Another Transaction (3k)

"Going out?"

Huang Qiuxian looked Zhang Fusheng over, raising an eyebrow.

"You're not afraid of getting ambushed and killed the moment you step outside now?"

A couple of days ago, the brat had passed him a letter through a girl at the Snake Fist Gym, opening with a question about why the East Cult wanted to kill his master.

Zhang Fusheng chuckled.

"I have a special way of concealing my tracks. Rest assured, sir."

"You mean visualizing yourself as white bones?"

Huang Qiuxian said lazily,

"This little trick can indeed rein in your aura and mental fluctuations, but at most, it just makes it hard for people to discern your true depths. Those who ought to see through you will still see through you, those who ought to sense you will still sense—"

His words came to an abrupt stop.

At some point, the young man's aura had vanished completely. He was clearly standing right there, yet in Huang Qiuxian's spiritual perception, he seemed like a dead object.

A faint scent of decay drifted around him.

"Newly Dead Form?" Huang Qiuxian sighed. "So fast? At this rate, in two or three years at most, you'll even be able to use the Giant Form, won't you?"

"You know a lot about the Eight Forms of Body and Spirit?" Zhang Fusheng asked curiously.

"Of course."

Huang Qiuxian snorted.

"Of your Eight Forms of Body and Spirit, the first four focus on the body, while the latter four place weight on the spirit. Two or three of those forms do have some real mysteries to them."

Zhang Fusheng nodded thoughtfully.

Old Huang said lazily,

"Speaking of which, what is so special about the person you said you'd introduce to me? This old man doesn't meet just anyone."

Zhang Fusheng smiled.

"You're a Second Refinement martial artist now, but you definitely weren't one in the past. I'm guessing you suffered from some grave illness?"

Huang Qiuxian nodded calmly.

"That's right. But even as a Second Refinement, let me tell you this: I have already reached the true level of 'He Observes as I Should Be.' Even a Twelve Refinements martial artist, or even a Martial Arts Master, might not be able to gain an advantage before me."

This little old man truly had brought his Visualization Method to Perfection.

Zhang Fusheng's expression did not change.

"The person I wish to introduce can treat your grave illness."

"Impossible."

Huang Qiuxian rejected it outright.

"This illness... Forget it. Why should I explain it to you?"

Zhang Fusheng shrugged.

"There's no harm in meeting them, is there?"

He wrinkled his nose.

"I also wanted to ask: what exactly is the difference between the East Cult and the Western Sect?"

Huang Qiuxian answered evenly,

"Doctrine, the gods they worship, their rules... Too many things."

"Aren't they both Daoism?" Zhang Fusheng pressed without betraying a trace of emotion. "I heard that the gods worshipped by Daoism are called the Three Pure Ones."

"They are different."

Huang Qiuxian said blandly,

"The Three Pure Ones they worship are the Primordial Cult Master, the Taishang Cult Master, and the Tongtian Cult Master. They are merely Outer Dao thieves who stole the title of the Three Pure Ones. Our Three Pure Ones are the Primordial Heavenly Venerate of Fuli, the Taishang Daode Heavenly Venerate, and the Lingbao Heavenly Venerate of Jade Dawn."

His expression darkened.

"Though our gods are no longer here, they are still not beings that the Outer Dao gods worshipped by the Western Sect can compare to!"

Zhang Fusheng was stunned for quite a while. The gods were gone?

And what was the difference between these two sets of Three Pure Ones?

Uh, the first three seemed to have been figures from Ming Dynasty novels in his previous life.

As countless thoughts spun through his mind, Zhang Fusheng said softly,

"I'm afraid there might be surveillance outside the Martial Arts Academy. Could I trouble you to see me off?"

Huang Qiuxian raised an eyebrow.

"You've got too much damn nonsense."

Though he said that, he still blew out a breath. Zhang Fusheng's figure suddenly blurred, then vanished from where he stood.

He was still there; he simply could no longer be seen by the naked eye.

A Perfection-level Visualization Method could already truly use the spirit to interfere with, and even distort, reality.

