Star Gate

Dressed in his inspector uniform, Li Hao walked down the streets. He took a close look at the tattered church when he passed it. There were scarlet shadows drifting listlessly inside, as motionless as if they were dead. No one could see them, and there was more than one!

Three supernaturals had died at the church, but he only saw two shadows. Was there a third, or had it died?

Can anyone other than me kill the scarlet shadows? Li Hao didn’t know. All he knew was that scarlet shadows remained in the world even after their masters died. That was enough.

Red Moon… bloodline… scarlet shadow…” He committed the organization to memory. A den of evil!

Evil should be hunted, exterminated, and burned to ashes. He would remember all of this.

Li Hao wasn’t in a hurry to collect the shadows after confirming their existence. He quietly passed by like he hadn’t seen them, heading straight for the cemetery. Zhang Yuan’s grave was inside the city as opposed to outside. It was a bit out the way; he made his way toward a public cemetery neighbored by a few factories.

……

Another half hour of walking transpired before Li Hao reached the small mountain that the public cemetery was situated on. Zhang Yuan had pretty much been fully consumed by flames when he died, forestalling the need for a cremation.

Halfway up the mountain.

A new grave stood here. Li Hao hadn’t been by in a few months; the last time he visited was during the new year. His eyes darted around when he approached it—there were fresh flowers placed in front of the tombstone! They didn’t look to be from today since they were somewhat wilted. The wind and rain had knocked them askew.

Yet, the young man was certain that these flowers were a recent addition. Little Yuan’s family passed away long ago. When the young man died, it was Li Hao who paid for the plot. Zhang Yuan didn’t have any family and they hadn’t held a burial service.

Who would visit his tomb?

Li Hao looked around, approaching only when he was certain there were no balls of light that corresponded to supernaturals. He stared silently at the flowers in front of the grave. A young Zhang Yuan smiled from the photo on his tombstone. Li Hao considered it quietly for a very long time.

“Little Yuan… You wanted me to run, but I didn’t,” he said slowly. “I think I’ve won… My teacher killed a really powerful guy from that organization and a lot of their supernaturals! I don’t know if they’ll come again and I don’t know if the thing that killed you died. I wanted to sacrifice their heads to you, but I think someone’s taken them away.”

Li Hao sat down in front of the grave and smiled at his late friend. “But I’ve entered this domain now and I’m working toward the supernatural world. I may be able to take real revenge for all of you when I become one myself! I know what the leader of that organization is called—Ying Hongyue. I don’t know who was the one that killed you, but I know that destroying this organization should be full revenge for you!”

That was all he had to say. He remained sitting dumbly by the grave and lost himself in thought as he looked down the mountain. Neither the fresh flowers nor their giver mattered. Whether they were from an enemy, relatives, or the murderer with a guilty conscience… none of it mattered. Li Hao didn’t want to look into any of it.

He continued up the mountain to where his parents’ grave was. It wasn’t that pressing anymore whether his parents truly died in a car accident or not. Regardless of the truth, he assigned blame to Red Moon.

The organization needed to die if it was a car accident. It needed to die if it wasn’t a car accident. One required some goals and motivation in life. His parents were dead, his best friend also dead… While his teacher was quite good to him, a teacher was not his parents. Li Hao found himself a bit lost at times, floundering through life without knowing which way forward.

He drifted along aimlessly!

If it wasn’t for seeing the scarlet shadow, if it wasn’t for the shadow’s threat still being present, Li Hao’s life would’ve ended the moment Zhang Yuan died. There would be nothing he looked forward to in this existence.

Red Moon was his new faith!

He sometimes felt that the stronger Red Moon was, the better! If they were too weak and his teacher too easily crushed them… would that make him lose his fighting spirit anew? Perhaps he wouldn’t even want to understand the supernatural domain without Red Moon being in the picture.

A massive patch of tombstones forested the mountaintop. Li Hao walked toward a tombstone mounted with a picture of a man and a woman. Both of them were laughing very happily; it’d been a favorite of his parents’, a family portrait taken when Li Hao was ten. He scrubbed himself out of the photo because his parents might not have wanted to use that picture for their final portrait.

Li Hao stood in front of the grave for a while without sitting down; the look in his eyes shifted erratically. It was at times furious, at times maddened, with then a gradual return to calm. Such a complex gaze should not appear in the young man’s eyes, but he seemed a bit crazed at the moment.

He stood unmoving for a very long time. While he spoke with Zhang Yuan below, he only stared at his family here. After an indeterminate period of time, he walked up and shattered the picture with a gentle palm strike!

