Ning Family

Yang Jing hurried along until he was several li away from Fenglou Village before turning into a desolate stretch of woods.

He rummaged through his pack for a clean set of coarse cloth clothes and, by moonlight, quickly changed out of the bloodstained garments he wore.

The blood had long since congealed into a dark red in the cold wind, carrying a sickly sweet stench that made his stomach tighten.

Yang Jing rolled the dirty clothes into a bundle, found a dry pile of dead branches, and took out a fire starter to set them alight.

The flames licked at the cloth, quickly surging into a blaze that burned that dark red stain, along with any traces that might expose him, into ashes.

He watched the fire until the embers cooled, then buried them with dirt and stomped on the spot a few times to make sure nothing looked amiss.

Only after finishing all this did he circle around again, lean against the trunk of a large tree, and pull the money pouch from his chest.

His fingers trembled slightly when they touched the knot at its opening.

When he untied it, he found a full eleven taels of silver inside, along with two small bits of broken silver, gleaming cold white beneath the moonlight.

Yang Jing swallowed. This was the largest sum of money he had seen since crossing into this world.

It truly bore out the old saying: murder and arson bring golden belts, while building bridges and mending roads leave no corpse behind.

He drew a deep breath and suppressed the surging emotions in his heart.

Then he took out three taels and the two bits of broken silver, tucking them into his sleeve. With the remaining eight taels and the pouch, he found an old locust tree deep in the woods, used his dagger to dig a deep pit, buried them, covered it with a thick layer of earth, and pressed several stones atop it as markers.

This silver was both a hidden danger and a way out. To be safe, Yang Jing did not carry it on him for now.

After dealing with everything, Yang Jing did not linger and hurried through the night toward the Post Station outside the city.

The Post Station's lanterns cast a dim yellow glow in the frigid night. The night watchman yawned, took twenty copper coins from him, and pointed him toward an inner guest room.

It was much like the room he had stayed in last time. When he pushed open the door, the furnishings inside were sparse: only a hard plank bed, a low table, and a few chairs.

Yang Jing shut the door behind him and slid down against it to sit on the floor.

Only then, with the dust settled and no one else in the room, did the emotions he had been forcibly suppressing suddenly come crashing over him.

He raised his right hand and stared at it. Though he had washed it, he still felt as though his fingertips carried that warm, bloody smell.

The calm he had maintained while killing Feng Lei had been like a thin sheet of ice. Now it abruptly shattered, leaving only an unstoppable wave of lingering fear.

The muffled gasp when Feng Lei's throat had been slit, the sensation of his body convulsing, the blood that had splashed onto his hand—scene after scene flickered before his eyes. Yang Jing's heart pounded wildly, and even his breathing grew ragged.

This was the first time in both his lives that he had killed someone with his own hands, staining them with human blood.

It was not that he was unafraid. It was simply that anger and resolve had driven him then, allowing not the slightest hesitation.

But now, sitting alone in the Post Station room, the reality of killing someone washed over him like a tide and drowned him.

Tension clenched his stomach, and unease chilled his entire body.

He had killed someone. From this day onward, his hands would no longer be hands that had merely held a blade and practiced martial arts.

After all, it was his first time personally ending a life. The lingering fear in his heart even threw his breathing into disorder.

Yang Jing sat on the floor, closed his eyes, and calmed himself for a while. His fingertips dug hard into the rough floor as he slowly steadied his mind.

In the darkness, he thought of his family: the filth splashed over their courtyard gate; Heizi, the dog his uncle's family had raised for years, kicked to death by Feng Lei; the helplessness and repression of his grandfather, grandmother, and mother; his father signing up to join a grain convoy for a little silver; the bleached bones of refugees in this chaotic age; the blades of bandits.

Those images branded his heart like red-hot irons, and the panic from moments ago gradually ebbed away.

When he opened his eyes again, not a trace of hesitation remained in Yang Jing's gaze.

He slowly rose to his feet, walked to the table, and sat down. He raised a hand to touch his throat, then looked at his palm. The sensation of killing was still there, but it no longer frightened him.

So personally ending a life was not as unbearable as he had imagined.

He was even faintly excited!

This world was already in chaos. The weak were prey for the strong; if you did not raise your blade, you could only wait to be slaughtered.

People like Feng Lei relied on powerful landlords behind them to suppress the good and bully the common folk. No one knew how much suffering of innocents stained his hands. Killing him was both revenge and self-preservation.

"Rather than wait for others to kill me, I'd rather strike first."

Yang Jing murmured to himself, his voice especially clear in the empty room.

He clenched his fists until his fingertips turned white, a flash of ruthlessness passing through his eyes.

The next day.

Feng Lei's lackeys waited and waited for him, then went together to Feng Lei's home, where they found Feng Lei's corpse already cold in bed.

News of Feng Lei's murder quickly spread through Wazi Township.

Everyone who heard it clapped their hands in delight.

"What? Feng Lei is dead?"

"Serves him right. He should have died long ago!"

"Just as the old saying goes: good is rewarded with good, evil with evil. It is not that retribution does not come, only that the time has not yet arrived. Now the King of Hell has come to collect him."

Meanwhile, the Ning Family also sent people to investigate, but they found no leads.

With Feng Lei dead, the Ning Family had also lost a major claw.

Wazi Township, Ning Family, study.

Ning Xuezhi, head of the Ning Family, sat in a chair. He was around fifty, with slightly graying hair, naturally puffy eyelids, and deeply furrowed brows. The tip of his right index finger tapped the tabletop from time to time.

He had originally been in the city celebrating a friend's birthday and planning to enjoy himself for a few days. But upon learning that Feng Lei had been killed, he had immediately rushed back.

Knock, knock, knock.

At that moment, the study door was knocked on.

Ning Xuezhi lifted his head and said in a somewhat hoarse voice, "Come in."

As Ning Xuezhi's voice fell, the Ning Family's steward pushed open the door and walked in, holding a sheet of paper.

The steward walked to the desk and handed the paper to Ning Xuezhi. "Master, please take a look. This is the list you requested. I just finished compiling it with the people below."

Ning Xuezhi took the paper, spread it out across the desk, and began examining it closely.

More than twenty names were written on the paper. Every one of them represented someone who had had disputes or conflicts with Feng Lei.

Ning Xuezhi went through the names one by one.

Some people on the list he knew, while others he did not.

Whenever he came across one he did not know, he asked the steward standing beside him.

Before he had become involved with the Ning Family, Feng Lei had already spent his days gathering crowds for brawls. Now that he had the Ning Family at his back, with money and grain to support him, he had gathered a band of little thugs beneath him and run rampant through the township. What village did not have several people who hated him?

"Hmm?"

After reading through sixteen or seventeen names, Ning Xuezhi's gaze fell upon the next one—Yang Jing.

"Old Shi, who is this Yang Jing?" Ning Xuezhi asked with a frown.

Steward Shi glanced at the name on the list atop the desk, thought for a moment, and replied, "He is the grandson of Yang Shouzhuo from Yang Family Village. He is currently studying martial arts at the Sun Clan Martial Arts School in the city."

"A martial arts school disciple?" At this, Ning Xuezhi's brow immediately furrowed even deeper.