Cultivating Immortality

"Bang!"

The heavy crash stunned everyone present.

Li ChunJun, sword in hand, had cut through the encirclement of more than a dozen Samsung Property Company men, rushed to the entrance, and shut the door again.

"Click."

The sound of the lock engaging rang out.

Li ChunJun turned around and looked at the remaining eleven people, their faces deathly pale.

Including General Manager Shen Zhengxian.

A single glance from him made the Samsung Property Company general manager—who had once trained up some force but now lived in luxury—turn pale with fright. "Little brother, l-let's talk this out properly..."

His answer was the icy blade that surged with force and came slashing toward him again.

Shen Zhengxian abruptly shoved the Financial Planner beside him forward and ran upstairs at top speed.

The Financial Planner, who usually only handled money laundering and personnel arrangements, felt his scalp go numb the instant he was pushed out.

As he watched that blood-soaked figure charge at him with a sword, unprecedented terror exploded in his already fear-filled heart.

"Spare me!"

He screamed in terror, but he could not control the body being shoved forward. He could only watch helplessly as that fearsome sword light pierced his neck, choking off the words he had yet to say in his throat.

"Rip!"

Thrust, withdraw!

Li ChunJun did not pause in the slightest. He charged at the next closest man again.

Warm blood gushed from the hole in the man's neck like a fountain, spraying across the ground.

The Financial Planner staggered, clapping both hands over his neck in terror and using every ounce of strength to plug the hole.

But no matter how hard he pressed, blood continued to seep endlessly through his fingers.

The blood drained away his strength, leaving him slumped weakly on the ground, his face white and his whole body drenched in cold sweat.

Especially since the sword through his throat had damaged his windpipe, leaving him unable to take in oxygen and forcing him to gasp with his mouth wide open.

Yet the spurting blood was tightly covered by his hands, with nowhere to escape. As he gasped for breath, it immediately triggered violent coughing, and blood spilled from his mouth and nostrils, dyeing his entire body red.

Cold.

So cold.

Unfortunately, no one had the attention to spare for this important man who controlled the company's finances.

"Run!"

The remaining employees, finally jolted awake, scattered in all directions.

"Boss Thunder, an Internal Strengthening Martial Artist, was killed by him! Run!"

"This has nothing to do with me! I only make eight thousand a month—I just drive and make up the numbers..."

"Ah! I'll fight you!"

Li ChunJun said nothing. One sword stroke, one man. Every strike went for a vital point.

Throat! Head! Heart!

If he struck somewhere else, he simply followed up with another stab at one of those vital points.

He was not fighting.

He was killing.

Killing with the highest possible efficiency.

The Three Stars Property Management employees with some backbone fought back.

But it was useless.

They were weaker than him, slower than him, and their weapons were inferior to his.

Their neural reactions were not even on the same level.

He also held the advantage of the terrain.

One sword, one kill.

Slaughtering pigs and sheep.

Five, seven, nine, eleven, thirteen...

In less than a minute, Li ChunJun had killed all thirteen people from the fourth group that had broken in. The stench of blood around him grew even thicker.

Dark red blood filled the floor, the stairs, the bedrooms...

Blinding to the eye, choking to the nose.

Then he went upstairs.

Every window had security bars installed.

Once the door was shut, he no longer had to worry about anyone escaping.

Leaving one bloody footprint after another on the stairs, he arrived at the rooftop on the second floor.

Shen Zhengxian, who had fled to the rooftop, was staring down in terror.

Two floors.

Less than eight meters.

But the ground was concrete, without anything to cushion the fall!

If he jumped...

He was afraid.

Afraid of dying.

"Stop, Brother Li! We were only following orders! The one who wanted you dead was the Jin Family Head—Jin Guangming! Spare me! I have money, tens of millions. Once I dispose of my assets, I can gather a hundred million. I'll give it all to you."

Looking at Li ChunJun appearing at the stairwell entrance, a bead of cold sweat the size of a soybean rolled down Shen Zhengxian's pale face. "Also, I have evidence of all the dirty work they've done over the years. With that evidence, you can definitely bring down the Jin Family and send every last one of them to prison!"

"No need."

Li ChunJun said, "Once they're in prison, it'll only be harder to kill them."

