SES Chapter 177 Part 1

Chapter 177

The situation changed abruptly. By the time Cao Yanhua hastily packed his bags and climbed into Luo Ren’s car, his mind was still spinning.

Over the course of a single night, his junior master had gone missing, his grandmaster had died, and just as he had finally been acknowledged by the sect, the sect itself had effectively ceased to exist. Cao Yanhua had always been overly sensitive—these sudden events left him with the unsettling feeling that he was a walking jinx.

He had a thousand questions he wanted to ask Luo Ren, but he didn’t dare. Luo Ren’s face was as cold as ice, like someone who might kill at any moment.

So Cao Yanhua behaved himself and sat quietly in the back seat.

Luo Ren was on the phone.

The first call was to Qingmu.

“Leopard has kidnapped Mu Dai and told me to go back to Lijiang to meet her. She succeeded last night and should be on her way back now. Keep an eye on the bar—nothing else can happen there… What chicken? As long as it didn’t die, that’s fine.”

Chicken?

Cao Yanhua’s heart lurched. Was he talking about their chicken, Cao Jiefang?

As soon as the call ended, he hurriedly asked, “Brother Luo, was that about our Jiefang?”

“Yeah. They said he almost got taken last night.”

Cao Yanhua cursed loudly, sounding exactly like Uncle Zhang. “Snaring cats and dogs is one thing—now they’re setting their sights on chickens.”

Luo Ren’s expression didn’t change. “It was probably Leopard’s people.”

“She’s always liked playing these psychological games. When she plans to hit a place, she starts from the fringes—some nobody on the outside—and she won’t just kill them outright. She insists on cooking up something vicious. The fact that Cao Jiefang didn’t get taken means he was lucky.”

There had once been rumors: when Leopard targeted an enemy, she first had people capture the enemy’s pets—dogs and cats. After multiple surgeries, the animals were returned barely alive, but with their limbs severed: a dog’s legs grafted onto a cat, a cat’s paws grafted onto a dog. When the box was opened, the stench of blood and the shrill, agonized cries made everyone present tremble with fear.

Cao Yanhua silently recited a prayer of thanks.

Luo Ren made a second call, this one to Ma Tuwen.

“Give my number to Wan Fenghuo. From now on, there’s no need to go through you. I don’t need to hide anymore. I have something I need his help with—tell him to call me. The price is negotiable.”

Cao Yanhua’s phone rang as well—a message in the group chat. He glanced down. “Brother Luo, it’s from Mister Shen.”

“No time to read it. What did he say?”

“He said there’s some progress on Guansi Pailou. Brother Luo, what is Guansi Pailou?”

Luo Ren stared straight ahead and picked up speed. “No time to explain. Ask him yourself.”

Cao Yanhua sent the question over. The fortune-teller replied, baffled: “Didn’t I already tell Little Radish? Didn’t he pass it on? That Lu Ban, those seven objects Lu Ban made, and the letter on Yin Er’s stable beam?”

Yi Wan San sent a sweating emoji. Yan Hongsand followed with one as well. The mood in the group instantly turned tense.

The fortune-teller fumed. “That Luo Xiaodao—he’s been absent-minded lately, like his soul’s wandered off. What on earth is he doing?”

After venting, he patiently sent several photos—one of the letter, others of the seven objects—along with a brief explanation. He also mentioned that when the Seven Stars stayed lit, those strange wooden objects were all to be delivered to a place called “Guansi Pailou beneath the Yunling Mountains.”

The fortune-teller had asked Wan Fenghuo to help search for an irregularly shaped “four-arch gateway” in the Yunling mountain range in Yunnan. He’d expected it to take some time, but Wan Fenghuo replied quickly: near the Ailao Mountains, there was a town called Youwu Town. In the town stood a large residence called Guansi Pailou, well known to the locals.

Why was it the name of a residence? The fortune-teller couldn’t figure it out. He asked whether there was an actual archway inside.

Wan Fenghuo replied: No, just a grand residence, occupied by a single elderly woman.

He even sent photos of the place. That photo was what the fortune-teller meant by “some progress.”

He posted the photo in the group.

It was a frontal shot of the entrance. Cao Yanhua tapped it open, his mouth slowly falling open.

Wasn’t this… the entrance to his grandmaster’s house? He had once been knocked flat on his face there by his senior grand-uncle—an unforgettable experience.

