Rainy-Night Purge

Autumn rain poured down in torrents, and fierce winds hurled raindrops the size of beans against the blue-gray flagstones, their sharp patter crackling through the night.

Deep in the night, Qinghe County slept like a slumbering beast. Only the watchman's clapper occasionally pierced the curtain of rain, lending the night a particularly desolate air.

Chen Ping wore a straw raincoat, an official saber hanging at his waist, as he led two yawning constables on patrol through the alleys in the western part of the city.

Rainwater ran off the brim of his bamboo hat, forming a curtain of beads before his eyes.

Ever since he broke through to the first level of Qi Refining, even without deliberately circulating the Everlasting Spring Technique, his senses had become astonishingly sharp.

It was a strange sensation, as if an invisible tentacle had appeared in his mind, able to stretch outward wherever he directed it.

Though for now this tentacle could reach only about ten zhang and its perception was fuzzy, against ordinary martial artists, it was already an overwhelming advantage.

"Chief, the rain's coming down hard. Old Wang's Tavern up ahead is still open. Why don't we go take shelter?"

The constable behind him wiped the rain from his face and hunched his shoulders as he made the suggestion.

Chen Ping paused.

In his perception, more than two streets ahead, over a dozen murderous auras lay in wait in Gourd Alley.

Though they were doing their utmost to conceal themselves, under his nascent Spiritual Sense they stood out like candles in the dark.

The two auras at the alley entrance were especially noticeable. Their breathing was long and even, their heartbeats steady. They were undoubtedly hardened men with blood on their hands.

"Jin Zhenshan, in the end, you couldn't hold back."

A cold smile touched Chen Ping's lips. Hidden in his sleeve, his fingers gently rubbed a willow-leaf Flying Dagger.

"You two go on. And get me two liang of Strong Liquor while you're at it—make sure it's hot."

Chen Ping turned around and casually tossed them a piece of silver. "I'll check the alley up ahead. Sounds like something's going on."

The two constables caught the silver, overjoyed. They thanked him profusely and hurried off toward the tavern without giving it another thought.

Once their figures disappeared into the curtain of rain, the warmth faded from Chen Ping's face, leaving it impassive.

He tightened his straw raincoat and walked alone, his steps steady, toward the murderous Gourd Alley.

The rain grew heavier, and thunder rumbled in the distance.

The moment Chen Ping entered the alley, the air around him abruptly stilled.

"Kill!"

A furious shout exploded, mingling with the thunder.

More than a dozen dark figures sprang from the eaves and corners on either side. In the lightning's glare, the blades in their hands gleamed with a chilling blue sheen.

Their blades were coated in deadly poison.

Had this happened before, Chen Ping might have needed to draw his saber and parry, relying on footwork to keep moving.

But now—

Under the shroud of his Spiritual Sense, their movements seemed as slow as punches thrown underwater.

Chen Ping did not draw his saber.

He merely tapped the ground with his toes and swayed, his figure already merging ghostlike into the curtain of rain.

Several Steel Sabers struck the spot where he had stood, kicking up mud and water, but not even brushing the hem of his clothes.

"Where is he?!"

The leader of the assassins stared in utter horror and searched frantically, but all he saw was the endless downpour.

At that moment, Chen Ping stood in the shadows at the far end of the alley. The wisp of weak but pure magic power in his Dantian stirred slightly.

A thread of green qi surged along his Meridians to his fingertips, clinging to the thin-as-a-cicada's-wing Flying Dagger between them.

"Go."

Chen Ping gave a soft command and flicked his wrist.

The Flying Dagger left his hand without a sound.

As if it had a life of its own, it traced a strange arc through the air, a swift swallow darting through the woods, undeterred by the rain.

Pfft! Pfft! Pfft!

Three soft thuds rang out almost simultaneously.

The three leading martial experts clutched at their throats, eyes wide with disbelief.

Blood gushed through their fingers, instantly washed pale red by the rain.

They never saw where the blade had come from, even as they fell and breathed their last.

