Chapter 83: Six Gates, White Horse Temple

Yongzhou, Six Gates.

“Hey, did you know about something?”

“What thing?”

Two junior constables in apprentice uniforms whispered to each other:

“I heard that our Master Zhu wasn’t originally bald. It was only because the saber technique he cultivated was too overbearing, affecting his body’s hormones, that he started losing hair early when he was still young.”

“So, in order to make his head look more harmonious, Master shaved off all his hair, and from then on, always showed himself as bald.”

“Really? I knew it. Master’s face clearly doesn’t look like someone who would naturally go bald that early, so why was he always bald? Turns out it was because of that saber technique?”

“Hehe, that’s why our Master even has a nickname outside — the Monk of Six Gates…”

The two constables, gossiping wildly about their Master, didn’t notice a shiny bald head silently appearing behind them.

“Huh? Why does it suddenly feel so chilly?”

The two constables turned their heads, and their souls almost flew out of their bodies:

“M-M-M-Master!!”

The Master of Yongzhou’s Six Gates, Zhu Dongfeng — the very bald man and so-called Monk of Six Gates that the two had just gossiped about — was glaring at them with a dark expression:

“Looks like you two are quite idle? Have you finished your daily training?”

Both nodded repeatedly.

Zhu Dongfeng roared:

“Seems the training intensity I set for you isn’t enough! This month, your training will be doubled, and next month I’ll personally check it!!”

“Yes, Master!!”

After scolding the two gossiping constables, Zhu Dongfeng returned to his room with a face like dark charcoal.

As soon as he entered, he saw a man in black night-clothes, whose aura was completely at odds with the upright conduct of Six Gates, covering his mouth and snickering:

“Monk of Six Gates, pfft, Monk of Six Gates…”

Zhu Dongfeng’s face darkened further:

“Zhu Xifeng, these rumors spreading in Six Gates — are you the one behind them?”

Wearing night-clothes, Zhu Xifeng waved his hands quickly:

“Cough, cough, Master, you can’t just pin every blame on me. I just returned to the Bureau.”

Zhu Dongfeng looked at his younger brother, expression sour.

If there was anyone in Six Gates most likely to deliberately spread slander about him, without question, it was the shadowy figure before him.

“Enough jokes. This is the recent street information I gathered about possible martial offenders. Take a look.”

Zhu Dongfeng glared at Xifeng, clearly realizing he was trying to change the subject.

That only made him even more certain that the gossip had come from this man.

He flipped through the records casually:

“Since that flood dragon beast was slain by the Bureau of Heaven Monitoring last time, Yongzhou has been much quieter, whether demon disasters or human troubles. Why does this record look like it’s thickening again?”

Zhu Xifeng rolled his eyes:

“You know as well as I do that the good days only started from the day that flood dragon was slain. But do you know how long it’s been since then?”

“These days, according to complaints from the common folk, the world is so chaotic that it could change reign titles every single day. That Yongzhou has enjoyed two or three years of peace already — Heaven has been merciful to us.”

Zhu Dongfeng shook his head:

“What happens above is their matter. For us, doing our duties well is the best account we can give to the people.”

“Just recently, I heard news from the Capital that the Bureau of Heaven Monitoring wants to expand manpower to deal with increasing disasters, and His Majesty has already approved it.”

Zhu Xifeng’s eyes lit up:

“That’s good news.”

Zhu Dongfeng shook his head again:

“Even with His Majesty’s approval, with the Great Qian’s current rotten bureaucracy, it may not be smoothly carried out.”

While flipping through the record, Zhu Dongfeng suddenly let out a startled “Huh?”

“What’s this?”

Zhu Xifeng leaned over for a glance, then said “Oh”:

“This one? I heard from my men that a massacre occurred at an inn called Copper Gong. None of the inn’s staff — the servant, guards, cooks — survived.”

“But the strange thing was, there were plenty of witnesses — all the travelers staying at the inn that day escaped alive. Only the inn’s own people were slaughtered.”

“It was as if the culprits didn’t care that Six Gates would know their identities.”

Hearing this, Zhu Dongfeng frowned.

In such chaotic times, a few deaths were nothing unusual. Even Six Gates couldn’t handle them all.

But if you were going to massacre, why deliberately leave survivors?

As Xifeng said, was it as though you were afraid others wouldn’t know it was you?

“What identities were the culprits?”

Zhu Xifeng was prepared:

“Two monks.”

“Monks?”

Zhu Xifeng nodded:

“They both, like you, had shiny bald heads. The only difference was, their bald heads bore scars.”

After lightly teasing his brother, Xifeng continued:

“Noteworthy is that one of the monks had exceptionally long earlobes, so long they reached his shoulders. He addressed the other as Master.”

“Because his appearance was striking, many inn guests noticed them.”

“According to witnesses, during their conversations, they mentioned the White Horse Temple.”

Zhu Dongfeng’s already furrowed brows tightened further:

“White Horse Temple? They’re from White Horse Temple?”

Zhu Xifeng nodded:

“Seems so. Judging from traces left at the scene, the methods matched perfectly with monks of White Horse Temple. Their disregard for witnesses also matched.”

Zhu Dongfeng tapped the table:

“What business do White Horse Temple monks have, running to Yongzhou instead of staying in the Western Regions? Long earlobes… long earlobes…”

Suddenly, his tapping hand froze:

“Wait!”

A thought struck him. He rushed to the side, pulled out a scroll, and unrolled it:

“White Horse Temple, long earlobes, Master… Damn it!”

Zhu Dongfeng’s face changed drastically.

In a blink, he vanished from the room, clearly rushing out.

Zhu Xifeng was left confused at his brother’s sudden frenzy.

Curious, he leaned over the unrolled scroll his brother had abandoned.

It was a case file.

Several words were circled in ink:

Child-Giving Temple, pregnant female worshippers, Black Bear, temple abbot.

In the abbot’s description, the most prominent feature recorded was:

“A pair of shoulder-length earlobes.”

Alongside was speculation about the abbot’s true identity:

“The abbot of the Child-Giving Temple — suspected to be the rebel monk Wuzhen of White Horse Temple, a top-grade Profound Rank, once cultivated under Jingchen, a low-grade Earth Rank Master of White Horse Temple.”

At the end of the record, a large line of text read:

The Child-Giving Temple investigation mission is assigned to C-Rank Profound Constables Su Bing and Lin Shuang.