Pingan nodded. “The head of the Zhao clan claimed that the Zhao clan’s Lapis Armour had been stolen, and its current whereabouts unknown. Once this news was declared, the crowd almost rioted; the Huashan Sect Leader seemed to have concrete evidence and claimed that Zhao Jing usurped the Zhang family’s Lapis Armour. The man that this servant sent there yesterday said that the Huashan Sect Leader and Hero Zhao nearly came to blows.”

Zhou Zishu thought of the piece of Lapis Armour that he had seen in the underground cave that day. It was most likely the missing piece the Zhao clan had lost, and the thief was undoubtedly either one of the two who had died that night, Yu Tianjie or Mu Yunge. Unfortunately, like a mantis stalking the cicada unaware of the oriole behind it, a little ghost from the Ghost Valley had taken advantage, and afterwards, the piece of Lapis Armour had ended up in Wen Kexing’s hands by happenstance. Then it had been stolen by Fang Buzhi, but now Fang Buzhi was dead, suspected to have died by the hand of the Delighted Mourning Ghost...

Zhou Zishu felt uncomfortable, like a rock had been placed on his heart, bile surging. He thought, could this matter be any more complex?

Troubled, he bade Pingan farewell, and returned to look for Zhang Chengling. Zhou Zishu did not completely trust what Gao Chong had said--in the past, he had to handle massive amounts of information, and those presented to the Emperor had to be the absolute truth ridden of falsehoods. To examine a piece of information, he usually had to verify in detail the causes and consequences of it, until there were entirely no faults in the information, before he dared present it. This was why he was used to doubting anything that he heard while semi-believing it, ready to override any previous information that he knew at any moment.

Entering the tavern, he raised his head and immediately glimpsed Wen Kexing and Zhang Chengling with Cao Weining and Gu Xiang, and wondered how these four people had managed to convene with one another. Soon afterwards, he noticed that Zhang Chengling and Wen Kexing were occupying a corner of the table each with exceptionally grave expressions. Unclear on why so, he walked upstairs, about to greet them, right as he heard Cao Weining air his opinions.

“...What I’m actually most concerned about is the arson in the backyard of a righteous, orthodox clan. Everyone’s damaging friendly ties for this Lapis Armour, have they not heard of the tale of Two ‘Li’s Killing Three Warriors[6]? I only fear that a catastrophe befalls the pugilist world because of this, and until then, it’ll be a ‘stream of corpses[7]’.”

Very foolishly and naively, Gu Xiang asked, “Stream of what?”