The Beacon of Kyushu

The blacksmith's expression changed significantly when he heard this. Fear and excitement appeared on his face. He lowered his voice and replied, "There are thirty-six immortals in Lihentian."

The young man's voice also became lower, "The merchant in the life-collecting shop asked for seventy-two taels of silver."

The blacksmith asked, "Which direction do you want to make fortune in?"

The young man said, "Gold and silver are scattered everywhere in the scorching southwest."

The blacksmith asked, "Where does the cargo count as a stop?"

"Qu Yueqian must make a fortune." The young man said this firmly, not allowing any disobedience. At the same time, he really took out exactly 72 taels of silver from his wide sleeves.

The blacksmith took the silver with a big smile on his face, and deliberately shouted at the top of his voice for others to hear, "Sir, you have a very high standard! Since you don't like the four steel knives at the door, please come in. I promise you will be satisfied with the good knives in the store!" The young man nodded slightly, tied the white horse outside the door, and went in alone with a sword. When the blacksmith saw him enter the house, he also quickly packed up his stall and followed him in.

The blacksmith shop was quite large, with fine swords and knives hung on all four walls. If a beginner got one of these, it would be enough to make him famous in the surrounding area. But the young man had no interest in these fine weapons. Instead, he stared at the blunt knife in front of him, not wanting to look away.

The blacksmith saw this and knew that the young man must be an expert in tinkering with mechanisms. Naturally, he did not dare to show off his skills in front of an expert. He quickly skipped all the tricks to fool an amateur and walked straight to the blunt knife, rotating the blade and the knife holder four times.

"Squeak... squeak..." After the blacksmith rotated the mechanism, the floor in front of him slowly moved away by a gap of about half a foot, revealing a dark secret room and a half-hanging ladder underground. The blacksmith smiled and looked at the young man, making a gesture of invitation, "Sir, the precious sword is in the room, let's go down together."

The young man nodded, but was in no hurry to go down. He stared at the blacksmith and said word by word, "It is not right for the guest to go down before the host."

The blacksmith understood what the young man meant. He was afraid that there were masters hiding in the room. If he triggered the mechanism again and closed the only passage for going up and down, the guests who rashly went down would be in a desperate situation and there would be no way back. Only if he went down first could he feel at ease. He simply said nothing more, went down the ladder to the secret room, lit a weak oil lamp in the room, and then said, "Sir, you can come down now."

The young man didn't even look at the ladder, and jumped straight down from the secret room, which was 30 to 40 meters high. The blacksmith was shocked, thinking that the young man would either die or sprain his foot. Unexpectedly, he fluttered his clothes, like an immortal descending to earth, and fell to the ground without a breath in the blink of an eye.

The blacksmith knew some martial arts, but he had no idea how skilled the scholar-looking young man in front of him was. "Sir, you are really good!"

The young man looked at the stunned blacksmith, his voice cold with a hint of disdain, "If it's a death-demanding shop, there must be death-demanding ghosts. With your martial arts skills, it doesn't look like one."

The blacksmith raised his thumb and said, "Sir, you are very knowledgeable. I will invite the ghost to come to you right away!" He picked up the oil lamp on the ground and hurriedly walked deeper into the secret room. As he walked further and further, the young man realized that this secret room was much larger than he had imagined. Now the two of them were in just a narrow corridor, but this corridor seemed to extend infinitely into the darkness, with no end.

The young man didn't want to wait there alone, so he gathered strength on his toes and jumped behind the blacksmith. The blacksmith heard the sound of wind behind him and turned his head to look. He saw the young man's elegant and indifferent face and was shocked again. But he didn't say much, just silently led the young man forward into the depths without stopping.

The two walked for an unknown amount of time before finally walking out of the narrow, depressing corridor and into an open stone cave. The cave was not very large, and as soon as they entered, they could see a small house painted red. The red on the house was not purple or dark red, but blood red, as if it had been splashed with fresh blood.

If an ordinary person were not prepared, seeing such a horrifying bloody house for the first time, even if they were not scared to death, they would definitely scream out in shock. But there was no trace of strangeness in the young man's eyes, as if this was nothing unusual to him and there was no need to make a fuss.

