The Coming Chaos, the Gao Family in Peril

Ever since Li Cunxiao came by that time, Gao Cheng's life had visibly improved.

Not only had the shopkeeper raised his wages, but Master Zhang, who had always been rigid, seemed to have finally come to his senses and taught him the third dish he had learned in five years since becoming an apprentice.

With something to look forward to in life, Gao Cheng worked even harder and left home early in the morning.

With her husband gone, Sister-in-law Gao could not sit idle either. Though she had a few minor flaws, she was actually a diligent woman. Washing clothes, cooking meals, chopping firewood—she kept everything in good order.

But she had barely worked for long when someone knocked on the door. Sister-in-law Gao had been sewing winter clothes for Huzi. Hearing the sound, she picked up a fire poker and moved to the crack in the door. Only after seeing a familiar face did she let out a breath.

Words such as Fanzhen Separatism and a tail too large for the dog to wag might not mean much to ordinary folk scraping by on meager incomes. But whether there were more and more beggars in the streets and alleys, and whether grain at the rice shops was getting more and more expensive, was plain for all to see.

The times were worsening, and everyone walked on eggshells. Without needing her husband to remind her, Sister-in-law Gao had begun keeping a close eye on Huzi lately, hardly daring to let him go out and play.

"Little sister of the Gao family, I've come to see you again."

"Aunt Zhou, didn't I tell you? I'm not going to that whatever-it-is preaching gathering."

Aunt Zhou wore white hemp clothing, with a black kerchief wrapped around her head. The scent of incense and candles clung to her. She looked to be in her forties or fifties, and years of labor had left her skin exceptionally rough.

Yet when she spoke, there was not much misery on her face. Instead, she carried a touch of compassion.

"When the Bright Envoy emerges into the world, he shall enlighten all living beings and free them from every suffering."

"...Little sister of the Gao family, this world is a dark Sea of Suffering. To have a Bright Envoy proclaim the gospel is an immense blessing."

Sister-in-law Gao remained unmoved. She raised a hand to shut the door, and seeing this, the old woman hurriedly said:

"It's not for nothing. You get eggs just for attending."

Sister-in-law Gao's hand stopped at once, and her eyes lit up.

"You get them just for going?"

When Aunt Zhou nodded, Sister-in-law Gao hesitated briefly. She first went back inside to instruct her son not to run about and to practice writing at home on a clay tablet—something Li Cunxiao had taught him.

After tidying everything up, she took a basket and went out, making the old woman surnamed Zhou's mouth twitch.

She did not care about any Bright Envoy or whatever else. She would take the eggs and leave. Surely nothing could happen, right?

The autumn sky was high and the air crisp, and a line of wild geese flew overhead.

A loose feather drifted and swayed. Just as it was about to land on the escort cart, it was snatched from the air by a large, knuckle-jointed hand.

Li Cunxiao turned back. The gates of Chuqiu County City had already shrunk into the distance. Ahead of him, the wooden wheels of two escort carts rolled over the dirt road, kicking up clouds of yellow dust.

The Flying Tiger Escort Agency was one of the foremost major escort agencies in Chuqiu County. Whenever it undertook an escort mission, it valued quality over quantity.

For short journeys, there would usually be one escort leader and eight escorts.

The eight escorts were at least capable of manipulating Blood Essence, and some were martial artists who had achieved the Minor Circulation of Blood Qi or even the Major Circulation.

As for the escort leader, he was a martial artist of the second major realm, the Muscle Realm.

Not to mention that among these eight men, four used saber and shield while four wielded long staffs. All had been personally drilled in military formations by the Cui brothers. A force like this could not be held back by a few dozen ordinary bandits.

"So, Brother Li, set your mind at ease. If one out of every ten Escort Missions taken by our Flying Tiger Escort Agency ran into trouble, that would already be considered rare."

"Among the local tyrants and country gentry around Chuqiu County, who wouldn't give Chief Escort some face?"

"Only vagrants and refugees too blind to know better would dare clash with our convoy. The more established they are, whether it's the Firewood Gang or the Eight Kings Bandits, the less they would dare lay a hand on us."

