Chapter 131 - Blood Leech

Following the string, Yuzu found herself walking down a small undecorated hallway off from the main area. From the looks of the strings this was the servant’s wing that was connected to the kitchen and the servant’s quarters.

Slipping in unnoticed was a simple matter for Yuzu. Even though she stood out completely in her elegant dress, she walked down the hall without any hesitation or nervousness. After all, she knew with full certainty that no one would be passing through here for the next few minutes.

Of course, from experience she knew that her power wasn’t infallible. Thinking about it, there were three specific situations where she had found herself taken by surprise. First, Hakuya’s corrupted string was unpredictable and only appeared to her when he was in close vicinity. Second, Exalted from the Chaos domain such as the two people in the marketplace and Char Char had strings that were difficult to trace, and even when she tried reading their strings the images were blurry. The third situation was the knot of fate that currently hung menacingly above the ballroom.

Yuzu was absolutely sure that this knot had spontaneously appeared in the middle of the party. It was impossible that Yuzu had missed it, especially since she had spent a good part of the beginning of the party staring idly over the balcony.

The other major event, Sansen Zhao’s murder, only involved a few strings. Yuzu wasn’t looking out for it and so she found it reasonable that she could have missed it.

Out of these experiences, the first two situations involved specific people and qualities of those people. Yuzu wasn’t particularly worried about them at this moment, since the chances of a corrupted Exalted showing up in the middle of the party wasn’t particularly high. And even if a corrupted one showed up, there were plenty of Exalted guards that would fight it off.

The third situation, though, was troubling.

Why did the knot suddenly appear? Was it because there was some Exalted power involved in creating the disaster? Yuzu had witnessed a number of Exalted events through the strings already, though. In her very first encounter with a fate knot - Char Char’s encounter with the diseased wolves - the knot of fate was already floating above the forest shrine when she had climbed up onto the plateau.

Like the battle with the wolves, this event also involved Exalted monsters of the Life domain. If the monster was from the Domain of Chaos then perhaps the knot’s appearance would be understandable. However the Life Domain was not able to deceive the threads of fate. Thinking about it carefully, the knot for the battle with the wolves appeared over twelve hours before the event was going to happen, whereas the knot in the ballroom spontaneously appeared less than two hours in advance.

Something different was at play here.

Yuzu found herself in front of the door to a wine cellar. The black string from the bottle led the way down the stairs behind the door. The path was clear, with servants only occasionally entering to pick up more wine.

Yuzu headed down calmly into the cellar.

Like the rest of this wing of the mansion, the wine cellar was plainly furnished, with solid but unadorned construction. The stairs were narrow, the wodden walls rough and unpolished. The cramped, cool descent into the earth reminded Yuzu a little of the larder in her own kitchen.

The stairs continued straight down for thirty steps, finally reaching a small landing with a single door leading into the cellar. Yuzu glanced up to the top of the stairwell briefly, double checking the strings. She had approximately twenty minutes before the next servant would come down into the cellar.

Yuzu headed into the room, finding herself in a small square space only a few meters wide. There were no other doors, meaning that the only way in and out was through the stairs. The walls were lined with shelves which were specially made for bottles, with circular inserts that allowed the bottles to rest at an angle. Aside from the shelves there were only a few wooden crates, also filled with various bottles.

From the various clues in the room Yuzu quickly understood that the room was not frequently used and was normally empty. All of the drinks here were brought in specifically for the ball tonight, stacked on the shelves with no labeling or signage. Moreover, the bottles only differed slightly in size and labeling, giving the room a very plain appearance, with no particular set of bottles standing out to her.

There probably was some method used to organize the bottles, but it wasn’t readily apparent at a glance which bottles were common and which were special.

Of course, Yuzu only needed to follow the golden string to find the bottle she was looking for. After entering the room she stepped directly to a particular bottle along the right wall and pulled it off the shelf.