The remaining assassins immediately broke down.

This wasn't martial arts. It was sorcery!

"A ghost... There's a ghost!"

Someone shouted. The rest dropped their weapons and fled in disarray.

Chen Ping did not pursue them.

They were nothing but hired underlings. Killing them held no appeal.

He walked to a corpse, pulled out his Flying Dagger, and wiped the blood off on the dead man's clothes.

"Ordinary martial arts are truly like children waving sticks before a cultivator."

Chen Ping put away the Flying Dagger and looked toward the eastern part of the city.

That was where the Iron Palm Martial Hall stood.

Since he had struck, he had to pull out the roots and leave nothing behind.

Iron Palm Martial Hall.

The main hall was brightly lit.

Jin Zhenshan sat in a Grand Master Chair, holding a whetstone and sharpening the Thick-backed Mountain Cleaver that had been with him for decades, stroke after stroke.

The blade shone like snow, reflecting his aged, twisted face.

Ever since his only son, Jin Shijie, died in the ring, the once-renowned master of Qinghe County had gone gray overnight.

He hated.

He hated Chen Ping, that little bastard, and he hated his own helplessness even more.

"By my reckoning, they should have finished him off by now."

Jin Zhenshan stopped sharpening and tested the edge with his thumb.

To arrange tonight's ambush, he had sold off his ancestral property and hired the most notorious assassin in the underworld, Soul Chasing Hands.

Even if Chen Ping had three heads and six arms, trapped in a narrow alley and surrounded by more than a dozen experts, he was bound to die.

Thud.

The main gate suddenly gave a muffled knock.

It had not been forced open. It seemed instead to have been gently blown inward by the wind.

A damp, chilly gust carrying rain swept into the hall, making the candles on either side flicker wildly.

Jin Zhenshan snapped his head up, his pupils contracting.

A young man in a straw raincoat stood at the entrance to the main hall.

He removed his bamboo hat, revealing a face that was unnaturally calm.

He was spotless. Not only was there no blood on him, even the clothes underneath were completely dry.

"Chen... Ping?!"

Jin Zhenshan shot to his feet. The Mountain Cleaver in his hand clanged against the corner of the table.

"How can you still be alive? Where are Soul Chasing Hands and the others?"

Chen Ping did not answer. He simply reached behind him and shut the main gate, shutting out the wind and rain.

He walked toward the center of the hall, his footsteps echoing through the empty space.

"Master Jin, if you'd been content to enjoy your later years, I might not have come looking for you."

Chen Ping's voice was soft, yet it carried clearly to Jin Zhenshan's ears. "But you insisted on courting death."

Seeing Chen Ping completely unharmed, the shock in Jin Zhenshan's heart turned to despair, then to madness.

"Good, good, good! It seems you were hiding even more than I imagined!"

Jin Zhenshan laughed in his fury, his qi and blood bursting forth like a blazing furnace. His once-hunched frame swelled larger.

"This old man has practiced martial arts for forty years. Today, I'll use every last bit of my power to drag you down with me, you little bastard!"

Roar!

Jin Zhenshan let out a beastlike howl, and the blue bricks beneath his feet shattered inch by inch.

He looked like a mad tiger as he gripped his saber in both hands and brought it down on Chen Ping's head with a tragic, all-or-nothing momentum.

This strike gathered every bit of his strength, energy, and spirit. It even carried a trace of the might of a Xiantian Grandmaster.

The saber wind howled, drowning out the thunder outside.

Yet faced with this earth-shattering strike, Chen Ping merely stood still.

Only when the blade was less than three inches from his head did Chen Ping raise his right hand.

He did not use Shattered Stone Palm, nor did he draw a weapon.

He simply summoned the wisp of magic power in his Dantian, covered his palm with it, and casually swatted.

As if shooing away an annoying fly.

Smack!

A sharp crack rang out.

The finely forged Mountain Cleaver had barely touched Chen Ping's palm when it shattered into more than a dozen pieces of iron.

