Chaos

The chaos came without warning.

One night in April, Chen Mu was sleeping soundly.

A burst of screams rang out.

Chen Mu jolted awake.

Listening closely, the faint wails made him realize something had happened!

He hurriedly threw on some clothes and sprang onto the roof.

He saw fires blazing throughout the city, with the sounds of fighting and screams rising and falling one after another.

Rebel troops were attacking the city?!

He did not dare run outside recklessly.

In this kind of chaos, one careless move could cost him his life.

He could only sit on the roof, warily watching for any movement around him.

Fortunately, the bandits did not begin by sweeping through the commoners.

They were mainly targeting the wealthy households in the city.

Most of the fires were concentrated in the city center.

He tensely watched his surroundings until daylight fully broke and the cries of battle gradually faded.

Accompanied by the faint thunder of galloping horses, Qingshan County fell into a brief calm.

Once the sun rose, cries and wails began erupting everywhere.

After one night of chaos, no one knew how many had died.

Chen Mu kept his gates tightly shut, determined to stay home and not go out.

The bandits had only just left, but the chaos was not over yet.

"Good thing I stocked up on food beforehand."

As grain prices continued to rise and news of rebel troops kept arriving, he had sensed that something was wrong and decisively stockpiled food and medicinal herbs.

With food in hand, he did not panic.

He braced and sealed the gates of all three residences with wooden poles.

Chen Mu stayed quietly at home, steadily grinding Proficiency.

"Wait. Once things settle down completely, I'll go out and investigate."

Two evenings later.

Chen Mu finished a day of training, then ate and rested.

His ears carefully tracked the movements around him.

The chaos still had not completely passed.

Even in the middle of the night, scattered screams could still be heard.

"What are the County Office soldiers doing?"

Two days had passed, yet the authorities still had not come out to quell the chaos and restore order.

"Could the bandits have completely scattered them?"

The thought of going out to take a look was immediately dismissed.

With his martial skills, even if he could not defeat formidable foes, he could still outrun them.

But once it was exposed that he knew martial arts, it might arouse others' curiosity and investigation, eventually bringing trouble.

"Only by keeping a low profile can you live longer."

The waters of this world ran deep.

Anle Ward, East Market.

The doors of the Wonderful Painting Workshop stood wide open.

Paintings, calligraphy, paper, and ink were strewn everywhere inside.

Even the counter had been shoved over and overturned.

There were flecks of blood on the walls as well.

Zhou Liang and Zheng Huan emerged from the shop with sour expressions.

"They cleaned the place out. They didn't even leave a single copper coin for us!" Zhou Liang said bitterly.

"Every wealthy shop nearby has been looted. Should we check out those rich households in Shengye Ward?" Zheng Huan asked unwillingly.

"The wealthy households whose gates were smashed open have already been picked clean," Zhou Liang said helplessly. "And the ones whose gates weren't broken, the two of us can't get into."

"If that doesn't work, we'll find some smaller households. Small gains add up. We can't go back empty-handed," Zheng Huan said through gritted teeth.

The bandits had broken through the county seat, plunging the city into disorder.

But for gang thugs like them, it was a lavish feast.

The desires they normally hid deep in their hearts had been completely unleashed.

They committed every crime imaginable—arson, murder, plunder, and rape.

"What kind of profit is there in those little households?" Zhou Liang's eyes shifted as he chuckled. "Have you forgotten Chen Mu?"

Zheng Huan's eyes lit up. "Twenty taels for one painting. He's a fat sheep!"

"Too bad Old Man Yan disappeared and his property was divided up long ago. Otherwise..." Zhou Liang said regretfully.

"Come on, come on, let's take that kid down first!" Zheng Huan urged repeatedly. "Once that kid makes money, all he knows is eating meat. He never spends it. He must have saved at least several hundred taels of silver!"

"Then we'll teach him how to spend it!"

With Short Swords tucked at their waists, the two slipped excitedly into an alley.

After two days of chaos, they had already murdered and robbed more than once. Their eyes were bloodshot, and greed had completely taken over their minds.

