The night was as dark as ink, soaking the streets and alleys of the Southern District until they gleamed.
Ye Qingxuan changed into a durable dark short jacket and trousers, then tucked the three-plus taels of broken silver into the innermost part of his clothing.
"Brother, it's so late. Are you still going out?"
His younger sister Ye Caiwei's timid voice came from behind him. She rubbed her eyes, clearly awakened by the sound of him getting up.
Ye Qingxuan turned around and sat down on the edge of the bed, tucking the blanket around her. "I'm going to take care of something. I'll be back soon."
"But... it's dark outside." Ye Caiwei's small hand seized his sleeve, clutching it tightly.
Ye Qingxuan offered no further explanation. He simply rose and walked into the courtyard, stopping before the half-full water vat. The vat was made of bluestone, and when filled with water, even two ordinary strong men would struggle to lift it.
He stretched out his right hand, hooked his five fingers over the rim, and tensed the muscles in his arm.
With a soft creak, the heavy stone vat was actually lifted three inches off the ground with one hand. The water inside sloshed, yet not a single drop spilled.
Ye Caiwei stood at the doorway, her little mouth wide open and her eyes filled with wonder.
Ye Qingxuan slowly set the water vat back in place. The ground gave only a muffled thud. He returned inside and rubbed the top of his sister's head. "Nannan, don't worry. No one can bully your brother anymore. Go to sleep, lock the door, and I'll knock out the signal when I return."
With that, he did not linger. He turned and melted into the darkness beyond the courtyard.
The night wind brushed past, carrying the distinct scent of Linyuan Prefecture—a mixture of moisture and dust. Ye Qingxuan did not take the main road. Instead, he moved through one narrow passage after another, each barely wide enough for a single person. His footsteps were light and soundless. After reaching perfection in the second stage of Body Tempering, his control over his own strength had entered an entirely new realm.
At a secluded corner, he pulled a black cloth hood he had prepared earlier from his clothes and put it on, leaving only his eyes exposed.
The western part of the city—the lawless zone.
There were no Fengtian Division constables patrolling here, nor any gang capable of ruling the entire area. Official laws had lost their power here, replaced by unspoken rules set by money and fists.
Ye Qingxuan's destination was the Black Market hidden behind a dilapidated mountain-god temple.
He circled around to the back of the temple. Beneath a ruined courtyard wall was an inconspicuous dog hole. A yawning man sat at its entrance, his clothes gleaming with grease, with a faded broadsword leaning beside him.
Ye Qingxuan approached. The man raised an eyelid and stretched out one hand.
Ye Qingxuan took out ten copper coins and placed them in the man's palm. The man weighed the coins, then lowered his head and resumed dozing, as though nothing had happened.
Ye Qingxuan crouched down and crawled through the dog hole.
Beyond the hole lay an entirely different world.
It was a slope extending downward, ending in a vast cellar. The air was thick with a strange stench of earth, cheap liquor, and sweat. Shadowy figures filled the cellar—more than a hundred people. Most, like Ye Qingxuan, had their heads covered in black cloth or wore bamboo hats with their brims pulled low.
Two rows of dim oil lamps illuminated this underground world in flickering shadows. People whispered before the various stalls, trading all kinds of goods that could not see the light of day: jewelry of unknown origin, poisoned hidden weapons, and even living people bound hand and foot with their mouths gagged.
Ye Qingxuan kept his eyes straight ahead and walked directly toward a corner at the very back.
Several bookstalls stood there, selling handwritten martial manuals. Most contained only crude tricks—better than nothing, but not by much. Still, some stall owners occasionally managed to acquire genuine treasures.
His gaze fell on the stall of a tall, thin man.
The stall owner's face was likewise covered, while his body was as thin as a bamboo pole. A shrewd light showed through his eyes beneath the black cloth. A few scattered booklets lay on the stall, one of them bearing the title Locust Throwing Technique on its cover.
Ye Qingxuan stepped forward, picked up the booklet, and casually flipped through it.
"Excellent taste, customer." The tall, thin man spoke, his voice somewhat shrill. "This is a proper entry-level hidden-weapon technique. Once mastered, even falling flowers and drifting leaves can injure a person within ten steps. A mere three taels of silver—fixed price."
Ye Qingxuan said nothing. He merely rubbed the booklet's pages with his fingertips. The paper was ordinary rough-edged paper, but the ink was still fresh. It had clearly been copied recently.
In his mind, he issued an instruction to the Martial Path Heavenly Machine Codex.
The scroll stirred slightly, but it did not record the technique directly as he had hoped. A line of small text appeared: [Insufficient contact time. Unable to view the complete contents.]
Seeing him only stare without speaking, the tall, thin man reached out and snatched the booklet from his hand. "Customer, are you finished looking? The rules here are that if you look without buying, you have to pay extra."
Ye Qingxuan took out the silver ingot weighing more than three taels and tossed it onto the stall. "I'll buy it."
The silver ingot landed with a muffled thump.
The tall, thin man's eyes lit up. He picked up the ingot and bit it, confirming its purity. A smile spread across his face as he handed the booklet back. "What a straightforward customer!"
Ye Qingxuan took the booklet but did not leave immediately. He pointed at an empty space beside the stall. "I'll finish reading it here. Wait a moment."
The tall, thin man was startled, then understood and nodded. "Take your time, customer."
Ye Qingxuan ignored him, walked to a corner, leaned against the damp earthen wall, and rapidly flipped through the booklet by the dim lamplight.
After Body Tempering, his memory had long since far surpassed that of ordinary people. He could read ten lines at a glance and remember everything he saw. The methods of circulating strength, techniques for exerting force, diagrams, and formulas in the booklet were all rapidly etched into his mind.
