Chapter 32: Orleans Roast Chicken

The staircase had burned in two, and Ding Ling scooped up Qian Jingjing and leaped down.

Explosion marks covered the first floor. Qian Jingjing’s mural, 《Demon Devouring Hearts》, had caught sparks; oil paint was naturally flammable, and a single spark had ignited the entire wall.

Tongues of flame devoured the demon’s face and swept onto the wall fabric and curtains, turning the entire room into a sea of fire.

Ding Ling shielded Qian Jingjing, who kept Xiaobao tucked inside her clothes. Cats were timid by nature, but Xiaobao shivered silently in the blaze, burying his head under his owner’s arm.

Qian Jingjing had been crying, but feeling Xiaobao tremble made her take a deep breath and stop. She reached in to stroke the fur on the back of his neck, soothing the cat. They would definitely make it out alive!

The woman was in the basement after all. Forced to choose between pursuing Ding Ling and executing the cultivators, she had chosen to kill the cultivators first.

Cages lined the basement side by side. Some of the cultivators had been trapped there for so long they had lost track of time; hearing the explosions outside, they wondered whether rescue had come or if they were finally going to die.

One of them said, “Someone must have found us!”

They had been trying to save themselves all along. Though unable to use spiritual energy, they still had their hands and feet.

Their daily meals were always laced with drugs that left their limbs powerless. Even if they held out without eating for a few days, their captors ignored them. But refusing food meant starving to death before they could escape.

Today, because of Ding Ling’s infiltration, they hadn’t eaten yet, and some strength had gradually returned to their limbs.

Seeing the woman come down, they shouted curses at her in fury.

The woman tore a strip from her long dress as she walked, wrapping the wound on her arm cut by the iron pipe. She took out her keys and counted the people in the cages. One was already tied up in the car trunk, meaning she could take at most three more.

Three had to be killed; she couldn’t leave any survivors.

What a waste of three syringes!

She strode over to the prisoner who had been locked up the longest. Blood had already been drawn from this one for experiments; with meager spiritual energy and low purity, there was no reason to keep him.

She was about to cast a fire incantation to burn him to death, but the moment her hand lifted, the whistle of cutting air came from behind.

An oil painting palette knife flew straight at her. The woman fell back several steps and raised a hand to block, but the blade slashed viciously across her palm.

Blood gushed out, dripping from her pale hand onto the floor. Clutching her palm, she snarled, “I gave you a chance to run, yet you stayed. You’re really asking for death!”

The wound on her palm fueled her fury, but terrified of Ding Ling’s swordsmanship, she didn’t dare attack recklessly.

Ding Ling glanced at her injured hand. “Who drew a talisman on your palm?”

The woman didn’t reply, but her expression confirmed Ding Ling’s guess.

She had no spiritual root and couldn’t learn any spells or Daoist arts; a master practitioner had drawn palm talismans on both of her hands so she could cast magic.

Seeing that Ding Ling had seen right through her, the woman pulled another syringe from her pocket. This was the last one she had on her.

She injected herself once again. As the spiritual energy surged into her body, she coughed up a mouthful of blood.

Ding Ling frowned. “You’ll die.”

The woman raised a hand to wipe the bloody foam from the corner of her mouth. “I was going to die anyway. Were you ever going to let me go?”

“I never planned to kill you. I only came for Qian Jingjing.”

As soon as Ding Ling finished speaking, the cultivators locked in the cages began pleading with her to take them along too.

So Ding Ling added, “Undo the restriction on Qian Jingjing and let these people go. I have no desire to kill.”

The woman stared blankly for a moment. After fighting to this extent, with the house nearly burned to the ground, she was claiming she had no desire to kill?

“You… you aren’t with the military? You aren’t here investigating a case?” The woman coughed up another mouthful of blood. If she wasn’t from the military, how could she be so formidable? How could anyone knock out everybody with a single iron railing in a place where spiritual energy was unusable?

“No.”

The woman found it utterly absurd. Coughing up blood, she leaned against an iron cage. “You… you came all this way just to find Qian Jingjing?” For an ordinary person?

Weren’t Qian Jingjing’s parents dead? It had been so many days, and no one had even reported her missing.

