Watching the child's innocent delight turn into cautious fear, Zhao Heishe shifted his gaze to Li Cunxiao, who had already shielded his younger brother behind him. His expression suddenly softened.
"Li Sanlang, with your parents gone and you alone dragging around a burden, it hasn't been easy, has it?"
"I see you're seventeen or eighteen already. Don't you want to marry a wife and live a steady, peaceful life?"
"Actually, your younger brother isn't bad-looking. Big households are short of bookboys like him."
He wore the look of someone genuinely considering another's circumstances, as though he had moved even himself. He stepped forward a few paces and lowered his voice.
"Think about it. You work at the restaurant, and in a month you earn only a tael or a few coins of silver. The two of you go hungry and wear ragged clothes. What hope is there in that?"
"But if your brother enters a wealthy household, he'll not only eat and drink well; perhaps he'll even be able to support you someday."
Zhao Heishe's spittle flew as he spoke, but Li Cunxiao remained silent throughout. He merely felt a small hand slip into his palm and smiled at the tightly furrowed little face.
Seeing that he had talked until his lips were dry without moving the other party in the slightest, Zhao Heishe grew angry at Li Cunxiao's failure to appreciate his favor and raised his voice.
"Li Sanlang, I'm doing this for your own good!"
"If I come today, I can still find your brother a good household."
"But tomorrow, the one who comes might not be me."
"As for where he'll end up," his tone grew increasingly sinister,
"Steward Zhao from East Corner Tower Street doesn't care whether they're male or female, meat or vegetables."
Before his words had faded, a large-knuckled fist suddenly filled his vision. Zhao Heishe shut his eyes in fright, but after a few breaths, when he opened them again, all he saw was a few bits of broken silver lying in an outstretched palm.
"Brother Zhao, regarding my younger brother, please don't tell anyone. No one else really knows you came here today, right?"
Li Cunxiao lowered his head, his voice deep and low, his expression impossible to see.
Zhao Heishe noticed nothing amiss. Accustomed to bullying the good and weak, he merely assumed Li Cunxiao had yielded. At the sight of the broken silver, he happily snatched it into his hand.
Weighing it, he reckoned it was around one-tenth of a tael, enough for wine.
Along with certain schemes not fit to be spoken of before outsiders, he immediately stopped pestering Li Cunxiao and heavily patted his shoulder.
"Hahahahaha! I'm a hero of the Green Snake Gang! Don't worry, I won't tell a soul about what happened today!"
With that, he left with an inexplicable smile on his face.
As his footsteps faded away, Li Muxia, hiding behind the young man, let out a breath of relief. His upturned little face was filled with worry.
"Big Brother, don't be angry anymore."
"Big Brother isn't angry." Li Cunxiao crouched before his younger brother and forcibly squeezed out a smile.
Yet the delicate little face before him only scrunched up tighter.
"Big Brother's smile is so ugly. And every time you get angry, your face turns as red as a monkey's butt."
Li Cunxiao's expression froze.
He had no idea what was wrong with this body in this life. Being born fierce-looking was one thing, but whenever he became angry, his blood and qi surged upward with astonishing speed, turning his face red as a date, just like Guan Gong.
That was why he had forced himself to lower his head earlier. It was not because he had been frightened or yielded, but because he did not want Zhao Heishe to notice anything.
If his younger brother had not been behind him, he would have wanted to beat Zhao Heishe to death on the spot.
"I've heard that martial artists cultivate blood and qi, tear tigers and wolves apart with their hands, and run faster than galloping horses. There should be some way to fix this problem of mine."
"Otherwise, whenever I get angry, my blood and qi rush to my face, and I can't hide anything in my heart. It'll be hard to gain a foothold when dealing with others."
Zhao Heishe's appearance made Li Cunxiao's desire to practice martial arts all the more urgent.
Although five taels of silver would only let him stay at an Outer City martial school for two months, even the lowest-grade martial school would give him that layer of skin. Small forces like the Green Snake Gang would have to weigh their options and could not act with such utter abandon.
As for forces like the distinguished guests of Tomorrow Restaurant or the Flying Tiger Escort Agency, which had established themselves in both the Inner City and Outer City—if one wanted to enter and learn martial arts there, silver was secondary. One also needed connections. They were not comparable to the Outer City martial schools one could enter merely by paying.
Li Cunxiao entered the house and looked at the straw-covered bed, the room leaking daylight, the stool missing a leg, and his younger brother happily opening the lotus-leaf paper parcel.
Facing the cold leftovers, the delicate little face was full of joy.
"Big Brother, there are bones to eat tonight!"
Li Cunxiao's heart suddenly ached.
The original owner of this body had actually had an older sister and an older brother, but both had died young. That was why the fourth child called him Big Brother.
He remembered that his younger brother in his previous life had been just as innocent and lovable. But that child had not needed to live in a house that leaked rain and wind, nor wear torn clothes that failed to cover his elbows and knees, much less eat other people's leftovers.
For some reason, four heads from the marketplace suddenly appeared in his mind. Fear and confusion still lingered on those honest, weather-beaten faces.
Something quietly changed within him.
Li Cunxiao tucked the family's only firewood chopper into the back of his waistband.
"Little Brother, stay obediently at home. No matter who comes, don't open the door. Wait for Big Brother to return."
"I need to take care of something."
