Breaking the Day
chapter-10

The leader of the Prefecture Chief’s troop was named Qiu Liansheng. He wasn’t tall, ugly with a pock-marked riddled face and quite thin. He wore light armour, a horse whip in one hand. With courage that stemmed from his pride in his position, he leapt from his horse’s back and flipped onto the wall surrounding the building. At this height, he saw that the courtyard was filled with black-robed people. There were now more than ten crossbows near the entrance pointing murderously at himself.

He was shocked. What was all this? Who...who were they? Why are there so many people surrounding the building? Are they lining up for something? But that’s too many crossbows! This is bad!

Qiu Liansheng roared, “Hey, who are you all?”

The black-robed man tossed a shiny object straight at Qiu Liansheng, who instinctively caught it. His hair stood on end when he looked down to see that it was a heavy bar of gold!

There was an engraving of one murderous, threatening character on the bar: Zhan!

Qiu Liansheng’s face changed. His gaze at the black-robed man now had a few more hints of reverence. He did not know what to say.

The black-robed man smirked. “We’re just doing our job here, I hope you’ll make this easy for us, Sir!”

Qiu Liansheng was caught in a dilemma now. He was drenched in cold sweat.

Li Chengfeng inside the house was shocked. “Who the heck are all these people? And why is even Old Qiu here?” He looked at Su Zhixian incredulously, “Why do they want you?”

Su Zhixian was already in too much shock to speak. She stared outside, unmoving.

Li Chengfeng looked out at the courtyard, exasperated.

Qiu Liansheng looked behind him to see crowds of people surrounding them, as if to watch a chicken fight. They were all excited and their eyes seemed to scream, ‘Fight! Kill! We’re here for blood!’

All these useless scums of society! All they do is sit and watch fights! Why did I even get out of my house today?

Qiu Liansheng was now a representative of the Prefecture Chief’s dignity and power. If he did not handle this well, then he would be fired from his position. His parents and neighbours would not hesitate to laugh at him during after-dinner gossip sessions, and what would the ladies think?! The ladies were vicious, they could choreograph so many performances based on the plot of today just to laugh at his weakness. His reputation would be ruined! No one would want to hire a servant who wasn’t willing to protect his master’s dignity.

He could feel the bitterness on his tongue when he asked shamelessly, “What are you planning to do?”

The black-robed leader was silent. He knew that Cheng Qianfang had morphed herself into the third mistress of the Prefecture Chief. If he killed her, it would be a major crime. But if he forcefully dragged her away, that would also be impossible. Even if he had a strong family backing him, he still wasn’t in the position to drag such a high-ranking official’s mistress away.

But… he had a good explanation for this!

The black-robed leader sneered. “We are here on orders to catch a demon, are you sure you want to stop us?”

Li Chengfeng was stunned, his face paled. He instinctively took one look at Su Zhixian and quietly stepped away from her.

She noticed his reaction, gazed intensely into his eyes and smiled a pitiful smile.

After the Great Beast-Immortal War two thousand years ago, Sun Heluo was defeated by Luo Jiuchong and sealed in Heaven’s Corner but Sun Heluo found several portals to other smaller realms there. He opened up one of the portals and released two terrifying races: the magical beasts and the demons. He claimed a portion of them and then one thousand years later, unleashed them all on a second raid of the worlds.

At that point, Luo Jiuchong had already ascended to become a deity, his successor was the Heavenly Emperor, Zhang Zhaoyang. But the immortal realm did not fare well under the pressure from the magical race, magical beings and demons who had formed a huge army. He was forced to recruit help from cultivators in the human realm, finally chasing Sun Heluo back to Heaven’s Corner.

But while Sun Heluo was sealed in exile once again, many magical beasts and demons were left behind in this world. Although the mortal realm had done its best to exterminate these beings, they were stubborn and resilient enough to remain in this realm. There were occasional terrifying incidents of demons and beasts wreaking havoc.

In Daqi, exterminating magical beasts and demons was the number one priority. Interfering with extermination was equivalent to committing treason!

With such news, Qiu Liansheng’s face changed. He didn’t know what to do.

At this moment, Li Chengfeng was equally clueless. Su Zhixian suddenly rushed outside before he could catch her. So all he did was stare as she ran out.

When Su Zhixian rushed out of the doors, half of Li Chengfeng’s face could be seen from the other side- which shocked Qiu Liansheng.

Qiu Liansheng and Li Chengfeng were good friends. Although they weren’t ride-or-die brethren, they were familiar with each other from frequent visits to performances.

Qiu Liansheng thought to himself, “Why is brother Chengfeng in there? Unless… No, that’s impossible!

He was clear that although Li Chengfeng was the king of troublemakers, a nonchalant man with a contempt for everything and a casanova, he knew that this was not Chengfeng’s true identity!

Based on his physique and flirtiness, he could get girls quite easily- but no one in Cheng'an truly heard of Chengfeng staying overnight with a girl.

Qiu Liansheng also suspected that the guy was probably a virgin too, for a simple reason-- the Li family of Cleansing Moon Sect had never given up on the dream of restoring the sect to former glory. And if their only son lost his virginity and subsequently destroyed hopes of cultivation before that, the Li family would be forever buried in history.

This was a man who could easily get any lady, yet still hold himself back for so long. He wouldn’t abandon his family like that, getting himself in an entanglement with the Prefecture Chief’s mistress like that, would he?

Qiu Liansheng refused to believe it!

Just as he was deep in thought, he saw Su Zhixian rush out and fall unto her knees. She cried as she begged, “Brother Qiu, I’m innocent!”

The black-robed men quickly rushed forward to capture Su Zhixian but the leader noticed soldiers carrying bows and arrows standing along the courtyard falls. Everyone was watching them.

The black-robed leader lifted an arm and all his men backed away immediately, though their eyes were still on Su Zhixian.

Qiu Liansheng watched as Su Zhixian rushed towards him. His eyes were squinted, his hand resting unconsciously on the hilt of his knife. He said mildly, “Oh? Why is that so?”

She cried, “I was taking a nap in my house but when I opened my eyes, I don’t know why I woke up here! And then, all these people arrived so suddenly, so sure they wanted to catch me! But I don’t even know them!”

Qiu Liansheng looked diagonally at the leader, “Is that so?”

The leader sneered, “As I mentioned, we’re here on orders to capture a demon!”

Qiu Liansheng gave an equally cold sneer, “Oh? Then who is the demon?”

The leader’s gaze fell on Su Zhixian, “Do you really need to ask?”

Su Zhixian was terrified, shaking uncontrollably as she cried and screamed, “I’m innocent! I am not a demon!”

The leader roared, “If you’re not a demon, what are you?!”

“Oh? You think someone’s a demon just because you said so?” A dignified voice came from nearby. When everyone heard him, the tightly-knit crowd immediately opened up a pathway. Prefecture Chief, Zhang Junheng, walked down the path with a sullen face.