The glass of the bottle had a greenish tinge, and the label was made of thick parchment. The words “Scarlet Ambrosia Wine” were elegantly written in flowing seal script, with a red stamp in the corner signifying its authenticity.

From the years of knowing Uncle Zhao, she knew that this was his favourite wine. It was an exotic wine imported from Huan that was made from the petals of a flower that only grew in the spire-like mountains in Huan. It was a rich red wine in appearance whose flavour was apparently subtle and refreshing. Yuzu had never tasted it, she’d only heard the old men boast about it during dinners.

As soon as Yuzu picked up the bottle she knew that the contents of this particular bottle of wine was unusual, setting it apart from the other bottles in the room. There was a spiritual energy infused into the liquid. Although Yuzu was not a fan of alcohol herself, she felt like she might actually like this one.

“I wonder how it compares to the porcelain jar that Argus gave me...” Yuzu mused, then sighed with a slight smile, “But I’m not here for a taste test.”

Yuzu closed her eyes, injecting her spirituality into the bottle as she activated her Apprentice ability to read into an object’s past.

A soft illusory breeze brushed her cheeks, carrying the memories of sounds and scents on it. She found herself watching images of the past as she traveled down the bottle’s golden string.

~

Earlier that day, in the afternoon. A servant with a wide nose was on a ladder in a wine room somewhere in the manor, pulling several bottles off the shelf. Compared to its current location, this wine room was much more spacious and well furnished, with dark stained wood shelves and polished wooden floors.

“Are these all the bottles from the Master’s list?” The servant called to his companion, who was counting the bottles in a number of boxes that had been filled up.

“Yes, that should be all of them.”

The servant started to descend from the ladder when he paused, “Oh wait, I didn’t get the Scarlet Ambrosia yet.”

“Oh? You must have, it’s already in the box.” His companion said.

“Funny, I don’t remember bringing it down.” The servant commented, then smiled, “Alright, let’s get these over to the other wing and take a break!”

~

An hour before. The wide nosed servant was in the fancy wine room with his companion. They had just started filling the boxes.

In the middle of gathering the bottles, the servant’s eyes suddenly became dull and unfocused. He walked toward a certain corner of the room and pulled a hidden bottle of wine out. It was the bottle of Scarlet Ambrosia. He placed it in one of the boxes in a daze.

After a few seconds he seemed to snap out of his state of mind. He looked around confused for a moment then shrugged and continued to work.

~

A week before the ball. The wide nosed servant was at a market in the city. He was in the middle of loading a horse drawn cart with bottles of wine that had been ordered for the event. In the middle of loading a box, he suddenly set it down and looked over to his right.

His eyes lost focus and his expression relaxed as a figure in a dark cloak approached him from behind. The figure’s face was concealed by a deep hood.

The cloaked man stepped forward, holding out an object to the servant. The servant received it without any emotion or recognition.

“A gift for your Master. For his toast at the ball next week.” The man said in a velvet voice.

“I understand.” The servant replied.

“Good man.” The cloaked man chuckled and walked off.

After a few seconds the servant blinked several times, coming back to his senses. He looked down at the object in his hands. It was the green bottle of Scarlet Ambrosia.

~

That’s him. The one responsible for Sansen’s future murder. Yuzu nodded to herself as she continued from the point where the cloaked man had handed off the bottle.

A few minutes before that point a man with a dazed look on his face emerged from a wine specialty store with the bottle of Scarlet Ambrosia. He walked down several blocks, then walked up the steps of a house and entered it after unlocking the door.

He headed into the dining room and set the bottle on the table, then walked out of the house and left down the street as if he were a mindless puppet.

Inside the house, a bony hand with pale skin reached out to the bottle. Sitting leisurely at the table was the man in the dark cloak. The hood was down, giving Yuzu a clear view of his face.

He was gaunt, with pronounced cheekbones and sunken eyes. His skin was pale white, and so thin that one could see the thin blue lines of the veins on his cheeks. He had thin, soft white hair and no eyebrows. The pupils of his eyes were a vivid red. Despite his white hair he did not look old, but rather had the physique and appearance of a man in his early thirties.