Maintaining the Newly Dead Form, with his aura dispersed, meant that now he could not only evade the naked eye—even Mental Intent could not sense his existence.

Zhang Fusheng quietly walked out of the Martial Arts Academy. Sure enough, that feeling of being watched, like a disease clinging to the bone, did not appear this time.

Maintaining this state, he silently left the Martial Arts Academy and entered a space beneath a bridge roughly three kilometers away. Only then did the Spiritual Power that shrouded and twisted the air, creating an illusion of reality, slowly dissipate.

His figure reappeared.

"Three kilometers. Huang Qiuxian's spiritual range is three kilometers."

"No, perhaps more. I should treat it as five kilometers."

Zhang Fusheng murmured inwardly. He put on the hood he had prepared long ago, and after moving twenty kilometers away from the Martial Arts Academy, silently turned into the shadows.

When he appeared again, he was already an old man leaning on a cheap wooden cane.

District Four, harbor.

Lin Dongxi chewed bubble gum as she cultivated in silence.

"The Third Refinement isn't far away."

She muttered to herself. Hearing the roar of a ship, she jumped down from her little wooden table.

"The cargo's here?"

"Yes, my lord."

Her subordinate showed not the slightest disrespect because of this lord's appearance or height.

"Three thousand kilograms of assorted firearms and ammunition, along with a batch of highly concentrated blood-suppressing toxin."

Here, firearms and ammunition were measured by the kilogram.

Lin Dongxi nodded. The shipment was too large; otherwise, she would not have come in person so rarely.

Once the containers had been hoisted ashore one after another, she signaled for the dockworkers to leave and, accompanied by two trusted subordinates, personally inspected the cargo.

Container after container was opened, and the goods were all intact. When they reached the final container—

"Hmm?"

Lin Dongxi suddenly flashed backward, but she was too late.

The container tore apart, and several figures rushed forward. Her two subordinates had their necks twisted off. As for Lin Dongxi, she had no strength to resist and was struck across the neck with a palm, passing out on the spot.

"Do we go to the Hong Ji Martial Arts Hall now? Intelligence says there isn't a high-level martial artist beside the target at the moment."

"No rush."

The masked man said simply,

"The Hong Ji Martial Arts Hall is in District Three of this city. If we make too much noise, it'll be hard to get away."

"The information from above says the target may attend a teacher-appreciation banquet on the tenth of this month. Even if he doesn't, there's some Jiang University Banquet on the fifteenth that he'll definitely attend."

After a pause, he spoke with a smile.

"A First Refinement martial artist, Second or Third Refinement at most. Easy to deal with. If we complete this mission perfectly, we can truly enter the cult!"

The six masked men looked at one another. Black light flickered beneath their skin, their muscles trembled, and the great sinews within their bodies let out a roar.

They were all martial artists at the Three Refinements of Sinew.

Those who had trained skin, flesh, sinew, and bone to the level of sinew were at least at the Seventh Refinement.

"What do we do with this girl? Throw her into the sea?" Someone kicked the unconscious Little Bean.

"No."

The leader said,

"Those above said this little girl called Lin Dongxi must remain unconscious for more than ten days. Use the blood-suppressing toxin."

After injecting the blood-suppressing toxin,

They each raised a palm vertically before their chests and chanted,

"Heaven Above!"

Then they all quietly fled.

Ankang Hospital.

Dean Long's face was utterly numb.

No, again?

He looked at the masked old man before him, his face drawn in misery.

"You're with them?"

Zhang Fusheng gave a dry chuckle.

"Who are you talking about?"

"Uh, nothing, nothing." Dean Long pointed at the computer. "The files are all on there, really!"

Zhang Fusheng swept a glance over the patient records and raised his eyebrows.

In just a few days, the number of patients with tumors had increased by nearly a third. Even the Quasi-Morgue had expanded by two more rooms.

That was far from normal.

He recalled his master saying that Ankang Hospital had a huge problem.

"With my current reserve of Star Beast Meat, I can complete at least three transactions in a short period."

He murmured inwardly as his gaze quickly swept across the files. Regrettably, none of the patients this time were martial artists.

