Committing All Evils

"Doctor Zhao, it is time to apply the medicine."

Li Hai said to the old doctor guarding the side, "Otherwise, in a little while, Zhou Hu will be dead."

"Ah, understood, Hero Li."

Doctor Zhao nodded in response, then quickly produced the various medicinal agents he had prepared, beginning to carefully apply them to the gasping, ashen-faced Zhou Hu.

After the medicine was applied, Li Hai resumed his slow slicing, and the masses below the stage cheered and scrambled once more.

And so, time slowly drifted by.

This slow-slicing, led by Li Hai, continued until noon before it officially came to an end.

During this period, the medicine alone had been applied dozens, if not hundreds, of times.

By the end, Zhou Hu had been carved by Li Hai into a living skeleton, a skeleton draped in writhing internal organs that continued to wail and weep.

By the time he finally breathed his last, Zhou Hu had endured a total of one thousand six hundred and sixty-six cuts.

As for why it was not three thousand six hundred cuts...

Regrettably, Li Hai did not have that much patience, and the human body is a fragile mass of living flesh filled with dense blood vessels, not a solid block of iron.

Especially since Zhou Hu's foundation had been shattered and his realm suppressed by Li Hai, he was already extremely weak, making it even harder to withstand such horrific torture.

Even in the later stages of the slow-slicing, despite Li Hai's best efforts to avoid his arteries, veins, major vessels, and vital points, and even with more than one doctor carefully tending to Zhou Hu, death could not be held back. He ultimately died in despair amidst near-hellish agony.

His skeleton was tossed by Li Hai to the masses below, where the scrambling crowd tore it into over a hundred pieces, leaving no corpse intact.

After this, Li Hai did not linger for even a moment. He turned and, under the gaze of the awe-struck residents of Ox-Horn Town, stepped into the air and departed.

At the same time, news of Li Hai's fierce appearance and peerless martial arts, especially his world-shaking feat of single-handedly annihilating thousands of wolf-bandits, began to spread from Ox-Horn Town throughout the entire Coiling Dragon Mountain region.

Thus, nicknames such as "Heaven-Killing Star," "Demon Star Descended," "Bloody Twin Whips," "Butcher Li," and "Savior Master Li" were passed from the mouths of the residents of Ox-Horn Town to the ears of many, all while Li Hai himself remained blissfully unaware.

Six hundred miles away from Ox-Horn Town, in Stone Creek Town of Chen Family Fortress, there lay a rustic garden known as Auspicious Garden.

Although this modest garden had stood there for decades, the locals did not know the name of its owner.

They only knew that at the stroke of midnight, carriages with windows and doors completely shrouded in thick black silk would arrive, at which point the garden's tightly shut gates would quickly open to welcome them inside.

Not until dawn would these mysterious carriages depart the garden, speeding away outside of Stone Creek Town.

Almost no one knew what was inside these carriages; only a few night-revelers, passing by them by chance, had faintly heard the sounds of children crying from within.

In response, some busybodies had reported this to the Civilian Militia, demanding an investigation into the garden.

However, the final result was that everything was normal; the owner of the garden, Master Zhou, simply disliked going out and had no verifiable evil deeds.

Thus, those who had been concerned gave up, no longer bothering the Civilian Militia.

But these townspeople and the militia soldiers did not know that, in truth, beneath this garden... there was a great mystery.

If someone were to step into this half-acre garden, evade the guards, and follow the corridors to the center, they would discover a well about a zhang wide.

If one were to tie a rope and descend to the bottom of this well, they would find a wooden door adjacent to the water's edge, and behind this door lay the true secret of the garden.

Should someone push open this wooden door and enter, they would find a winding, dark path.

Following this path, one would see that every few feet along the stone walls on both sides was a cell enclosed by crude iron bars, each holding five or six young children.

They were all huddled together on tattered straw mats, dressed in rags with hollow eyes, each bearing the marks of lashes, much like slaves.

Yes, this was a human trafficking den, and these children had all been abducted, deceived, stolen, or snatched.

The traffickers who brought them here were at the end of this tunnel, which connected all the cells, in a spacious and bright cavern.

And the leader of these traffickers was none other than the owner of Auspicious Garden—Zhou Yugen.

The business that Zhou Yugen conducted outside, which the guards at the Zhou Family mansion in Ox-Horn Town had mentioned, was precisely human trafficking.

"The grandson ruins decent women, the son is a bandit leader, and the grandfather traffics humans; this family is truly... tsk tsk tsk tsk~"

Beside the well in the center of Auspicious Garden, Li Hai shook his head and sneered, "Doing every evil imaginable—you deserve to be wiped out!"

With that, his figure blurred into a ghastly white ghost and flew into the well.

Before long, sounds of horrific tearing of flesh and continuous, shrill screams erupted from the well.

That night, over a dozen wooden stakes suddenly appeared in front of Auspicious Garden, each driven deep into the ground, with a trembling, wailing, dying person impaled upon them.

Though these people had been run through by the stakes, they did not die immediately, instead crying out until dawn before finally breathing their last, terrifying the surrounding neighbors so much that none could sleep all night.

Furthermore, a strange event occurred that same night at the Civilian Militia camp in Stone Creek Town.

Over two hundred weak, young children appeared in the camp, accompanied by a thick stack of banknotes, an extremely thick envelope, and a clear palm print pressed deep into the ground.

Upon receiving the news, Fortress Master Chen rushed over, shocked and suspicious, and opened the envelope on the spot.

He then discovered that it was filled with evidence of the human trafficking at Auspicious Garden, a roster recording the home addresses of those children, and a thin, folded letter.

A shocked Fortress Master Chen immediately opened the letter.

Then he saw the letter clearly state... that the stack of silver banknotes must be used for those children. If anyone dared to misappropriate or embezzle them, then the palm print pressed into the ground would land on their forehead next time.

As for the signature on the letter, it read...

Li Hai.

"Li Hai..."

Fortress Master Chen lowered the letter and whispered, "Just what kind of sacred being is he?"

"Fortress Master, the depth of that palm print has... has been measured," the Militia Captain reported, rushing up to Fortress Master Chen.

"How deep is it?" Fortress Master Chen took a breath and asked slowly.

The Militia Captain swallowed hard, his voice trembling as he said, "It is, it is... three zhang deep."

Thump!

Fortress Master Chen was so terrified that he collapsed to the ground on the spot, his face full of shock.