Shen Zhengxian's pupils shrank sharply.

At that moment, he understood that Li ChunJun would absolutely not spare him.

But...

How was this possible!?

An eighteen-year-old high school student who, supposedly, did not even dare kill a chicken in ordinary days—how had he...

Suddenly become like this!?

Why did he have to kill people!?

Couldn't everyone sit down and settle this properly!?

As Li ChunJun strode closer, Shen Zhengxian did not dare gamble on whether he could defeat this monster consumed by murderous ferocity.

He spun around and leaped off the second-floor roof.

"Crack!"

The sound of his ankle bone breaking rang clearly through the night alongside his screams.

Years of pampered living had not only made him fat and bloated, but had long since robbed him of the agility he possessed when he first struggled to make his way in the world.

Fortunately, his will was strong enough.

Having escaped the demon's den at the cost of a broken bone, he limped hurriedly toward the sedan.

But before he had even moved a few meters, the next moment...

"Bang!"

The sound of a heavy object hitting the ground echoed beside him.

He turned to look, and his soul nearly left his body.

Li ChunJun had actually jumped down from the second-floor rooftop after him.

He crouched halfway to absorb the impact for barely a second...

Then his body eerily straightened again. His emotionless gaze locked onto Shen Zhengxian as his arm swung, and he charged at full speed.

The sight sent Shen Zhengxian's soul flying from his body.

"Spare me! As long as you spare me, I'll give you anything—money, beautiful women, fame..."

He cried out in terror while rushing toward the sedan as fast as he could.

The stimulus of death sent adrenaline surging through him so quickly that he even forgot the pain of his fractured bone. He reached the car first, yanked open the door, and was about to throw himself inside.

But almost at the same instant, Li ChunJun, sprinting at full speed, hurled the Sharp Sword in his hand. With a piercing shriek, it tore through the sedan's window glass.

A hair's breadth between life and death.

Shen Zhengxian's reaction was fast to the extreme. He froze, jerked his head aside, and the Sharp Sword swept past less than three centimeters before his eyes before slamming into the B-pillar on the far side of the vehicle.

Sparks burst forth.

Before he could catch his breath after the near miss of having his head pierced by the sword, Li ChunJun had already charged in, leaped into the air, and delivered a flying kick that slammed into Shen Zhengxian's half-open car door.

"Bang!"

The violent force struck like a giant hammer through the door and smashed into Shen Zhengxian, half of whose body was inside the car, making him cry out in agony again!

"Ah!"

His waist felt as though it had been snapped in two!

Then Li ChunJun snatched something out of the air. A shattered piece of flying window glass, just a long triangular shape, landed in his grasp. With incomparable precision and angle, it flashed through the broken window and plunged into Shen Zhengxian's throat.

"Rip!"

His scream...

Stopped abruptly.

Li ChunJun stepped back.

Pain covered Shen Zhengxian's face, his eyes bulging wide. As the car door slid open, his body dropped down and crashed onto the ground.

Dark red blood flowed down the glass lodged in his throat, quickly pooling together and staining the concrete ground red.

He watched quietly.

The hand that had once gripped the sword...

At some point, had stopped trembling.

He stepped forward, grabbed Shen Zhengxian by the leg, and dragged him into the courtyard.

The corpse carved broad bloody streaks across the ground, all the way into the living room.

After tossing Shen Zhengxian into the house filled with corpses, he went upstairs, changed out of his bloodstained clothes, then washed the blood from his body in the bathroom.

Throughout it all, no security guards came.

The Jin Family had already made the arrangements. Even if he waited another hour, no one would come.

Ten minutes later, Li ChunJun entered the storage room partitioned off beneath the stairwell, took out gasoline, and poured it over several key locations.

He soaked the entire house.

Then he exited the house and shut the door.

He raised his head and gazed at the sky.

The night was growing deeper, black without a trace of light.

Lowering his head, he took the bloodstained clothes, poured gasoline over them, lit them with a lighter, and threw them onto the ignition point he had left behind.

"Boom."

Fed by gasoline, the entire house was soon swallowed by blazing flames.

Li ChunJun watched quietly.

The firelight shone upon his face, but reflected neither joy nor sorrow, hatred nor resentment.

