The Wei Dao Si of Jinling City

Xia Qi'an was not boiling human flesh.

He had found a snake and a rabbit that had starved to death in a tree hollow that had formed accidentally in a tree trunk.

Although the snake and rabbit meat had begun to stink, boiling them still made them enough to fill their bellies.

At any rate, it was far better than eating human flesh.

Moreover, there was quite a lot of meat on the rabbit. If they ate sparingly, it would be enough to keep Xia Qi'an and Xiao Cao going until they reached Jinling City.

After eating a few small pieces of meat and drinking a few mouthfuls of soup, the two of them barely recovered some strength.

After hastily burying the Wei Dao Si member and the middle-aged refugee, Xia Qi'an took Xiao Cao's hand and hurried toward Jinling City.

From the dead Wei Dao Si warrior, apart from the three tokens that needed to be delivered to the Wei Dao Si,

Xia Qi'an had also found a martial arts manual for tempering the body called the Golden Body Technique.

Perhaps this technique was not important to those Wei Dao Si warriors, which was why they had not mentioned it.

But to Xia Qi'an, this was a treasure capable of defying heaven and changing his fate.

Thus, as he traveled, whenever he stopped to rest, he would take out the technique and silently recite it from memory, striving to remember every word without error.

According to the manual, the Golden Body Technique was merely an introductory technique for martial artists.

Upon reaching the highest realm, one could forge a body of Bronze Skin and Iron Bones.

But Xia Qi'an currently lacked the conditions to cultivate it, because cultivation consumed a vast amount of qi and blood.

There was simply not enough meat to replenish that expenditure, so he could only wait until he entered Jinling City before making plans to cultivate.

Fortunately, Xia Qi'an had also found a fifty-tael banknote.

To Xia Qi'an, this was undoubtedly a huge sum of money.

As long as he entered Jinling, fifty taels would be enough for him and Xiao Cao to settle down temporarily.

Three days later, the tall and magnificent walls of Jinling City finally appeared before them.

"Brother Qi'an! Is that Jinling?" Xiao Cao gazed at the blue-gray city walls in the distance, her little face filled with shock.

"That's right... We've finally arrived!" Xia Qi'an said gravely.

He stared at the dense mass of refugees beneath the city gates and could not feel excited at all.

"Wonderful! I heard Jinling City gives relief to disaster victims. We have a way to live now."

"I'm starving! Sir, please give me something to eat!"

"Please, sir! Let us in..."

Outside Jinling City, voices surged amid a chaotic, deafening din. The scene was utterly disorderly.

"By order of the city lord! Disaster victims are temporarily forbidden from entering the city. Do not block the official road. Violators will be executed without mercy!"

As the Black Armored Army soldiers at the city gate displayed the order, Xia Qi'an's heart sank straight to the bottom.

With so many refugees, the Jinling City authorities would certainly provide relief, but how they would do so would take time.

Yet some people refused to accept reality and tried to force their way inside.

More than a dozen Black Armored Army soldiers guarding the city swung their axes and halberds, cutting down people without the slightest mercy.

With one blow of an axe, a person was cleaved in two.

In the blink of an eye, dozens of refugees had been slaughtered.

The others immediately scattered in all directions.

Amid the chaos, more than a hundred others were trampled to death or injured.

Faced with the carnage before them, the Black Armored Army guarding the city remained completely unmoved.

They merely dragged the refugee corpses blocking the road to one side, leaving them there to be dealt with later.

However, nearly ten thousand refugees had gathered outside Jinling City. It was impossible for the authorities to kill them all.

They could only use iron-fisted measures to force the refugees to maintain order.

And at present, it was unrealistic to make the refugees turn around and go back.

They could only wait for the authorities' next move.

After roughly half a day, the gates of Jinling City finally opened.

A Black Armored Army unit several hundred strong emerged from the city and began directing the refugees to build crude rain shelters out of coarse cloth.

With a place to rest, the refugees stopped wandering everywhere.

The chaos outside the city gradually subsided as well.

By evening, disaster-relief grain began to be distributed outside Jinling City.

Everyone could receive a bowl of coarse-rice porridge.

Naturally, Xia Qi'an and Xiao Cao were no exception.