As Li Cunxiao listened to Qian Laosan boast away, he scanned the scenery outside the city. Broadly speaking, it was indeed as the man had said.

Half an hour after leaving the city, only the occasional horse-drawn carriage or ox cart passed along the official road. There were not many travelers, so if anything looked amiss, they could spot it immediately.

Not far to either side of the official road stretched vast, continuous fields. It was the autumn harvest season, and golden wheat heads rose and fell like waves in the wind. Aside from the busy farmers, there were even some sturdy household guards watching nearby.

These were all fields belonging to Lineages within the inner city. One of those plots might well belong to Zhang Lishi.

"It seems that although the times are about to descend into chaos, there is still some order for now. Even if it is an order built on the masters squeezing the people dry, it is still better than being sent into the vegetable market and becoming two-legged sheep."

Listening to Qian Laosan talk at length, Li Cunxiao took the chance to ask:

"Third Brother Qian, tell me, what powerful figures are there outside the city?"

Qian Laosan chuckled and held up three fingers.

"Not many. Just three."

"First is the Firewood Gang. They occupy Pingqiu Mountain, the closest mountain to Chuqiu County. There are quite a few nimble hunters there too. When they run short of money and grain, it's not as if these people have never done bandit work."

"Second are the Eight Kings Bandits. They have around a hundred men and gather at Iron Horn Mountain. For twenty li out of Chuqiu, it's our territory. Beyond twenty li, it can be considered the Eight Kings Bandits' territory."

"Third Brother, why twenty li?" Since it concerned the safety of an escort mission, Li Cunxiao asked whenever he did not understand.

"Ahem, the military manuals say," Qian Laosan replied, clearly enjoying himself. These words had been repeated until stale, and only in front of newcomers could he still show off with them.

"When matters are unhurried, cavalry must travel one hundred and twenty li day and night, while carts and infantry travel eighty li. When matters are urgent, cavalry travels one hundred and fifty li day and night, while carts and infantry travel one hundred li."

"That means elite soldiers can march eighty li in a day. Those eighty li are the range a spear and saber can keep under threat."

"But Chuqiu's city guards are far from elite, and cavalry? There isn't a trace of them."

"Those fellows move about as fast as we do, twenty or thirty li a day. So you understand now, right?"

Li Cunxiao pondered this and could not help recalling the soldiers he had seen when leaving the city. Their clothes were reasonably neat, but not one of them wore a proper piece of armor.

Only some of the leaders wore half suits of Lamellar Armor. According to the others in the ranks, those leaders were all trusted men of the county magistrate.

Then weren't those city guards the private army of county magistrate Murong Bai?

Li Cunxiao silently committed this to memory. Just as he was about to ask about the third danger, a sudden shout came from the front of the convoy.

"Stay alert!"

Qian Laosan's expression turned grave. He carried his saber and shield to the front, while Li Cunxiao took a step back and formed a staff formation with three others. Far in the distance, they could only see several black dots at the end of the official road.

On a tall horse to one side sat the escort leader who had shouted just now, Ge Yingyang.

He drew his bow and nocked an arrow. At some point, the brown rings around his black pupils had changed into golden rings around black pupils. The golden outer rings expanded, and for a moment it seemed as though the whites of his eyes had vanished entirely, making his eyes resemble those of a hawk.

"Go!"

With a soft cry, the arrow tore through the air like lightning. The people beside him could not even see its shadow, but a moment later, they heard the escort leader snort coldly.

"Cunning beast. It runs quite fast."

Li Cunxiao had been paying attention to the only Second Realm Martial Artist in the party and naturally saw the change in Ge Yingyang's eyes.

He could not help recalling the supernatural changes described in the Pure Yang Sixteen Hands, which a martial artist would develop after using the Demon Seduction Method to break through into the Second Realm.

But when he looked again, Escort Leader Ge's eyes had returned to normal.

After the convoy traveled a little farther, the other escorts found a pool of blood beside a clump of brush by the road. Catching its fishy stench, Li Cunxiao immediately felt a familiar sensation.

It was a demon.

"There are demons spying on the road even in broad daylight?"

