30: Chapter 30 Suspicion

Pedestrians came and went, most with a satisfied calm on their faces, or the usual worries of struggling for a livelihood.

Several mischievous children chased each other, running past Ding Qing’s legs, stirring up a small breeze.

An old man selling steamed buns grinned at the two of them, revealing gums missing front teeth.

“Living in peace and working happily, with simple folk customs?”

Ding Qing’s voice was low, with a hint of undetectable sharpness.

This superficial harmony formed a glaring contrast with the scorched battlefield that had just passed in the depths of his Soul.

He clenched his fist, his knuckles emitting a faint crack.

The black patterns beneath his bronze skin subtly pulsed, and a primal ferocity almost broke free from the restraints of his coarse cloth uniform, threatening to burst out.

“Is this the past of that broken Blade Master? Did that blood-stained blade come from here?”

The Old Daoist in Yellow Robes leaned on his jujube wood staff, his cloudy gaze sweeping over a pair of neighbors at the street corner who were politely deferring to each other over a few copper coins.

Then it passed over an old woman squinting in the sun under the distant eaves, and a low sigh, like dry leaves rubbing together, escaped his throat.

“Yes, and no.”

“What do you mean?”

Ding Qing’s brows furrowed, his gaze as sharp as a blade.

“What we’ve stepped into is a ‘past’ attached to that broken blade, a shadow of forgotten history.”

The Old Daoist Priest’s voice was dry and flat, yet it carried an indifference that pierced through illusion.

“This Baiye City, these peacefully living common folk in the city, this identity as a Constable... all are projections of a fragment of that person’s memory.

What we see is the ‘reality’ he once experienced.”

He paused, his cloudy eyes turning to Ding Qing.

That gaze seemed to penetrate Ding Qing’s skin, directly looking at the Vicious Beast dormant within him.

“Do not be deceived by this facade. Every blade of grass, every tree, every person, every object here, their trajectories were already written in the true past. The outcome... is already predetermined.”

Ding Qing’s eyes instantly turned cold.

“Since you know the outcome, why not just go directly to find the town object? Playing this useless Constable here is a waste of time!”

He was a man of action to his bones.

This seemingly peaceful role-playing made him feel a constrained anxiety.

He only wanted to crush obstacles and go straight for the target.

“The town object is not in this time, nor in this place.”

The Old Daoist Priest slowly shook his head, his withered fingers caressing the smooth jujube wood staff.

“It is deeper in this past, at a certain important juncture, where that person... shouldered the safety of the world.

This broken blade is an anchor point, but this anchor point itself also needs to... flow with the current.

We need to follow the trajectory of this past, letting it naturally flow to that juncture.”

“As for forcibly interfering, tracing back against the current...”

The Old Daoist Priest’s cloudy gaze.

It fell upon the back of a thin scholar who was carefully handing three copper coins to a wonton stall owner in exchange for a steaming bowl of wontons.

His voice dropped even lower, carrying a cold sense of fate.

“It will only cause this fragile past to shatter prematurely, making us lost in the past, or... alarming certain ‘obsessions’ slumbering deep within the past.

The outcome will not change; it will only make us... lose the chance to obtain the town object, or even be buried here with it.”

He withdrew his gaze, letting it fall back on Ding Qing’s stern, iron-like face, his tone carrying a nearly cruel calm.

“What we can do is make ‘him’ who carries this past.

The owner of that blade, walk... more smoothly.

Only then can we follow along and get what we want.”

Ding Qing fell silent.

The shadow under his hat brim covered most of his expression; only the lines of his jaw were taut as a blade.

He felt the invisible shackles in the air, the heaviness and irreversibility contained within this “past” itself.

He detested this feeling, like a Vicious Beast detesting being bridled.

But he was clearer about the purpose of this trip.

stronger points!

The Qi and blood in his body surged, emitting a low hum that only he could hear.

The nine body-suppressing black patterns slowly circulated beneath his skin, radiating a fierce yet restrained glow.

He slowly unclenched his fists.

The residual force in his fingertips caused the rough fabric to emit a faint tearing sound.

