The words had barely left his mouth.
Grandpa Li's hand tightened around his knife, trembling.
Just the words "collecting a debt" had been enough to shatter his composure.
A fraud!
The kid had been putting on an act from beginning to end.
His meridians supposedly shattered, his claim to be a useless patrolman—it had all been fake.
"You..."
Master Scar had barely managed to spit out a single word.
Li Pingsheng instantly activated both of his talents.
The qi and blood in his body surged, rumbling like muffled thunder.
A shadow flickered through the rain, and he vanished from where he stood.
Master Scar's pupils shrank to pinpoints.
Too fast.
The perception granted by the Blood Burning Pill could barely make out a blurry shadow.
A powerful sense of impending death swept over him. Master Scar's desperate will to survive erupted. He poured all his strength into both arms and brought his blade crashing down on the shadow.
"Die, you bastard!!"
The strike concentrated every ounce of his strength and spirit. The blade ripped through the rain, powerful enough to split stone monuments and shatter rock.
Yet faced with this desperate attack, Li Pingsheng neither dodged nor retreated. He simply reached out with his right hand at the instant the blade neared his face.
Master Scar first found it absurd, then was overcome with delight.
What was he trying to do?
Catch the blade with his bare hand?
He was asking for death.
But in the next instant,
Li Pingsheng's five fingers spread with perfect precision and caught the steel blade as it came slashing down at high speed.
The clash of metal he had expected never came.
"Crack."
The sharp snap rang especially clear in the rainy night.
The steel blade, infused with all of Master Scar's strength and powerful enough to sever an ox's head, was crushed inch by inch in that hand of flesh and blood, reduced to a heap of scrap metal.
He'd crushed solid steel with his bare hands?
What kind of person could do that?
The fist that had crushed the blade kept going, its momentum undiminished. A tremendous force slammed straight into Master Scar's chest.
"Thud."
Master Scar's breastbone caved inward in a terrifying arc. The force of the punch burst through him and blew the clothes off his back into a spray of scraps.
"Pfft!!"
He flew backward, and while still in the air, spat out a huge mouthful of blood mixed with pieces of his organs.
He crashed heavily into the muddy water and stared fixedly at Li Pingsheng.
Beyond the pain in his eyes was something else: the terror and bewilderment of someone who had just seen a god or devil.
Li Pingsheng walked toward him at an unhurried pace.
"Crack."
The only thing left twitching in the alley was the Bloodthirsty Hyena that Master Scar had cleaved in two.
Li Pingsheng brought his fist down, smashing the hyena's head into a pulp.
Amid the flying brains and blood, his gaze sharpened.
A strange little bug, about an inch long and pitch-black from head to tail, wriggled eerily among the scraps of flesh, seemingly trying to burrow into the muddy water below.
So that was it.
That fleeting glimpse earlier hadn't been a trick of the eye.
Li Pingsheng instantly understood that the demon beast's appearance tonight might not have been a coincidence caused by the scent of blood.
The waters in the Outer City ran even deeper than he'd imagined.
Could someone be using these strange Gu Insects to control demon beasts?
If this got out, he—someone who'd been at the scene—would be dragged into a huge mess.
He didn't hesitate. He stamped down, grinding the black Gu Insect and the surrounding flesh deep into the mud until they were pulverized.
Once he'd finished, he began cleaning up the scene in a hurry.
He dragged Master Scar's and Master Qin's bodies over beside the gang members who'd been chewed beyond recognition by the demon beast. Then he used the broken blade to slash several deep, bone-revealing wounds into them, faking the appearance of men who'd fought the beast to exhaustion and died.
If he was going to put on a show, he had to see it through. As he worked, Li Pingsheng casually took the money pouches from Master Scar and Master Qin.
They were heavy in his hands.
Aside from a dozen or so taels of silver in loose change, Master Scar had a small porcelain bottle containing three pills. Judging by their quality, they were even better than the Bone Strengthening Pills distributed by the martial hall.
Master Qin was practically a little treasury. He had more than fifty taels in banknotes alone.
He'd struck it rich.
Li Pingsheng hid everything close to his body, took one last look at the carnage in the alley, then vaulted silently over the wall and back into his own courtyard.
"Creak."
He pushed open the door.
Beneath the bed, Grandpa, his mother, Second Uncle and Second Aunt, and Yunmei were huddled tightly together, every face etched with terror.
The moment Li Pingsheng entered, Yunmei was the first to burst into tears and rush over.
"Big Brother."
Li Pingsheng crouched and stroked his sister's head, giving her a reassuring sense of strength.
"It's all right now."
He offered his family a few simple words of comfort, saying only that there'd been an internal feud among the Black Water Gang and telling them not to talk about it.
Finally, he gave Grandpa a solemn warning.
"Starting tonight, whenever I'm not home, you absolutely mustn't open the door no matter what you hear outside—even if the house collapses. Understand?"
Grandpa Li nodded firmly.
Back in his own room, Li Pingsheng locked the doors and windows, then poured the night's spoils onto the table beside the dim oil lamp.
More than fifty taels in banknotes, a dozen or so taels in loose silver, and three unidentified pills.
But looking at all that money, Li Pingsheng felt not the slightest joy.
He gazed out the window. Rain still fell, shrouding the entire Outer City in darkness too thick to dispel.
Demons, Gu Insects, an unknown hand lurking in the shadows...
He had to hurry.
He had to get his hands on a vast number of potential points and silver as soon as possible, then move his family into the Inner City.
The pressing urgency weighed on him until he could barely breathe.
The next morning, the rain cleared and the sun came out.
A shocking piece of news rapidly spread throughout the West District of the Outer City.
Master Scar, sub-leader of the Black Water Gang's branch, and Master Qin, the bookkeeper, had been among more than a dozen of the gang's elite who died horribly outside the alley where the Li Family lived.
The scene had been drenched in blood, and the bodies were chewed beyond recognition. Rumor had it they'd encountered a rare demon beast and been wiped out to the last man.
The Black Water Gang's leader flew into a rage when he heard the news and personally brought people to investigate. But aside from the demon beast's claw marks and bite wounds, they could find no other clues.
In the end, he had no choice but to pin the blood debt on those damned beasts.
With the huge sum he'd taken from the bodies the previous night tucked away, Li Pingsheng walked into the Azure Cloud Martial Hall looking perfectly calm.
The dining hall still smelled just as familiar.
"Well, if it isn't our 'superior root-boned' Senior Brother Li! What happened? Did a demon beast fail to gobble you up on patrol last night?"
Holding a steaming bowl of meat porridge, with a plate of demon beast meat beside him, Zhao Ming sauntered over, sneering sarcastically.
Instructor Wu, who was handing out breakfast, shot Li Pingsheng a cold glance, then tossed a bowl of watery porridge with the bottom clearly visible and a hard, blackened flatbread in front of him.
"Yours. Eat up and get lost."
The surrounding disciples burst into laughter.
Li Pingsheng didn't even look at the bowl of porridge, nor did he bother responding to Zhao Ming's provocation.
He turned and left the dining hall at once.
Put up with it?
Until the upcoming examination, he still had to put up with it.
But from today on, he wasn't going to be a pushover anymore.
He patted the thick wad of banknotes tucked against his chest.
How could the martial hall's meager scraps compare to the succulent high-grade demon beast meat at the Inner City's Black Market?
Before you continue