Ping'an Ward, outside the Chen Family residence.

The two peered through the crack in the gate.

"They even braced the gate."

"What good is bracing it? Not one coin of those hundreds of taels is getting away!"

"Step on my shoulder and climb over the wall!"

Zheng Huan crouched down and steadied himself while Zhou Liang stepped on his shoulders and climbed over the wall.

Sitting astride the wall, Zhou Liang excitedly looked into the courtyard and saw someone standing upside down on a stone pedestal.

The man was bare-chested, his full muscles pumping with blood and swelling.

His left hand was tucked behind his back, while his right thumb and index finger spread into a V-shape and pressed against the stone pedestal.

He was actually balancing upside down in midair with only two fingers!

Zhou Liang's heart lurched, and he could not help looking at that upside-down face.

This... this was that scrawny scholar?!

His scalp instantly went numb.

Where was the scrawny part in those sharply defined muscles?!

Chen Mu looked in surprise at the figure who had leaped onto the wall.

Zhou Liang?

He immediately flipped through the air, bent his knees, and landed firmly atop the stone pedestal.

Staring at the astonished face on the wall, he grinned, revealing a row of stark white teeth. "So you found out..."

Whoosh!

Before Zhou Liang could react—

Chen Mu vanished from where he stood.

In the next instant, he abruptly appeared atop the wall.

His right hand clamped around Zhou Liang's throat like an iron pincer.

The overwhelming force gave Zhou Liang no room to resist. Gripping him by the neck, Chen Mu leaped down from the wall as though carrying a chick and slammed him against the opposite wall with a bang.

Zheng Huan, who had been crouching beneath the wall, only saw a blur before Zhou Liang vanished from above him.

He instinctively turned his head.

He saw a Sturdy Man with a bare upper body holding Zhou Liang aloft with only one hand.

Seeing Zhou Liang's flushed face and his dangling feet kicking wildly in the air, Zheng Huan turned and ran.

Splat!

A spray of blood burst from the back of his knee.

Before a scream could even escape his throat, a large hand gripped his neck.

Whoosh!

His brief cry vanished in an instant.

The alley was empty once more, returning to silence.

Under the cover of night, Chen Mu carried two bodies wrapped in straw mats as he leaped and raced across rooftop after rooftop.

His body, transformed twice over, provided him with immense power.

He pushed the Leaping Style of the Red Falcon Body Tempering Technique to its limit.

Even while carrying two people, he moved without making the slightest sound.

It was still that abandoned residence. Chen Mu dug a pit, buried the bodies, and filled it in with practiced ease.

Then he swiftly cleared away all traces from the scene and vanished after several leaps.

Ping'an Ward, Chen Family residence, Number One Residence on the far east side.

An oil lamp burned on the Square Table.

Under the dim yellow light—

A pile of miscellaneous items lay on the table.

Copper coins, broken silver, Short Swords, Lime Powder, Meng Han Yao, Golden Sun Pills...

These were the items taken from Zhou Liang and Zheng Huan.

Chen Mu touched his chest, feeling his heart still pounding wildly. Annoyed, he said, "I had no choice but to kill again."

"It's all this damned world's fault!"

"Wouldn't it be nice if everyone were a good person like me?"

Chen Mu sighed and carefully counted the copper coins and silver on the table one by one.

The copper coins went with the copper coins, the silver with the silver. He threw away the Meng Han Yao and Lime Powder; the quality was too poor.

Golden Sun Pills? What the hell were these? Toss them, toss them!

Finally, he picked up the two Short Swords from the table.

They had brown wooden hilts and scabbards, oval brass guards, and were as long as from elbow to fingertip.

He drew one from its sheath. Faint streaks of blood still marked its gleaming silver blade.

"These two really deserved to die."

In the two days of chaos, no one knew how many innocent souls had fallen beneath these two swords.

He found a cloth and wiped the Short Swords clean. "From now on, I can only use you more often to rid the world of evil. I hope that can redeem you."

Chen Mu considered visiting the Ghost Market after the chaos passed to find a manual for swordsmanship and practice it.

He could not let two Short Swords go to waste.