A Lonely Night

The middle-aged man stared at the empty Sleeve Arrow, clutching his throat as he let out choking gurgles.

He had never imagined that the other side had no hidden weapon at all.

From beginning to end, Xu Bai had used an empty Sleeve Arrow to distract him.

Had he not been distracted, perhaps the outcome would still have been uncertain. But he had been distracted.

Distraction meant death.

The middle-aged man glared fixedly at Xu Bai, Xu Bai's earlier words echoing in his mind.

"Still inexperienced in the ways of the world..."

He desperately wanted to say that if Xu Bai counted as inexperienced in the ways of the world, then an old hand like him might as well stop making a living in the jianghu. But he could not say a word now.

More and more blood flowed out, and death was steadily drawing near.

A flash of snow-bright blade light swept past. The middle-aged man only felt a pain in his chest before he completely lost consciousness.

"I paid your bill, yet you turned your blades against me. You didn't die unjustly."

From start to finish, Xu Bai had never intended to give them a chance.

He wiped the blood from the blade on the middle-aged man's corpse, sheathed the Ghost-Head Saber at his waist, and began searching the bodies one by one.

After searching them, he found over a dozen Copper Coins, along with a yellowed book.

The writing on the book's cover had become illegible. Xu Bai gave it a glance, and his brows rose.

Another golden progress bar! Tonight's haul has really been quite something... Xu Bai stroked his chin.

Several corpses lay around him. It was deep in the night, and he had chosen a secluded alley, so no one had seen anything.

But it would not do to linger here. If someone came along, he would have no choice but to silence them.

He felt he was not a bad person either. Too much killing and fighting was not good.

Under cover of darkness, he erased his tracks, pulled the Sleeve Arrows from the corpses, wiped away the bloodstains, and left the alley.

The night was like water, the moonlight like splendor.

Xu Bai opened the door to his room and casually shut it behind him after entering.

The moment he entered, he headed straight for the bedroom, took off his outer robe, and lay down on the bed, setting the Ghost-Head Saber beside him.

The oil lamp in the bedroom glowed dimly.

In an era without electric lights, the flickering glow of an oil lamp was perfect for filming horror movies.

"I gained something, but not entirely."

Xu Bai felt that his plan to visit the pleasure quarters today had failed entirely because of those jianghu men.

Originally, he had planned to have a meal, then stroll around afterward and enjoy the girls' music and performances. Who would have thought that once they started talking, they would talk until nightfall?

He had even killed them on his way back. None of that had been expected.

Are honest people like me really that easy to bully? Xu Bai thought.

Perhaps it was some transmigrator's law...

Didn't all those predecessors in novels have nothing happen to them before transmigrating, only to become merciless event-harvesting machines afterward?

Thinking this, Xu Bai leaned against the wall, propped his chin on his hand, and fell into thought.

"It's still because I'm inexperienced in the ways of the world."

He naturally shifted the blame, saying words that would have made a certain dead man cough up blood, then picked up the nameless book he had placed on the bed earlier.

The golden progress bar on the book shone brightly, especially conspicuous in the darkness.

Xu Bai stared at it without blinking.

One incense stick later...

Looking at the progress bar, which had only risen the tiniest bit, Xu Bai knew he had found a treasure.

The slower the progress bar rose, the greater the benefits.

Just look at the Kidney Hammering Technique—it was of excellent quality.

Though it came with the side effect of kidney deficiency, it was only temporary, and the effect was rock-solid.

Thus, the slower it rose, the happier Xu Bai became.

"I'll grind it out tonight!"

As the saying went, the night was long, and sleep would not come.

Xu Bai truly was sleepless at the moment. By the light of the oil lamp, he stared without blinking.

Another incense stick passed...

Xu Bai rubbed his dry eyes and said, "So not blinking really does make your eyes dry."

If someone asked him now whether their eyes would get dry after going so long without blinking, he would absolutely slap them.

Did they really need to ask whether they would get dry? I need to do something. Xu Bai tried opening the book.

Just as when he had read the Kidney Strengthening Essentials, he intended to use it to pass the time.

The yellowed book felt brittle when he turned its pages, as if applying even a little too much force would tear it apart.

He opened to the first page, and the words leaped into view.

"Round and smooth, passing into the hidden; qi travels through the Gate of Heaven, mystical and hazy, like chaos and muddle..."

The moment he finished reading the first line, Xu Bai's head began to ache.

He recognized every single word, yet when they were put together, he no longer understood them.

They were obscure and difficult to comprehend. Any normal person would struggle to keep reading.

"I have to grind it out tonight!"

Xu Bai patiently continued reading.

Because the text was so obscure, the farther he read, the more muddled his mind became.

As he read, his page-turning speed gradually increased. He no longer weighed every word and considered every sentence, instead skimming ten lines at a glance.

He was only passing the time anyway, so Xu Bai did not care.

Another incense stick later...

Xu Bai flipped to the final page, his face expressionless.

He had not understood it. He simply could not understand it. It was like reading a heavenly tome.

However, reaching the last page brought a new discovery—a sheet of paper was tucked inside the book.

It was like finding some unknown thing called "Such-and-Such Dictionary" in a computer folder. Xu Bai immediately became excited.

He unfolded the sheet, revealing handwriting that looked like a dog had crawled across the page.

Xu Bai examined it carefully. It contained annotations on the book, and at the same time, a cultivation method.

After tearing out the sheet, he opened the book again and compared them carefully. The annotations on the paper were incomplete, covering only half the book.

Rather than annotations for the book, it was more like a reader's understanding of its contents.

According to this person's understanding, merely half the book had allowed him to comprehend a low-grade cultivation method.

"Dog-crawl handwriting..."

Xu Bai thought of the middle-aged man.

Could the middle-aged man have written it?

He guessed that the middle-aged man had obtained this book from somewhere and comprehended a simple, low-grade cultivation method from it, rising from unranked to the ninth rank.

That guess was highly likely.

"No matter what, this thing is of a higher grade than the Bone Severing Heart Sutra."

Half of it alone could produce a low-grade cultivation method; the complete book had to be of a higher grade.

Having reached that conclusion, Xu Bai's interest grew even stronger.

His eyes no longer felt dry as he continued staring at it with complete focus.

The night stretched on. Xu Bai did not know how many times he refilled the lamp with oil, staying up until the rooster crowed.

You observed the nameless book and comprehended the Heart Slaughtering Technique.

Words appeared before his eyes. Xu Bai's slightly dazed eyes widened.

It was finally... done! Going without sleep for one night was nothing to a martial artist.

But staring intently at a book all night when he could not even understand what was written in it—that was truly torment.

Beyond being tedious, it was even more sleep-inducing.

It was like waiting for a game to load, watching that progress bar creep upward bit by bit. Just thinking about it was enough to send one's blood pressure soaring.

Fortunately, the night had not been wasted. He had finally ground through the book.

Heart Slaughtering Technique... what kind of thing is that? Xu Bai wondered.

No information flooded into his mind as he had expected. That line of text seemed to have frozen, remaining before his eyes.

"Did it break from overuse?" Xu Bai reached out and grabbed at the words in front of him.

The text before his eyes seemed to suddenly reboot and began gradually changing.

A new line of text appeared...