The blacksmith walked to the blood house and knocked heavily on the door. "Death ghost, guests are welcome!" He knocked a few times before a low, hoarse voice came from the blood house. If there were really ghosts in this world, this would be the voice. "Another guest? Come in."

The young man glanced at the blacksmith, who immediately walked into the house tactfully, and the young man followed him in slowly. The room was extremely dim, and the only source of light was a white candle on a table in the room, which continuously emitted a faint blue ghost light. With the faint blue light, one could vaguely see that the room was very messy, with snow-white notes scattered everywhere. These notes were all written on the orders that the death-dealing ghost had recently received. Most of the names written on the notes had already died, and only a few were still living in the world. However, the time they had left was also very limited. Anyone who was targeted by the death-dealing ghost would never survive for more than a month.

Sitting behind the desk was a short dwarf with wrinkled face. He stared at the young man with a fierce look in his eyes. He was holding a thigh in his hand and chewing it with relish. No one knew whether the food he was eating came from an animal or a human. All they knew was that the leg was completely raw. Every time he took a bite, blood would flow from the corner of his mouth. Against the blue light of the fire, he looked like a man-eating devil from hell.

"Young man, are you going to kill someone?" The old man ate some raw meat while looking at the young man in front of him, and his tone was somewhat wary. "If you want to kill someone, then you should first report the price of 10,000 yuan."

The young man also stared at the old man. Not only was there no fear in his eyes, but he was even more sinister and cruel than him. He said slowly, "Flying all over the sky."

The old man was startled, put down the thigh that he had not completely chewed, and asked: "Your surname is Yun? Could it be that you are Yun Yimo's son, Yun Zixiao, who defected to the Song Dynasty in recent years and is the governor of Xingzhou!"

The young man raised his lips, "As expected of a death-chasing ghost, you really have some knowledge."

The old man shuddered when he heard that, and angrily said to the blacksmith, "How can you accept anyone like that? He's an official. If we accept this job, not only will we die, but Lihentian will also be implicated! If you dare to accept such a customer again, I will kill you!"

The blacksmith always just greeted the guests without checking their background. Besides, Yun Zixiao's words and deeds revealed the demeanor of a veteran in the world, so no one would have thought that he was actually a member of the imperial court. Now it was too late to regret.

Yun Zixiao held his sword in his hand and looked at the death-chasing ghost coldly, "Next time? If you dare not accept my order today, do you think you will still be alive until next time?"

The ghost gritted his teeth and asked, "Then... who do you want to kill?"

Yun Zixiao said, "A beggar named Wan Jianfeng."

The ghost was puzzled and asked, "You are a dignified fourth-rank official, why did you kill a beggar?"

Yun Zixiao said bitterly: "Not only did he steal my woman, he even dared to represent the Song Dynasty to negotiate peace with Qu Yue, stealing all the limelight from me. As long as he is not dead, I will not be at peace!"

After hearing his words, the Death-Calling Ghost trembled even more. "What...what, you want us to kill the officials? I'm afraid that's not possible!"

Yun Zixiao said contemptuously: "I have heard that Lihentian has always only killed people from the Jianghu and dared not to offend officials of the imperial court, but this beggar is not even an official, why don't you dare to kill him? Could it be that the long-renowned Lihentian is full of cowards who bully the weak and fear the strong? "

The Death-Calling Ghost shook his head repeatedly and refused outright, "We dare to kill even the strongest masters in the martial arts world, but once they are related to the imperial court, it is another matter. No matter what you say, we will definitely not accept this order!"

Yun Zixiao's eyes moved down a few inches, from the face of the death-dealer to his neck, and he smiled playfully, "Really? If you accept this order, you will still be someone else's death-dealer in the future, but if you don't accept this order, I might as well be your death-dealer. I don't need to tell you whether it's good or bad, right?"

The blacksmith knew that Yun Zixiao was not someone you could easily mess with, so he had no choice but to suggest, "Death-teller, I think we should just take Lord Yun to the Soul-stealing Tower. As for whether to accept the order or not, let the boss decide for us!" (End of this chapter)