Chapter 9: Chapter 9 Speculation Chapter 9: Chapter 9 Speculation Editor: Atlas Studios He claimed his surname was Xu, but his real name was unknown to Su Mo, and after stabilizing himself, he flipped over and sat up immediately.
His previously graceful and remarkable appearance was now completely distorted.
Falling and rolling on the ground was naturally not gentle; his face was bruised and swollen, not to mention blood was flowing from the corner of his mouth. When he opened his mouth to speak, no words came out—instead, he spat a mouthful of fresh blood.
When he looked up again, Su Mo was already in front of him.
“This is… impossible…”
He spoke with difficulty: “You… unless your Inner Strength is profound and has reached the transformational stage, otherwise, it is impossible for you to be indifferent to this Bone Eroding Fragrance!”
“Bone Eroding Fragrance?”
Su Mo nodded: “Let’s not discuss the specifics of this Bone Eroding Fragrance or the extent of my Inner Strength. How are you so certain that I was stricken by the deadly poison within this fragrance?”
“???”
The man sitting on the ground widened his eyes almost in disbelief at what he was hearing.
With a smile, Su Mo said: “It’s said that poison experts in the medical field are unpredictable, and a couple of entirely non-toxic things, when placed around, can form the deadliest poison in the world. Since you’ve said I’m cautious and careful, how could I only be careful about the substance in the cup? An ancient zither, an incense burner—both appear elegant in style, yet underneath your malice, I naturally had to guard against hidden blades beneath your zither, hidden arrows in your sleeves, and poison within your incense!
“Truth be told, before I stepped foot into this Luohua Pavilion, when I first saw that incense burner, I haven’t taken another breath.
“In terms of Inner Strength, I barely have a bit of expertise; the mere skill of holding my breath, I can still maintain for a short while.”
The man before him turned pale in an instant; he thought of Su Mo’s cautiousness, but never imagined that Su Mo was not just being cautious about that cup of clear tea.
He was cautious in every aspect!
With high martial arts and such meticulous caution, his defeat today was truly not unjust.
With a bitter smile, he said: “How… How did you know I harbored ill intent?”
“Guess whether I’ll tell you?”
Su Mo continued with a smile: “Alright, let’s not talk about these pointless things. I’ll ask you just one thing. Other than your group, does anyone else know about the Mysterious Mechanism and the matters of Da Xuan’s Armory?”
The man’s expression became dazed, and his thoughts were clearly scrambled, not grasping the information revealed in Su Mo’s words, merely smiling wretchedly:
“If you want to kill, just kill, why the need for more words!?”
“So be it.”
As Su Mo’s voice fell, he flicked his hand and struck directly at the crown of the man’s head.
With a crack, the man’s eyes instantly lost focus, bereft of any spark of life, and his dead body fell to the ground.
At this stage, Su Mo naturally showed no mercy.
On one hand, he didn’t feel he possessed any personal charm that would make his opponent willingly submit and serve him loyally to the death.
On the other hand, in the exchange of palms just now, this man had already had all his meridians broken, and even if he was not given a swift end now, he was only struggling on his last breath, inevitably still on the path to death.
And the last and most important point…
The chaos had reached this stage, yet there was still no sign of movement from those hidden outside?
With a sweep of his sleeve, Su Mo turned and walked away.
After taking a brief turn around, he already came to a stop.
On the peach tree in front, a person was slantingly leaning against it, a knife stuck in their chest, the blade nailed into the trunk, and even piercing through it, so that blood dripped down drop by drop from the tip of the knife onto the ground, mixing with the soil.
Su Mo recognized this person…
It was this young man who had brought him to Luohua Pavilion from the Wangxiang Building.
Just moments ago, this person was still jumping around lively, but now he lay dead on the spot.
Not just him, having just made a round through the Taohua Forest, while one couldn’t say that there were bodies strewn everywhere, these people were either lying down or leaning, all arranged neatly, the only thing in common was that they were all dead.
“I was fighting a battle of wits with that man in Luohua Pavilion, yet outside, someone was on a killing spree…
“The method looks the same as the way people died in that tea house.”
Su Mo turned around and headed back towards the Luohua Pavilion, pondering as he walked: “Today’s meeting was surely for them to take me down, to get the Brocade Box, to acquire my martial arts. However, I also took this chance to probe for secrets. Though that man didn’t say much, especially at first, most of it was a web of lies.
“However, after being pushed to the extreme, he did speak a few truths.
“Chef Zhou must be the one who died in that tea house, and if nothing else, Hu Piaopiao should be the only woman among them. Unless there is a man who would bear such a name…
“What they are coveting is the Mysterious Mechanism hidden inside the Brocade Box, for which they acted decisively and ruthlessly, not allowing the slightest oversight.
“However, judging from their actions, they seemed to be working individually, each with their own motives.
“But the most important piece of information, I still haven’t learnt.”
Su Mo had asked that man one last question, precisely because of Chef Zhou’s death.
With Chef Zhou dead, Su Mo easily got past the obstacle that Chef Zhou posed, and now that he was here inside Luohua Pavilion, besides solving the biggest issue at hand, the lesser troubles lurking around had also been dealt with by someone else.
Clearly, beyond this, there was another person probing into this matter.
“Could it be those two from last night?”
Su Mo once again approached the body whose meridians he had shattered, and gazing at the corpse, his eyebrows slightly raised: “Doesn’t seem like it. One of them used a staff, and the other a sword. That swordsman, in every move and style, was sharp as an unsheathed blade, evidently exceedingly skilled with the sword. For such a person, using a knife to kill isn’t entirely out of the question, but the likelihood is definitely slim.
“No one should underestimate a swordsman’s dedication to the sword.
“As for the one with the staff… reeking of alcohol from head to toe, and these bodies, freshly dead, had not a hint of alcohol, it seems they have little to do with these two people.
“Could the one lurking in the shadows who killed Chef Zhou and the killer in this Taohua Forest actually be from Wang Xianglin’s camp?
“Or… could there be another reason?
“Speaking of which, who exactly is Wang Xianglin?”
Su Mo’s thoughts reached this point, but as he stared at that body, he suddenly remembered something.
He immediately put on his deer skin gloves, squatted down, and rummaged through the body, and after a moment, his face showed delight.
“Now this is a real windfall.”
He now had a stack of silver notes in his hand, amounting to over a hundred taels.
“To go out and kill bringing so much silver, you’re asking to be killed and looted…”
Su Mo carefully examined the silver notes before placing them into his pack for safe-keeping.
As for the other items carried by the person, he didn’t touch them, since the poisons and antidotes weren’t labeled and only distinguished by color; Su Mo didn’t know what they were, and taking them rashly without knowing how to use them might end up backfiring.