Sneak Attack

"A heaven-sent genius, your reputation precedes you." Mo Da left this single sentence of evaluation and departed.

Hengyang City was settled, and Wang Jingyuan prepared to attend to his own affairs. First, he went to the butcher shop. Upon seeing Wang Jingyuan, the butcher brought out Tian Boguang's head from a back room.

Wang Jingyuan hadn't found any military households capable of preserving heads a few days prior, so he had to find a butcher skilled in making cured meat. The butcher wiped Tian Boguang's head clean with a cloth and placed it before Wang Jingyuan. He then calmly said:

"Since it's not for eating, I'll cure it with poisonous salt. To ensure his features were visible, I first pickled it in brine a few times to set its shape, then applied the poisonous salt and curing agents."

Wang Jingyuan took the head and saw it was indeed about eighty percent similar to how he looked in life. They had clearly put in effort. He placed the head in a box and looked at the butcher: "Before, they all refused my job, but you volunteered. I initially thought you just needed money. Now it seems you have a story too."

The butcher took out a cloth bundle from under the chopping block, pulled out a silver ingot, and placed it before Wang Jingyuan. Wang Jingyuan saw it was the silver he had given the butcher earlier.

The butcher said with a calm expression: "That villain came to Hengyang City many years ago... I am eternally grateful for Great Hero Wang's kindness. However, I have already chopped his corpse into pieces and fed it to the dogs, failing to fulfill your request. I am unworthy of this silver."

Wang Jingyuan ignored the silver ingot and simply picked up the wooden box to leave: "I asked you to handle his body properly, and you did."

Leaving the butcher shop, Wang Jingyuan went directly to Commander Chen's home. The old servant there, perhaps having received instructions, directly led Wang Jingyuan to Commander Chen upon seeing him.

Commander Chen was sitting in his study drinking tea. Wang Jingyuan was not polite. He walked up and poured himself a cup: "Old Chen, give me some good stuff, let me see your strength."

Old Chen was quick. Wang Jingyuan had gone to see him in the morning and left in the afternoon, and that included a simple meal at Huiyan Tower for lunch.

Wang Jingyuan looked at the small slip of paper Old Chen had written for him and walked out of Hengyang City's gates.

On the official road not far from Hengyang City, there was an inn by the roadside. Inns opened in such remote locations were usually black inns. However, the owner of this inn was quite shrewd; everyone thought inns in such places were black inns, so he chose to operate with integrity.

Through years of building a good reputation, many travelers knew of this honest inn. Thus, it became the primary resting choice for those passing through.

Members of the Qingcheng Sect were dining there at the moment. Everyone was eating obediently, but Yu Canghai was still engrossed in flipping through his copy of the Bixie Swordplay, diligently studying the manual.

His pale complexion and bloodshot eyes indicated he had likely attempted to forcefully cultivate the Bixie Swordplay many times in the past few days.

He wasn't like Wang Jingyuan, who had some special advantage. Lacking the prerequisites to cultivate the swordplay, he could only repeatedly fall into a state of qi deviation.

"Guests, your dishes are here." The waiter placed the dishes ordered by the Qingcheng Sect on the table one by one. In the center was a pot of chicken soup. Yu Canghai twitched his nose, detecting a medicinal fragrance in the chicken soup.

He stopped the waiter: "What did you add to this chicken soup?"

The waiter honestly replied: "A medicinal merchant passed by here yesterday. He thought our chicken soup was delicious and gave our shopkeeper some high-quality tonic herbs, saying they would make the chicken soup taste better and have nourishing effects.

He gave us some to try first. If passing guests like it, he'll sell us more when he passes by again."

Yu Canghai ladled a bowl of chicken soup and sniffed it. It indeed had no strange taste, only common nourishing Chinese herbs. He held a little under his tongue and felt no discomfort.

Instead, he felt a slight warmth in his body and a sense of fullness in his Blood Essence. It seemed the waiter was right; these were indeed high-quality tonic herbs.

He had already coughed up a lot of blood recently while studying the sword manual, so drinking a bowl of chicken soup to replenish himself seemed like a great idea. Yu Canghai didn't eat much of the other dishes that meal, but he drank the chicken soup to his heart's content.

After several bowls of chicken soup, Yu Canghai's body indeed felt warmer, and the sense of emptiness within him seemed to be filled. By nightfall, Yu Canghai felt revitalized and sat on his bed to meditate on the sword manual.

As soon as he tried to practice, the familiar feeling surged into his heart. He spat out a mouthful of blood. It was unclear if it was due to the recent nourishment, but the blood sprayed high and far.

However, it didn't end there. In the past, the qi deviation state would quickly subside after he stopped practicing. But today was different; the chaotic true qi within him not only didn't stop but intensified, completely out of control.

At this moment, Yu Canghai heard a dull thud, and a gray shadow attacked from outside the door. If it were any other time, he could have dodged it, but his true qi was completely uncontrollable, and he couldn't evade it.

The gray shadow pierced his chest, and Yu Canghai spat out a large amount of blood and fragments of internal organs. He mustered his strength and pressed the acupoints to stop the bleeding.

He stared intently at the doorway, where a figure in night-blooming clothes, with a black cloth covering their face, pushed the door open and walked in. More importantly, the person was carrying a crossbow.

The newcomer was naturally Wang Jingyuan. Before he set out, the small slip of paper Old Chen gave him contained the Qingcheng Sect's return route. Although the Imperial Guards under Commander Chen practiced some martial arts, they were still far inferior to Jianghu figures.

Asking them to eavesdrop on Yu Canghai's room from the roof late at night was too difficult. But the Qingcheng Sect members liked to discuss matters while eating.

Therefore, the Qingcheng Sect's return route ended up in Wang Jingyuan's hands. As for whether this intelligence was a deliberate fake message released by Yu Canghai, Wang Jingyuan didn't care.

If it was fake, he would just wait for the next time. Yu Canghai could run, but he couldn't carry Songfeng Temple away with him, could he? Fortunately, Wang Jingyuan's luck was good; he caught the Qingcheng Sect on his first try.

Wang Jingyuan saw Yu Canghai sitting on the bed, struggling to support himself, looking as if he would collapse at any moment. He didn't dare to let his guard down. In this day and age, there were too many instances of bosses feigning death or surrender in slightly hardcore games.

Back then, when he was harvesting materials on a poisonous monster bird's corpse, the bird suddenly stood up, nearly making Wang Jingyuan cry out. As for that bastard Red-tailed Macaque, there was no need to even mention it; Wang Jingyuan had thought there was some special plot.

Wang Jingyuan's crossbow suddenly disappeared, and in an instant, a loaded crossbow reappeared in his hand, which he fired directly.

This shot was aimed at the lower abdomen. Yu Canghai had no strength to resist and was pierced through again. From Wang Jingyuan's perspective, he could see Yu Canghai's intestines wriggling within his abdomen, and only then did Wang Jingyuan feel slightly relieved.

Closing the door, he found a chair and sat down, saying in a muffled voice: "Why didn't you call out?"

Yu Canghai looked at Wang Jingyuan coldly: "If I had made a sound, I fear the inheritance of Songfeng Temple would have ended here. Speak, what will it take for you to spare my disciples?"