Keeping Watch II

Keeping Watch II

The second night.

Lu Sheng moved back into the Lotus Flower House.

This time, he moved in during the day.

With his saber in hand, he searched the entire room without saying a word.

After memorizing the room's layout, orientation, and the position of every object, he sat down inside once more.

Quietly waiting for nightfall.

For the time being, Lu Estate had been cowed by him. No one dared entertain thoughts of leaving.

After all, Nine Links City was only so big. Unless they fled to Purple Splendor City, and under such close watch, no one dared be the first to consider escaping.

Everyone feared that someone else would secretly report them to the Young Master.

Lu Sheng had further announced that anyone who reported an escapee would receive one hundred taels for each person reported!

One hundred taels! Report ten people, and that would be one thousand taels!

Many people could not earn that much money in an entire lifetime.

Lu Estate briefly settled down.

Uncle had also deployed some soldiers to guard the various entrances and exits of Lu Estate, forbidding anyone from leaving freely.

As for those who had escaped earlier, he issued Wanted Orders for all of them, demanding that they be captured and brought back.

After all that commotion, the sky gradually darkened again.

Hoo. Air currents continuously flowed and swirled through the room.

Lu Sheng sat in Yu Jie's room, gripping his drawn saber, seemingly resting with his eyes closed.

He had not slept the previous night, and while waiting here during the day, he had rested in the same manner.

The Jade Crane Skill truly was formidable. Even after staying awake all night, he was still in good spirits.

The light gradually faded.

Lu Sheng did not light a lamp. He simply sat in the darkness, intending to perfectly imitate the room's usual state.

The light grew dimmer and dimmer.

Lu Sheng gradually switched to using his hearing and his perception of air currents to observe his surroundings.

Time ticked away, second by second.

Soon after the sun set, the room was pitch-black, so dark one could not see one's hand before one's face.

Lu Sheng still sat as steady as a mountain.

Sss. Suddenly, a rustling of fabric came from the doorway.

It sounded like the faint noise of clothing brushing against a wall or wooden surface.

Lu Sheng opened his eyes and vaguely saw a blurred white figure slowly squeezing in through the doorway.

It was too dark for him to make out what the other party looked like. He could only vaguely tell it was a person, someone dressed in white.

That person moved very, very slowly.

In the darkness, Lu Sheng felt that the figure seemed to be smiling. Though he could not see its face, he could sense its eerie smile.

"You finally dared to come out."

Lu Sheng stood, a vicious glint surfacing in his eyes.

The Black Fiend Skill suddenly coursed through his entire body.

His body temperature rapidly rose.

Hoo! Suddenly, the white figure lunged at him.

"Die!!"

The saber flashed in Lu Sheng's hand.

Tiger's Might of the Black Tiger Saber Technique swept out fiercely, meeting the lunging white figure in an instant.

The moment the blade struck the white figure, his vision blurred. Silence abruptly descended around him, and he could no longer hear a single sound.

The space before him was empty. There was nothing there. That strike had actually hit nothing.

What speed!

Without a second thought, Lu Sheng spun his saber and wildly slashed around himself.

Screech! A wooden clothes rack in the way was cut apart and fell to the floor. The back of a chair was also sliced into two pieces.

He gave a cold snort.

Just as he was about to withdraw his saber and observe again—

The back of his head suddenly turned cold.

Lu Sheng abruptly turned around. The White Clothed Man was right behind him, close enough to touch, its entire body lunging toward him.

"You're courting death!!"

He pushed the Black Fiend Skill through his entire body at full force. As his blood and qi surged wildly, his saber suddenly unleashed the third stance of the Black Tiger Saber Technique—Tiger's Roar.

Roar!!! With the Black Fiend Qi circulating at full force, the blade actually released a distinct, ear-splitting tiger's roar.

The roar made everything in the room tremble and jump.

The white figure immediately let out a miserable cry, shrieking like a little girl, then shot toward the window with a whoosh.

Without another word, Lu Sheng steadied his boiling blood and qi, then rushed after it.

Bang! With one slash, he smashed the wooden window blocking his way to pieces.

Like a fierce tiger leaping from a ravine, he landed in the alley outside the window.

The white figure was incredibly fast. It darted and twisted through the alley, weaving past piles of clutter.

Lu Sheng pursued without letting up.

Bang! Bang!!

Two piles of clutter blocking his path exploded under two slashes of his saber.

"There's movement inside! Is it the Young Master?"

A guard shouted outside.

Lu Sheng's heart tightened.

He saw several night-watch guards stationed by the side gate.

One of them looked over, gripping his saber with a tense expression.

Before Lu Sheng could say anything, the white figure flashed forward at astonishing speed and plunged into one of the guards.

"Spread out!"

He roared. As his blood and qi surged wildly, the blade in his hand once more emitted a roar like that of a giant tiger.

Roar! Lu Sheng lunged forward.

He cleaved out with a slash of Tiger's Ferocity!

Clang!!

The guard struck by the white figure rapidly developed bulging veins across his skin. He raised his hand to block.

He actually intercepted Lu Sheng's slash with perfect precision.

The two sabers slammed together violently. Lu Sheng immediately felt a tremendous force no weaker than his own blocking him head-on.

Looking again at the guard, his eyes had rolled back, the black gone from them, leaving only a ghastly white.

"Possession?"

Lu Sheng slashed again, aiming for the guard's neck.

Clang! It was blocked again.

The possessed guard had grown considerably stronger. Lu Sheng exchanged blows with him, saber against saber.

Their blades rang chaotically as they battled in a tangled blur, continuously producing deafening metallic clashes with tremendous force.

The other two guards by the side gate were terrified out of their wits and fled far away in utter panic.

