Bai Wuji, Minor Self-Harm Skill

Su Que took Luo You away, plunging into the shadows cast by the buildings along the streets and alleys. After flying through them for a while, he finally set him down in an empty corner.

The moment he put him down, he began searching Luo You's body.

He first found two fifty-tael silver ingots and two hundred-tael silver notes in his outer garments.

Then, he slipped his hand into Luo You's clothes and felt around.

From within Luo You's underclothes, he pulled out a yellowed sheet of xuan paper and a worn piece of sheepskin parchment.

Su Que spread the two sheets open and examined them one by one.

The yellowed paper recorded the method for making a medicinal powder called "Sun-Rising Powder."

The worn sheepskin parchment, meanwhile, contained the cultivation method for the "Dark Yin Finger."

"Looks like Luo You was afraid of keeping these things in his residence and having them stolen, so he carried them on him."

"This saves me quite a bit of trouble!"

Su Que secretly rejoiced.

Even so, he did not kill Luo You.

He slapped Luo You on the shoulder and sent a strand of Wedding Dress Divine Skill true qi into his body.

The true qi rushed toward his limbs, instantly shattering the meridians in all four of them.

Pain jolted Luo You awake.

Su Que did not waste words. He directly pressed down on Luo You's head. "If you don't want to die, answer my questions!"

The first thing Luo You did after waking was circulate his Dark Yin True Qi, intending to attack Su Que.

But he immediately discovered that when the Dark Yin True Qi rose from his dantian and traveled toward his right shoulder, it simply dissipated.

To his horror, he realized that every meridian in his limbs had been severed.

This had undoubtedly cut off his path in martial arts forever!

"Answer your grandmother! Just kill me!"

Luo You was instantly heartbroken beyond measure. He was only twenty-eight, already a Three Blood Martial Artist, with an exceedingly bright future ahead of him.

Yet he had suddenly become a cripple. He could not accept it!

Su Que said nothing, directly pouring Wedding Dress Divine Skill true qi into Luo You's body.

At once, the Wedding Dress Divine Skill true qi ran rampant within him.

Luo You immediately felt numbness, itching, and pain writhing through his body. The sensation was simply worse than death.

"W-warrior... please stop!"

Tormented by the Wedding Dress Divine Skill true qi until saliva streamed from his mouth and sweat poured down him, he hurriedly begged for mercy. "Y-you... ask whatever you want... I'll answer!"

Su Que then withdrew the Wedding Dress Divine Skill true qi.

"What is Bai Wuji's strength?"

"A Fifth Blood Organ Refining martial artist."

"How can I find him?"

"Leave a mark on the city wall, and his messenger will come contact you."

The answer matched what Jing Sha had said.

Bang!

After thinking for a moment and finding nothing else worth asking, Su Que immediately brought down a fist. Luo You's skull shattered, blood and brains splattering everywhere.

After shaking the filth that had been blocked by the true qi around his fist onto the ground, Su Que left with the manual, the prescription, and the silver.

Within Jing Sha's residence, the White Lotus Disciples grew flustered when they saw Luo You being abducted.

Jing Sha's Deputy, the strongest among these White Lotus Disciples and the one with the most authority, steadied himself before hurriedly taking several White Lotus Disciples to report what had happened to their Hall Master, Jing Sha.

The Deputy and the others called outside Jing Sha's courtyard for some time. When no one answered from within, they exchanged glances.

Gritting his teeth, the Deputy decided to defy Jing Sha's orders and lead the other White Lotus Disciples into the courtyard to take a look.

They entered the courtyard, and after passing around the flowers, grass, and trees, they immediately spotted the corpses of three White Lotus lackeys.

Taking a few more steps inward, they saw Jing Sha dead in the training room.

"Hall Master has been killed!"

Seeing Jing Sha's gruesome state, his skull shattered, they could not help but be shocked.

"Who could smash Hall Master Jing's skull apart with a single punch?"

They looked at one another in dismay.

Jing Sha was a Three Blood Martial Artist, yet someone had shattered his skull with a single punch. This showed just how ruthless and formidable the killer was.

"C-could it have been that mysterious person?"

Deputy and the others suddenly thought of the mysterious person who had recently become the talk of the White Lotus Cult—the one who had first killed the medicine-transporting lackeys, then Fan Wuyang.

"Could the one who abducted Hall Master Luo also have been that mysterious person?"

"Don't tell me that mysterious person killed Hall Master Jing, then went on to kill Hall Master Luo too?"

The White Lotus Disciples made their guesses.

Deputy's eyes widened as he hurriedly ordered the other White Lotus Disciples:

"You, go contact the Altar Master."

The Altar Master was none other than Bai Wuji, the White Lotus Cult's top man in Jade Water City.

"You lot, take more men and go out to look for Hall Master Luo."

Several White Lotus Disciples accepted their orders and left.

At an inconspicuous spot on Jade Water City's western wall, the White Lotus Disciple tasked with contacting Bai Wuji used a stone to draw several crooked lines upon it.

To outsiders, it would look like nothing more than a child's scribbling, but the White Lotus Disciples knew that these were communication symbols used within their cult.

After about half an hour, several White Lotus Disciples finally found Luo You's corpse in an abandoned corner and carried it back to the residence.

When Deputy and the other White Lotus Disciples saw the state of Luo You's corpse, the corners of their eyes twitched.

He had died in exactly the same manner as Jing Sha—his skull had been shattered.

Moreover, aside from the bloodstains on Jing Sha's and Luo You's clothes caused by their shattered heads, there was not the slightest sign that they had struggled.

This showed that the mysterious person's strength was exceedingly terrifying. Jing Sha and Luo You had not even had room to fight back before being killed in a single strike.

The White Lotus Disciples looked at the two corpses, exchanging glances as an atmosphere of terror settled over them.

Two Hall Masters had died just like that.

None of them knew whether they, too, might one day be killed by that mysterious person.

They often killed people to establish their authority, all so that martial artists and commoners who dared entertain thoughts of resisting them would be cast into this same atmosphere of terror.

Yet they had never imagined that they themselves would also end up within it.

Bai Wuji was a middle-aged Daoist with a rather immortal, transcendent bearing.

His residence was a manor outside Jade Water City.

Every morning, just before the rising sun broke over the horizon, he would naturally awaken.

Dressed in a plain white robe and barefoot, he would climb to the tallest building in the manor and sit cross-legged facing the east, where the sky was faintly whitening like a fish's belly.

When the morning sun rose, he would cultivate his internal arts before it.

This was because he cultivated the Minor Self-Harm Art, an internal art that traded damage to one's meridians for rapid progress and tremendous power.

Though its progress and power could not compare to the Wedding Dress Divine Skill, at the very least, the Minor Self-Harm Art did not require one to disperse one's cultivation.

Moreover, after several decades of practice, he had also worked out certain methods to reduce the harm and make up for the damage this internal art inflicted upon the body.

For instance, cultivating when the morning sun first rose could lessen the damage this internal art caused his body.

Beyond that, he came from the Daoist school and was quite knowledgeable in alchemy. He had developed a medicinal pill that could not only speed up his cultivation, but also nourish his body and repair the damage the Minor Self-Harm Art inflicted upon his meridians.

By the time the sun had fully risen and morning light shone across the land, a series of footsteps sounded behind him.

Knowing that a messenger had something to report, Bai Wuji slowly withdrew his cultivation and asked, "What is it?"

"Altar Master, there is a mark on the city wall. It seems something major has happened at Jing Sha's stronghold!" the messenger said.

"Go and take a look," Bai Wuji said.