Escort Leader Ge and several senior escorts looked grim, but the escorts in their twenties did not notice anything. They merely praised Escort Leader Ge's divine archery.

The saying Hundred Paces Through Willow referred to ancient measurements, where one step was called a kui and two steps made one pace. A hundred paces came to roughly one hundred twenty or thirty meters, yet Escort Leader Ge's arrow had traveled nearly two hundred meters.

"Could this Escort Leader Ge's ability be hawk eyes?"

Li Cunxiao had heard that among the eight escort leaders of the agency—the eight Second Realm Martial Artists—four were Chief Escort Zhang Lishi's personal disciples, while the other four had been recruited and each possessed a unique skill.

In fact, for those who reached Blood Qi Perfection after the age of twenty but had not been accepted by Zhang Lishi, the best path was to become apprentices to one of these four escort leaders.

Chief Escort Zhang Lishi was famous for his double-handed long saber and was known as the "Tiger-Eyed Mad Saber."

Tiger eyes? Could that mean night vision?

Once the alert was lifted, Qian Laosan stepped back and spoke quietly to Li Cunxiao.

"The third dangerous sort is demons. Beside roads, in the bushes, inside streams—demons might be anywhere."

"There are hundreds upon thousands of Demon Species, and their abilities are strange in every possible way. They devour people like mad, fierce and cruel. Bandits can still be bought off with money, but demons do not reason with you."

"Our escort agency can travel unhindered only because Chief Escort and the others have braved danger time and again on Escort Missions, gathering maps—maps of what demons live where and what their habits are."

"If Brother Li becomes an escort leader someday, you'll have a chance to see that map."

Once Qian Laosan finished speaking, he lost all interest in conversation. They continued onward after that, and apart from stopping at noon to eat some dry provisions, the convoy never halted again.

They occasionally encountered groups of refugees along the road. Some of the bolder ones were shot dead from a hundred meters away before they could even approach, and the rest no longer dared come forward.

At a quarter past the hour of You in the afternoon, the convoy arrived safely at its destination: a Fortified Village still under construction.

The owner of the Fortified Village was the client who had hired them for this escort job, the Xie Family, a powerful local clan of Wowo Township. Li Cunxiao and the others would rest there for the night, replenish food and water, then return the next day.

"Escort Leader Ge, brothers, you've worked hard escorting this cargo all the way! Someone, prepare wine!"

The Xie Family head was a hospitable man. Before the cargo had even been unloaded, he was already arranging a welcoming feast for the Flying Tiger Escort Agency. The respect and enthusiasm in his manner surprised Li Cunxiao somewhat.

"Surprised?"

With the cargo delivered, Qian Laosan immediately became lively again. He slung an arm around Li Cunxiao's shoulder and said with a quiet grin:

"The Xie Family may be a major clan out here in the countryside, but when it comes to martial strength, only Xie Thirteen is a Second Realm Martial Artist. They can barely scrape together a dozen people in the Blood Qi Realm. They are nowhere near as strong as our escort agency."

"Besides, with these two carts carrying nearly a thousand taels of silver in goods, other than us, who could guarantee delivering every last bit intact?"

Li Cunxiao said nothing for a moment. He only watched the household guards unload the cargo. It was not grain or daily necessities, but bolts of silk, pieces of fur, gold and silver jewelry, fine porcelain, and spices—luxuries meant for indulgence.

Meanwhile, in the fields outside the Fortified Village, ragged tenant farmers sweated like rain, desperately swinging sickles over land that did not belong to them. They hoped to finish a little more before dark—after cutting the rice, they still had to dry, pound, and mill it.

Li Cunxiao suddenly felt as though none of it were real.

The realm clearly stood on the verge of splintering into pieces, with beacon fires ready to rise on every side. Yet while poor farmers struggled for a mouthful of food and a few coins of silver, the masters standing on the field ridges could throw away a fortune merely to preserve their dignity.

If this had been his previous life, it would undoubtedly have heralded a storm rising from the lowest ranks.

But.

"...Brother Li? What are you looking at?"