The action would’ve shocked any bystander, yet Li Hao only smiled eerily. He looked meaningfully at the tombstone, then at the surroundings before descending from the mountain. His hands tightened into fists as he walked!

He hadn’t realized the situation before, but he was a far cry from who he’d been previously. He knew and understood more now! Killing intent flooded his eyes. He hadn’t shown any bloodlust at the supernatural whom he’d fooled to death, but right now he brimmed with the urge to kill and main!

The grave was empty!

He didn’t dig into it for confirmation, but he could sense and see a hint of something awry. Someone had disturbed his parents’ grave and there was nothing underneath it. He simply needed to slightly push out his internal force—a feat he could achieve. His internal force sensed nothing underground. It was empty.

Red Moon!! flashed through his mind. Someone had dug up his parents’ grave. The car accident might have been a cover-up, with the perpetrators possibly making their move on the day of burial. He hadn’t noticed it before and lacked the investigative capabilities that he now possessed.

So his parents’ grave had been robbed. Where were the bodies? Did that require consideration?

Little Yuan had been reduced to ashes when he died. As the heir to the Lis, did his father carry a different bloodline? Had Red Moon collected his father’s bloodline, but needed to kill him as well to unseal the jade sword because it on him?

The thread of the eight trigrams is now connected to me! Was it connected to father before?

Too many questions rose in his mind, of which he quickly sunk. He didn’t need to know that much! Was there a point to finding answers? The only thing that mattered was killing them all! Killing someone was quick and easy work, but to dig up a grave and steal the body… that kind of person needed to die ten thousand times over!

In fact, Li Hao suspected that the graves of all eight families had been robbed. Perhaps all of those who’d died had had their bodies taken away—maybe even their ancestors!

Since they know about the unique traits of the eight families, the need for family bloodlines, and the family weapons… Digging up ancestral tombs and grave robbing seems a necessary course of action!

The look in Li Hao’s eyes grew colder. He didn’t need to delve further on this matter. If his parents’ grave was empty, it was more than likely that the others were as well. Damned animals!

When he reached the foot of the mountain, Li Hao took a turn and visited the public cemetery’s administrative office. It was staffed by one old man who was busily nodding off.

“Sir!” Li Hao woke the old man. The latter blearily opened his eyes and jumped with shock to see a young man standing in front of him.

“Don’t go around scaring people like that in broad daylight!”

“My apologies.” Li Hao smiled. “I just wanted to say that I’m a descendant of Number 118 and came to visit my parents, but saw that someone’s destroyed their final portrait…”

“What??” the old man exclaimed. “No one’s gone up the mountain… Can it be damaged from the rains?”

“I don’t know.” Li Hao shook his head. “Sir, I’m not here to assign responsibility. I’m just a bit heartbroken at seeing my parents’ picture ruined. I’m going to be a bit busy over the next couple of days and don’t have time to repair it. If you can, could you get someone to fix it for me? I’ll have a new picture delivered to you.”

He took out a few star coins from his pocket and gave them to the old man with a smile. “This is payment in advance. If that’s not enough, you can send someone to the Inspectorate to find me. I’m Li Hao of the inspectorate!”

The old man quickly nodded when he took in Li Hao’s uniform. “This is definitely enough! This is only right and proper. I’ll have someone fix it as soon as you bring the photo.”

“My thanks! Also, Number 1125 halfway up the mountain is my friend. He doesn’t have any family, but I see fresh flowers in front of his tombstone. Has someone been by?”

“I don\'t know,” the old man responded awkwardly. “You know us, we’re just in charge of administrative duties. A cemetery is different from a neighborhood, we’re not at liberty to make a record of visitors and ask who they’re visiting. There are a lot of visitors, so it’s difficult to say who goes where.”

Li Hao nodded slightly. “That’s alright, I was just curious if my friends’ relatives have come. No worries since you don’t know.”

He left after another round of thanks.

……

Li Hao had ruined the picture on an angry impulse. He was a mundane for all intents and purposes; one oblivious to the truth since he hadn’t dug up his parents’ tomb. To onlookers, why would he ruin the tombstone?

The young man forced down his raging anger and killing intent. Impotent fury was useless; it would only permit the enemy to gain a better understanding of his abilities. Hopefully, they didn’t pay too much attention to this detail.

All of them are going to die sooner or later! I’m not leaving a single one alive! Li Hao cussed ominously. Just you wait!