After one night.
In the shantytown of the Rogue Cultivator Gathering Place, two groups faced off outside a shack, tension crackling between them. The air hung heavy and grim, as though tiny sparks were already dancing through it, ready to set off an explosion.
The impoverished residents nearby had long since scattered, afraid of being caught in the crossfire.
The dilapidated shack door had been smashed open by brute force, splinters scattered everywhere.
On the wall inside, a line of crooked, bloodstained writing stood out clearly.
"The murderer is an unknown nobody from Golden Character Workshop!"
On the floor lay a cultivator's head, its eyes wide with disbelief. The sight was chilling.
Anyone could see the dead cultivator's outrage and the fact that he'd been caught completely off guard.
The killer had played dirty, attacking by surprise. But one look at the slash across the neck made it clear how decisively and viciously he'd taken the man's head. Fast, ruthless, precise—he was a man of audacious nerve!
And the bastard had even left a message. "The murderer is an unknown nobody"—yesterday, the man had personally invited you to a banquet. Who didn't know your name was Chen Dengming? This was mockery.
The leader of Hutong Street was Qian Yuan, a one-armed old man with white hair and beard.
His eyes flashed like twin bolts of lightning as he stared at the head on the ground. Then he slowly closed them and forced several words through his teeth, one at a time. "Good! Good! Good!"
Anyone could hear the fury packed into those three "goods." The people around him didn't dare so much as breathe, all of them silent as cicadas in winter.
The other group belonged to Golden Character Workshop. Their leader, Xu Ning, stood surrounded by his people.
He wasn't afraid of his old rival across from him. In fact, looking at the writing on the wall, the head on the ground, and the sour look on his rival's face, he felt like laughing.
He had always been a man who did as he pleased, and now he really did burst out laughing. His laughter shook the roof tiles around them, drawing angry glares from everyone in Hutong Street's group. His subordinates joined in, egged on by his laughter.
"Xu Ning! You've gone too far."
Qian Yuan suddenly opened his eyes, a frightening gleam flashing in them. Spiritual energy surged around him, radiating a powerful spiritual pressure. The Xiantian cultivators around him all turned pale beneath it.
"Too far?"
Xu Ning's laughter subsided. He regarded Qian Yuan coolly, clapped his hands, and said with a grin, "Old Qian, we've been fighting each other for years. A month ago, my subordinate Old Lin died a gruesome death out there. You said Hutong Street had nothing to do with it. So how do you explain what happened today?
"You actually dared send someone to poach one of my people. Good thing my brother Chen is a man of real character, with courage and loyalty."
Qian Yuan snapped, "Now my people are dead! Chen Dengming is just an ordinary mortal. How could he kill three people in such a short time, one of them a cultivator? I suspect you planned the whole thing."
"Ridiculous!"
Xu Ning snorted. "Your subordinate was only at the first layer of Qi Refining. He let down his guard, so it's perfectly reasonable that Chen Dengming killed him.
"Spiritual energy is certainly more powerful than Xiantian True Qi, but there have been cases of Xiantian cultivators killing cultivators who weren't on their guard. Besides, don't forget where he came from. And even if I did plan this, so what?"
His words instantly ratcheted the tension back up. Both sides glared at each other, and some cultivators were already forming hand seals, ready to start a fight at any moment.
Qian Yuan gritted his teeth, furious. His thoughts raced, and he was also somewhat surprised.
He had already heard whispers that the Eldest Miss of the Luo Family had recently taken part in a mission organized jointly by Wonderful Sound Sect and several other cultivation sects, then returned with someone.
That someone was Chen Dengming.
He had originally been attached to a certain figure in the Luo Family.
That figure, however, was at odds with the person backing Xu Ning, which was why the two sides had been in conflict for years.
When he saw Xu Ning recruit Chen Dengming, Qian Yuan had been a step too slow. That was why he'd tried to poach Chen Dengming, while also sounding him out about his background and his relationship with Eldest Miss Lüo.
He had planned to use threats and inducements. Chen Dengming was just a mortal, after all. He'd assumed the man wouldn't dare resist.
He'd never expected this mortal to be so audacious—killing three of his subordinates before fleeing under cover of night. Now he had failed to recruit the man, lost people, and made a fool of himself.
What was done was done. To save face, he'd have to find the mortal first. But it wouldn't do to start a fight with Xu Ning now, lest other forces lurking nearby benefit from it.
Qian Yuan's expression darkened. With a cold snort, he ordered someone to take away his subordinate's head for burial, then left with his people in a surging mass after tossing out a threat.
