After Fang Shuwen sent off the last Pearl Pavilion disciple in the hall who needed the poison purged,
The sounds of shouting and fighting outside had gradually receded.
The main reason these people had been gathered in one place was that they represented the strongest fighting force currently within the Pearl Pavilion.
Qi-Severing Powder had prevented them from using their internal force, and Feng Mantian and the others had taken action.
If everything had gone according to the Black Sha Cult's plan, the Pearl Pavilion really would have been destroyed this time.
Now, only Fang Shuwen, Zhou Qingmei, and Lu Xiaoqing remained in the hall.
Of the other two who were still breathing, one was the half-dead Guan Tianyue, and the other was the person who had kept his face hidden beneath a hood all along.
Guan Tianyue was alive because Xu Chongshan wanted him to suffer every possible torment.
The hooded man was alive because Fang Shuwen had deliberately spared him.
He found the man a little strange. The way he and Feng Mantian interacted was odd: Feng Mantian's martial arts were superior to his, yet Fang Shuwen always had the impression that Feng Mantian seemed quite wary of him.
Fang Shuwen also remembered something...
He had once asked Zhang Fang what backing the Black Sha Cult had to destroy the Pearl Pavilion so brazenly.
Zhang Fang had mentioned an organization.
But he had not known much about the details.
The way Feng Mantian and the hooded man interacted made Fang Shuwen wonder whether the man had any connection to that organization.
That was why he had spared his life for the time being.
With nothing else to do now, he planned to go over and use the man's life once again to experiment with "a single thread."
The results he had obtained from Zhang Fang last time had not been ideal.
The technique could indeed inflict immense pain, but it also caused tremendous harm.
What Fang Shuwen wanted was a method like [Pain-Person Sutra], one that could inflict immense pain on an opponent while avoiding injury.
Otherwise, he would always have to worry that the person would die under torture before he had dug out all their secrets.
But just as he was about to act, a system notification suddenly arrived without warning.
[Ding! Mission to protect Zhou Qingmei completed! Calculating reward!]
[Ding! Reward calculation successful!]
[Congratulations, host! You have obtained Beiming Shengong at the great perfection realm!]
[Would you like to claim it immediately?]
"Huh?"
Fang Shuwen stared in surprise at the notification that had appeared before him.
Now that Li Nanchen and Feng Mantian were dead, and the Black Sha Cult's people were about to be killed or scattered, the crisis had been resolved, and Zhou Qingmei naturally no longer had to die.
So the notification had come at just the right time.
The problem was that the mission reward was actually [Beiming Shengong]!
[Beiming Shengong] was naturally formidable, and if it had been the first reward, Fang Shuwen would have had no objection.
But the problem was that this martial art was his second reward.
He remembered that cultivating this martial art required one to discard all of one's cultivation.
Discard [Muscle Tendon Change] for the sake of [Beiming Shengong]?
Fang Shuwen could not bring himself to do that...
But if he claimed [Beiming Shengong] while keeping [Muscle Tendon Change], he did not know whether there would be any problems.
"Brother Fang?"
Zhou Qingmei saw him take a step, only to stop suddenly, and was puzzled.
"What's wrong?"
Fang Shuwen came back to his senses and shook his head.
Having claimed [Muscle Tendon Change] once before, he knew that claiming an internal art required some time to guide his Qi back to its source.
This was not a suitable time to claim it.
Now that he knew what it was, he could simply claim it when he had time.
With that thought, he resumed his original pace and came to the hooded man's side.
He pulled back the hood, revealing an unremarkable face.
But the man's face was deathly pale now, and he was in poor condition.
Fang Shuwen had shattered many of the man's meridians and acupoints with internal force, and his legs had been twisted out of shape when he crashed into Feng Mantian and Guan Tianyue.
Now, he looked as though he was breathing out more than he was breathing in.
Fang Shuwen reached out and patted his face, but the man showed no reaction.
He immediately brought his index and middle fingers together. With a turn of his internal breath, the thread drawn out by his internal force appeared in his perception.
With a thought, he slightly reduced the amount of True Qi in the thread and sent it into an acupoint.
The hooded man, whose eyes had been tightly shut, suddenly snapped them open and let out a piercing scream.
It had forcibly roused him from his unconscious state.
A thought stirred in Fang Shuwen's mind, and he immediately asked,
"Who exactly are you?"
Only then did the hooded man understand his current predicament, but he clenched his teeth tightly.
"...Don't even think about it. I won't tell..."
So this fellow really was not one of the Black Sha Cult's people!
Fang Shuwen raised an eyebrow slightly and immediately applied a little more force.
The next moment, the hooded man indeed could no longer bear it and let out a scream.
But immediately afterward, blood flowed from all seven of his orifices.
He should already have been breathing his last, and now he began to fade before their eyes.
Seeing this, Fang Shuwen withdrew the thread.
"Still not talking?"
The hooded man's unfocused pupils regained a little focus.
His body trembled beyond even his own control. Watching Fang Shuwen bring his index and middle fingers together, he finally spoke, but what he said left Fang Shuwen somewhat baffled.
In a thread of a voice, he uttered six words:
"Ten thousand miles... shocked!
"...Emperor... upon the throne!!"
As his words fell, a deep red suddenly gleamed in his eyes, and fierce flames leaped from within his body.
Fang Shuwen's expression changed. He swiftly reached out, seized him, and flung him out of the hall.
With a bang, the hooded man suddenly exploded into a rain of fire that scattered in sparks across the square in front of the hall.
Fortunately, there was nothing flammable in the square, or a great fire would probably have been unavoidable.
Even so, the sudden turn of events left those present looking at one another.
"Ten thousand miles shocked, emperor upon the throne?"
Lu Xiaoqing said softly,
"What does that mean?"
"His words probably weren't complete... I'm afraid those six words alone don't tell us much.
"And why did he catch fire?"
Zhou Qingmei looked at Fang Shuwen instinctively.
Fang Shuwen narrowed his eyes slightly.
"Those flames came from another stream of True Qi. I only noticed it when it erupted, but I don't know whether he used that True Qi to set himself alight, or whether someone acted from the shadows..."
If it was the former, it meant the man was remarkably tight-lipped, preferring to risk death rather than reveal a single word.
If it was the latter... that was even more dangerous. It meant the Pearl Pavilion's crisis had not been resolved, and someone was still hiding in the shadows.
But either way, Fang Shuwen's mission was complete.
As for the Pearl Pavilion's affairs from here on, he only needed to give them a warning.
Just then, the sound of rushing wind reached the hall.
A figure flashed, and Zuo Qingshuang appeared before them, a longsword in her hand.
"That was satisfying! After thirty years, those Black Sha Cult scoundrels have actually produced so many monstrous fiends with copper skin and iron bones. They were harder to kill than the Black Sha Cult's little devil spawn!
"Young Hero Fang, the Pearl Pavilion will hold a feast tonight. We must drink until we're drunk!!
"Oh, right, what was that flash of fire just now?"