The Past Is Past

Dull thuds echoed through the third-floor corridor.

Blood splattered alongside screams.

No matter how Wu Zhen begged for mercy, Li Yi showed no restraint. He answered only with attacks that grew more vicious each time. Wu Zhen gradually stopped begging as his body went limp, until he could not even defend himself on instinct.

"Li Yi, if you keep hitting him, someone will die. We won't hire a murderer as a guide."

At that moment, Supervisor Xu Ming appeared after hearing the commotion. Standing at the other end of the corridor, he did not intervene, merely offered a warning.

Only then did Li Yi reluctantly let go, lowering his bloodstained knee.

"Wu Zhen, I'm terribly sorry. I hit a little too hard, but please do me a favor and pretend what just happened never happened. Don't hold it against me. Let bygones be bygones. I'll treat you to a meal later, and we can still be good brothers, good friends. What do you say?" Li Yi said with utmost sincerity.

"I-I'll give your mother... a favor, cough cough." Wu Zhen had not yet passed out. His face was covered in blood as he spoke unclearly.

Li Yi crouched down and looked at him. "So you don't like giving people face either. What a coincidence—I don't particularly like giving people face, either. You should be glad this is An Ding District. If this were Ruined City, you'd already be dead."

"Cough cough, you dare kill someone? I-I don't believe it."

Wu Zhen forced open his blurred eyes. The ferocity in them was gone, leaving behind only a hazy blood-red blur.

"Who knows? It's not something you can try out." Li Yi patted his head.

Wu Zhen's body shuddered. It felt as though a vicious beast were licking his scalp, filling him with an inexplicable chill. He had a feeling that Li Yi truly wanted to kill him. It was no joke.

Seeing that he remained silent and unmoving, Li Yi lost interest. He stood up and turned to the others.

"This guy..." The others' expressions tightened.

Li Yi stared at the few of them and said seriously, "You still owe me a favor."

"Li Yi, it was all a misunderstanding just now. You didn't need to suddenly attack. If you're unwilling to accept our earlier proposal, then forget it. We won't force you." Zhao Xiaoxiao's face clearly carried a trace of fear and unease.

Perhaps Li Yi had neither influence nor power and was just a poor kid, but the problem was that he really dared to strike—and he had even launched a direct sneak attack without any sense of martial honor.

Li Yi merely glanced at her without saying more. He looked at Supervisor Xu Ming instead, then pointed at Wu Zhen lying on the ground. "How will this be handled?"

"You were fighting among yourselves. We won't interfere." Xu Ming spoke in an official tone. "But if you want to fight next time, you can go to the first basement floor. There's a training ground there, which makes it convenient."

"That's good."

Li Yi nodded. "I'm dirt poor and can't afford compensation. But I have a remedy: buy two hot eggs, wrap them in a towel, and apply them to the bruises. The wounds will heal quickly."

"He won't recover from this with just two hot eggs." Xu Ming said, "We won't care how you make trouble, but you cannot delay the work at midnight. If it cannot proceed on schedule, it will count as a breach of contract, and compensation must be paid according to the contract."

"Don't worry, I won't delay the work. Since everyone is fine now, I'll return to my room to rest. Call me if there's anything."

Li Yi entered his room and shut the door.

Supervisor Xu Ming merely instructed his assistant, "Have someone clean this up. Don't leave behind the smell of blood."

"Damn it, that Li Yi, who does he think he is? If he hadn't launched a sneak attack, he might not have been able to beat Wu Zhen." After the others left, one cultivator felt humiliated and immediately said angrily.

"You were so arrogant, so why didn't you make a move just now? I already said it: barefoot people aren't afraid of those wearing shoes. It would have been enough to simply mention that proposal, but your attitude needed to be better. Don't try to threaten people. Zhao Xiaoxiao, you said yourself that Li Yi's cultivation value was very high. Once he opens his Spirit Medium and comes back for revenge, can you withstand it?" Another person had sobered up by then and curled his lip.