The noise also drew many other guards and servants over.

With the Black Fiend Qi circulating, Lu Sheng's strength and speed both rose another notch. He exchanged dozens of blows with the possessed guard.

Gradually, the poison of the Black Fiend Skill seeped into the guard's palms.

His strength slowly began to weaken as well.

The Second Layer of the Black Fiend Skill was indeed as viciously sinister as Lu Sheng had expected.

"Speak! Who sent you?!" Lu Sheng suddenly launched a swift attack, striking the guard's blade.

The immense force shook the possessed guard's entire body. His body went numb for an instant, and his movements slowed by half a beat.

Bang! Lu Sheng's other hand shot forward with a Heart Piercing Palm, stamping itself against the guard's chest.

This Heart Piercing Palm had been the follow-up move he had planned all along.

"Aah!!"

The guard screamed. Struck in the chest by the Heart Piercing Palm, he spat out a mouthful of blood and was hurled backward, crashing to the ground.

A white figure flew out of the guard's body again and shot toward the nearest person who had come running at the noise.

This time, that person was actually a maid.

Perhaps because she was too close to Lu Sheng, she had no choice and could only enter someone at random.

The instant the maid was possessed and her skin turned red, Lu Sheng closed in on her.

He flipped his hand and slashed!

Screech! The maid was struck brutally by the immense force of the blade and flung away, blood scattering across the ground.

"Everyone, get farther away! Don't come over!"

Lu Sheng shouted.

But he was still a step too late. Several more guards came rushing over with sabers in hand.

The white figure flashed out and plunged into one of them again.

"Aah!!!" Lu Sheng roared wildly, driving the Black Tiger Saber Technique to its limit under the force of the Black Fiend Skill.

The furious roar of a giant tiger sounded around him once more.

He swung his saber with all his strength, like a massive boulder crushing down upon the earth, kicking up a fierce howl of wind.

The possessed guard swiftly turned toward the outside of the side gate wall, seemingly intending to flee.

Boom! Lu Sheng's saber smashed through the side gate's courtyard wall.

Gripping his saber, he charged through the broken wall and hacked down viciously on the unsuspecting possessed guard's head.

Aah, aah, aah!!!!

A woman's shrill scream rang out.

The guard's head was split in two, red and white spraying everywhere, yet he still managed to stretch out a hand and slam a palm into Lu Sheng's lower abdomen.

Bang!!

Lu Sheng staggered back two steps, panting like a bull, his entire body steeped in a dense, baleful aura. An unnatural flush crossed his face.

A thread of blood seeped from the corner of his mouth.

Lu Sheng raised his saber again, only to hear a crack as the blade snapped and fell to the ground.

He simply tossed aside the saber, pounced forward, and struck with two consecutive palms.

At that instant, the Heart Piercing Palm he unleashed, empowered by the Black Fiend Skill, made his palms faintly turn black.

Bang, bang!! After two dull impacts, the white figure floated out from the guard's body once more.

She still wanted to flee.

But Lu Sheng's hand, charged with the Black Fiend Skill, grabbed hold of her clothing.

Lu Sheng felt as though he had seized a lump of ice.

Yet the wildly surging blood and qi and Black Fiend Qi throughout his body made him completely unafraid of such cold.

The Second Layer Black Fiend Qi within him madly poured into the white figure's clothes in his hand.

"Die!!!"

Lu Sheng threw out a full-force palm strike.

It was as though all the Black Fiend Qi in his body was about to be vented through that one palm.

Bang!!! Aah!!! The white figure let out one final shriek as she was struck in the chest. Her entire shadow suddenly twisted, then with a screech like cloth being torn apart, she instantly exploded and vanished.

Lu Sheng's eyes were ferocious. With a thud, he dropped to one knee.

He immediately spat out a mouthful of black blood.

His hands trembling, he picked up the broken saber from the ground and plunged it into the earth to support himself.

Both the Jade Crane Skill and the Black Fiend Skill circulated frantically within him, trying to heal his injuries.

But after taking that palm strike, coupled with exerting himself too fiercely, his meridians had ruptured under the strain.

With the two injuries piled atop one another, the moment Lu Sheng's blood and qi slackened, he could no longer hold on.

After waiting quite some time.

Only then did the guards and servants who had fled far away dare approach.

At this time, Lu Quan'an and the rest arrived as well.

Seeing the scene in complete chaos, everyone was greatly alarmed.

Then they saw Lu Sheng half-kneeling on the ground, blood at the corner of his mouth and blood on the ground, clearly freshly vomited.

Lu Quan'an hurriedly rushed over.

"Xiao Sheng! Are you all right? Quickly, call a doctor!!" His expression turned panicked as he supported Lu Sheng. Turning back, he shouted furiously.

"What are you all standing around for?! Help him!!"

The others snapped awake as though from a dream and hurried forward to help Lu Sheng up.

Uncle Lu Anping glanced at the broken saber on the ground, the corpses, and the wall that had been smashed through.

Then he looked at Lu Sheng, still radiating baleful intent and panting, his breath roaring like a beast. A slight chill rose in his heart.

How could this scene possibly have been made by his nephew, who was only in his teens? He was no less terrifying than the ferocious beasts of the mountains and forests.

He had once seen a Mountain Patrol Black Bear in the mountains. When that black bear had broken into a residence, the devastation it caused had been much like what lay before him now.

"No one is allowed to speak of what happened tonight! Otherwise—" Uncle Lu Anping swept a cold gaze over the people around him.

"Someone, clean this place up. Leave as few traces as possible."

The guards and servants around him shuddered under his gaze. With the corpses on the ground as further intimidation, none of them dared say another word.