[Recording fragment of martial art Locust Throwing Technique...] [Recording progress: ten percent... thirty percent... seventy percent...]
In the short span of an incense stick, he had already flipped through the booklet of barely twenty or thirty pages from beginning to end.
[Locust Throwing Technique recorded successfully.] [Name: Ye Qingxuan] [Realm: Second Stage of Body Tempering (Perfection)] [Martial Arts: Indestructible Vajra Body (Perfection, Measurement: Six Inches, Merit: 0/500)] [Locust Throwing Technique (Not Yet Initiated, Merit: 0/10)]
Done.
He closed the booklet, stood up, and casually tossed it back onto the tall, thin man's stall.
The tall, thin man had been bored out of his mind. Seeing this, he was startled again. "Customer, this... this is something you paid for."
"I've finished reading it."
Ye Qingxuan left those words behind, turned, and walked away without the slightest trace of reluctance.
The tall, thin man held the booklet, then looked at Ye Qingxuan's departing back, utterly bewildered. How could he have known that the booklet he had spent dozens of copper coins copying had already had its true value taken by the other party.
Ye Qingxuan crawled out of the dog hole and returned to the surface.
He pulled off his hood and let the cool night wind disperse the foul air from the cellar. With the Locust Throwing Technique, he had filled the gap in his offensive methods. The Indestructible Vajra Body focused on defense, while this hidden-weapon technique focused on offense. With one to defend and one to attack, his strength would rise another level.
His mood was excellent, and his steps grew lighter as well.
However, after he turned through two alleys and the surroundings grew increasingly silent, his footsteps imperceptibly slowed.
There were faint footsteps behind him.
More than one set.
Two people, or three? They deliberately lightened their steps and trailed several dozen paces behind, believing themselves completely undetected.
In the unseen darkness, the corner of Ye Qingxuan's mouth curved into a cold, sharp smile.
In the Black Market, one did not flaunt one's wealth. His deliberate payment with a silver ingot had been bait. Having reached perfection in the second stage of Body Tempering, he had been worrying about not having suitable opponents to test exactly how tough his sinews and bones were.
He did not look back or quicken his pace. Instead, he deliberately headed toward an even darker, more secluded alley.
Ahead was a dead end.
The end of the alley was piled high with discarded junk, with only a courtyard wall more than two men tall standing there.
Ye Qingxuan entered the alley, and the footsteps behind him quickened as well. Three dark figures—one in front and two behind—blocked the mouth of the alley, completely sealing off his retreat.
"Brat, stop!"
The leader was a burly, thickset man holding a Mountain-Splitting Axe. Its blade glimmered ominously in the moonlight. Beside him stood two others, one wielding a short saber and the other an iron ruler, all three wearing fierce expressions.
Ye Qingxuan turned around and leaned against the cold wall, looking at the three men blocking the alley mouth.
"What can I do for you gentlemen?"
"Do for us? Heh heh." The burly man gave a feral grin and weighed the Mountain-Splitting Axe in his hand. "Brat, didn't you ask around? You think the Black Market's money is so easy to carry out? If you know what's good for you, hand over every bit of silver on you. We might even leave you with a whole corpse."
"Oh?" Ye Qingxuan asked. "And if I don't?"
"If you don't?" The saber-wielder beside the burly man licked his lips. "Then we'll just have to take it ourselves. While we're at it, we'll carve off a few pieces of that flesh of yours and sell them to the dog-meat shops in the western city."
Under the moonlight, Ye Qingxuan's lean face revealed no discernible expression.
He merely bent down slowly, picked up three bits of gravel from the ground, and weighed them in his hand. The stones varied in size and shape.
Seeing him like this, the burly man assumed he had been scared witless and shouted impatiently, "Move! Finish this quickly!"
Before his words had faded, the man wielding the iron ruler had already sprung forward in a single stride. The iron ruler whistled through the air as it shot straight toward Ye Qingxuan's face.
Ye Qingxuan did not move.
At the instant the iron ruler was about to strike his face, his right wrist flicked.
"Whoosh!"
A sound tore through the air.
One of the stones in his hand shot out like an arrow loosed from a bow.
The man felt his vision blur. Then a tremendous force slammed into his wrist. He cried out, and the iron ruler flew from his grasp, clattering to the ground. The small stone had smashed his right wrist so hard that the bones were forced out of alignment, leaving his hand hanging limply.
The change took place in the blink of an eye.
The burly man and the saber-wielder at the alley mouth were both shocked.
Before they could react, Ye Qingxuan had already vanished from where he stood.
He did not charge toward the alley mouth. Instead, he kicked off the wall with one foot, his whole body climbing upward like a gecko crawling along a wall. He shot up the two-zhang-high courtyard wall.
When he reached the highest point, he twisted his body. The second stone in his hand shot like lightning toward the saber-wielding man.
"Watch out!" the burly man roared.
The saber-wielder hurriedly raised his saber to block.
"Clang!"
The stone struck the blade and actually rang out like metal colliding with metal. The saber-wielder felt tremendous force travel through the weapon, numbing the web between his thumb and forefinger. He staggered back three steps before finally steadying himself.
By then, Ye Qingxuan had already drifted lightly onto the rooftop at the other end of the alley.
From his elevated position, he looked down at the three bandits still reeling from the shock, idly playing with the final stone between his fingers.
"Are the three of you still interested in the silver on me?"
He had thought he had merely bought a martial art, never expecting it to come with three living targets as a bonus.
The darkness of Linyuan Prefecture really was full of surprises at every turn.
So, after all, who was the fat sheep?
Before you continue