Right after, a tremendous force slammed into Jin Zhenshan's chest.

Pfft—

Jin Zhenshan didn't even have time to scream before he was blasted backward.

Crash!

His body slammed into the shrine at the back of the hall, shattering the statue of the Ancestral Master that had been worshipped there for a century.

Wood splinters flew, and dust billowed.

Jin Zhenshan lay limp in the wreckage, his chest caved in, blood mixed with bits of his organs continuously pouring from his mouth.

He struggled to raise his head and look at the young man standing in the middle of the hall, still with his hands behind his back.

The fury had long since vanished from his eyes. Only deep fear and bewilderment remained.

"This... what... kind of... technique... is this?"

Jin Zhenshan asked in broken gasps.

He had practiced martial arts his entire life, yet had never seen such terrifying power.

That power surpassed internal force. It belonged to a higher realm, something capable of crushing the mortal world.

Chen Ping walked up to him and looked down at the once-untouchable master.

"The dead don't need to know so much."

Chen Ping did not torture him. He flicked a finger, and a Flying Dagger shot through Jin Zhenshan's brow.

The overlord who had ruled Qinghe County's martial world for decades breathed his last.

Silence returned to the main hall.

Chen Ping looked at Jin Zhenshan's corpse, his heart still and undisturbed.

The formidable enemy who had once made him feel as if he were walking on thin ice, forcing him to scheme at every step, was now as fragile as an ant before him.

"So this is what it means to be a cultivator?"

Chen Ping murmured to himself.

The thrill of holding life and death in his hands could easily make a person lose himself, but he quickly regained his composure.

He deftly pulled a porcelain bottle from his robes and poured the Corpse Dissolving Powder over Jin Zhenshan's body.

Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle—

Accompanied by a grating hiss and pungent yellow smoke, the body quickly dissolved into a pool of yellow water.

Chen Ping also faked traces of a struggle, creating the impression that an enemy had come seeking revenge.

Once he had finished, he turned and headed for Jin Zhenshan's study.

There was a secret chamber there, where the Jin Family kept its treasures.

Relying on the sensations from his Spiritual Sense, Chen Ping easily found the mechanism and opened the secret chamber.

The chamber was small. Several boxes sat inside, containing gold, silver, jewelry, and a few martial arts manuals.

Chen Ping did not spare the gold and silver a glance.

Ordinary wealth was already more than enough for him.

His gaze fell on an inconspicuous Black Iron Box in the corner.

His Spiritual Sense swept over it; there were no mechanisms inside.

Chen Ping opened the box. Within lay a fragment of animal hide.

Yellowed and ragged at the edges, it had clearly been torn from a larger map.

Lines depicting mountains and rivers had been drawn on it. Though crude, the terrain was still recognizable.

In the upper-right corner of the map, a red dot had been marked in cinnabar. Beside it were four small characters in ancient seal script—

[Taihang Market]

Chen Ping immediately took out the Crimson Token he had taken from the Evil Cultivator, the old Daoist.

The mountain patterns carved into the back of the token perfectly matched a section of the terrain on the fragment.

"Taihang Market..."

Chen Ping gently traced the four characters with his fingertip, his eyes burning with excitement.

A Market was a place where cultivators gathered to trade.

Finding the Market would mean he had truly stepped through the gates of the Cultivation World.

There were spirit stones, pills, immortal arts that could extend Yun Niang's life, and, more than anything, the Path of Eternal Life he had dreamed of.

Chen Ping carefully tucked the map fragment and token into an inner pocket.

By the time he left the Iron Palm Martial Hall, the rain had stopped.

The dark clouds parted, and a cold crescent moon hung on the horizon.

Chen Ping stood before the ruins of the Jin Family and drew a deep breath of the rain-fresh air.

The bloodshed and grudges behind him had vanished like smoke in the rain.

"The waters of Qinghe County are too shallow to raise a true dragon."

Chen Ping pulled his straw raincoat tighter and strode into the night.