It was rare for Xu Ning to see his old rival take a hit. The surprise Chen Dengming had given him today had also restored the face he'd lost over Old Lin's death, and his mood was excellent. He laughed and said, "Brothers, spread the word. Chen Dengming is someone I, Xu Ning, value. No one is to make trouble for him. Once he comes back, I'll reward him handsomely!"
Though he said this, few people present felt envious. They were simply impressed.
After offending Qian Yuan, that reward wouldn't be easy to claim.
People admired Chen Dengming not only for his audacity, but also for his good judgment and meticulous caution. After killing the men from Hutong Street, he'd immediately run, leaving the Rogue Cultivator Gathering Place altogether instead of hiding in Golden Character Workshop's territory.
That way, at least in the short term, it would be hard for anyone to find him.
In the long run, though, demon beasts prowled the wilderness. His prospects were grim.
Still, for now, it was better than staying in the Gathering Place.
With so many people and so many pairs of eyes in Hutong Street, it was impossible to hide. No matter how much the cultivators of Golden Character Workshop protected him, they couldn't guard a mortal around the clock.
Put simply, a mortal's life wasn't worth much.
When a mortal offended a powerful cultivator, the outcome was usually death.
With Qian Yuan and Xu Ning, both sixth-layer Qi Cultivation cultivators, now targeting Chen Dengming, it wasn't a blessing. It was a calamity.
"Young Master Chen..."
In a corner of the shantytown, Xu Wei pressed her lips together, her face tense and her eyes filled with worry and regret.
She'd never imagined that Chen Dengming, usually so mild-mannered and reclusive, would suddenly dare to do something so audacious. Kill a cultivator? How had he even thought of it? And how had he managed it?
At that moment, Xu Wei realized just how little she still knew about her neighbor.
What a pity. They probably wouldn't be neighbors again.
Meanwhile, in the wilderness beyond the Rogue Cultivator Gathering Place.
Chen Dengming had cautiously wedged himself into a narrow crevice in the mountains. As he ate his rations and recovered his strength, he quietly watched a coil of incense burning on the ground in the distance.
After leaving the Rogue Cultivator Gathering Place last night, he hadn't gone far right away. He'd waited for night to give way to day before leaving the Gathering Place for good, then found this temporary shelter to rest.
He had set plenty of traps all around the area. Some of the pits even concealed Stone Gu and Bamboo Slice Gu.
The Bamboo Slice Gu harmed people by using a sliver of refined bamboo, which was quietly placed in a trap. When a passerby walked over it, the sliver would leap onto their leg, poisoning them and causing great pain. Over time, it would jump to the knee, making the person's lower leg shrink until it was as thin as a crane's knee.
After refinement, this Gu was as fine as ox hair and difficult to spot. Even cultivators could fall victim to it.
The coil of incense burning ahead, meanwhile, was a kind of Gu incense that Chen Dengming had made with the Gu Refining Art. It could attract venomous creatures such as snakes, centipedes, and toads.
He planned to raise some Snake Gu first and spread them around the area as sentries. Then, over the next three months, he would try to break through to the first layer of Qi Refining and become a cultivator.
Only then would he have a chance to return to the Rogue Cultivator Gathering Place.
He had never planned to hide in the wilderness forever.
For one thing, it was hard to stay safe out there. For another, the spiritual energy in the wilderness was far too thin to be suitable for cultivation.
So he would also have to keep practicing the Life-Damaging Seedling Pulling Technique to improve his spiritual root and speed up his cultivation.
"What a pity. In the end, the trees want peace, but the wind keeps blowing. Plans can't keep pace with change. I haven't even gathered all the materials for refining Golden Silkworm Gu, and I'm not a cultivator yet, but I've already been forced out of the Gathering Place..."
Chen Dengming swallowed the last of his rations, drank some spring water, and glanced toward the distant mountains, their slopes stained with the glow of the setting sun.
The quiet dusk crept toward him from all sides. The roars of beasts in the wilderness grew more frequent.
The wilderness was more dangerous than the Gathering Place.
Yet, for some reason, his heart had grown calm.
Perhaps it was because the human heart was more frightening than beasts and demons.
If he wasn't afraid of fighting people, why should he fear demon beasts?
He got up, gathered the incense burner, and caught several venomous snakes it had attracted. Then he returned to the crevice to refine Gu and cultivate in silence.
The first round of recommendations is over. I've changed the update time to around eleven or twelve noon. That's how I'll be updating from now on, so it'll be convenient for everyone to read after meals. I'll post a chapter tonight and another at noon tomorrow, both at least 3,000 characters, so everyone can get used to the schedule. I've been updating a lot during this new-book period—basically 6,000 characters a day these past few days. Please vote for me.
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