A Chicken

"The meat is right there; grab a piece and you'll live."

"Grab it! If you're too late, it'll be gone."

"Even if I die, I'll die a well-fed ghost."

Inciting words drifted incessantly through the crowd.

There were simply too many beggars.

A dense, swarming mass of beggars huddled together, a sea of bobbing heads.

They shoved and trampled one another; someone tripped and fell to the ground.

They were immediately trampled by those behind, letting out only a short, sharp wail before falling silent.

Zhuo Yong guarded the cart at the front, his brows knitted into a knot.

His gaze swept across the dark, oppressive crowd, trying to identify the sources of the incitement.

But with face after twisted face layered together and voices surging from every direction, he felt a sense of powerlessness, as if he had nowhere to strike.

"Push faster! Don't stop!" Zhuo Yong ordered his two assistants.

The two assistants were already pale with fright, but upon hearing this, they mustered all their strength and gripped the cart's ropes tightly.

They couldn't fathom it; they had never encountered such a situation before.

What on earth was going on today?

Zhuo Yong stopped obsessing over finding the source; a fierce glint flashed in his eyes, and his movements became increasingly ruthless.

Seeing a beggar roar and pounce toward him, he grabbed the man by the back of his collar, swung him around like a sack of rags, and flung him hard. The beggar flew like a heavy sandbag, crashing violently into the surging crowd.

Thud.

The beggar slammed into the throng, and after a series of muffled impacts, a whole row went down, temporarily clearing a gap.

Yet the beggars behind seemed not to notice, continuing to trample over their companions' bodies as they lunged forward.

The situation was critical.

Li Yun did not hold back too much either, following suit.

He sidestepped a withered hand reaching for him, backhanded the man's shoulder, and used the momentum of the man's lunge to toss him aside.

The beggar stumbled into the people beside him, knocking down several more in the process.

The situation eased slightly.

Xu Zhiyong, hidden within the crowd, saw the chaos he had worked so hard to incite being suppressed.

He felt a surge of anxiety.

He glanced quickly at Li Yun, noting that although the young man's strikes were heavier than before, he still hadn't used lethal force.

Gritting his teeth, a ruthless look entered his eyes:

"Do or die!"

He immediately threw away his short club, used the momentum of a beggar rushing forward beside him to stick to his back like a plaster, and kept his eyes locked on Li Yun's movements.

The beggar in front roared and lunged at Li Yun, his withered claws reaching straight for his shoulder.

Li Yun dodged to the side, twisted his wrist, and pushed the man backward, sending him stumbling into the crowd.

In that split second, Xu Zhiyong lunged out, his arms wrapping around Li Yun's waist like iron hoops, his veins bulging with the effort.

"I've got him held! Hurry up and grab the food!"

Xu Zhiyong roared.

This shout was like pouring hot oil onto a fire; the crowd, which had just begun to slow, surged again in an instant.

Li Yun's brow darkened; how could he allow himself to become the weak point?

He stepped back half a pace, planted his feet in a firm stance, engaged his core, dropped his shoulder, and drove an elbow strike into Xu Zhiyong's back.

Bang.

A muffled sound rang out, like a heavy object striking a sandbag.

Xu Zhiyong felt a piercing, agonizing pain in his back; it felt as if his internal organs had shifted, and his arms instantly lost their strength.

He let out a miserable shriek and rolled straight onto the ground.

He was convulsing with pain, but he dared not delay; ignoring the agony, he scrambled and crawled toward the corner of a wall.

He was terrified that if he were a second too late, he would be trampled to death.

He didn't even notice his back scraping against the rubble; only when he curled into the shadow of a broken wall did he dare to catch his breath.

He poked his head out, watching as Li Yun remained firmly standing his ground.

The delay he had risked his life to create hadn't even lasted a moment.

A surge of stifled rage and indignation rushed to his head, his eyes filled with venom:

"Useless, a bunch of useless trash!"

