After the Battle

"How strange is this Shanyin Art, exactly, that so many people practice it?"

Zhao Han immediately grew curious about the Shanyin Art. If he had enough silver, he would definitely try it at once.

"Isn't there still one survivor? Give him a good beating and let him taste the consequences. He'll confess sooner or later."

With a cold sneer, Zhao Han walked over to the unconscious cultist and planted a foot on his wrist.

"Argh..."

The pain jolted the cultist awake, and he screamed.

"Keep it down. Otherwise, I'll carve you into a thousand pieces and torture you to death slowly!"

Zhao Han lifted his foot and pointed the tip of his blade at the cultist as he barked out the threat.

The cultist nodded like a chicken pecking at grain.

He could still tell the difference between dying immediately and being tortured to death slowly.

"Tell me. What does your Yin Tong Cult do?"

"Don't kill me! I don't know either—I'm just an ordinary cultist."

"You don't know? Do you believe I'll skin you alive right now?"

"No, no! I really don't know! Even if you skin me alive, I still won't know!"

Zhao Han chuckled softly. "Heh. Don't worry. I'll ask, and you'll answer. As long as you tell the truth obediently, I won't kill you. I'll spare your life."

The cultist became even more doubtful. "R-Really? I don't believe you. You have to swear an oath."

Zhao Han laughed softly. "Fine, I swear I won't kill you. Otherwise, may heaven strike me dead with thunder. How about that?"

Swearing oaths—I loved nothing more than swearing oaths. Oaths were meant to be broken.

Hadn't countless people on Blue Star sworn righteous oaths, only for them to amount to nothing in the end?

Seeing that Zhao Han had truly sworn an oath and even wagered his life on it, the cultist finally relaxed somewhat.

"Our Yin Tong Cult only captures some young people and hands them over to the Headquarters. As for why we capture them, my status is too low. I can't come into contact with that..."

The moment he heard the words "young people," Zhao Han immediately thought of the missing mine slaves from the Fine Iron Mine.

Most of those who had disappeared were young people. Now everything matched up.

They had been captured by Li Dalong, Wang Hu, Wang Bao, and the others.

Those three were practically bloodsucking fiends, clinging to the Poisonous Snake Gang and draining it dry.

"You have a Headquarters too? Where is it?"

"Beneath the Daxing Gambling House."

"How strong is the Altar Master?"

"At... at the pinnacle of the Bone Refining Realm!"

"The Bone Refining Realm..." Zhao Han murmured.

He had not expected even an Altar Master to be in the Bone Refining Realm, no weaker than the Gang Leaders of the two major gangs.

Then wouldn't the Yin Tong Cult's leader be in the Organ Refining Realm, or perhaps even... the Blood Refining Realm?

Zhao Han did not dwell on it and continued asking, "Then what happens after practicing the Shanyin Art?"

"The Shanyin Art... as long as you cultivate its first level, even if you die, you can continue existing as a ghost."

"So powerful? You can become a ghost after death and keep on living." Zhao Han could not help clicking his tongue in amazement.

Wang Bao had practiced it too. After dying, he had transformed into a black mass and fled.

Yet Zhao Han became even more wary of the Shanyin Art. A technique so strange and born of such crooked, evil ways was better left unpracticed.

Who knew—after practicing it, he might end up becoming someone else's dowry.

There was great promise in honorable martial arts. There was no need to meddle with the Ghostly Path without understanding it.

"What is this jade pendant? What does it do?" Zhao Han took out the jade pendant and asked.

"It's called the Yin Wood Jade Pendant. It can sense the Yin Wood outside. If someone approaches the Yin Wood, the pendant will grow hot; if a ghost approaches the Yin Wood, the pendant will turn cold..."

"What are you digging for here?"

"It has to do with this corpse. This corpse was possessed by a ghost and sucked out people's souls. That was how we found this Huai Tree. There must be something hidden beneath it."

