Merit Golden Body Art

Xing Nine's ancestors had originally been Han people of Liaodong. Though the natural conditions were harsh, life had been passable enough; the fertile black earth grew whatever was planted in it.

Yet the Di-Han War, which had dragged on for decades, destroyed everything. Amid the military tug-of-war and bloody slaughter between both sides, some members of House Luo migrated south or joined the later Guan Ning Army, while others were captured by the Di people and made into slaves. Among them were Xing Nine's parents and Xing Nine himself, still young at the time.

Later, Xing Nine's father earned some merit while following the Di army south on campaign. The entire family was elevated to military household status and absorbed into the Han Tribe of the Eight Tribes Army.

Thus, under Di rule, Xing Nine gained a status above that of commoners. When he came of age, he entered the Eight Tribes Prison and became a jailer and executioner.

People of this era had little sentiment for family or nation to begin with. All they did and sought was to survive.

Xing Nine had grown up under Di rule from childhood and naturally felt no sense of kinship toward the Han people. On top of that, his father later died in battle, leaving him with nothing but hatred for Great Li.

After entering the Eight Tribes Prison, Xing Nine displayed an exceptional talent for interrogation. He won the favor of Liu Yazhi, the prison's chief officer, and, having repeatedly earned merit, was even taught a cultivation art.

Xing Nine showed equally remarkable talent in cultivation. After only a few years of hard training, he developed inner force, the envy of all around him.

What truly brought Xing Nine into the spotlight was an interrogation of a "Guan Ning Death Warrior."

That interrogation took place when the great battle in Liaodong was in full swing. The Di people captured a severely wounded Guan Ning messenger who had taken poison and carried crucial intelligence that could influence the course of the war.

The messenger was dying from poison and could not withstand torture. His will to die was firm, and his days were few. Extracting intelligence from his mouth was harder than climbing to heaven.

Just when everyone was at their wits' end, Xing Nine stepped forward and accepted the military order. Taking only a physician with him, he interrogated the man for seven days and seven nights without pause. At last, he obtained the intelligence from the messenger's delirious mutterings before death and became famous in a single stroke.

No one knew what had happened during those seven days and seven nights, nor what method Xing Nine had used to make the messenger lower his guard.

Even Qin He, watching the Shadow Play, was utterly baffled.

In any case, he succeeded.

For this great merit, the Di chieftain issued an edict of reward, granting him the name "Xing Nine" and a stalk of thousand-year-old ginseng.

With the thousand-year-old Ancient Ginseng tempering his body, Xing Nine struck while the iron was hot and trained bitterly for another three years. His inner force surged, and he became one of the Di people's foremost young experts, possessing more than thirty years of inner force.

No worthy reputation was ever hollow. Over the next ten years, Xing Nine's strength and craft grew ever more refined, cementing his title as the foremost executioner of the Di people's Eight Tribes Prison.

Until Liu Yazhi ordered him south to investigate Liu Cang's cause of death.

Judgment weighed, one end of the bronze scale rose high. The Black Robed Man Zhang Jin Kou said, "Of all the world's affairs, none go as one wishes. Gain and loss drift on—look to the old man at the frontier. Even fine moonlit towers may harbor illness; when flowers fall, the wind is often fierce. A fine young man in bright robes atop a spirited horse—what a pity that, in the turn of a head, all became empty."

A cultivation art appeared in Qin He's mind: "Merit Golden Body Art."

Merit Golden Body Art: Let merit adorn your body. Once the Golden Body is forged, you shall stand shoulder to shoulder with gods.

Qin He was overjoyed. Another cultivation art.

And it was a path entirely different from the Corpse Eating Immortal Skill's cultivation of inner force.

Without the slightest hesitation, he learned it at once. More skills never weighed a man down.

A moment later, Qin He understood the mysteries of this art.

The Corpse Eating Immortal Skill cultivated the flesh; the Merit Golden Body cultivated the spirit.

In this world, Demonic Creatures and Ghosts, Demons and Monsters, gods, Buddhas, Daoist spirits, and essences all had their own paths. Every path could be cultivated to tremendous power.

The Merit Golden Body belonged to the path walked by gods and Buddhas, though their methods of cultivation each had their own merits.

Buddhists cultivated their state of mind within; gods gathered faith and incense. And the concept of gods was remarkably broad.

