Chapter 192 – Soul Iron Gains Flesh, Blood Gold Crystals Bring Life, The Golden Cicada Sheds Its Shell and Returns - Part 3
A few days later.
Within the Clock Mansion, in the eastern wing of the outer courtyard, rooms had been set aside specifically for incoming undying husks.
The mansion master, often dressed in a red robe, had earned no small amount of criticism for letting outsiders move in, but he simply behaved as though he were powerless, allowing them to swagger around as they pleased.
His subordinates were abused; he endured it. His fattest livestock was snatched away; he submitted. They insisted on living inside his own estate; he gave in yet again.
But when the outsiders demanded the Clock Mansion provide forces to join their offensives against other prefectures, he refused, insisting they were too weak—unfit to march beyond their backwater region. People mocked him all the more for his cowardice.
In one of the courtyards, its walls cold stone and mottled gray, a few wisps of eerie chill drifting in, more than a dozen undying husks sat around a round table. They were here to coordinate the Northriver Prefecture operation.
Among them were Chang Qi, who’d reluctantly parted with his thousand-mile thread to Yan Yu, and the two other members of his small group. Several more shadowy figures lurked around the edges.
All eyes focused on a portrait lying in the center of the table. It was of an unremarkable-looking man.
Chang Qi spoke in a cold voice. “That Woodson has gone out on missions 17 times and captured 16 of our people. Ten died in prison, and five more were killed trying to escape.”
Another person said, “He’s become a real problem. I propose we use the ghost mirror to kill him.”
“It’s not time for that,” someone else interrupted. “The ghost mirror is reserved for Zhu Nuyang. That will be the final stroke here in Northriver Prefecture.”
He spoke calmly, and at his words, everyone fell silent. Clearly, this man was the genuine prefecture lord who had come to take over Northriver Prefecture, having hidden away in the ancient ghost street where no martial power could reach him.