"What about the Boy Statue?"

"The Boy Statue can collect ghost souls. Those who practiced the Shanyin Art can continue existing as ghosts; the souls of dead people who never practiced the Shanyin Art will be absorbed."

"You're saying that the black skulls your Hall Master and those cultists condensed into just now were all ghost souls?"

Zhao Han could not help turning pale in shock.

That meant Wang Bao had not completely died, and neither had the Hall Master and the others.

Still, Zhao Han did not panic. The dead could not return to life—this was an eternal truth that had never changed.

Dead was dead. So what if they became ghosts?

Could he really ambush me somewhere crowded?

The cultist honestly confessed everything. Seeing Zhao Han standing there in thought, he let out a sigh of relief.

Little did he know, Zhao Han swiftly raised his steel saber.

"Y-you, what are you trying to do? You swore an oath!" The cultist's voice rose as he cried out anxiously.

"I did swear an oath, but I only said, 'I won't kill you.' I never said, 'I won't use a saber to kill you.' That doesn't count as breaking my oath, does it?"

Zhao Han stared at the cultist with a cold sneer, holding him completely in the palm of his hand.

This bullshit oath was the same logic as "you're right here being right here."

Likewise, "What does arresting Lu Xun have to do with me, Zhou Shuren?"

In Zhao Han's eyes, oaths were just like nonsense literature—utterly fucking useless.

"Y-you have no martial virtue! Even if I become a ghost, I won't let you off!" The cultist's eyes widened as he spoke unwillingly.

After killing the cultist, Zhao Han watched the so-called ghost soul enter the Boy Statue.

He sorted through the information he had gained once more, then looked at the Boy Statue.

"No matter what, if I look at the problem dialectically, this Boy Statue should have both uses and drawbacks."

"Then I'll gladly accept it!"

Zhao Han smiled. Unafraid, he stepped forward and stored the Boy Statue in the System Space.

No matter what heaven-defying, bizarre tricks you had, once you entered the System Space, wouldn't you still be at my mercy?

He then climbed back over the wall and stored the yin wood in the System Space.

This Yin Wood Jade Pendant and the yin wood were both good things. If he left the yin wood outside while sleeping at night, he could sense people approaching—or the presence of ghosts.

"I seem to remember that I came here to practice the Yu Family Saber Technique!"

One minute later, Zhao Han had mastered the Yu Family Saber Technique.

Yu Family Saber Technique [Simplified, Unclassified, Beginner 0/50, use the saber technique to carve fifty Yu characters into wood]

"Still this simple. Looks like my realm has improved—unclassified martial arts no longer even catch my eye."

Zhao Han looked around, entered the abandoned residence, then swung his saber and carved fifty Yu characters into one of the abandoned pillars.

Yu Family Saber Technique [Simplified, Unclassified, Proficient 0/100, use the saber technique to carve one hundred Yu characters into stone]

"Heh, I knew it. I've got the pattern all figured out."

Zhao Han smiled easily. There were stones everywhere here; the rockeries were stone, and the walls were stone too.

A hundred characters—easy as pie.

A few minutes later, Zhao Han completed it once more.

Yu Family Saber Technique [Simplified, Unclassified, Mastery 0/1000, use the saber technique to carve one hundred Yu characters into corpses]

"This also seems rather simple."

Zhao Han looked at the corpses on the ground. Never had he felt that breaking through in a martial art could be so easy.

One hundred Yu characters were quickly carved. Every corpse, including Dong Qiang's, was covered in Yu characters.

Yu Family Saber Technique [Simplified, Unclassified, Great Completion]

Once the Yu Family Saber Technique reached Great Completion, Zhao Han clearly felt every aspect of his physical abilities.

They had improved a little—not much, but enough to be noticeable.

As he practiced more and more martial arts, the gains would grow smaller and might even disappear, because the overlap between them would become increasingly severe.

At that point, he would need higher-level martial arts.