City Gods and Earth Gods, Mountain Gods and water spirits, the Heavenly Court and the Underworld—all belonged among the gods. They gathered faith and incense to cultivate, much the same in broad strokes.

Once the Merit Golden Body was achieved, Demons and Monsters could not approach, while Demonic Creatures and Ghosts would take a detour. It was no less formidable than the Corpse Eating Immortal Skill.

Forget anything far off; take corpse suppression, for instance.

With merit upon one's body and auspicious radiance surrounding one, let alone a ferocious corpse—even a flying zombie lying before you would be unable to move. That was how formidable it was.

After learning it, Qin He's mind displayed:

Merit +0

As for how merit was acquired, and how much merit was needed to forge the Golden Body, the art did not say. Qin He would have to explore it himself.

Setting the art aside for the moment, Qin He continued fanning the flames, burning the last scraps of combustible matter in Xing Nine's remains into ash.

Once that was done, he immediately shut down the furnace and extinguished the fire. He shoveled the ashes into an iron bucket to spread them out and cool, then brought water to cool the furnace and reduce the lingering heat from the cremation.

After nearly two hours of bustling about, the sound of roosters finally rose, and he had at last erased all traces.

With a clang of the gong, the doors of the Corpse Burning Room opened one after another.

The footsteps of the duty officers, previously completely silent, reached Qin He's ears again. He did not know what secret art Xing Nine had used, but it had actually isolated the sounds inside and outside the room, only breaking once the roosters crowed.

And the iron lock outside the door had actually been locked.

Without a doubt, no one had known Xing Nine was entering and leaving Room Seven. That worked to Qin He's advantage.

Qin He's caution paid off. Not long after the Corpse Burners handed over the ashes, the Flying Fish Guard surrounded the Corpse Burning Facility with killing intent. A high-ranking officer in red robes also arrived, asking whether any strangers had entered the facility the previous night.

The officers and Corpse Burners all shook their heads. The Flying Fish Guard official demanded the cremation records, checked every room one by one, and questioned them individually about several matters.

After half an hour of fruitless work, the Flying Fish Guard had no choice but to withdraw. Before leaving, they posted Xing Nine's wanted portrait at the entrance of the Corpse Burning Facility.

Qin He took one look and thought, Well, damn. The bones bore perhaps a thirty-percent resemblance, but the flesh was far too fierce: a dark face, a beard, and scars. It was Xing Nine, all right, but Xing Nine in disguise. Even if the real man stood right in front of them, they would not be able to match him to it.

Qin He shook his head, collected fifteen copper coins for food money, and went out to buy steamed buns.

White-flour steamed buns were good, but he could not afford to eat them meal after meal. There was no spare money in his pocket, so he could only eat coarse-grain buns.

This Xing Nine had truly been an eccentric. There was not even a single copper coin in his bundle. From beyond the pass all the way south, he had relied on climbing walls and entering homes to find food. Not running into him was good fortune; running into him meant meeting a living King of Hell.

He was the sort who deserved to be struck by lightning. Served him right.

Once outside the Corpse Burning Facility, Qin He saw Xing Nine's wanted portraits pasted all over the streets and alleys. The entire city was in an uproar, buzzing with discussion.

At one end of the street, Xing Nine was said to be a swordsman who liked killing people. By the middle of the street, the story had become that he was a three-eyed swordsman who enjoyed eating human hearts and livers raw. By the far end, Xing Nine had become a three-headed, six-armed monster who could not sleep without devouring more than a dozen people every night.

No matter how chaotic the outside world became, Xing Nine was destined to have no chance to commit evil again. When a man died, his lamp went out; all was settled once and for all.

As for whether he would be reborn as an ox or horse, or be thrown into boiling oil and sent down to hell, that would be for the King of Hell to decide.

For Qin He, this matter was temporarily turned over.

The reason he said temporarily was because one thing Qin He had said unfortunately came true.

Executioners were craftsmen too.

And craftsmen had one trait: wherever they went, someone would offer them a meal.

As for sayings like good and evil receiving their due, that depended on what kind of times these were.

As the saying went, those who killed and set fires wore golden belts, while those who built bridges and repaired roads left no remains behind. These were Turbulent Times; the righteous path had no light.

Of course, those were matters for later.

You need only remember that an executioner named Xing Nine was sent by Qin He, with a single fire, to the King of Hell.