novelraw Chapter 628: Examination
Chapter 628: Examination
Chapter 628: Examination
Blacksmith Hans’s house was on the eastern side of the town, a two-story stone building with a courtyard.
The iron anvil sign at the courtyard gate was already covered in rust. Inside the yard lay half-finished farm tools and several pieces of scrap iron.
The blacksmithing sounds that should have filled the air with heat and clamor were completely absent, replaced only by the wind moaning through the eaves.
Old Herman walked at the front, his hunched figure casting a long, thin shadow on the stone slab path.
He stopped at the courtyard entrance and turned back to look at the nine wizards behind him.
“Hans’s youngest son is inside,” the old man’s voice was hoarse yet calm. “His name is Carl. Fourteen years old. This morning he watched his mother and sister take their last breaths with his own eyes. Now he’s staying inside alone and refuses to come out.”
The middle-aged male wizard in the deep blue robe nodded. “We’ll go in. Be careful not to frighten him.”
The group crossed the courtyard and pushed open the ajar wooden door.
The first floor consisted of the kitchen and living room. A salty, fishy smell permeated the air. Jie Ming noticed that the iron pot on the stove still contained half a pot of soup, its surface covered with a layer of grayish-white film.
The bowls and plates on the dining table had not been cleared away. Utensils lay scattered on the floor, and one chair had toppled over beside it… probably knocked down when someone suddenly stood up.
In the corner of the living room, a youth was curled up on a chair.
He looked younger than his actual age, his thin frame wrapped in an oversized coarse linen shirt. His hands tightly hugged his knees, his face buried between them, shoulders trembling slightly.
Hearing footsteps, the youth abruptly lifted his head.
His face was covered in tear tracks, his eyes red and swollen. In his pupils was something beyond fear—the doubt toward the world itself after personally witnessing his family members die one after another.
He stared at the nine wizards walking in, his lips quivering a few times without producing any sound.
“Carl.” Old Herman walked up to him, his voice surprisingly gentle. “These people are here to help us. They are very powerful and can deal with that damned finger.”
The youth said nothing. He simply stared fixedly at Jie Ming and the others, his gaze like someone looking at creatures so alien they were impossible to understand.
The wizards did not rush to approach. They exchanged glances, and in the end, Jie Ming—who appeared the most mild-mannered—and another female wizard stepped forward as representatives.
Jie Ming took a clean cloth from his storage space, poured a cup of water from the table, and placed it on the side table beside the youth.
“Drink some water.” His voice was not loud, carrying a steady tone that helped people relax.
The youth hesitated for a moment. He reached for the cup, but his fingers withdrew the instant they touched the rim, as if afraid the cup also contained something salty to the point of bitterness.
“Where is the kitchen?” the young female wizard asked.
Old Herman pointed to a door beside the living room.
The wizards entered the kitchen.
It was a typical craftsman family kitchen—stove, sink, cabinets—everything very simple.
The cabinet doors were open, and the seasoning bottles inside were toppled over in disarray, clearly having been rummaged through.
Jie Ming’s gaze fell on the salt shaker beside the stove.
It was a coarse ceramic jar with uneven glaze on the surface, the lid half open.
Judging from the jar’s condition, this salt shaker had obviously been newly purchased as well.
Through the gap in the lid, one could see the white salt grains inside.
And protruding from the salt grains was half a finger.
Deathly pale skin covered in age spots, the nail crevices wet and glistening, as if freshly pulled from water.
It was simply stuck there in the salt shaker, like a foreign object casually tossed inside.
It matched the description in the report exactly.
Jie Ming did not rush forward. Together with the other wizards, he stood still around the salt shaker.
Nine people, nine directions, completely encircling the small ceramic jar.
“I’ll go first.” The middle-aged male wizard in the deep blue robe extended his hand, palm facing the salt shaker, and closed his eyes.
A faint cyan light spread from his palm, enveloping the entire salt shaker.
The light remained steady for several seconds. Then he opened his eyes, brows slightly furrowed.
“Energy detection shows no reaction,” he said. “It does not release any form of energy fluctuation. The result of the spiritual power scan is… it is simply an ordinary dead person’s finger.”
The female wizard beside him released a detection spell as well. Blue micro-light swept across the salt shaker, and she shook her head. “There is no anomaly at the law level either. In my perception, it is merely a piece of dead organic matter with no law entanglement whatsoever.”
Jie Ming remained silent and quietly activated the Fate Subsystem.
The information processing network constructed by the Incense Fire Divine Dao operated at high speed deep within his consciousness.
Relying on the fate-type knowledge he had already begun to master, Jie Ming “saw” countless streams of information converging from all directions, weaving into a vast causal network.
He focused this network onto the finger inside the salt shaker, attempting to capture its fate trajectory, causal threads, and any possible abnormal information flows.
