into the mist.
Half a quarter of an hour later, the skinny man returned.
"Boss, there's a dead person ahead."
"It's said to be a son born out of wedlock from the Zuo Family."
"Silent and without struggle, he just suddenly died."
"That son's mother is causing a scene up front."
Chen Mu frowned slightly, wondering how a man could just die all of a sudden.
"To have a death right after we set off is not a good omen," Zhang Ye lamented before complaining, "The young master couldn't have chosen a worse time to die, it's holding up our journey!"
"There's something not quite right," Chen Mu's frown deepened.
"Brother, don't be afraid, it's just a death, I've got your back..." Zhang Ye patted Chen Mu's shoulder and laughed loudly.
Chen Mu glanced at him indifferently.
But Zhang Ye felt a tightness in his chest. A familiar feeling of weakness spread through his limbs, making him freeze in place. He opened his mouth but couldn't utter a word, like a duck whose neck was being squeezed.
Coming to his senses, he was immediately embarrassed. He had actually been frightened by a scholar with a pale face!
About to glare menacingly at the other man, he realized Chen Mu had already turned his head away, no longer paying him any attention.
"What's wrong?" Jie Jia turned his head to look at Chen Mu.
"It's too quiet."
He had lived in Little East Mountain for three months. The sounds of insects and birds were incessant every day.
He had felt something was off since early morning, and now he finally realized what it was.
A flash of cold light glimmered in Jie Jia's eyes, and his figure vanished suddenly.
Three breaths later, he reappeared holding a gray spider the size of a thumb in his hand.
The spider lay in his palm, limp and motionless.
Jie Jia disappeared again and returned with three grasshoppers.
They too were limp and motionless.
Jie Jia's expression suddenly turned grim.
"Let's go!" Chen Mu forcefully slapped the rump of the horse in front of him.
The carriage rolled forward rapidly.
...
"What are you doing!" A black horse blocked the carriage, and the bald, burly man riding it shouted, "Didn't I say, 'Stand by and no one moves'?"
"How may I address you, big brother? Standing around here is really boring, so we thought we'd go ahead and scout the road for everyone," Chen Mu spoke with an amiable smile.
"Can't you understand my words? Stand by!" The bald, burly man glanced at Jie Jia and said coldly.
"A small token for tea, brother. We'll just go ahead and get some fresh air," Chen Mu produced a piece of silver from his bosom and tossed it to the bald, burly man.
The man caught it with one hand, smiling as he pocketed it. His expression turned cold again, "Get back there!"
Chen Mu turned to Jie Jia with a cheerful smile, "This fellow takes the money and does nothing. His professional ethics are far worse than yours." Stay updated with
Then, dropping his smile, he looked at the burly man calmly and lightly kicked the hindquarters of the horse.
The carriage charged towards the black-clad burly man!
The bald, burly man's face changed; one horse couldn't withstand the charge of two.
He immediately pulled on the reins and dodged the carriage.
Standing by the roadside, he saw Jie Jia remain silent and Chen Mu completely ignored him.
The burly man couldn't help but laugh in anger.
"A white-faced boy dares to ignore my words?"
He dismounted with a flip, a nasty smile on his face, and reached out to grab Chen Mu's neck.
With the convoy in trouble and people uneasy, what better time to find someone to make an example of?
And there he was!
Hisss!
A light sound.
He felt a chill on his fingers, a flash of silver before his eyes.
The razor-sharp tip of a sword slipped between the gaps of his index and middle finger, appearing out of nowhere before his eyes.
At that moment, the tip of the sword was only a rice grain's distance from his eyeball.
The bald strongman seemed to have hit the pause button, standing completely still in his spot.
He didn't even dare to blink, fearing the blade would cut him.
Chen Mu, expressionless, said in a cold voice, "Daring to stop the carriage, I could have killed you."
Hisss!
It was as if no one saw where the sword came from.
And no one saw where it went.
The sword tip vanished from the bald strongman's view, leaving him drained, his back drenched in sweat.
Just now, he truly felt like he was on the brink of death.
"What's going on?!" a hoarse voice coldly demanded.
A man in his fifties with half-white hair came over.
The bald strongman's spirits lifted, and he took two steps toward the old man, respectfully cupping his fists.
"Master Zuo, sorry to trouble you." The bald strongman said apologetically, "There was an incident with the convoy, and to get to the bottom of it, I've ordered everyone to stay put."
"A silver-booted guard refused to follow orders. I've expelled them," said the bald strongman respectfully.
