Handling the Corpse

After confirming that everyone was all right, Tianmen left with Chi Baicheng. They had been there to save someone, but this was still a brothel, and staying too long would look bad.

Once the irrelevant people had left, Wang Jingyuan started looting the corpse. Linghu Chong wanted to stop him, but Wang Jingyuan's repeated taunts—"No way, no way, no way. You're not seriously going to buddy up with a rapist, are you?"—drove him back.

Linghu Chong could only watch helplessly as his Brother Tian, even in death, was denied any peace. To Wang Jingyuan's surprise, he actually found Tian Baiguang's martial arts manuals.

He'd always thought that carrying your own manuals around on your person was such a brain-dead thing to do that almost nobody would do it. Yet Tian Baiguang had done exactly that.

Under normal circumstances, Wang Jingyuan would have simply accepted the loot. But after spending some time here, he understood that this was a hardcore game world. If an NPC seemed stupid, it wasn't because the AI was bad; it was because the NPC had been written to be stupid.

Tian Baiguang was a lecher with no backing from any powerful faction, yet he had roamed the jianghu for years without getting caught. He couldn't possibly be a fool. There had to be a trick.

Carefully, Wang Jingyuan used his long sword to sweep the manuals onto the ground, then flipped through them page by page. Having learned a few martial arts with the help of the system, he now had some insight into martial arts manuals.

After only a few pages, Wang Jingyuan realized that the two saber manuals and two movement manuals he'd found on Tian Baiguang all had a similar style. They probably came from the same sect.

Whether it was saber techniques or movement skills, their defining trait was speed. And that speed came from using Internal Energy to spur the body's vital essence. The more he looked, the more this approach resembled Bixie Swordplay.

After finishing all four manuals, Wang Jingyuan realized that they didn't merely resemble it—they were downright budget versions of Bixie Swordplay. At least the internal cultivation method of Bixie Swordplay had lofty principles and clearly came from an extraordinary lineage.

These four manuals, on the other hand, looked like methods someone had stumbled upon through trial and error. They were nowhere near as powerful as Bixie Swordplay, but they were also much less effective, so there was no need to castrate yourself.

The price, however, was an extremely vigorous libido.

Wang Jingyuan nodded. That explained it.

It explained why Tian Baiguang, a notorious lecher, had seemed like a sex addict. It also explained why he carried the manuals around with him. Anyone who got their hands on the manuals had either been taught by him willingly or had killed him.

Tian Baiguang's martial arts were no joke. How many people who found his manuals could resist practicing them? But once they got hooked, they'd end up following the whole "slayer of dragons becomes a dragon" routine. Tsk, tsk, tsk. What a painstaking scheme.

But what did any of that have to do with Wang Jingyuan? He'd already learned Bixie Swordplay. This stuff was nothing by comparison. Besides, ever since finding the manuals, he'd already started thinking about setting up a Huashan wellness club.

He only had to extract the sections involving internal cultivation and make a few minor adjustments. That would give him an entirely new Fuyang Gong. Using the wellness club as a platform to win over the old men in the imperial court would be perfect.

After all, from the Grand Secretariat's chief minister down to street peddlers, who didn't care about their own little business? Medicine was always three parts poison. The crude tonic could be marketed to the lower end of the market for profit.

And Fuyang Gong would be the stepping stone to winning over the upper classes. Thinking about it, Wang Jingyuan broke into a grin. Once his plan took off, reviving Huashan and defeating the final boss would be a piece of cake. It was like he'd cleared the DLC and was only then starting the main game, completely at ease.

While Wang Jingyuan was grinning to himself, Linghu Chong began gathering up Tian Baiguang's corpse. Wang Jingyuan immediately called out, "Hands off the corpse!"

Linghu Chong looked at Wang Jingyuan and asked in disbelief, "Junior Brother Wang, are you seriously thinking of whipping the corpse too?!"

Wang Jingyuan frowned. "Do you take me for that kind of bored fool? I usually can't be bothered with anything that doesn't pay. I just thought of a possibility, so we need to do something to his corpse first."

Linghu Chong furrowed his brows. "What do you want to do with it?"

Wang Jingyuan pointed overhead. "It's getting hotter and hotter. If we leave him here, his body will start to stink soon. We need to find a way to preserve it first."

Linghu Chong was even more confused. "Why not just find a simple coffin and bury him?"

"Hmph. We can do that after the Golden Basin Hand-Washing Ceremony." Wang Jingyuan didn't want to explain himself to this clueless fool, so he simply brushed him off.

Wang Jingyuan reached out to put Tian Baiguang into his Inventory, but found he couldn't. He'd tested it before: living things couldn't go in, but meat bought at the market could.

Wang Jingyuan looked at the empty health bar above Tian Baiguang's corpse. There was no chance he was playing dead. Did he have to chop him up before he could put him away? Never mind. With this big fool here, he couldn't do that.

So Wang Jingyuan hoisted Tian Baiguang's corpse onto his shoulders and prepared to leave. He instructed Linghu Chong, "I'm going to find someone who can deal with the corpse. You take Little Master Yilin back to the Hengshan Sect first."

Linghu Chong still felt uneasy, but he couldn't think of a reason to stop Wang Jingyuan. All he could do was watch him leave.

Wang Jingyuan had planned to find a military household in town to help deal with the corpse. After all, tanning heads ought to be a basic skill for soldiers.

Unexpectedly, the Ming Dynasty's military had already begun to rot. Military household was little more than a label. They couldn't tan heads, and they had barely any basic military skills left. They were no different from ordinary farmers.

But on the way, Wang Jingyuan spotted a butcher shop.

[Dai Zong Ru He proficiency +1]

[Dai Zong Ru He proficiency +1]

[Dai Zong Ru He proficiency +1]

On the way back to the inn, Wang Jingyuan's left hand never stopped. Dai Zong Ru He lived up to its reputation: the key was calculation, not sword moves, and the same went for grinding proficiency.

Whenever a martial artist came toward him, he would work it out with his fingers. Once he finished calculating, he gained proficiency even if he didn't attack.

He gained quite a bit of proficiency on the way, and his left hand grew faster at forming the calculations. Soon, his five fingers were opening and closing so quickly that they left afterimages.

But after gaining around twenty points of proficiency, his progress suddenly stopped. He could no longer gain proficiency by calculating the martial artists who passed by.

This didn't surprise him. It had been the same when he practiced the Mount Hua Sword Technique. At first, he could gain proficiency just by going through it once. Defeating a powerful opponent in a sparring match earned him a generous amount.

But once his Mount Hua Sword Technique reached a certain level, he could only gain proficiency by winning a spar against someone stronger than himself, or by killing people.

As expected, killing monsters was a player's destiny.

Still, Wang Jingyuan was satisfied just to have a reliable way to improve. When he arrived at the inn, he saw Yue Lingshan pacing anxiously. As soon as she spotted them returning, her face lit up with a smile and she ran over. "Junior Brother Wang, are you all right?"

Wang Jingyuan instinctively calculated with his fingers. When he got the result, he looked at her with disdain. "Junior Disciple Sister."

"What?"

"You really suck."