The night wind brushed past the window lattice, making a mournful wailing sound like a ghost's quiet sobs.
Ye Qingxuan pushed open the courtyard gate, moving as lightly as a fallen leaf. He did not want to wake his little sister sleeping in the inner room.
The room was very dark, with only the dying sparks in the stove flickering on and off. By that faint light, he took off his shoes beside the door and was just about to place them in the corner when a soft, sweet voice came from behind him.
"Brother?"
Ye Qingxuan froze and turned around. At some point, Ye Caiwei had gotten out of bed. She wore only a thin garment and stood barefoot at the threshold, her large eyes exceptionally clear in the darkness.
"Why are you awake? It's chilly at night. Hurry back to bed." He lowered his voice and walked toward her.
Ye Caiwei did not move. Her gaze fell on the pair of shoes Ye Qingxuan held in his hand. A dark mark stained the edge of the soles. In the dim light, it looked like wet mud, but it was darker than mud, carrying a hint of deep red.
"Brother, your shoes..." Her little hand pointed toward the spot, uncertainty coloring her voice.
Ye Qingxuan followed her finger and felt his heart jolt. It was a trace of blood that had remained even after he wiped them clean, mixed with the grime from the alley. He had thought it inconspicuous.
"Oh, on the way back, I accidentally stepped on a wildcat's tail and got scratched. It bled a little, but it's nothing." He casually made up an excuse, then went over, picked up his sister, and wrapped her tightly in the quilt.
Ye Caiwei rubbed her little head against his chest but said nothing more.
Ye Qingxuan put her back in bed and tucked the quilt around her. He turned and walked to the stove, crouched down, and slowly fed the bloodstained shoes into the embers that still glowed within.
The worn shoe uppers soon curled up, giving off choking black smoke. The flames licked up again, swallowing the dark red mark along with the shoes themselves.
Ye Caiwei poked her head out from the bed and watched the firelight. Its glow was reflected in her clear pupils, dancing without end.
"Brother, the shoes are burned. What will you wear tomorrow?"
"Your brother has money now. Tomorrow I'll buy you a new padded jacket, and a new pair of shoes for myself." Ye Qingxuan prodded the fire in the stove without turning his head.
He pulled out the money pouch he had searched from the man in the bamboo hat and weighed it in his hand. Then he walked to the bed and stuffed the entire pouch into Ye Caiwei's quilt.
"Nannan, feel this. What is it?"
Ye Caiwei's little hand groped beneath the quilt until it touched the bulging money pouch. Something hard clinked crisply inside.
"Money?" Her small face lit up with delight.
"It's money." Ye Qingxuan pulled the short dagger with its sharkskin sheath from his robes and drew it halfway. Its edge gleamed with a chilling frost in the firelight. He did not let his sister touch it, merely waved it before her eyes.
"Look, there's this too."
Ye Caiwei gazed at the beautiful dagger, then at the heavy money pouch in the quilt. At last, she raised her head and looked at her brother. She did not ask where these things had come from, only nodded vigorously.
"Brother, you're amazing."
Those four words soothed the turmoil rising in Ye Qingxuan's heart after his first killing more than any words in the world could have. He rubbed his sister's head and coaxed her to sleep.
After confirming that Ye Caiwei's breathing had become even and that she was sound asleep, Ye Qingxuan returned to the outer room. He poured all the silver and coins from the pouch onto the table and carefully counted them by the stove's glow.
There was a piece of broken silver weighing roughly one tael, along with more than half a string of copper coins, fifty-two wen in all. With the sharp blade that could sever hair on contact, this night's journey had yielded quite a haul. He carefully put away the money and hid the short dagger close to his body.
After finishing all this, he was still wide awake. The crisp crack of breaking bone in the narrow alley and the warm stickiness spreading beneath the corpse still lingered in his senses.
He went to sit beside the table and pulled out the handwritten copy of the Locust Throwing Technique from his robes.
The booklet was thin, its paper coarse. He opened to the first page and read intently by the stove's intermittent firelight.
The very first line was not some profound declaration, but plain and simple words: "What is a Locust Stone? Anything at hand, anything lying everywhere, like locusts crossing the land—endless and inexhaustible. That is its true meaning."
Ye Qingxuan's spirits lifted. The intent behind this martial art happened to align perfectly with his current circumstances. He had no illustrious family background, no famous master to guide him, and no divine weapons or sharp blades. Those four words—"anything at hand"—had struck the deepest chord in his heart.
The booklet went on to explain in detail how to select the material for Locust Stones.