“Then... let’s go.”

Ding Qing’s voice was low and hoarse, like two pieces of raw iron rubbing together, carrying a suppressed ferocity.

He no longer looked at the false prosperity.

He no longer paid attention to the gazes of passersby.

His tall figure, wrapped in the slightly tight Constable’s uniform, took steps along the bluestone path, heading towards the direction of the “yamen” in his memory fragments.

His footsteps were steady.

Each landing carried a mountain-like heaviness, as if to crush this illusory peace.

The Old Daoist in Yellow Robes leaned on his jujube wood staff, his back hunched, like a truly aged and frail old official, silently following half a step behind him.

...

Spring willows sprouted, summer cicadas chirped, autumn leaves withered, winter snow pressed on the eaves.

One year.

Exactly three hundred and sixty-five cycles of day and night.

Baiye City remained a frozen “picture of peaceful living.”

Ding Qing wore his faded, increasingly taut indigo uniform.

The iron ruler at his waist pressed coldly against his flesh.

Every day, he walked on the almost unchanging bluestone paths.

Patrolling, handling trivial neighborhood disputes, scolding a few petty thieves...

This was the entirety of his role as a Constable in this

Initially, he also tried to investigate discreetly.

His gaze, like a hawk’s, swept over every passerby, trying to glimpse a hint of the extraordinary, a trace of the Blade Master’s inherent sharpness, in their eyes.

He subtly inquired whether there were any extraordinary swordsmen or major events in the city.

However, everything was like a stone sinking into the sea.

The city was as calm as stagnant water.

The biggest ripple was merely the butcher from the East Market and the grain merchant from West Street coming to blows over a stall.

People talked about the year’s harvest, their children’s marriages, with only the numbness of present livelihood and satisfaction with meager happiness in their eyes.

There were no Jianghu heroes, no strange tales.

And certainly no trace of the owner of that blood-stained broken blade, which carried a world-ending elegy!

The Old Daoist in Yellow Robes, no, at this moment he was “Old Huang,” a withered and hunched old Constable also wearing a uniform.

He always followed half a step behind Ding Qing in silence.

His cloudy eyes were like two dry wells, occasionally flashing with a hint of suppressed fatigue.

That was the weakness caused by the Black Mountain within him being severely suppressed by this era.

After all, the power of their demon-suppressing stones came from the demons suppressed within their bodies.

Facing Ding Qing’s increasingly unconcealed impatience and questioning, he merely repeated those few phrases over and over:

“Don’t rush, young friend... the trajectory has not arrived, it cannot be forced.”

“The outcome is set; we... can only flow with the current...”

“Soon... this old man can feel it, soon...”

Soon?

The malevolence in Ding Qing’s heart was like lava under immense pressure.

The flow of time in this damned place was strange.

In reality, it might truly be but an instant, as the Old Daoist Priest said.

But for Ding Qing, each day was a real torment.

It was an opportunity to grow stronger, slipping away in vain!

It was endless frustration, trapped in a false calm!

His fists clenched in his coarse cloth sleeves.

Beneath his skin, the nine body-suppressing black patterns pulsed restlessly like slumbering Vicious Beasts.

Every friction of muscle, bone, and skin produced a subtle yet dull hum—that was power roaring in its cage.

When had he, Ding Qing, ever endured such indignity?

When had he needed to play such an ant-like role, treading on thin ice?

What alarmed him even more was a belated chill.

Why did he believe this Old Daoist in Yellow Robes?

This Old Daoist Priest was a mysterious and unpredictable existence himself, suppressing terrifying demons within him that even the Phoenix Mountain Shadow couldn’t hope to match.

His words, his motives, were already full of doubts!

What “Heaven-Defying change of fate,” what “town object saving the world,” what “the past cannot be forcibly changed”...

Could it all be a meticulously woven trap from beginning to end?

Using his confidence in power, using his yearning for a stronger Realm, to lure him into this cage of chaotic time flow?

Was it to stall for time?

Was it to exhaust his patience?

Or... was it to use some unknown rule in this “past” to deal with him?