“Yes.” This time, Ding Ling replied as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

The cord holding the basement chandelier burned through, sending the fixture crashing down to shatter across the floor.

Ding Ling watched the woman coldly. Having taken the injection, the woman was preparing for a final desperate struggle.

“Did the person who drew the palm talismans and gave you those injections ever tell you?”

The woman held out her uninjured hand. The talisman on one hand was ruined, but she still had the other. “Tell me what?”

“The price you would pay.” Ding Ling had originally intended to knock her down so she could no longer manipulate the restriction, but now it seemed there was no need to lift a hand. “Take a look at your wound.”

The woman didn’t dare drop her guard. Gathering a ball of fire in her palm, she quickly glanced down at her injury.

In that short time, the bleeding from the fresh cut had already stopped. The skin there clung to her bones like desiccated tree bark, the “tree grain” creeping steadily upward, just like… just like the test subjects she had seen before.

“How could this happen? How could this happen!”

She remembered those test subjects. Once their skin turned completely into “tree bark,” they aged at terrifying speed. There was no need to execute them; they simply “died of old age” on their own.

Just as Ding Ling was about to speak, she heard noises from upstairs.

The one with the Taiyang avatar^[1] had said he called the police, and the police had actually tracked them here.

The woman heard the sounds too. She looked at her arm, half of it turned to dry bark, and knew she didn’t have long to live.

Slumping to the ground, she laughed hysterically and thrust out her intact hand. “Then you’re all dying with me!” She focused all the spiritual energy in her body into her palm.

The fireball in her hand swelled larger and larger. She was going to blow this place to pieces; she was going to kill everyone!

Ding Ling immediately turned to shield Qian Jingjing, her mind racing like lightning.

In such a short time, saving everyone was impossible, but saving Qian Jingjing, who was closest to her, was still a slim possibility.

The woman intended to blow the place apart, and she wouldn’t survive it either. Ding Ling only had to seize the split second when the woman’s strength gave out in death to carry Qian Jingjing out of the house.

She just had to beat that single instant!

The woman guessed Ding Ling’s thoughts as well. Even at a time like this, she still refused to leave on her own? She still wanted to protect an ordinary person?

“Go ahead and try. Without spiritual energy, just how far can your legs carry you?”

The fireball in her palm had grown into a massive orb of flame. Laughing wildly, she hurled it straight at Ding Ling.

Yet the fiery orb, which had dyed the entire basement in blood-red light just moments before, extinguished midway.

A few sparks sputtered with a sizzle, then puffed out with a faint pop.

The woman stared at her hands in disbelief. She tried to gather her spell again, but her hands seemed completely unable to catch fire. A few sparks flared, but nothing took shape.

Before a curse could even leave her lips, the iron rod struck right before her eyes.

Before Gu Cheng and Chi Shuai’s car could even reach the villa, they saw several gaping holes blown through the building’s walls. By the time they pulled up, the doorframes and window frames had already warped in the blaze.

“Boss, the backup team won’t get here that fast. How about…”

Gu Cheng plunged straight into the fire.

Cursing under his breath, Chi Shuai had no choice but to follow after him, pulling out his signature skill: a stack of prepared curse slips.

“Pah, pah, pah! I curse the owner of this house to lose all fighting strength!” He poured in all his strength, but the curse slip produced not the slightest fluctuation of spiritual energy.

Chi Shuai paled in horror. “Fuck! What is this?!”

Gu Cheng reacted instantly. “There’s a spiritual energy jammer here. Spiritual energy won’t work.”

Chi Shuai’s panic only grew. “If spiritual energy doesn’t work, how did this place catch fire? Do they have explosives?”

Without spiritual energy, with Chi Shuai’s frail limbs, his combat power was basically a negative five. He was utterly useless in a physical fight.

Gu Cheng said immediately, “Get out of the house and try using your curses again.”

Fortunately, Chi Shuai’s ability differed from ordinary cultivators. As long as his power was sufficient, his curses could take effect even across a thousand Li.

Chi Shuai immediately covered his nose and dashed out, panting heavily as he ran about a hundred meters away. Only then did he pull out his curse slips while dialing Sister Xiao Jiang.

“Sister Xiao Jiang, there’s a spiritual energy jammer in that house. Our boss has already gone inside. Tell the guys coming to watch out.”

