First Kill

Night had fully fallen.

Beneath the bright moonlight.

Several kilometers away, the firelight from the Pei Family's day-and-night birthday banquet still burned brightly.

That was a symbol of power and wealth.

After searching for a while, Ling Wuyuan finally found a fairly suitable wooden stick and sharpened it.

He skewered the roast duck he had bought earlier onto the stick.

Though it could be eaten cold, he wanted to heat it up for a bit of ceremony.

In the dim yellow firelight.

He could see with perfect clarity that, as the flames of the bonfire continuously licked at it, steam slowly began to rise from the roast duck's skin.

Before long.

As the steam gradually wafted out.

Drops of grease slowly seeped from it as well.

As that grease dripped into the bonfire, the aroma of roast duck began to linger throughout the ruined temple.

Ling Wuyuan stopped roasting it and, while it was still steaming, bit into it directly.

However.

The instant the food touched his lips, as he felt its temperature, a thought arose in Ling Wuyuan's mind.

The temperature was a little off.

Logically speaking.

Something that had just been heated like this should at least have a skin hot enough to scald his mouth if he ate it right away.

After all, the outer skin absorbed the most heat while being roasted.

Yet at this moment, he could not feel much heat at all.

After thinking briefly.

Ling Wuyuan extended his hand to a spot very close to the bonfire.

At a distance where, normally, let alone warming oneself, getting burned would be no problem at all.

Two seconds later.

Ling Wuyuan withdrew his hand.

Looking at his completely unscathed palm, he recalled what had happened during the day.

"Not only did it make me healthier and stronger in the literal sense, it also gave me greater resistance to high temperatures..."

"Is that the work of the power inside my body?"

Countless guesses flashed through his mind.

It was then that he heard some movement.

His gaze immediately turned toward the entrance of the ruined temple.

There.

Under the cover of night, a somewhat scrawny beggar with a head full of filthy long hair was slowly walking inside.

He looked to be around thirty years old.

Though his face could not be seen clearly, when his eyes caught sight of the still-steaming roast duck in Ling Wuyuan's hands, they gleamed sharply.

It was undisguised greed!

Moreover, he carried a huge pile of miscellaneous things on his back.

With a single glance.

Ling Wuyuan spotted two quilts and a great number of bottles and jars.

Together with the beggar's tattered clothing, layered inside and out several times over...

The matter was obvious.

As a professional beggar, he carried his entire fortune with him...

How should one put it...

All that could be said was that his outfit truly had the feel of West Coast rap style.

It would have been nice if he knew how to rap.

"Hey, little ghost, are you alone here?"

Hearing the man's somewhat hoarse question.

Ling Wuyuan did not answer.

He merely continued gnawing on the roast duck in his hands expressionlessly.

Seeing that Ling Wuyuan ignored him, the beggar looked somewhat annoyed, but did not act rashly. Instead, he stood warily at the entrance, repeatedly surveying the interior of the ruined temple.

Walls open to the wind on all sides, a dried-up well overgrown with weeds nearby, several half-ruined statues...

He was somewhat worried that Ling Wuyuan had accomplices.

However, after inspecting the place again and again with great care and confirming that the ruined temple could not possibly conceal anyone, he relaxed, and his attitude became far less polite.

"Damn it!"

"You little bastard, you actually dared to put on an act and bluff me!?"

"Hand over the food in your hands, now!!"

His words were full of regret for his earlier excessive caution.

As he spoke, he quickly approached Ling Wuyuan.

His eyes were filled with anguish.

He did not know where the roast duck in Ling Wuyuan's hands had come from.

But at this very moment, every bite Ling Wuyuan took seemed like he was eating the beggar's flesh.

Yes.

Although the food was still in Ling Wuyuan's hands, the beggar had already decided that the fragrant roast duck belonged to him.

Especially when he saw that Ling Wuyuan still had no intention of stopping eating, and seemed to be thinking about something while he ate, he grew even more enraged. It was the feeling of being completely disregarded.

It was one thing to be looked down on by ordinary people.

But now he was being looked down on by a beggar even younger than himself?

It felt as though his already pitiful pride and dignity were being wounded.

Thus, after reaching Ling Wuyuan, he did not immediately reach out to snatch the roast duck. Instead, he impatiently threw a kick at him, intending to teach Ling Wuyuan a lesson first.

He cursed as he did so:

"What the hell are you thinking about, you little bastard?"

"Why aren't you talking??"

At that same moment, the weak power in Ling Wuyuan's body, which had only been born not long ago, was stirred by his will.

The next instant, in a flash of lightning and spark of flint, Ling Wuyuan's body arrived directly beneath the man. The slender wooden stick skewering the roast duck shot out like a rapier at extreme speed!

Bolstered by that speed.

Though it met with some resistance along the way.

The fairly sharp wooden stick still forcefully pierced upward through the adult beggar's skin from beneath his jaw to his neck, passing through the soft skin and muscle tissue of his neck and driving straight deeper upward.

At the same time, before blood could run down the tip of the stick, Ling Wuyuan did not forget to pull the roast duck skewered through its middle off the rear end of the stick.

After all, this was two-thirds of his savings!!

Without losing momentum, he lowered his body and spun around, sweeping the man's unsteady legs out from under him and decisively knocking him to the ground.

In the end.

Holding the roast duck in one hand, Ling Wuyuan looked at the man, who had already crashed violently onto the ground. His eyes were filled with terror, his limbs were convulsing wildly, and though he tried to say something, all he could do was continuously spit bloody foam from his mouth.

Ling Wuyuan shook his head and answered the man's earlier question in an unhurried manner:

"What am I thinking about?"

"I was thinking about the distance between us and what combo I should use."

After saying that, he lightly pushed off with both legs and leapt straight up, his target the man's head.

Ignoring the man's final struggles.

He mercilessly brought his heels down on the man's temples in several consecutive stomps.

At last.

The man finally stopped struggling.

Only some scarlet blood, still giving off warmth, continued to slowly flow from his wounds and mouth.

A faint scent of blood spread through the entire ruined temple.

At this moment.

Ling Wuyuan stood with one foot on the corpse's chest. First, he lowered his head to look at the man's ferocious expression, his eyes still open in death, then raised his head to gaze at the incomparably beautiful moonlight overhead.

A realization gradually dawned on him, and he could not help but smile as he softly sighed:

"Killing someone really is easy..."