Qian Laosan noticed Li Cunxiao's gaze and followed it. What he saw was the beautiful scene of wind sweeping through the fields, making golden waves rise and fall. Thinking Li Cunxiao had grown up in the city and never seen such sights, he teased:

"Come to think of it, Chief Escort also owns an estate. Great Escort Shi usually guards it. The spectacle there is far grander than this."

Great Escort Shi was Shi Tie, Zhang Lishi's eldest disciple.

Li Cunxiao had heard that Shi Tie himself owned several businesses in the city and possessed considerable wealth. As for Chief Escort, there was no need to mention him.

Yet Zhang Lishi himself had not originally been one of Chuqiu County's powerful elites. The Flying Tiger Escort Agency's foundation had been carved out by him and the Cui brothers with saber and spear. It had only been twenty years, yet they had already become a force that even the inner-city Lineages scrambled to win over.

All of it came from Zhang Lishi's personal strength.

In his previous life, chaotic times were often an opportunity for those at the bottom to rise and reshuffle the deck.

But this was a world where demons and martial arts coexisted.

The future was destined to be a stage for the strong, while the weak would not even have anyone care about their cries before death.

At the nighttime banquet, Li Cunxiao was exceedingly restrained. He drank a few cups out of courtesy, then found an excuse to return to his room early to rest.

He took out the Demon Jerky from his clothes. As heat and Killing Intent spread through it, he practiced the Tiger Form Eight Styles over and over in the room.

After a long while, when the whistling fist wind in the room finally ceased, Li Cunxiao, drenched in sweat, felt refreshed and clear-headed. All the worries from the day vanished like smoke.

Since only strength could give him a foothold in this world, then what he needed to do was seize strength tightly in his own hands.

Focusing his mind, he saw the Vajra Scepter within his mind. Replenished by that piece of demon meat just now, it was finally full once more, radiating a faint golden glow.

After considering it, he gave a low shout in his heart.

Break!

The Vajra Scepter did not react at all.

Li Cunxiao had expected it, but he could not help feeling somewhat disappointed.

He had originally wondered whether, beyond simply breaking through, the Vajra Scepter could also deduce further possibilities based on martial arts he already possessed and elevate them to a new realm.

But it seemed that was impossible.

Without a method, even the cleverest housewife could not cook without rice.

Still, perhaps the Vajra Scepter could not do it now, but might have room to upgrade in the future?

"I remember that Vajra Scepters come in single-pronged, three-pronged, five-pronged, and nine-pronged forms."

"Vajra Scepter, pull yourself together. You're already a mature treasure. You need to grow on your own."

Muttering about his hopes for the future, Li Cunxiao gave himself a simple wipe-down with hot water and went to sleep early.

Gao Cheng hummed a little tune, carrying half a roast goose wrapped up for takeaway and some braised bones. With light steps, he headed home.

As the saying went, when happy events came, one's spirit soared. The Li brothers he had always worried about had finally found a good place to go. Li Cunxiao could even give something back to him, his former good big brother. His son's illness was cured, his wages had gone up, and both the shopkeeper and Master Zhang had become kinder.

"Heh, the good days are still ahead."

Gao Cheng thought happily. Yet as he neared home, he suddenly saw two constables in dark uniforms standing guard outside his door, and his expression changed at once.

These constables and yamen runners had another nickname: Bad People. They were often selected from among strong young men with blemished records.

The advantage was that, being streetborn themselves and familiar with civilian gangs, the Bad People knew where to find leads when hunting murderers and catching thieves.

Moreover, unlike certain hereditary clerks, no one would feel sorry if these Bad People died or were injured. They could simply be discarded.

In short: temporary workers.

"Are you Gao Cheng?"

Before Gao Cheng could step forward, the man among the yamen runners whose tattoo was faintly visible at his collar took the initiative to speak. His gaze was like that of someone eyeing a fat sheep for slaughter.

"Your wife took part in a Vegetable Demon Cult gathering. She was caught on the spot and has now been thrown into prison."

"Speak! What connection does your family have with the Ming Cult?"

Gao Cheng's face turned deathly pale. The paper package in his hand dropped to the ground with a slap.

"Sir constable, we've been wronged!"