"Cultivation isn't just about social maneuvering; it's also about fighting and killing. You'll never understand the violence cultivators hide in their bones. Wu Zhen went too far just now. Cutting off someone's source of income is like murdering their parents. We thought Li Yi would compromise, but that was merely our wishful thinking. After all, we all have some family resources and aren't truly poor. But Li Yi is different. He's so poor now that he doesn't even have money to take a ride home."

"You've pushed things this far and still tried to scheme against someone. No wonder he's ready to risk his life with you. Besides, he can afford to risk his life. Can you?"

"I..." Zhao Xiaoxiao's expression shifted uncertainly, and inexplicable panic rose in her heart.

Once Li Yi opened his Spirit Medium and advanced ahead of them in cultivation, his retaliation would be truly dangerous.

"Enough. Let's end this here. The proposal from before is completely void. Mind your own business from now on. Don't drag anyone else into this."

The hastily formed group immediately fell apart. They ignored Wu Zhen, who had been beaten badly, and returned to their respective rooms with heavy hearts.

Everyone was in a terrible mood.

Because it seemed they had offended a cultivator with enormous potential.

"Damn, Li Yi really dared to hit him. He was beating him to death just now. If that supervisor hadn't said a few words, Wu Zhen would have been beaten to death." In Room 6, Zhang Gao secretly peeked from the doorway, shocked and frightened.

He had not shown himself earlier because he had also been threatened. Although he was unhappy about it, it had not affected his own interests, so he had done nothing. Who could have expected this to happen after those people went looking for Li Yi?

"Good thing I refused to go cause trouble for Li Yi with them, or I'd have offended him too."

Zhang Gao silently rejoiced that he had not been dragged into it. Otherwise, Li Yi would definitely have held a grudge against him as well.

"But now Zhao Xiaoxiao and the others are probably too anxious to sleep. Once Li Yi opens his Spirit Medium, with that kind of ruthlessness, it'll be hard to guarantee he won't suddenly launch an attack on them. Even if they don't die, they'll be crippled. If it were me, I'd rather quit this job immediately and hide far away, so I wouldn't be on someone's mind every moment... Right, they can't quit either. They'd have to pay for breaching the contract."

Seeing those unpleasant people suffer a setback made Zhang Gao very happy.

But after this incident, Zhang Gao began to admire Li Yi somewhat. He felt this person was different from the rest and would surely have a promising future.

Very soon.

The corridor became quiet again.

Everyone obediently remained in their rooms to rest. They all tacitly chose to selectively forget what had just happened and never mentioned it again.

Li Yi was currently calming himself and attempting to enter meditation for cultivation.

He could clearly feel that he had changed greatly. Ever since his brush with death in Ruined City, his entire soul seemed to have transformed. When he attacked Wu Zhen just now, he had felt no ripples in his heart. At one point, he had even truly wanted to kill him.

"I'm a fine young man. How did I suddenly become so violent? Could it be that, just as the resentment inside the Knife Coin said, I was born evil? No, definitely not. I must have been affected by that resentment. It's a side effect of the incomplete artifact. Yes, that must be it. I'm a good person."

"But beating him up just now felt really damn good, hehe."

Li Yi defended himself in his heart.

This reason quickly convinced his own heart. He gradually settled down and finally succeeded in entering meditation.

After entering meditation, Li Yi did not guide the Cosmic Energy within the Knife Coin. He needed to save that energy to sell for money that night, so he tried to guide the surrounding Cosmic Energy on his own, to see what cultivation would be like if he relied on himself.

The result was that after a full four hours, his cultivation efficiency was not even as good as ten minutes with the Knife Coin.

He painstakingly guided Cosmic Energy and absorbed it, yet his cultivation value fell to sixty percent.

Moreover, over those four hours, he had not captured even a hundred portions of Cosmic Energy.

"So this is the state of ordinary cultivators. It's too difficult. Without an artifact, one must hire a guide, otherwise cultivation is simply too slow." He secretly sighed to himself, but Li Yi did not become impatient and continued honing his cultivation.

Whether it was guiding Cosmic Energy or absorbing it, he had to practice repeatedly until it eventually became instinct.

He had heard online that some powerful cultivators had forged cultivation instincts. Cultivators with such instincts could cultivate on their own twenty-four hours a day, improving every day.

And what young people like Li Yi loved most was improvement.