After trying to persuade him otherwise, Fang Mingxuan still decided to go down with them.
His mind was made up, and Fang Shuwen had nothing more to say.
He resolved not to let the old man take any risks once they were down there.
After that, others stepped forward, wanting to go down with them as well.
Fang Shuwen felt that, with the situation below unknown, they should not bring too many people. If they ran out of room to maneuver, the extra people would only be a burden.
He decided to have them wait above.
After making some general arrangements for matters outside, Fang Shuwen and the other three came to the entrance and descended the steps.
Before long, Fang Shuwen heard bursts of crying.
It was a woman's crying.
Fang Shuwen narrowed his eyes slightly but said nothing. The stairway was long, and after they had gone farther, Zhou Qingmei and the others could hear it too.
Their expressions all changed slightly.
Fang Shuwen quickened his pace and finally reached the underground world beneath Qingyang Manor.
A quick glance brought him face-to-face with two men in black robes, all six of their eyes meeting.
The next moment, the two men abruptly reacted, their eyes widening as they were about to cry out in alarm.
Fang Shuwen had already leaped into the air. While he was still airborne, his [Vajra Tower-Throwing] sent a palm wind crashing down, instantly engulfing both men.
Two muffled thuds rang out.
The force of his palm struck them on the crown of their heads and drove them halfway into the ground, planting them there like rice seedlings.
Blood flowed from all seven of their orifices, and they died on the spot.
"What a fierce and forceful palm technique!"
A strange look appeared in Fang Mingxuan's eyes.
"Young Brother Fang, to have such martial arts at your age is truly admirable."
"You flatter me."
Fang Shuwen waved a hand. In truth, he rather disliked talking to Fang Mingxuan.
The old man kept calling him "young brother." If their relationship remained hidden in the future, that would be fine... but if it came to light one day, wouldn't that be awkward?
But there was no chance to talk much with Fang Mingxuan now.
Cries for help came from every direction.
Cages stood all around them, holding girls with deathly pale faces.
Fang Shuwen's expression darkened.
In fact, after arriving in Guangning City and hearing that six bloody killings had taken place there over the past six months, a question had occurred to him.
The method for cultivating the [Black Sha Demonic Art] was to make a hole at the Baihui acupoint on top of the head of a girl used for cultivation.
The cultivator would align the Laogong acupoint in the palm with the hole, draw out blood using a secret method from the demonic art, and draw the innate primordial yin from the blood into the body, absorbing it into the sea of Qi.
Then the cultivator would circulate the art to turn the innate primordial yin in the sea of Qi into Black Sha True Qi.
Nowhere in the process did it say that the woman had to be killed.
They could simply make a hole in the girl's head and, after cultivating, bandage the wound or apply wound medicine, then tear it open again the next time they cultivated.
That way, she could be used repeatedly.
After all, although the Baihui acupoint was one of the body's lethal points, a person would not necessarily die if the right amount of force was used.
Of course, the girls would suffer more pain and torment that way, but at least they could keep their lives.
So why had so many people died one after another in Guangning City?
Now it seemed it wasn't that the people of the Black Sha Cult were brainless and couldn't think of such a method.
People simply did things differently. Perhaps the person behind those six bloody killings just didn't care.
That was why he acted with even less restraint, freely taking lives and killing people.
These women, meanwhile, had been kept by the Black Sha Cult as cultivation materials to be used whenever needed.
Fang Shuwen did not immediately set about rescuing them, instead asking them to be quiet for a while.
He had a few questions to ask.
The girls all obediently did as he said, gazing at him expectantly.
They answered Fang Shuwen's questions when they knew the answer, and said so when they didn't.
Fang Shuwen soon found the answer he wanted.
The Black Sha Cult members were underground now, in the cultivation room at the very back.
It was where they cultivated the [Black Sha Demonic Art] and turned innate primordial yin into Black Sha True Qi.
They had just taken blood from the women during the first half of the night. Going by past experience, they would spend the second half in the cultivation room and not come out until the next morning.
After hearing this, Fang Shuwen felt quite fortunate. It had already been the second half of the night when they arrived.
They had originally intended to use this time to catch those demonic brats off guard.
Unexpectedly, through a strange twist of fate, it had given them a chance to save people.
After getting the answer he wanted, Fang Shuwen and the others discussed it briefly and began rescuing them.
There were no keys to the iron cages, so Fang Shuwen used his brutally overwhelming internal force to crush the locks with a casual grab, then casually tore open the shackles on the girls' wrists and ankles.
He did it so easily that it looked as though he were tearing paper rather than iron shackles.
Zhang Fang's eyelids twitched wildly at the sight, and he secretly asked Zhou Qingmei,
"Where did you find this bodyguard of yours? How much silver did you pay?"
Zhou Qingmei had no idea, so she could only say,
"My father found him for me."
"Did your Zhou Family offer him half its fortune? How else could you get a master like that to be your bodyguard?"
"...I don't know about that. You'll have to ask my father."
"Where's your father?"
"I don't know,"
Zhou Qingmei said faintly.
"All right, forget I asked."
They escorted the girls back to the surface, then called a large group of the people waiting above down. Once they had enough hands, they drove straight in.
Following the girls' accounts, they finally found the cultivation room in the deepest part of the underground complex.
A massive iron door separated the inside from the outside.
Fang Shuwen struck with his palm, and the iron door crashed open to either side, striking the walls with a rumble.
A vast stone chamber lay before them.
Black Sha Cult members sat cross-legged, converting the innate primordial yin in their bodies.
A fat man sat at the head of the room.
His face was ruddy and his belly enormous, but the shock of the door opening seemed to disrupt the True Qi in his body, and blood suddenly seeped from the corner of his mouth.
He opened his eyes, a bloody hue appearing in them.
"Who is it!?"
And it wasn't just the fat man.
Fang Shuwen had done it deliberately. Knowing that these people were cultivating here, he had made a huge commotion on purpose to disturb them.
At that sound, blood flowed from the corners of the mouths of almost every Black Sha Cult member who had been cultivating.
When they turned to look at the door, a vicious glint shone in every pair of eyes.
Fang Shuwen strode into the vast stone chamber, swept his gaze around it, and spoke with a soft chuckle.
"Please don't take offense. We didn't come here intending to disturb you.
"We merely came to slaughter every last one of you."
If he didn't slaughter every last one of them, there was an eighty percent chance he wouldn't be able to finish his mission.
Zhang Fang blinked. Was that something a person should say?