"Hmm?"

Zhang Fusheng noticed that some of the newer patients' files had been marked. He immediately asked,

"What do these marks mean?"

Dean Long's expression changed, but he answered honestly,

"They're all patients who have entered the threshold of the Visualization Method."

"Why are they specially marked?" Zhang Fusheng examined their information and discovered that they all shared something in common.

No parents, no children, no siblings—not even a single emergency contact listed in their records.

In other words, they were the sort who would be sent into the Quasi-Morgue the moment their money ran out.

And their medical records showed that their conditions progressed at an astonishing speed. Some had tested as early-to-mid stage yesterday, only to reach late stage today.

Ordinary cancer, no matter how fast it progressed, could not possibly advance this quickly.

It seemed some special illness was rapidly spreading through the Lower-Level District. Was it connected to the cultists—or rather, to the Western Sect?

Dean Long fell silent this time and did not answer.

Zhang Fusheng hesitated for a moment.

He had no intention of forcing the issue either—why wade into this muddy pool?

However.

Once his father and mother returned, they absolutely could not stay in the Seventh District. At the very least, they had to move to District Three.

"Hmm?"

Zhang Fusheng's eyes suddenly lit up.

He saw an outstanding target for a transaction: 102 years old, not a martial artist, but—

Minor Accomplishment in the Visualization Method.

Looking at the medical record, the patient had been admitted three days ago with early-stage lung cancer. Yet as of yesterday, he had already become a late-stage lung cancer patient, with cancer cells metastasizing throughout his body and an expected survival time of less than a month.

"Him, and this one." Zhang Fusheng selected another hundred-year-old who had entered the threshold of the Visualization Method, then said calmly, "Where are these two patients? Their files don't list their rooms."

Dean Long said nothing.

Zhang Fusheng raised his eyebrows. A pitch-black gun barrel pointed at Dean Long's head as he continued in an aged voice,

"What, you can't say that either?"

Dean Long scratched his head.

"You can. They're in the underground Quasi-Morgue."

"Underground? Isn't your morgue on the second floor? The new extension I saw is on the second floor too."

"Uh, because there have been too many patients lately, we converted the original basement into a Quasi-Morgue as well."

Dean Long pointed at the elevator behind him.

"You can go down from here."

Zhang Fusheng chuckled.

"I'm not going down. Call them and have those two transferred to the second floor."

A hospital with problems, a basement, and he was supposed to go down there?

Only an idiot would go down!

If danger were not looming over him, and if he did not urgently need to push his Visualization Method to Perfection, Zhang Fusheng would have wanted to turn around and run.

This place was wicked.

"Make the call. Don't add any titles—just state the request directly," Zhang Fusheng emphasized once more.

Dean Long helplessly dialed a number and turned on the speakerphone.

"Transfer Patient 192 and Patient 203 from the underground Quasi-Morgue to the second-floor Quasi-Morgue. Hurry."

"Huh?"

The young man on the other end of the phone was clearly puzzled:

"Are you sure? Won't the way they look cause panic?"

"Cover them with sheets. Do as I say, and don't ask any unnecessary questions."

"Yes, Dean."

After hanging up.

Zhang Fusheng wore a smile that was not quite a smile.

"Cause panic?"

Dean Long let out a soft sigh.

"I don't know who you are, nor do I know whether you're with that young man from the other day, but I advise you not to ask any more questions."

"Fine, I won't ask." Zhang Fusheng nodded with a beaming smile.

A few minutes later, Dean Long's phone vibrated faintly. The two patients had already been transferred.

He sighed again.

"Come on."

Zhang Fusheng struck him with a palm and knocked him unconscious.

After repeatedly confirming that the surveillance cameras were still cut off, he silently made his way to the Quasi-Morgue. The foul stench remained as strong as ever.

Two patients lay stretched out in the morgue, covered in white sheets. They were clearly still alive; the sheets rose and fell faintly.

After hesitating for a moment, Zhang Fusheng stepped forward and lifted the sheets.

He involuntarily took two steps back.