As night deepened, the valley of the Miscellaneous Affairs Department had fallen into utter silence.
Zhou Xuan sat in his dilapidated thatched hut, with all the resources currently at his disposal laid out before him.
Yet as he focused intently on his plans, his keen senses faintly picked up something amiss.
Someone was outside!
Zhou Xuan's hands did not pause for an instant, and his face showed no trace of anything unusual. But his spiritual sense had already begun to quietly extend beyond the hut.
Although his Body Forging cultivation was at the seventh layer, in others' eyes it was only at the second, his true perception was no lie.
Within the range of his senses, two furtive figures were crouched in the shadows not far from his hut.
Neither of them was weak. One was at the fifth layer of Body Forging, the other at the sixth. Among the Chore Disciples, they were already considered exceptional.
They carefully concealed their auras, clearly having come prepared.
Zhou Xuan continued pretending to focus on drawing talismans, while carefully watching their every move.
He wanted to hear what these two were up to, and who had put them up to it.
Unfortunately, they had clearly received special training. They barely communicated at all, relying only on glances and hand signals.
Looks like there's no chance of coaxing the identity of the mastermind out of them.
Zhou Xuan thought to himself.
Just as he hesitated over whether to strike first, the two lurking figures suddenly moved!
Bang!
The hut's door was violently smashed open, and two black shadows lunged inside like hungry wolves pouncing on their prey!
Their attacks showed no mercy; every move was aimed at a vital point!
The man on the left gripped a sharp dagger and drove straight for Zhou Xuan's heart.
The man on the right threw both fists, his punches howling through the air. He clearly meant to kill Zhou Xuan with a single blow!
Faced with the sudden attack, Zhou Xuan merely gave a cold laugh.
"Finally lost your patience?"
Just as their attacks were about to land, Zhou Xuan's figure flickered, and he easily evaded the deadly blows.
At the same time, his palm had quietly pressed against a talisman on his chest.
It was an unremarkable yellow sheet, covered in crooked red runes.
It was the new talisman Zhou Xuan had recently developed: the Great Strength Talisman produced through Enlightenment!
The talisman ignited instantly, and a surging force flooded Zhou Xuan's limbs and bones.
He could clearly feel his strength multiplying several times over!
"What?"
When the two attackers saw Zhou Xuan effortlessly dodge their attacks, shock spread across their faces.
They had investigated him. This good-for-nothing was only at the second layer of Body Forging. How could he be so agile?
Yet what came next shocked them even more.
Zhou Xuan darted forward, throwing a punch with each hand at the same time!
Crack!
Two crisp sounds of breaking bones rang out almost simultaneously.
The attackers did not even have time to react before a tremendous force slammed into them. Their arms broke instantly, and they screamed as they flew backward, crashing hard against the hut's walls.
"Ah!"
Their shrill screams echoed through the night as they clutched their broken arms and writhed on the ground, their faces white with pain.
Zhou Xuan slowly lowered his fists, clearly unsurprised by the result.
His cultivation was only one minor level above theirs, but with the Great Strength Talisman's boost, the gap in strength had become as vast as heaven and earth.
Besides, they had clearly never expected Zhou Xuan to be this powerful. Underestimating their opponent had been their greatest mistake.
"Now, are you ready to tell me who sent you?"
Zhou Xuan looked down at the two men on the ground, his voice icy.
They exchanged a glance, seeing fear and despair in each other's eyes.
They stammered, wanting to speak, yet not daring to reveal the truth.
Seeing this, Zhou Xuan curled his lips into a cold smile. "You're afraid to say it, so I'll say it for you. It was Zhao Long, wasn't it?"
At the name Zhao Long, both men visibly trembled.
They frantically shook their heads in denial, but that reaction was enough to say it all.
So it really was him. Zhou Xuan understood.
"Did he say why he wanted me dead?"
"Forget it. Whatever the reason, if he dares come after me, he'll have to face the consequences."
Zhou Xuan stared silently at the two men at his feet, weighing how to deal with them.
Kill them outright?
