Innkeeper

The dreamlike night only made the mystery deeper.

Nuoluo followed the trail of that suspicious figure all the way to the Hundred Mile Inn.

Under the veil of night, the inn had long since sunk into darkness. Only the faint light of the stars strewn across the heavens offered a meager illumination.

Not only the Hundred Mile Inn, but the entire Hundred Mile City had fallen asleep. There was not a single figure along the roads.

Nuoluo and Litian seemed to break the stillness of the night, yet they made no sound at all.

They stood before the inn, where the aura of that mysterious person had vanished without a trace.

The main door of the Hundred Mile Inn was shut tight. Inside, the darkness was so complete that not a single glimmer of light could be seen, nor did any strange sound drift out.

Nuoluo and Litian slipped quietly into the inn, searching for that suspicious shadow. This time, the Nether Butterfly rested in Nuoluo's palm, following closely beside her.

The layout inside the inn remained exactly as it had been when they saw it by day, unchanged in the slightest.

Among the sleeping guests, Nuoluo found the inn servant. He slept peacefully, lost in dreams, and from the look of him, he had not left the inn. But the figure Nuoluo cared about most was gone.

The innkeeper was indeed not inside.

The person who had last appeared outside the courtyard was the inn's mysterious master.

When Nuoluo first saw him, she had sensed that he was no ordinary man. He had deliberately concealed his identity, and in the days before Nuoluo's arrival he had shown no unusual behavior.

Yet tonight he had suddenly appeared outside that courtyard, and had even once attempted to break through the barrier Nuoluo had left behind.

What was known now was only that the owner of the courtyard was a member of the Xiu Yi clan. Beyond that, every other clue remained obscure. What exactly was hidden within the Xiu Yi bloodline that could have driven him to act so abruptly?

Nuoluo walked to the place where the innkeeper usually stood. Before her lay the account books he always seemed to be studying. At least, every time Nuoluo saw him, he was flipping through those ledgers.

The ledgers were neatly stacked together. Nuoluo picked up the top one and opened it, but to her surprise, it was blank. Not a single word appeared upon its pages.

Were these ledgers blank from the beginning, or had someone deliberately erased all traces of writing? If it was the latter, then what was the purpose?

Nuoluo picked up several of the ones beneath it, and each and every one was blank. Even after she reached the very last volume, not a single page bore any writing. It was too strange. What did the innkeeper mean to do, staring at these empty ledgers every day?

Nuoluo did not change their arrangement. She simply gazed at the ledgers before her. What meaning did they hold?

Litian also picked up the top volume. His fingertips gently brushed over the surface, as if he were sensing something. There was nothing on the pages, and he did not read them. He merely kept turning them, trying to discover some anomaly between the sheets.

He put the first one down, apparently having found nothing. Then he picked up the one beneath it. When he turned to a certain page, his fingertips paused ever so slightly, and Nuoluo noticed the change at once.

Litian continued turning the pages. He went through every ledger. Nuoluo observed that, except for the first book, where he had not paused, his fingers had hesitated over every one of the others.

The Nether Butterfly, which had been resting quietly in Nuoluo's palm, also took flight. It landed on Litian's shoulder, as if conveying something to him.

Litian's brow furrowed faintly; he had also thought of the problem.

Nuoluo did not know what they had discovered, but there was surely something unusual about these books.

Litian picked up the ledgers once more. Each time he lifted one, the wings of the Nether Butterfly fluttered once.

All the ledgers were turned through again.

"What did you find?" Nuoluo asked.

Litian pointed at the books. "There are traces of the dead on them. All of them except the first one. And among the lower volumes, there are even several different traces belonging to different dead. Those traces seem to bear some resemblance to the one who died tonight."

"Traces of the dead on these books?" Nuoluo was even more confused. How could such traces appear here?

Litian went on, "It isn't that the dead appeared on the books. Rather, whoever often handled these ledgers had the traces of the dead on his hands. Over time, the lingering aura of those dead would seep into the paper. Of course, these traces are extremely faint. Without careful inspection, they would be impossible to notice. Some of them seem to have existed for a very long time."

Nuoluo did not pick up the ledgers again. She had already examined them closely before and found nothing. When it came to the dead, she truly did not possess Litian's ability.

Now it could be confirmed that the innkeeper's hands had once carried the aura of the dead. Aside from him, who else had come into contact with these ledgers?