They were not specially crafted iron caltrops or coin darts, but the most ordinary pebbles, broken tiles, and even hard fruit pits. The text specifically noted that the best choice was a pebble from a riverbank, flattened and smoothed by years of running water. Such stones had a moderate weight, felt smooth in the hand, made little sound as they pierced the air, and were easiest to control.
Next came the method of carrying them. The stones were to be placed in a specially made cloth pouch tied at the most convenient spot on the waist. When drawing one, everything had to flow as a single movement, without thought or hesitation.
By this point, Ye Qingxuan could already picture it. A wandering martial artist moved through the marketplace with an inconspicuous cloth pouch at his waist. Who would have guessed that it contained killing weapons capable of taking a life at any moment?
He turned the page, and there it was—the core of the technique: the art of throwing.
The Locust Throwing Technique was unlike the ordinary throwing methods of escort-agency guards, who emphasized planting their feet and standing broadside, adopting a stance like drawing a bow and nocking an arrow. Its methods consisted of only two forms: Hidden Hand and Flung Cast.
The so-called "Hidden Hand" involved concealing a stone in the palm and masking the movement with a broad sleeve or the body. The fingers, wrist, and arm all exerted force at once, focusing on the words "concealment" and "suddenness." This method was mostly used for close-range ambushes—in noisy crowds or while conversing with someone. A sudden strike could often achieve astonishing results.
The "Flung Cast," meanwhile, was a far more domineering method of exerting force. Its momentum was like a villager flinging mud, or a fisherman casting a net. The throw did not rely solely on the wrist. Instead, one had to sink the qi to the dantian, twist the waist and turn the hips, and send the strength of the entire body spiraling upward from the soles of the feet, through the spine, and into the arms, before finally "flinging" and "casting" it from the fingertips.
The booklet contained several crude illustrations of human figures, with vermilion brush marks indicating how the muscles, bones, and flesh of the body twisted and shifted while exerting force. The route of transmission was winding and spiraling, yet perfectly unified—entirely different from the rigid, forceful method of circulating energy he used when practicing the Indestructible Vajra Body.
"With the strength of the entire body concentrated between the fingers and palm, a stone can be transformed into a blade, piercing wood and shattering armor."
Ye Qingxuan extended his right hand, imitated the posture in the illustration, and slowly performed a Flung Cast into empty space with his fist half-clenched. He could clearly feel the muscles in his waist and abdomen tense in an instant, as a force surged upward along his spine.
This method consumed an astonishing amount of physical strength, but its might was surely far beyond that of an ordinary wrist-powered throw.
The final section of the booklet described three uses for Locust Stones.
The first was naturally as hidden weapons. Stones were used to strike people, targeting vital points such as the eyes, throat, temples, and the heart from behind. The text also included a simple diagram of the human body's acupoints, marking thirty-six fatal points and seventy-two numbing sinews.
The second was the "Pathfinding Stone." When traveling by night or entering dangerous territory with no clear view ahead, one could throw a stone first to scout the way. By listening to the sound and judging its location, one could determine whether there was a deep pit, a pool, or an ambush lying ahead.
The third was the "Startled Bird Stratagem." One struck a distant object with a stone to create a sound, making a feint to the east while attacking in the west and drawing the enemy's attention away. One could then use the opening to escape or launch a surprise attack from another direction.
Ye Qingxuan read the entire booklet carefully from beginning to end, then pondered it repeatedly until every word and every illustration was deeply engraved in his mind.
The fire in the stove had gradually died down. Outside the window, the sky had also begun to pale with the faint white of a fish's belly.
A new day was about to arrive.
Ye Qingxuan closed the booklet and let out a long breath of stale air. The lingering stench of blood seemed to be carried away with it, leaving his mind clear once more.
This Locust Throwing Technique was practically tailor-made for him.
His mastery of the Indestructible Vajra Body gave him the capital to charge straight through anything, making his physical body his strongest shield. The Locust Throwing Technique, meanwhile, filled the gap in his long-range offense, granting him a sharp spear capable of wounding people from ten paces away.
One for offense and one for defense, one for long range and one for close quarters—his strength would no longer have any obvious shortcomings.
Ye Qingxuan stepped into the courtyard and looked at the blue-stone water vat, then lowered his head to glance at the broken stones and tiles scattered by the wall.
From this day onward, these ordinary objects would become the deadliest weapons in his hands.
His gaze passed through the thin mist before dawn and turned toward Linyuan Prefecture. The faces of Zhang Lingxiao, Tan Zhenglong, Chief Constable Zhang, and the others flashed through his mind one after another.
He would not go demand justice from them empty-handed like last time.
Next time, he would use the stones in his hand to reason with them.
Good. Tomorrow, he would begin practicing with Locust Stones!
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