Killing fellow disciples within the Sect, even Chore Disciples, would have extremely serious consequences if he were discovered.
With Zhou Xuan's current strength and status, he could not afford to take such a risk.
But if he let them go, who knew whether they would turn on him or find another chance to take revenge?
The two men seemed to sense his hesitation and hurriedly pleaded, "Junior Brother Zhou, we know we were wrong!"
"If you let us go, we swear we won't tell anyone about what happened tonight!"
"That's right! We swear we'll never bother you again!"
Hearing their pleas, Zhou Xuan replied with a sneer, "Once you've started something, you have to see it through to the end."
Their faces turned deathly pale.
They could hear the thick killing intent in Zhou Xuan's voice!
"Don't kill us! We really know we were wrong!"
"Please, spare us!"
But Zhou Xuan had already made up his mind. He could not leave such a threat hanging over him, but he could not kill them here, either.
Just then, an idea came to him.
First, he punched each of them once, knocking them completely unconscious.
Then, under cover of darkness, he hoisted their bodies and quietly headed toward the Miscellaneous Affairs Department.
It was the dead of night, and the entire Chore Servant Courtyard had fallen asleep.
Zhou Xuan moved through the darkness like a ghost, soon reaching the towering piles of Scrap in the Miscellaneous Affairs Department.
This place was already fraught with danger during the day. At night, it was even more deathly still.
The unstable Waste Pills and damaged Dharma Artifacts could explode at any moment.
Zhou Xuan threw the two unconscious attackers into the deepest part of the Scrap heap, where piles of discarded Alchemy Furnaces and unstable medicinal dregs lay.
When he was done, he retreated to a safe distance and pulled a talisman he had prepared earlier from his robes.
It was a First-Rank Fireball Talisman. Its power was modest, but more than enough to set off the Scrap.
Without hesitation, Zhou Xuan activated the talisman. A fist-sized fireball howled toward the Scrap heap.
Boom!
A deafening explosion instantly rang through the entire valley!
A huge fireball shot into the sky, dyeing half the heavens blood-red.
The shock wave spread in every direction like a tsunami, making even the buildings in the Chore Servant Courtyard tremble.
The two attackers did not even have time to scream before the flames swallowed them whole. Not even a scrap of bone remained.
Zhou Xuan watched the flames soaring in the distance, his face utterly impassive.
He turned and left, hurrying back to his hut as fast as he could.
When he sat back down at his desk and picked up his wolf-hair brush to continue drawing talismans, there was not even a speck of dust on him.
The rumbling explosion continued for a long while before gradually subsiding, but the towering flames lingered, illuminating the entire rear mountain.
"Something's happened! There's a fire!"
"Quick, put it out!"
"There's been an explosion at the Miscellaneous Affairs Department!"
The noisy shouts shattered the Chore Servant Courtyard's peace. Countless Chore Disciples woke from their sleep and rushed out of their rooms to see what was happening.
Soon, Chief Steward Wang's shrill voice rang out through the night. "Get your asses back to bed!"
"Explosions in the Scrap at the Miscellaneous Affairs Department are nothing unusual. What's there to make such a fuss about?"
"Get back to work as usual tomorrow. If anyone slacks off, I'll skin him alive!"
Under Chief Steward Wang's scolding, the Chore Disciples who had hoped to watch the commotion had no choice but to trudge back to their rooms.
Zhou Xuan watched through the crack in his door as the commotion gradually died down, and quietly nodded to himself.
As expected, accidents were all too common at the dangerous Miscellaneous Affairs Department.
Unless an explosion was especially large, no one would bother investigating it in depth.
The two attackers' deaths would soon be treated as an accident.
And their bodies had already been reduced to ash in the blast. Not a trace would be left behind.
"Zhao Long, since you dared send people to kill me, don't blame me for showing no mercy."
A cold glint flashed in Zhou Xuan's eyes as he began to consider how to get even.
But the time wasn't right yet. He was still too weak. Picking a fight with an Inner Sect Disciple now would be like throwing an egg against a rock.
But one day, he would make that man pay!
Before you continue