Xiao Jiang replied calmly on the other end, “Understood. Stay safe.”

That single phrase, ‘stay safe’, instantly put Chi Shuai over the moon. He poured even more power into his curse than usual, activating the curse slip until the black-inked talisman on white paper nearly stood upright on its own.

Motherfucker! He cursed every villain in that house involved in this mess to lose all their power!

“Help! We’re down here! Help!”

Following the cries for help, Gu Cheng found the basement, where he spotted a woman in red collapsed at the far end of the cages.

A girl holding a cat was calling out to him for help.

“Are you Qian Jingjing?”

“Yes!”

“Can you walk?”

Qian Jingjing nodded vigorously. “I can!” Holding Xiaobao, she fled the burning house, and Chi Shuai settled her into the car.

Holding the cat tightly, Qian Jingjing glanced toward the distant woods.

When Gu Cheng and Chi Shuai had rushed into the fire, Ding Ling had told her, “They can’t see me. Once I’m out, call for help.”

Qian Jingjing had nodded at first, only then realizing that the restrictions on her were gone. “Don’t worry, I won’t say a word!” Young as she was, she had enough sense. Ding Ling had saved her, and she would never bring trouble to Ding Ling.

Only after Ding Ling leaped away did Qian Jingjing scream for help.

By now, darkness had completely fallen. Qian Jingjing rubbed Xiaobao’s belly. “Xiaobao, it’s so late, and she’s walking alone…” She had been about to say that these wild hills were unsafe for a girl walking at night.

Remembering Ding Ling’s terrifying combat prowess, she swallowed her worries and nuzzled Xiaobao’s ear. “It’s fine. We’ll be home soon.”

“Meow…” Xiaobao gave a long cry, settled into a comfortable spot on its owner’s lap, turned its belly up, and began to purr.

Gu Cheng, Chi Shuai, and the reinforcing team members rescued the several imprisoned cultivators.

They escorted the unconscious criminals into their vehicles, while the woman in red was carried into a medical transport.

Gu Cheng walked over to the car. He was actually somewhat surprised. Qian Jingjing had been locked up for twenty-seven or twenty-eight days, so how could her mental state be this good?

Wasn’t she afraid at all?

“Qian Jingjing.”

“Yes.”

Gu Cheng glanced at the cat on Qian Jingjing’s lap. “Is this your cat?”

“Yes.” She had already anticipated what the police might ask, so she added, “I didn’t expect Xiaobao to run all this way to find me either.”

After finishing the headcount, Chi Shuai came over to report. “Boss, there are ten suspects in total, and seven victims including her.”

Qian Jingjing spoke up immediately. “Another one arrived today. They should be in the trunk of the car.”

Chi Shuai immediately went to check the car’s trunk and indeed found a bound cultivator inside. Trapped in the trunk, hearing only the crackling explosions outside, he had been scared out of his wits.

The house had almost burned down completely, leaving behind little useful evidence.

Gu Cheng continued questioning Qian Jingjing. “Tell me everything you know.” As he spoke, he pulled out a notebook and pen.

Qian Jingjing thought for a moment. “The leader is that woman. Everyone calls her Sister Lian. They captured cultivators because they wanted to eat their hearts.”

Gu Cheng’s pen paused on the notebook, leaving a small black dot on the white paper.

He offered Qian Jingjing a brief smile. “We can take your statement later. Get some rest first. Are you hungry? Is there anything you’d like to eat?”

“Orleans roast chicken.”

…

“Alright.”

Gu Cheng turned and walked toward the medical vehicle. Chi Shuai had just helped the bawling cultivator, covered in tears and snot, onto it.

“There’s no rush to question that girl. Take her back first for a psychological evaluation.”

The vehicles transporting the suspects and victims drove away.

Only the personnel assigned to extinguish the fire remained. The humidity in the mountains at night was heavy, and the military personnel quickly gathered water to douse the flames. Once the fire was out, they would wait for the heat to dissipate before searching the house for any remaining evidence.

Not that there would likely be much left anyway.

Hidden in the canopy of a nearby tree, Ding Ling leaned against the trunk, catching her breath.

It was already past the dorm curfew. Where was she going to spend the night?