After finishing their porridge,

Xia Qi'an led Xiao Cao through the crowd and came before the soldiers guarding the city.

"My lord! I have an urgent matter and need to enter the city!"

The commander of the guards looked utterly indifferent. "You look like a refugee to me! Didn't you hear the order announced earlier? Refugees are temporarily forbidden from entering."

Xia Qi'an thought for a moment, then decided to tell the truth. "I have an urgent matter to report to the lords of the Wei Dao Si!"

Sure enough, the commander's expression changed when he heard the words "Wei Dao Si." He asked suspiciously, "You're from the Wei Dao Si? Do you have a token to prove your identity?"

"I do!"

As he spoke, Xia Qi'an took out the talisman token and removed the long saber from his back, handing both to the commander for inspection.

After glancing at the design on the token, the commander said solemnly, his tone noticeably gentler, "Since you're handling matters for the Wei Dao Si, you may enter and leave Jinling City freely. Go on in!"

Xia Qi'an had been transported to this world fifteen years ago.

He had long since learned about the Wei Dao Si, a martial artist organization.

The Wei Dao Si was a martial artist organization independent of secular imperial authority.

Its duty was to purge demons, uphold the Dao, and maintain order in the world.

They were a group dedicated specifically to fighting demons.

Moreover, the Wei Dao Si's martial artists came from every corner of the world. Not only did the Great Li Dynasty have them—every country in the world had a Wei Dao Si branch.

Thus, the Wei Dao Si held an extremely special position. In certain matters, its authority even surpassed that of secular imperial power.

But no matter how one put it, an organization as enormous as the Wei Dao Si still needed people to handle dirty and grueling work.

Therefore, every secular dynasty granted a certain degree of privilege to the Wei Dao Si's subordinate personnel.

That was also where the Wei Dao Si's strength lay.

And Su Mu, whom Xia Qi'an had encountered, was one such operative.

He was responsible for gathering intelligence in various regions and handling strange incidents.

After successfully entering Jinling City,

Xia Qi'an inquired about the location of the Wei Dao Si. Then he took Xiao Cao and hurried there without stopping.

After witnessing the influence of the Wei Dao Si,

Xia Qi'an began considering joining it.

A great opportunity now lay before him. Why not use this chance to seek a way to join the Wei Dao Si?

If he succeeded, he would at least have secured a stable official position.

Besides, he had heard that the Wei Dao Si collected martial arts techniques from across the world. Joining the Wei Dao Si would also let him come into contact with higher-level martial arts techniques more quickly. For Xia Qi'an at present, joining the Wei Dao Si was an opportunity with every benefit and no harm.

Of course, that was all for later. For now, he still had to meet someone from the Wei Dao Si first.

The Jinling City branch of the Wei Dao Si was not difficult to find. Nearly everyone in Jinling knew where it was.

Soon, Xia Qi'an arrived outside the branch's main gate.

The signboard above the entrance bore the three gilt characters "Wei Dao Si."

The Wei Dao Si branch looked no different from a government office. Presumably, the Jinling City lord had specially provided the place for the Wei Dao Si.

The entire Wei Dao Si branch had only one gatekeeper, along with a chief clerk dispatched by the government to assist them.

The chief clerk handled the ordinary daily affairs, while matters involving demons were naturally conveyed by the Wei Dao Si's own personnel.

An old chief clerk with white-flecked whiskers was seated in the office. When he saw the yamen runner lead Xia Xia Qi'an forward, he stopped his brush and asked, "What brings you here?"

"Your humble subject Xia Qi'an greets you, sir! I have information concerning Su Mu of the Wei Dao Si and need to report it to one of the Wei Dao Si lords!"

The old chief clerk looked troubled for a moment before asking, "Do you have any token of identification?"

"I do! Please inspect it, my lord!"

As he spoke, Xia Qi'an took out Su Mu's talisman token and placed it on the desk.

However, the old chief clerk did not examine it. "The lords of the Wei Dao Si are usually busy cultivating or away on official business. Unless it is an urgent matter, they generally do not come here. Wait a moment. I'll send someone to notify Lord Chu and see whether he is at home."

Hearing this, Xia Qi'an sighed inwardly. The people of the Wei Dao Si really are like divine dragons—one glimpses their heads but never their tails.