The Wanderer

CHAPTER 6-THE FIRST CASE

This nickname is not just a random one given by the citizens. It has a meaning. Every time the constables thought they had already surrounded him and were going to get him, the thief was already gone. There was no one there, except a wild cat. That's the first one. The second is about his lightness skill. The rumor said his lightness skill (Qinggong) was very skilled. Every time he jumped from one building to another, he was flying. None of the constables' lightness skills can match the thief. That's where the nickname came from. Some said he was a villain, but others said he was stolen from those corrupt officers to punish them. However, in the constable's eyes, he is still a fugitive. This time, with Haruto joining them, they hope he can help them catch this thief. One night, some constables sighted a flying cat running when they were patrolling after hearing people shouting out loud as if it had just stolen from another high-ranking officer again. One of the constables ran back to the magistrate's office to inform his fellows. Meanwhile, some of them were after the flying-cat. After Haruto heard the news, he also went to help. They split into several teams, with one team trying to stand in front of the gate to the capital city. Haruto went with the ambush team. Even though he had learned Chinese martial arts, his lightness skill was still not very good, as he had only practiced it for a while. However, he never slacks off in practice; he practices every day whenever he has time. That's why the constable head put him in the ambush team. For the record, the constable organized the ambush teams into several groups. Each team member will ambush at different spots he has passed through. However, after waiting for a while, there’s no sign of the thief. Haruto suddenly feels his sixth sense telling him the thief won't pass through here. He decided to try his luck at another spot. Indeed, he was right. The thief was passing through another spot, and he was in the middle of a fight with his fellow constables. After Haruto was just about to reach there, the thief had already defeated some of the constables there, and was trying to get away by jumping high onto the roofs of the buildings and houses with lightness skill, as he wanted to get away. Even one of the constables with shooting-arrow skills can’t shoot him down. Haruto quickly activated his field-sense, like projectile vision, to calculate the best possible landing spot for the flying cat. Then he saw a wooden noodle-stall house ahead with 2 poles, left and right, to support the canopy in front of the stall. Then Haruto outruns the flying-cat and uses one of his sword techniques of Kaizan’Gosei-ryū, “Fūryū-Kaizan/Fēngliú-Kuàizhǎn (WindStream-QuickSlash)”, to s***h on those 2 poles at lightning speed. For a moment, nothing happened. However, when the flying-cat tried to step on the canopy, the 2 poles suddenly broke, and the flying-cat fell with the canopy. When the thief tried to get back on his feet, it was too late. Haruto's sword was already pointed at his neck. The thief has no choice but to surrender. That was the first big case he solved. 2 weeks later, another big case came up, too. This case is very weird and horrible, and they have never handled anything like it. It began when a bunch of Taoist priests appeared in the city. The Taoist leader became the king's advisor. Since the king wanted longevity, he sought his advisor's advice. The advisor said he could create a longevity pill, but only under certain conditions, including using an alchemy furnace and a Taoist temple to stay and make the pill. Surely, the king provides all the requirements without hesitation. So the temple was built at the city's corner. The temple also invited people to come for fortune-telling and even gave free teaching to the citizens' children. Not only that, but they also helped citizens whenever they needed it, of course, not for free. For men who can't pay, they can trade for other things that they request, and for women, they can use their bodies to satisfy the lust of those Taoists. Actually, they're not really Taoist priests, but they’re a scam to deceive the king and the citizens. Some high-ranking officers, including ministers, already suspected they were scammers. However, they have no evidence to prove it, so they can only keep quiet. Some even sent their men for investigation in secret at the temple, but no one returned. Certainly, the officers also can't go to the temple and ask their men not to return. Those Taoist priests knew those officers wouldn't dare to ask for it, so they just killed those men, and nobody knew where the priests put those men's bodies. Even though some citizens knew those Taoist priests' actions weren't right, no one dared report them to the government magistrate there, since the king backed them.