The result made him frown.
Nothing.
There was nothing at all.
This finger appeared in the Fate Subsystem like a blank space—no past, no future, no causal connections with anything.
Nothing.
There was nothing at all.
This finger appeared in the Fate Subsystem like a blank space—no past, no future, no causal connections with anything.
It existed, yet its existence produced no information.
Jie Ming activated the All-Purpose Eye once more.
After advancing to Void Refinement Realm consummate, the perceptual precision of the All-Purpose Eye had risen another level.
A golden light flashed deep within his pupils.
Everything in the kitchen transformed in his vision: the walls became semi-transparent energy grids, the remaining embers in the stove showed the flowing trajectories of fire elements, and countless tiny elemental particles shuttled through the air.
But the finger inside the salt shaker…
It had no energy flow.
There was no “special” quality that the All-Purpose Eye could capture.
It simply looked like an ordinary, dead, slowly decaying human finger.
Jie Ming deactivated the pupil technique and shook his head.
“I can’t see any anomalies either,” he said.
The brows of all nine wizards furrowed at the same time.
If one person could not detect anything, it might be due to insufficient methods.
But nine people, each proficient in different fields and using different detection methods, had all reached the same conclusion: this finger showed no abnormalities whatsoever.
Yet it was clearly stuck in the salt shaker and had killed forty-nine people.
Silence lasted several seconds.
“Wait a moment.” A thin-faced male wizard wearing a gray robe suddenly spoke.
He had been using a certain sorcery to analyze the finger’s microscopic structure from the beginning. At this moment, a subtle change appeared on his face.
“I measured its genetic material.”
Everyone’s gaze turned toward him.
“What about the genetic material?” the deep blue-robed male wizard asked.
The thin male wizard raised his head, his gaze sweeping across their faces, his tone cautious. “Its genetic material is highly similar to that of the people in blacksmith Hans’s family… including the surviving youngest son. Although not completely identical, the similarity far exceeds the level between ordinary strangers.”
The air in the kitchen froze for an instant.
A thought flashed rapidly through Jie Ming’s mind. He looked at the thin male wizard. “Explain in detail.”
“Simply put, if genetic analysis were performed, this finger would have a blood relationship with the Hans family.”
“That’s impossible,” the young female wizard frowned. “Unless this finger came from one of the Hans family members.”
“Does the Hans family have anyone missing a finger?” another wizard asked.
Jie Ming recalled the corpses he had seen in the basement earlier.
Not to mention the entire Hans family—among the forty-nine corpses, he had swept them all with his spiritual power. During the dissection, he had not found a single one missing a finger.
He looked toward Old Herman again.
The old man shook his head. “The Hans family of five all had complete sets of fingers. I also examined the other deceased. No one was missing any fingers.”
So this finger did not belong to any of the deceased.
Yet its genetic material was highly similar to that of the Hans family.
Jie Ming roughly understood the operating principle of this finger.
“Let me take a look.” A low voice sounded from within the group.
The speaker was a burly male wizard wearing tight-fitting leather clothes.
He had remained silent the entire time and had not even participated in the earlier examinations.
The burly male wizard stepped forward, reached unhesitatingly into the salt shaker, and pinched out the deathly pale finger.
The finger swayed slightly between his fingers. Droplets of water from the nail crevices fell onto the stove, producing faint plopping sounds.
“What are you going to do?” the deep blue-robed male wizard asked.
The burly male wizard did not answer.
He stared at the finger in his hand for a moment, then, under everyone’s watchful gaze, opened his mouth and stuffed the finger inside.
The wizards present were somewhat surprised by his action. However, considering that the finger would reappear even if damaged, no one tried to stop him.
Yet while the wizards could remain calm, it did not mean others could accept it.
Old Herman took a step back, his amber eyes widening.
Even more frightened was Carl in the living room.
The youth had quietly walked to the kitchen doorway while the wizards were examining things and happened to witness the scene.
Watching a strange burly man stuff that terrifying finger into his mouth, his face instantly turned deathly pale. His lips trembled, unable to produce any sound.
Jie Ming glanced at the youth and could not help recalling his own embarrassment when he first encountered anatomy.
He thus shifted his body to block the youth’s line of sight, his voice still steady. “It’s fine. He’s examining that finger. Don’t be afraid.”
The burly male wizard chewed twice. His throat moved as he swallowed the finger.
Then he closed his eyes and pressed both hands on his abdomen. Dark green light glowed from his palms.
It seemed this wizard was using his own body as an experimental platform to directly perceive the properties and reactions of the swallowed substance.
The kitchen was so quiet that the faint sound of salt grains rolling inside the ceramic jar could be heard.
A few seconds later, the burly male wizard opened his eyes, his expression somewhat strange.