Then, turning to look at Chen Mu in his Jie Jia, he said coldly, "Scram. The Xue family's warehouse doesn't need a disobedient silver-booted lad with a family to drag along!"
Jie Jia's eyes darted around, glancing at Master Zuo before slightly shaking the reins in his hand, and the carriage began to roll forward.
Chen Mu, expressionless, leaned against the carriage, lost in his thoughts, not sparing the two men a glance.
Ignored by them, the strongman's face flushed red with anger.
"Master Zuo, I've already driven away the disobedient one, you go rest, we will deal with this swiftly-" but before he could finish, Master Zuo interrupted him.
"Inform the convoy, we're leaving immediately!" he ordered.
"Master Zuo, the young master has met with an accident, we can't be so hasty. We must first eliminate any threats..."
"I said, we're leaving immediately!" Master Zuo stared intently at the bald strongman.
That look clearly said, disobey me, and I'll replace you!
The bald strongman swallowed his response, frustration written all over his face as he said, "Yes!"
Master Zuo glanced again at the receding black lacquered carriage.
He then coldly glared at the bald strongman, "Pick up the pace and catch up with them!"
...
On top of the black lacquered carriage.
Cheng Ming held a Fasting Pill in one hand, biting a piece off on one side, then nibbling on the other, eating with relish.
The chubby county constable Du Huai shrunk inside the carriage, silent, yet his eyes whirled around, lost in thought.
Zhang Ye leaned against the inner wall of the carriage. His back was damp with sweat, uncomfortable and sticky, but he dared not scratch it.
His eyes occasionally flicked toward Chen Mu outside the carriage.
Was this truly a frail scholar?
He had been watching Chen Mu and hadn't seen how he had drawn and sheathed his sword!
As a martial artist, he instinctively imagined himself in the bald strongman's position.
Impossible to guard against! Absolutely impossible to guard against!
A master!
A master who could take his life!
Remembering how he had carelessly patted the man on the shoulder earlier, joking about his fear of death, Zhang Ye felt a chill on his forehead.
Hopefully the scholar didn't hold a grudge...
...
The carriage rolled leisurely along. But Chen Mu felt his hackles rising, sensing something was terribly wrong.
He grabbed the whip and drove the carriage forward as if it were flying.
Ignoring the complaints of the jostling passengers, he raced twenty miles, leaving the thick fog behind, before finally stopping to rest the horses.
He stepped off the carriage and looked back the way they came.
The white mist was like a clump of cotton, tightly enveloping Qingshan County for ten miles around, unmovable by the wind.
From the outside, it was just a white expanse.
Before long, there was a rumbling sound from behind.
The Zuo family's convoy also came out of the dense fog in a disheveled state.
Seeing Chen Mu and the others resting by the roadside, they slowed down. After the convoy completely escaped the fog, they stopped to rest as well.
After that hard run, the large convoy had taken quite a beating.
Tallying up the people and their condition was necessary; the cargo was jostled apart and needed to be re-secured.
It wasn't long before the convoy again turned noisy.
"Boss, I heard that four more people died. The young and the old, all weak and sickly," Zhen Fan reported as he approached the black lacquered carriage.
As soon as the Zuo family's convoy stopped, he had snuck over to gather information.
"Damn! This is cursed! Lucky we ran fast!" Zhang Ye's back instantly drenched with sweat again.
Mysterious deaths made him think of malevolent spirits.
Qingshan County had been unsettled recently.
Who knows what unclean things might be within that fog?
Zhang Ye looked at Chen Mu with surprise.
This Scholar Chen was formidable to have sensed something was off in advance.
Seeing Chen Mu staring expressionlessly at the mist, Zhang Ye found him even more enigmatic.
...
"Are ghosts to blame?" Chen Mu asked Jie Jia.
"No," Jie Jia replied, standing with his hands behind his back next to Chen Mu.
His eyes were narrowed to slits, his amber pupils intently studying the mist as if deep in thought.
"That fog is definitely problematic."
"Fog?" Chen Mu couldn't help but think of the London smog events he'd once heard about in his previous life.
In 1952, due to atmospheric conditions, smoke from factories and heating coal failed to disperse, enveloping London in smog for five days. During this time, the city saw a sharp rise in illness and death rates.
Subsequent figures estimated that the smog had resulted in as many as 4,000 deaths.
But Qingshan County was just an otherworldly ancient city. How could there be that much pollution?
The vast Qingshan County Town, tightly enshrouded in white mist.
Silent as the grave, without a sound, it appeared as a ghost town.
Looking from afar, Chen Mu couldn't suppress a shiver of dread.
"A place of misfortune..."
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