Hearing this, Li Muxia reluctantly but resolutely folded up the lotus-leaf parcel. Without asking why, he hugged the leftovers like a treasure, darted into the shabby cabinet, and shut the door, leaving only a pair of lively eyes exposed.
His movements were practiced. Clearly, this was not his first time.
In that short while, the sun had nearly been swallowed behind the mountains, and night was faintly closing in around the Outer City.
The endless ruined walls and broken remnants cast twisted, demon-like shadows. The late-summer sultry wind carried waves of heat, and the world outside seemed, for a time, like a scorching hell filled with the wails of lonely ghosts.
Li Cunxiao shut the door and strode into it.
The sky was dim, and the secluded alley was utterly deserted.
A burst of hurried footsteps shattered the silence.
Zhao Heishe weighed the silver in his clothes, the fragments rolling together with a pleasant sound.
A ruffian like him naturally did not go shaking down only the Li brothers.
"That Li Sanlang doesn't know what's good for him! But in the end, didn't he still obediently bow his head?"
"Hehe. Don't want to sell your brother? Tomorrow, I'll call some people and sell you off with him to dig mines!"
He imagined the days of eating and drinking his fill once the silver was in hand, never noticing that another person's footsteps had appeared in the alley.
"The little one is handsome. He can sell for ten or twenty taels. The older one is ugly, but he's young and strong. He can be sold too."
The footsteps behind him suddenly thundered closer, accompanied by a vicious gust of wind. No matter how slow Zhao Heishe was, he could not help turning around now.
"Li San—ugh!!!"
Two arms like iron hoops locked tightly around his neck. In only a few breaths, Zhao Heishe's face had turned red, blue veins bulging across it as his hands and feet struggled desperately.
Behind him, Li Cunxiao's face was even more ferocious. The triangle formed by his right arm clamped Zhao Heishe's throat, while his left arm was like a weight on the scales of death, gradually crushing the space at the center of that triangle.
"I only wanted to live a peaceful life with my family. Why... did you have to force me!"
His vicious face, like that of a blood leopard, grew ever more savage. After dozens more breaths, the person in his arms gradually stopped struggling.
Li Cunxiao kept Zhao Heishe locked in his arm and dragged him into a ruined house nearby. Looking at the motionless body, its face bluish-black, he calmly drew out the firewood chopper, grabbed the back of Zhao Heishe's head as though slaughtering a chicken, and aimed at his throat.
Splat.
Blood sprayed.
This time, he was certainly dead.
Just as Li Cunxiao was about to smash the corpse's face with broken bricks from the ground, an unexpected change occurred.
A strand of black smoke suddenly emerged from Zhao Heishe's body and burrowed into Li Cunxiao's.
The next moment, radiance burst forth within his mind.
Li Cunxiao was startled. Before he could think further, countless unfamiliar memories surged forth in a daze, like the chanting of Buddhist sutras and Zen hymns, calming even the slight unrest in his heart after killing someone.
A moment later, when he opened his eyes again, they burned with fervor.
Within his mind was a single-pronged Vajra Scepter. Light shone from one-quarter of it, while the rest remained dim and without light.
The Vajra Scepter. By subduing demons, one could accumulate Obstacle-Breaking Power and continuously break through Martial Arts Techniques.
Demons?
Yao and demons were demons; the human heart was also a demon.
Demons were evil thoughts and wicked intentions such as rage, greed, and slaughter.
Then didn't that mean anyone harboring ill will toward me was a demon?
All could be subdued?
Li Cunxiao was delighted at first, then the look in his eyes as he gazed at the corpse grew increasingly unfriendly. He thought to himself that he truly had not killed the wrong person.
A hoodlum like this broke his word. Today he had accepted the benefit, and tomorrow he might very well bring people to harm them again.
He wanted to eat people twice over. He deserved to die!
Without hesitation, Li Cunxiao stripped off Zhao Heishe's clothes and covered his face, then picked up a broken brick and smashed down fiercely.
Blood soaked through the cloth, but none splashed onto him.
Only when the face had been reduced to an unrecognizable mess did Li Cunxiao take the silver from the body and turn to leave at a brisk pace.
The current authorities only cared when something happened in the Inner City. In the Outer City, they basically practiced "governing by doing nothing." Li Cunxiao had deliberately chosen this secluded place to strike, and no one had seen him. The only possible concern was the Green Snake Gang, but by then, he should have entered a martial school.
No matter what, for himself and his family, Zhao Heishe had to die.
When he returned home, Li Muxia saw his exhausted big brother and sensibly did not ask any questions.
The two brothers ate dinner, and before long, night had deepened. After Li Cunxiao told a little of Monkey King Wreaks Havoc in Heaven, his younger brother's eyelids gradually drooped, and soft snores began to sound.
Li Cunxiao draped his ragged clothes over his younger brother, then quietly pulled out the silver he had saved from beneath the bed. By moonlight, he pondered without end.
Including the three taels from Zhao Heishe, I now have ten taels of silver. Even if I use five taels to learn martial arts, the rest will be enough to keep Little Brother from going hungry.
Martial arts... Does this Vajra Scepter truly possess such wondrous power to break through Martial Arts Techniques?
Thoughts churned in Li Cunxiao's mind. Carrying both anticipation and unease, he unknowingly fell into a deep sleep.
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