As Xu Zhiyong clenched his fists and cursed viciously, the corner of his eye caught sight of Fang Ming not far away.

His livid face froze abruptly, immediately replaced by a surge of unexpected, wild joy.

As it turned out, a beggar thrown aside by Zhuo Yong earlier had landed right in the middle of the road, its body curled up and stiff.

The two laborers, already terrified out of their wits by the chaos, hadn't paid any attention to their feet.

When the cart wheel rolled over the corpse, it gave a violent jolt, and a chicken actually tumbled off the flatbed.

Fang Ming had been nearby all along, waiting for the opportunity Xu Zhiyong was creating.

The early bird catches the worm.

With the fat chicken now lying at his feet, it was a godsend.

Fang Ming was quick-eyed and nimble-handed; he reached out, snatched it up, and pressed it tightly to his chest.

Fearing he might be seen, he hunched his waist and bolted toward the eastern alley without looking back.

"Got it!"

Xu Zhiyong felt a surge of joy. Suppressing the smile at the corner of his mouth, he also lowered his body and silently followed behind Fang Ming, slipping toward the eastern alley entrance.

This scene was caught entirely by Li Yun, who was bringing up the rear.

According to the slaughterhouse rules, any goods lost during transport had to be compensated at double the value.

When calculated, the back-and-forth losses would be no small sum.

Li Yun kept it in mind, but his priority right now was to escort the cart to safety.

Therefore, he did not give chase.

Although the beggars in the alley were lunging forward like madmen, they were ultimately futile against a martial artist in the Body Tempering Realm.

Zhuo Yong's strikes were fierce and ruthless, while Li Yun's movements were clean and efficient. The two of them, one in front and one behind, acted like solid barriers, keeping the frenzied crowd firmly away from the cart.

Not a single one could get within half a step of the cart.

In the end, they emerged from the alley without further incident.

Zhuo Yong raised a hand to wipe the sweat from his forehead; his coarse cloth clothes were already soaked through.

The two laborers were even more limp, leaning against the cart handles and gasping for air, their faces pale and their eyes still lingering with the shock of the ordeal.

"Bad luck!

What a streak of rotten luck!"

Zhuo Yong cursed, his voice tinged with lingering fear:

"I've run this escort route so many times, but I've never encountered such a crazy scene.

It's a good thing you were here to help, Junior Brother, otherwise, I don't know how much money I would have had to pay out today."

Li Yun pointed toward the eastern alley:

"Senior Brother, the cart jolted just now and a chicken fell off, which a beggar picked up.

I'll go chase after it and try to be back within a quarter of an hour so we don't delay the meat delivery."

Without waiting for Zhuo Yong to respond, he moved his feet and dashed toward the eastern alley.

Zhuo Yong paused, looked at the cart, and then raised his hand to call out:

"Be careful, go and come back quickly."

They had already lost quite a bit of time on the road, and the meat had to be delivered to the designated location before the hour of the Dragon.

Li Yun didn't intend to chase them very far; he just wanted to scout the eastern alley.

It would be best if he could retrieve the chicken, but if not, he wouldn't dwell on it to avoid delaying the main task.

The two fugitives, perhaps starved out of their minds, only focused on charging forward blindly and didn't notice that the chicken in their arms was still dripping dark red blood.

They left behind a trail, intermittent and faint.

To Li Yun, who came from a family of hunters, this trail was glaringly obvious.

When tracking beasts in the mountains, identifying scents and subtle traces was like following a bright, shining signpost.

The eastern alley was narrower than the main one, and despite the many forks, the bloodstains served as an infallible guide.

Li Yun's footsteps were light, and before long, he turned into a dead end.

Just as he approached the mouth of the alley, he heard muffled arguing coming from inside, mixed with the sounds of tearing.

"Xu Zhiyong... on what grounds..."

"Fang Ming..."

Li Yun's footsteps halted. He didn't rush in directly, but instead pressed his side against the base of the wall, quietly peering inside.