The fortune-teller said, “Finding it this easily actually makes me suspicious. Something this secret can’t be so simple. This place, called Guansi Pailou, might just be a decoy or a transit point. The real Guansi Pailou probably holds some deeper mystery.”

After that, he declared he was cutting all ties with Luo Xiaodao unless Luo apologized to him in person, treated him to six months’ worth of KFC family buckets, and paid for six months of his mobile data.

Cao Yanhua didn’t dare pass on these drastic words. He simply showed the photo to Luo Ren. “Brother Luo, isn’t this… my grandmaster’s residence?”

Luo Ren suddenly snapped. “I don’t have the mental bandwidth right now to deal with that goddamn murder note!”

Cao Yanhua jumped in fright, his hand trembling so badly he nearly dropped his phone.

Fortunately, Wan Fenghuo’s call came through. Luo Ren quickly reined in his temper and began giving instructions.

“Help me investigate someone. She wasn’t born domestically, but I know your intelligence network—where there are people, you have ways. I’ll pay; you bring me information. Mindanao, Philippines. One or two years ago, there was a kidnapping ring whose mastermind went by the codename Leopard. Female. Ethnic Chinese descent. Ask around—you’ll find something. I want everything on her, even three generations back. Dig it all up.”

As Cao Yanhua listened, a chill crept up his spine.

He hadn’t seen Plum Blossom Ninth Lady’s body with his own eyes. Everything had been conveyed secondhand. Even Mu Dai’s kidnapping felt vague and unreal—until now. Hearing Luo Ren’s step-by-step arrangements, real fear finally set in.

Please, let nothing happen to Junior Master.

Because of the attempted “chicken snaring” the night before, Uncle Zhang finally relented for safety’s sake. Starting that day, Cao Jiefang’s living quarters were moved indoors from the open air.

That evening, Yan Hongsand went to the nearby market and bought a chicken cage, placing it under the stairs near the bar counter. The lighting was poor and the space cramped, and Cao Jiefang seemed deeply dissatisfied.

So when Yi Wan San showed up with a hammer, banging away under the stairs to nail up a wooden sign marking the “chicken coop,” Cao Jiefang kept bumping his head against the wall—not hard, just dejectedly thudding it once, lifting it, then thudding it again.

Yi Wan San found a paintbrush and wrote two characters on the sign: Luxury Residence.

He said to Cao Jiefang, “Jiefang, look—you’re living in a luxury home.”

Cao Jiefang turned around and stuck his butt out at him.

Yi Wan San went on, “How about this, Jiefang—go in obediently. Tomorrow I’ll go into town and buy you a tag, the kind that hangs around the neck. Only truly favored pets get those. Think about it—within miles, can you find another chicken wearing a tag? This kind of glory takes eight lifetimes of good karma.”

Cao Jiefang looked dispirited. After a while—whether he understood or was just tired—he slowly shuffled inside.

Yan Hongsand found it amusing. That night, when the bar wasn’t busy, she leaned over the counter and asked Yi Wan San, who was working one-handed, “Do you think Jiefang can actually understand you?”

Yi Wan San glanced at Cao Jiefang, sitting in the cage with a blank, philosopher-like stare. “I believe he can.”

Yan Hongsand rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right.”

Yi Wan San leaned on the bar and crooked a finger at her. “Come on, let me tell you a story. Did I ever tell you about how I used to bike all over the country?”

It happened on the northern Sichuan grasslands, in a small county called Diegai. Yi Wan San biked there and ran out of money. With no opportunities to swindle anyone, he behaved himself for once and worked odd jobs at a small restaurant for over half a month. The owner was an old man named Li.

Old Li kept a monkey. Apparently, a street performer had once come through with the monkey. Whenever it didn’t perform well, the man beat and kicked it. Old Li couldn’t stand it, felt sorry for the monkey, and bought it to keep as a pet.

It was a small county, surrounded by endless grasslands—wolves, pikas, all sorts of creatures lived there—so one more monkey wasn’t strange. Old Li was kind-hearted and hated seeing the monkey chained up. After buying it, he removed the chain. The monkey was well-behaved, stayed indoors, and didn’t run off. When Yi Wan San worked there, he often played with it.

One day, a friend of Old Li’s came to eat. He drank too much, and whenever he drank, his temper turned violent. For some reason, he took a dislike to the monkey, grabbed it, and beat it viciously. The monkey hugged its head and shrieked, but didn’t fight back. Eventually, Yi Wan San stepped in and saved it.