Chapter 108: Gathering Clues

Lin Mu felt the dense spirit qi wafting out of the safe as soon as he removed the door. He looked inside and saw that the safe had two compartments. The upper compartment was the source of the spirit qi. He extended his hand and pulled out a small box that seemed to be leaking the spirit qi.

Lin Mu opened the box and found three spirit stones kept inside it. These spirit stones seemed different from the ones that he already had. These spirit stones seemed to be filled with much more dense spirit qi than the other spirit stones.

"Are these mid-quality spirit stones?" Lin Mu muttered.

"Yes, they are indeed mid-quality spirit stones. But they don't seem to be stable." Xukong replied.

"They're not stable?" Lin Mu questioned.

"You see how there is the spirit qi that is being released out of the spirit stones, that should not happen. A proper mid-quality spirit stone should not release any spirit qi and should keep it completely contained within it. These ones are damaged." Xukong answered.

"What do I do with them then, senior? I mean won't they lose all of the spirit qi and become useless." Lin Mu asked.

"You don't have to worry about that. Just put them in the ring, they won't leak any spirit qi in there." Xukong replied.

Lin Mu followed senior Xukong's advice and stored them in the ring. Then it came the turn for the next item, which had pulled his eyes the moment he had opened. This thing was shining and was very prominent to one's eyes, they were solid gold bars.

The gold bars occupied most of the upper compartment, and only a small part was taken up by the box that had the mid quality spirit stones. Lin Mu counted them and found there to be forty of these gold bars.

Each of these gold bars was the thickness of a finger and was the size of a palm. There was a special pattern engraved on each of the gold bars. The engraving read: Shuang Qian. But after reading them, Lin Mu once again felt anger rising within him.

"Where did the Town Head get all this gold? And these engravings they are of the name of this kingdom. Was he hiding all this wealth from everyone?" Lin Mu spoke with a grim tone. 

"Seems like it is indeed as you thought. But now is not the time for this, you can think about it later, for now, focus on your task." Xukong advised.

Lin Mu chanted the calming heart sutra and dissipated his anger. 

"You are right senior." Lin Mu replied.

Lin Mu then checked the bottom compartment of the safe and found that it was filled with documents, scrolls, letters, and some long books. Lin Mu decided to just store all of them into the ring for now and check them later, as he did not think he had much time left.

Wanting to see if they were coming close, Lin Mu went back to the door and observed the hallway with his spirit sense. Confirming that there was no one outside he took another peek. In a surprise to him, there was no one outside in the hallway. Even the unconscious Lu Xiao seemed to have been taken somewhere.

"Where did they go? Are they not going to come to check?" Lin Mu wondered.

"Seems like you have more time. You should also check the office as well." Xukong spoke.

Lin Mu nodded and decided to check the office thoroughly. He extended his spirit sense and scanner every inch of the office closely. There were many documents and items in the office, thus it was hard for him to determine which ones were useful.

There were no traces of spirit qi in the office at least, though. Lin Mu did not find any hidden compartments or such either, thus he just decided to check the more obvious places. The first place he checked was the Town Head's desk.

There was a pyramidal pile of scrolls kept in a small stand on the desk, along with several ledgers and books. The scrolls were all already opened, thus Lin Mu took a quick glance at them. He found out that all of them were letters. 

Most of them were just normal report letters between the guards, the merchants, and the other important people of the town. Though there was one letter that caught his eye. This letter was addressed to a certain 'Li Peng'.

"Li Peng? Isn't that the supervisor of the Spirit Apple orchards?" Lin Mu muttered to himself.

Storing all of the scrolls and documents into the ring, he decided to take a deeper look later. 

'Perhaps the Hei corps would be useful in this matter.' Lin Mu thought.

There were other ledgers which seemed to be used for keeping accounts. But Lin Mu was unable to understand these, as he had zero experience with things such as these. He just decided to keep them for now and let the Hei corps take a look.

Lin Mu ransacked the entire office and found a few peculiar things. The first one was a long key which he did not know the use for. The second was a decorative Javelin that was placed on the wall behind the desk. The third and the final item was a pot of wine that seemed to be extremely fragrant.

Lin Mu decided to keep these items in the ring as well. It was now that the sound of something falling came from behind him. He quickly turned around and saw a small stone lying on the floor. He picked it up and saw that it was actually wrapped with a cloth. 

Lin Mu opened the cloth and found that there was something written on it.

"This is Hei Shi. In a couple of minutes, an entire guard squadron will be entering the town center. There will be more guards than we thought, so be careful."

"Seems like something changed." Lin Mu spoke.

"You must be ready for there to be cultivators within them. If they find out about you being a cultivator as well they may suspect you." Xukong replied.

"Yes, Senior." Lin Mu responded.

Lin Mu then restored the few things that were a little out of order in the office and then returned to the bedroom. He closed and locked the door of the safe and put the bed in front of it, blocking it. He then laid down against the wall and pretend to be unconscious.

A minute later, the sound of a door slamming open came from the office. The sounds of multiple footsteps resounded within the room, spreading along with the shouts of the guards. Lin Mu heard the shouts of shock and horror, presumably because they noticed the dead bodies of the Town head and Han Lei.

"SILENCE." A voice shouted.

Lin Mu felt like he had heard this voice before, but could not exactly remember where. He thought that it belonged to the captain at first, but then rejected this thought as it was much more different and lower-pitched.

A few seconds later, the door of the bedroom also slammed open, and the guards entered the room.

"Over here, we found the boy." Shouted the guard that had entered the bedroom.

"He's unconscious as well." Another guard informed.

Then, Lin Mu heard some different footsteps enter the bedroom. He felt that these were different than those of the guards because the noise made by their boots was different. If the guards were wearing thick leather boots, then this person seemed to be wearing fur boots instead.

The footsteps came to Lin Mu's side and halted. Lin Mu used his spirit sense to observe the scene and was a little surprised to see the person who was standing beside him. This person was not a Guard instead, it was the supervisor Li Peng.

'What is he doing here?' Lin Mu wondered.

Li Peng scanned Lin Mu with his eyes and then turned to look at the guards.

"Carry him out and treat his injuries. Also, call in high official Hei Wan. She will want to look at the scene." Li Peng ordered.

"Yes, sir." The guards responded respectfully.

The two guards then picked Lin Mu up and carried him downstairs towards the first floor of the town center. While on the way, Lin Mu was observing the entire time. He also saw Hei Wan standing alongside Hei Bao outside the Town Head's office.

The guards halted near Hei Wan for a moment before speaking.

"Sir supervisor invites madam inside." The guard respectfully spoke.

Lin Mu could see that Hei Wan was looking at him, waiting for him to give a signal. Understanding this, Lin Mu decided to open his eyes.

"Huh… Where am I?" Lin Mu muttered, pretending to wake up.

The guards heard his voice and looked at the now awake Lin Mu. Hei Wan also looked at Lin Mu and signaled to him with her spirit sense. Lin Mu felt the spirit sense touch him and faintly nodded.

"What happened to this Boy?" Hei Wan asked.