Beast Creation Technique

Tang Wanxin walked in through the small gate, her steps slow. Looking at the Yao Python, burned to charcoal in the courtyard, she stared in disbelief and cried, "Father! Father!"

"You killed it."

"Do you have any idea how much blood and sweat I poured into raising Father to this size?"

"I fed it fresh human blood, drop by drop."

"It was my most successful creation!"

"And you destroyed it!"

Jiang Yun watched Tang Wanxin enter the courtyard, her eyes growing more and more feverish. He furrowed his brow. How was this woman getting more and more deranged with every word?

Xu Xiaogang asked quietly beside him, "Do you have any more of that black powder from before? Give me a pinch. I'll spit a mouthful of fire and burn this evil woman to death."

Jiang Yun shot Xu Xiaogang a glance and said in a low voice, "You're addicted to eating it now? There's none left. I gave you the last bit."

Xu Xiaogang couldn't help feeling a little disappointed.

"I don't care who you are. You'll all die here!"

After saying this, Tang Wanxin turned and ran through the small gate, vanishing from sight.

"Hm? She ran?" Seeing her deliver a threat and then turn tail, Jiang Yun felt a strange unease rise within him.

"Quick, over the wall!"

Xu Xiaogang easily vaulted onto the wall and hauled Jiang Yun and Qian Bochou up after him. He glanced around.

They were now inside a sprawling mansion with three courtyards in a row.

They climbed over the wall and had barely landed when flames flared on both sides.

The servants in the mansion held torches, sickles, hoes, and kitchen knives.

Three or four dozen people surrounded the three of them. Their eyes were filled with menace, as if they had received orders.

Seeing this, Qian Bochou asked quietly, "Who are these people?"

"Ordinary people," Xu Xiaogang said, standing with his hands behind his back.

When Qian Bochou heard that they were ordinary people, he puffed out his chest, recovering his masculine pride. Stepping forward, he shouted, "What do you think you're doing? Are you trying to rebel? I'm Qian Bochou, a constable of Nanzhou Prefecture!"

Sure enough, when they heard Qian Bochou's rank, fear showed in their eyes.

Qian Bochou cursed them out. "Do you know what crime it is to attack an official? You could have a few more heads and still not have enough to lose!"

"The Tang Household colluded with evil practitioners. Just put down your weapons, and this has nothing to do with you."

Though the servants feared Qian Bochou's position, one of them still said, "Miss Tang isn't an evil practitioner. She's a bodhisattva reborn. Without her, we'd have starved to death long ago."

Qian Bochou cursed at them. "And you still say she isn't an evil practitioner? Have you all gone mad?"

"Miss Tang never took our lives."

"If Miss Tang hadn't given us grain, my whole family wouldn't have survived last winter."

"So what if Miss Tang is an evil practitioner? When we were starving to death, where were you officials?"

"You officials only care about yourselves. You don't give a damn whether we live or die."

"Kill them!"

The group shouted louder and louder, their eyes growing wild.

Then they charged at the three with torches and weapons, swinging at them.

Qian Bochou, who had been so imposing just moments ago, ran back and hid behind Xu Xiaogang with Jiang Yun.

Even without a weapon, Xu Xiaogang was so skilled that they couldn't get anywhere near him. Before they could close in, he kicked their weapons flying.

One kick from Xu Xiaogang was enough to knock a person out cold.

Of the more than forty servants, over ten soon lay on the ground.

Gradually, the others began to calm down. None dared approach recklessly.

"A bunch of fools," Qian Bochou said coldly. "They've been fooled, and they're still counting the money for the people who fooled them."

Jiang Yun, however, saw through it and said, "Do you really think they don't know what Miss Tang is up to?"

"Do you think Tang Wanxin personally went out to capture people every time?"

Xu Xiaogang turned to look at Jiang Yun and asked, "What do we do with these people?"

Jiang Yun shook his head and said gravely, "We can't deal with them right now. We need to find Tang Wanxin, fast."

"Tang Wanxin knows full well these people can't stop us. She's just using them to buy time."

Just then, Tang Wanxin ran up to the entrance of a completely sealed room, holding a torch.

The room had no windows. It was built from blocks of bluestone.

Its only entrance was a black iron door. Tang Wanxin stepped forward and shoved it open with all her strength.

A stench of blood and rot rushed out at once.

Tang Wanxin didn't seem bothered. She stepped lightly inside.

Many wooden chairs stood within. In the flickering torchlight, several figures sat in them.

"Little brother, big sister, uncles, elder uncles—someone killed Father."

As she spoke, she slowly approached the nearest figure and said in a hollow voice, "Little brother, my dear little brother, someone killed Father."

"We have to avenge him."

The little brother she spoke of was an eight- or nine-year-old boy, but the skin had long since been stripped from his entire body.

Instead, monkey hide had been stuck onto him and sewn in place.

Tang Wanxin then looked toward a man beside him.

His head had been cut off and replaced with a dog's head. He looked like a half-man, half-dog monster.

The whole room was filled with such strange and eerie creatures.

Tang Wanxin went to the middle of the room, where a gray wooden box stood. She bent down, opened it, and took out a bronze bell.

She gently shook the bell. Every "person" in the room snapped their eyes open at once.

"Kill! Kill everyone you see! Leave not a single one alive!"

Tang Wanxin put the bell back in the box and hurried out of the room. She took a deep breath. She knew the Tang Household could no longer be saved, no matter what.

Soon, she disappeared into the Tang Household.

Jiang Yun, Xu Xiaogang, and Qian Bochou were still facing off against the servants.

Suddenly, Jiang Yun heard a strange ringing in his ears.

"Not good." Jiang Yun's expression changed. At the same time, footsteps sounded from the eaves on both sides of the alley.

He looked up. On both sides, strange "people" were crouched along the rooftops.

"What are those things?" Sensing something was wrong, Qian Bochou edged closer to Jiang Yun and asked in a low voice.

"The Beast Creation Technique," Jiang Yun said, narrowing his eyes.

Jiang Yun hadn't expected Tang Wanxin to use the Beast Creation Technique to create so many evil creatures.

At a glance, there had to be at least twenty of them.

Jiang Yun took a deep breath and said to Xu Xiaogang, "You can hear the bell, right?"

Xu Xiaogang twitched his ears and nodded. "Of course."

Jiang Yun watched the monsters on both sides warily and said in a low voice, "The bell awakened these evil creatures. Destroy it, and they'll fall back asleep."

"We need to destroy that bell as quickly as possible."

As soon as he finished speaking, the figures on the rooftops leaped down.

But their targets weren't just Jiang Yun and the other two. The servants were in their sights, too.

A child covered in monkey hide jumped down, opened its mouth, and sank its sharp teeth into a servant's neck.

Blood sprayed out in an instant.

"Dogs eating dogs—won't even spare their own people," Qian Bochou said, unable to help himself.

Jiang Yun grabbed his hand. "These beast-men can't tell friend from foe. They'll kill anyone they see. Stop talking and keep up!"

The three of them rushed toward the source of the bell's ringing.