He watched the place where he had lived for eighteen years, the place that bore the marks of his life, twist in the raging flames.

Everything familiar to him—his parents, family, childhood, memories—gradually vanished in the fire. Before long, they would burn bit by bit into ash, until no trace of them remained in this world.

Turning around, Li ChunJun retrieved the sword from the car, wrapped it in his clothes, and took it with him.

He did not have a driver's license and could not drive.

Step by step, he followed the main road toward the city.

The blaze lighting up the sky behind him gradually faded into the distance.

Dim orange streetlights slowly appeared before him.

He knew he had entered the city.

When he reached the only main road leading in and out of the southern outskirts, he seemed to see something.

A graceful figure on a women's bicycle was hurrying toward him, heading straight for the suburbs.

But when she saw Li ChunJun, she hurriedly stopped.

"ChunJun!"

Li ChunJun looked at her.

His deskmate of three years—Ling Zhi.

"ChunJun, I saw the Three Stars Property Management people leave the Jin Family and hurry over your way in their cars. It looked like they were going to do something, so I came at once to warn you. You..."

"I'm fine."

Li ChunJun said.

"That's good."

Ling Zhi let out a slight sigh of relief.

After hesitating for a moment, she still said, "ChunJun, I heard Hua Yue High School in neighboring Mingzhou City likes recruiting students with good grades to boost their college entrance exam results and show off their excellent advancement rate. They often offer all kinds of benefits—full tuition waivers, various bonuses... And my family has a house over there. You can stay there..."

"No need."

Li ChunJun said, "If they expel me, then they expel me. It doesn't matter."

"Uh... ChunJun... You know?"

Ling Zhi looked slightly awkward.

Only after a moment did she persuade him, "With your grades, every school would fight to have you. The Jin Family may cover the sky with one hand in Guangzhou City, but they cannot affect the neighboring cities. We can't afford to provoke them, so at worst, we avoid them."

After saying that, she smiled with narrowed eyes and said in a relaxed tone, "Besides, I remember that back in our first year, you said with high spirits that every competitor around you was nothing more than a bunch of NPCs, and no one could stop you from soaring into the sky! I believe you can absolutely do what you said!"

"NPC..."

Li ChunJun murmured the abbreviation.

His expression was dazed, carrying a trace of wistful loss.

If he really were an NPC, how wonderful would that be?

Even if an NPC died, they could still revive.

But after a moment, he gently shook his head. "Still, it doesn't matter."

He repeated himself. "It doesn't matter."

Ling Zhi keenly sensed that something was wrong with Li ChunJun and asked worriedly, "ChunJun, you... don't seem to be in a good state of mind. Do you want to rest for a while?"

"No."

Li ChunJun stretched out his hand and looked at his palm, at his five fingers. He reached out as though trying to grasp something, but his hand held nothing but emptiness.

"I'm fine."

He emphasized heavily, "I've never felt this clear-headed in my life."

"ChunJun..."

"Ling Zhi, thank you for coming to deliver the information."

Li ChunJun looked at her.

Ling Zhi looked back at him.

It was an understanding without words.

And now...

Perhaps forever, it could never be spoken aloud.

After a moment, Li ChunJun looked away. "It's late. You should go back."

"What about you?"

"Me?"

Li ChunJun said, "I want to... take a good look at this world."

He paused. "Life is the most magnificent miracle between heaven and earth. Though it is as fragile as a newly blossomed flower bud, shattering and withering at the lightest touch, ground into dust and mud, I have always believed that every life deserves respect."

He raised his head and gazed into the distance. "The countless living beings are born free, and all things in this world move according to their rules. So I want to see more—to uphold the original heart of an ordinary member of the masses, to see whether all things and all spirits are truly different, and to see whether the rules of the human world have truly endured since time immemorial."

"You're... going to travel around the world?"

Ling Zhi's voice trembled slightly.

"No."

Li ChunJun smiled.

"Cultivating immortality."

"Cultivating immortality?"

Ling Zhi's little face was full of astonishment.

Li ChunJun waved to her.

It seemed like a farewell, and it was also a farewell.

Then he turned and left.

Beneath the glow of neon lights, he vanished into the vast night.

The suffering of the human world.

He wanted to...

Become immortal.