The Mountain Lord Appears

Yes, Zhang Sanxian had clearly killed those three fiends.

Yet not a single fragment had been added to his personal interface—it still stood at 9,016 fragments.

This left him deeply puzzled.

"These three were each a notch stronger than Shen Jianshan."

Zhang Sanxian stared fixedly at the bloody muck beneath his feet and murmured in confusion, "But—why did they feel like empty shells?"

The doubt lasted only an instant.

Then Zhang Sanxian's hollow eye sockets turned toward Village Chief Zhang and the others, who had gone pale and were kneeling on the ground, begging for mercy.

"These past years..."

His voice remained calm, yet it struck every heart present like a heavy hammer. "Relying on that so-called Mountain God, you've had quite a merry time borrowing the tiger's might, haven't you? You've scraped off plenty of fat, haven't you, my good accomplices?"

"Mercy, Great Hero! Please spare us!"

Village Chief Zhang wept and grovelled without pause. "It really has nothing to do with this lowly one! They—they forced us! It was them! We... we had no choice, Great Hero!"

"They forced you?"

Zhang Sanxian lightly drew a finger across the zither strings, producing a quivering hum that made hearts palpitate. "They forced you to select poor girls every year for them to defile and slaughter? Forced you to invoke the Mountain God's name to bleed the villagers dry and line your own pockets?!"

With every sentence he spoke, Village Chief Zhang and the others turned a shade paler.

"Mercy! Great Hero, spare me!"

The fat wealthy landowner broke beneath the suffocating atmosphere. Crying out, he pulled fistfuls of gold and silver from his robes, kicked his legs against the ground, and frantically shoved himself forward. "M-money! It's all yours! Take it all! Aaaah, please, don't—don't kill this lowly one!!"

Zhang