One question remained: why would the innkeeper have such an aura upon his hands? What was his purpose, and what kind of identity allowed him to come into contact with the dead?

"Can you tell what kind of person the innkeeper is?" Nuoluo still could not guess.

Litian shook his head. "At the very least, he is not from the Underworld, nor from the human realm. Otherwise, you and I would have been able to discern his identity. That leaves only two possibilities: he either comes from the Demon Realm, or from the Divine Realm. But if he were from the Demon Realm, why would there be no unusual aura at all? A member of the demon race would not come to the human realm merely for these dead. If he is from the Divine Realm, then that would be even more strange."

"The Divine Realm." Nuoluo considered it. If he truly came from the Divine Realm, then what was his aim? Since Fuli returned to the Divine Realm, the Divine Realm had remained peaceful. Could they be plotting some new scheme?

Nuoluo looked at the only ledger that had left no trace of the dead and thought of something. "Could it be that the Nether Butterfly discovered tonight's anomaly and warned us in advance? And because we suddenly appeared, his plan was disrupted. Otherwise, this blank ledger would have been left with traces of the dead upon it. If that is so, then the innkeeper must already have discovered the barrier I left behind. He could not break through it to enter the courtyard, so he chose to leave. Or perhaps he had already obtained what he wanted, and so vanished."

Litian was also considering the same question. What use did the innkeeper have for these dead?

The only destination of the dead was the Underworld, and once they entered it, there would never be any possibility of return. After reaching an agreement with Nuoluo, the dead who met the conditions would be granted a chance at rebirth, but even that required time.

"From the traces of the dead in these ledgers alone, it is indeed impossible to determine whether those dead were ever in his hands. But one thing can be concluded: the deaths of these people are deeply connected to him.

"Just before death, the aura a person emits is at its strongest. And where the dead gather, there is a kind of coldness that cannot be dispelled. This is why the Underworld is the coldest place among the four realms.

"These auras of the dead are all linked to the Xiu Yi clan. I think I should return to that courtyard again. What else did I miss?"

Litian also nodded. He, too, wanted to go back and take another look. Before, he had not known such a thing would occur; someone had actually hidden traces of the dead beneath his very eyes.

Earlier in the inn, he had never imagined that such secrets could be concealed within those ledgers. He truly wanted to see what scheme that mysterious innkeeper was hiding.

To command the dead was the duty of the Underworld. No one was permitted to break that rule.

Nuoluo and Litian left the inn. The inn was quiet as if nothing unusual had ever happened. No one knew what had occurred tonight, and Nuoluo had erased every trace she left behind.

When they returned to the abandoned courtyard, Nuoluo and Litian searched nearly every corner once more, yet still found nothing.

No hidden traces of the dead, no suspicious clues, and not even the slightest sign of the innkeeper's presence.

Every trace of the dead that had appeared in the ledgers had completely vanished. Those dead had long since disappeared from here.

The soul of the one who died tonight was also gone, and the innkeeper had vanished as well.

Nuoluo found nothing, and neither did Litian. The Nether Butterfly merely flitted around the courtyard, offering no clues either.

Nuoluo decided to leave. She looked back once more at the desolate courtyard, then strengthened the barrier around it. From now on, apart from herself, very few would be able to enter. She did not want others to see this place, once so glorious, reduced to such a state today. The deaths of everyone here seemed to be buried beneath some conspiracy. Nuoluo could not yet uncover the truth, and could only seal this place away. Perhaps one day the truth would emerge into the light, but by then the people here would never see it.

Standing behind Nuoluo, Litian looked at her sorrowful figure and found that he too was touched. It was as though the changing tides of her thoughts were subtly affecting his own mood.

Beneath the night, Nuoluo's figure seemed even more secluded and lonely. She stood in this place that had become utterly lifeless, and only her presence could bring precious hope to its future.

Litian thought of the changes within himself. Once again, he had become anxious over her affairs, saddened by her distress, and changed because of her.

The Nether Butterfly danced in the air before settling once more on the palm of her hand, its tiny wings carrying the concern of its kind.

Though Nuoluo did not know what it was trying to say, she could still feel its special greeting. The faint current stirred between its wings brushed gently across her heart.

She smiled softly in thanks. At this moment, she was still not alone.

In Hundred Mile City, Nuoluo once again felt how weak human beings were. Under any unknown force, life could be easily taken away. Should she alter humanity's abilities? Was there some way to let them better protect themselves from outside harm?

She had to think of a better solution.