Chapter 255: The Appearance of the Divine Dragon (11)
Sima Chunbong believed everything in the world followed a grand, underlying current. Or, more precisely—she claimed that such currents did exist, and only a rare few geniuses could sense them.
Naturally, she considered herself not only one of those few, but the apex among them. A peerless beauty and intellectual—truly, a miracle of Murim. While others got distracted by surface details, she was the only one who could see the deeper tide.
So, using the flood of information pouring in from the Martial Tournament, she pieced together fragments and traced the movement patterns of those with unclear whereabouts just before the Kaifeng serial killings began.
Her conclusion: highly suspicious. A whole faction of contestants in the finals—drifters and ronin by origin—stood out like a sore thumb.
Why? Because these dirt-poor bums, who had been drinking themselves stupid in cheap diners every night, had suddenly stopped leaving the Murim Alliance compound. No records, no sightings, nothing. They just vanished into the compound, as if quarantined.
Truth be told, Sima Chunbong was genuinely intelligent.
Her title, Zhinang Hyeonhwa—“the Wise Blossom with a Pouch of Insight”—wasn’t some fluke. It wasn’t one of those slapdash Murim nicknames where they just picked a trait and tacked on a flower name like, “She’s smart, right? Let’s call her Wise Blossom.” No, this one stuck for a reason.
Yes, the name sounded a bit old-fashioned.
Still, despite being young—and a woman, no less—she held the post of Vice Deputy Strategist in the Murim Alliance, blew through her assigned workload like it was nothing, and still had the capacity to chase wild conspiracies on the side.
So when she finally latched onto the real thread of the Kaifeng case, she chuckled darkly to herself.
If she cracked this mystery wide open, it would be one giant leap closer to her grand ambition: becoming the first-ever female and youngest Chief Strategist in Murim history.
And today, she'd just confirmed with the gate guard that the ronin had resumed their nightly visits to the same sleazy diner.