After dealing with Chi Daxiao, Li Hai lightly tapped the ground and shot up to the roof of a house. With a rumble of wind, he hurtled like lightning toward the Zhou Family manor several miles away.
With his current level of strength, a single step was often enough to carry him through the air on the wind, gliding dozens or even hundreds of meters. Scaling walls and leaping across rooftops was as easy as breathing.
But Li Hai was moving so fast that the fierce wind he kicked up swept rubbish and dust from the streets below high into the air, making the pedestrians cry out in alarm.
Yet by the time they looked up, the wind had already died down, as if everything that had just happened had been nothing but an illusion.
In that short while, Li Hai had crossed several miles and reached the Zhou Family manor.
Bang!
With a muffled thud, Li Hai dropped from the sky before the Zhou Family's gate, landing heavily on the road under the horrified gazes of the guards. The impact split the broad stone-paved ground into more than a dozen cracks.
The Zhou Family guards weren't fools. After witnessing Li Hai's dramatic arrival, they immediately bent at the waist, beaming and cupping their hands in greeting.
"Hero, you... what brings you here?"
Seeing how sensible they were, Li Hai smiled and replied in kind.
"That's more like it. You're only working for a living—why risk your life? As for me, I'm here to find someone named Zhou Yugen. You know him, right?"
The guards glanced at one another before answering, "Hero, Master Zhou Yugen is our Third Master. He's been doing business away from home for years and doesn't live here."
"Oh, looks like I came all this way for nothing."
Li Hai asked, puzzled, "Then does Zhou Xingye live here?"
The Zhou Xingye he meant was Zhou Hu's son and Guo Huaijin's grandson.
"Uh..."
The guards looked at one another hesitantly. "Young Master Xingye... Yesterday, the daughter of Blacksmith Liu in town got married. By custom, our young master went to officiate the wedding, so he... he stayed over at Blacksmith Liu's house. He still hasn't returned home."
"Officiate the wedding?"
Li Hai suddenly recalled what Qiu Fangzheng had said. Narrowing his eyes, he asked mildly, "Is Blacksmith Liu's daughter very pretty?"
The guards shook their heads, all saying they didn't know.
"She's gorgeous! Liu's daughter is damn gorgeous! What a night! I'm going back again tonight, hahaha!" A wildly arrogant voice suddenly rang out from a distance.
Li Hai raised an eyebrow and immediately looked toward the sound.
At the mouth of an alley across the street, a dozen or so zhang away, a huge fat man in a bright red jacket—like a pig that had gained human form—sat in an open sedan, waving a paper fan as seven or eight guards escorted him toward the Zhou Family manor.
"Hero," one of the guards said, "that's Young Master Zhou Xingye."
"I can see that." Li Hai chuckled and strode toward the fat man.
Although Zhou Xingye was so fat that his eyes had narrowed to slits, he still saw Li Hai walking straight toward him, about to collide with his sedan. He immediately craned his neck and shouted.
"Hey, you big idiot! Are you blind? Turn aside before you crash into my sedan!"
Hearing this, Li Hai grinned. "Heh, what a foul mouth. Let's tear it open."
As soon as the words left his mouth, his figure blurred. He crossed seven or eight zhang in an instant, seized Zhou Xingye by his fat face, dragged him off the sedan, and slammed him hard onto the ground.
"Ow! My face, my face! It hurts so much!"
Zhou Xingye slumped on the ground, clutching his face, which was streaming with blood and had been torn open by Li Hai into the shape of a frog's mouth. He howled in agony. "What the hell are you standing around for? Beat him!"
The stunned guards heard his order and immediately drew their blades and grabbed their clubs, shouting as they rushed at Li Hai, who stood beside Zhou Xingye.
But Li Hai merely raised one finger and swept it around in a flash.
Swish—
Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Crack! Crack!
After a burst of crisp clinks and dazzling sparks, the blades and clubs in the guards' hands were all broken, their cuts so smooth they looked as if they'd been sliced by divine weapons.
This was the might of Li Hai's Finger Claw Level 2. To him, ordinary pig iron and tempered steel were no sturdier than wastepaper.
Having witnessed this shocking scene firsthand, the guards wisely retreated several paces, not daring to attack Li Hai again.
"You... you..."
Zhou Xingye had seen it too. Lying on the ground, his face covered in blood, he stammered in panic, "What kind of monster are you? You—you can't kill me! My father is a peerless expert. He'll beat you to death! He'll kill you!"
"Good."
Li Hai smiled at that. "Then let him come and beat me to death."
He then asked, "There's one more thing I want to know... just how many young women on the verge of marriage have you ruined?"
"Huh?!" Zhou Xingye froze, at a loss for words.
The next second, Li Hai's smile vanished. He lifted his foot and brought it down on Zhou Xingye's crotch.
Bang~
"AAAAAAAAAH!"
With a dull thud and a squeal like a pig being slaughtered, Li Hai turned Zhou Xingye into a eunuch on the spot.
"I'll kill you! I'll kill you! Father, save me!"
The fat pig rolled around on the ground in agony, screaming and shouting threats. Passersby quickly gathered around them.
As for the guards, they took advantage of the crowd and slipped away one by one. They probably wouldn't be returning to work at the Zhou Family manor.
As for Li Hai, he went to the nearby butcher's stall, borrowed a pig-slaughtering knife, and came back with a length of hemp rope and an iron basin.
"Come on, come on. Feel free to watch, but don't block the road."
Calling out as he pushed through the crowd, Li Hai strolled over to Zhou Xingye, who was still rolling on the ground and shrieking. He grabbed him and dragged him all the way into a small noodle shop.
"Here."
Li Hai casually tossed the shopkeeper two gold pieces. "I've bought this shop. Stay if you want to watch; leave if you don't."
"T-this..." The noodle-shop owner stared at the gold in his hand, his face a mixture of delight, shock, and suspicion. "You... what are you planning to do?"
Li Hai replied flatly with two words: "Slaughter a pig."
With that, watched by the shopkeeper and the crowd outside, Li Hai swung the hemp rope over a beam and hung Zhou Xingye upside down, headfirst, like a pig tied up for slaughter. Zhou Xingye kept screaming and cursing.
"Let me go! Let me go!"
Hanging headfirst, Zhou Xingye struggled and howled as he swung back and forth. "You bastard! I'll have my father skin you alive!"
Clang!
Li Hai lightly kicked the iron basin he'd taken from the butcher's stall, sending it beneath Zhou Xingye's fat head. Then he went into the noodle shop's kitchen, took an apron, and leisurely tied it around his waist. With the pig-slaughtering knife in hand, he began sizing Zhou Xingye up.
Zhou Xingye clearly sensed that something was wrong. He shouted in a panic.
"What are you going to do? I'm warning you, don't do anything stupid!"
Li Hai didn't answer. He merely muttered to himself.
"Do you know? I've been slaughtering pigs since I was twelve. Tying them up, slitting their throats, singeing off their bristles, skinning them, draining their blood, removing their innards... I'm an expert at every step.
"I thought my skills would be useless after I came here. But after seeing you—and so many people like you..."
Li Hai walked up to Zhou Xingye and slowly crouched down. He tapped the fat man's face with his knife and bared his teeth in a grin.
"Suddenly, I think my skills are about to shine again."
With that, he slit Zhou Xingye's throat.
Blood gushed down in a torrent, splattering into the iron basin below.
At that moment, Li Hai also took the Naihe Token from his robe and tossed it into the basin.
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