“Markus Gantt...” Yuzu breathed softly as she recalled the description given by Sansen Zhao.

This was the man that had murdered her parents.

Gantt held the bottle of wine in his hands, looking it over casually as if he were fancying having a drink. After appraising the bottle and finding it suitable he set it back down on the table and pulled out a vial from his pocket.

Inside the small glass vial was an insect that resembled a leech. It was glossy, with the dark colouration of rich blood.

The albino man had a relaxed casual countenance as he uncorked the vial and tipped it gently over, letting the leech out into his right palm. He held the leech up to his eyes, inspecting it closely.

The leech ambled across his skin as Gantt slowly rotated his hand to prevent it from dropping off, letting it crawl from hand to hand as it left a mucousy trail the colour of coagulated blood. After a few paces the leech began to press its head against his skin, at which point Gantt picked the leech up from its tail end.

“Hungry, are you?” He said softly in a teasing tone, while letting it dangle in the air, “Well, I won’t make a very good meal, sorry to disappoint.”

The leech wiggled as it tried to find a surface to grasp onto. Gantt observed it for a moment more before gently lowering it onto the table. It began to crawl about the wooden surface as Gantt pulled out a leather pouch from his pocket.

Without any hurry he unfolded the pouch, revealing a clinical set neatly organized and strapped into place. There were several thin glass tubes, metal fittings, a plunger and a single long thin needle.

He pulled out the components piece by piece, assembling the syringe while humming softly to himself.

When he was finished, the leech had already crawled several inches from its original spot, leaving a trail behind it.

Gantt gently pinched the leech, fluffing it up, and carefully inserted the syringe deeply into its body. He applied a firm pressure on the squirming body of the insect to prevent it from wriggling away as he deftly handled the syringe with one hand. The syringe was filled with a thick dark blood as he drained the life out of the leech.

After filling the syringe, Gantt set it down gently on the table and walked over to the kitchen. He soaped up his hands and washed them, drying them off meticulously on a towel. He then took the towel and returned to the table, wiping up the mucous trail left by the dead leech. He wrapped the leech in the towel before tossing the towel into the stove in the corner of the room.

He snapped his fingers to light the stove before returning to the table.

With a sigh he picked up the syringe and the bottle and injected the blood through the cork. After injecting the entire contents of the syringe into the bottle he held it up to the light to examine it.

The thick blood swirled in the wine, causing it to become murky, but as time passed it the blood faded away until the liquid once more took on its original clarity.

Gantt’s thin, pale lips twisted up into a satisfied grin.

“Perfect.”

~

Yuzu shuddered softly as she came out of the vision. Even through the veil of the past, there was something cold and inhuman about Markus Gantt’s mannerisms. Throughout the vision Yuzu had barely dared to move or speak, as if she were scared he would take notice of her.

So, Gantt was the true culprit behind Sansen’s future death, not Abbott Deacon Glass. Medusa said that Gantt had been working with the monks. This was why the Abbott would not be surprised at Sansen’s assassination.

Gantt clearly had some ability to control people. The man in the house had been hypnotized to buy the wine and bring it to Gantt. Sansen Zhao’s servant had also be controlled to bring the altered wine into the manor and set it up for Sansen to drink.

The wine was the murder weapon, and the murderer didn’t even need to be in the manor to use it.

Furthermore, the murderer could actually make people his unwitting accomplices and make them do his dirty work for him.

Yuzu frowned as she thought about the warnings her spiritual intuitions had given her up in the hall. Was Gantt watching from somewhere? Was he somehow able to tell if she made changes to the future?

If so, Yuzu couldn’t act rashly at all. No, in the worst case scenario, he’d already noticed her presence!

Yuzu’s ears suddenly perked up as she heard a sound from outside the room. The soft creaking of the door at the top of the cellar stairs being opened.

A black string materialized in Yuzu’s spiritual vision as it suddenly wrapped tightly around her!