The official road was thick with the stench of blood.
The dozen or so scrawny horses had bolted in fright, scattering in every direction and leaving only corpses strewn across the ground.
The burly man lay in a pool of blood, a massive hole in his chest. Lu Chen had crushed his breastbone with a single stomp.
Even in death, he couldn't understand how trying to rob someone on the road had landed him in trouble with such a baleful star.
Lu Chen expertly searched the bodies.
"Pathetic."
He curled his lip and tossed the few dozen taels of broken silver he'd found into his bundle.
These bandits looked vicious, but all they did was prey on ordinary folk. There was hardly anything worth taking off them.
Still, even a mosquito's leg was meat.
Though Lu Chen now carried a fortune, he knew the old saying: "A poor home and a rich road." In this world, you could never have too much money.
After dealing with the scene, Lu Chen continued on his way.
The road ahead was bound to be anything but peaceful.
The thousand-mile journey from Nujiang County to Canglan Prefecture crossed several great mountains and stretches of uninhabited wilderness.
These places were fertile ground for crime.
On the first day, Lu Chen ran into three groups of bandits.
Aside from the burly man in the first group, who had at least shown a little judgment, the other two were little more than rabble. They didn't even have proper weapons; they'd come out to rob people with hoes and wooden clubs.
Lu Chen didn't slaughter them. He merely let a little of his Bone Refining Realm aura show, and they fled in terror, pissing themselves.
On the third day, Lu Chen entered an area known as the Black