Night inked the sky, slowly staining it black.
Before the last streak of dusky light could be swallowed up,
The (omitted watermark paragraph)
Lu Jing'an crossed the threshold of the Lu Residence.
The electric lights had already been switched on in the courtyard.
Their yellow glow shimmered across the bluestone paving.
Stretching Lu Jing'an's hurried shadow, now long, now short.
Lu Jing'an did not pause. He hurried straight through the covered corridor toward his father Lu Huaiqian's study.
When he knocked and entered, Lu Huaiqian was reading the documents before him.
His brows were furrowed with heavy worry.
When he saw Lu Jing'an, he closed the file.
Lu Jing'an told Lu Huaiqian the two important pieces of intelligence.
After listening, Lu Huaiqian fell silent for a moment.
His knuckles tapped lightly against the hardwood desk, making a soft, steady sound.
After a moment, he spoke slowly:
"Getting the truth out of the Li Family is simply impossible.
They'd be lucky not to seize this chance to bite back at the Lu Family.
And even if they did talk, it would probably all be a trap.
Even if they really set one, we'd have a hard time catching them in the act.
When the time came, they'd only have to claim they didn't know whether the Tiger Demon had eaten the bodies, and we'd be powerless."
Lu Jing'an had thought the same.
He had only brought it up in passing. What mattered most was getting access to the case files.
Lu Huaiqian did not refuse.
He immediately wrote up a formal request to review them.
Though the document was ready, his tone held little hope:
"The Peacekeeping Bureau has always looked down on everyone and paid the Security Station no heed.
They never obey orders or answer summons.
Even if we send someone with the documents tomorrow, I doubt we'll get the files."
Lu Jing'an looked at the document, his eyes shining with certainty.
"Don't worry, Father. If we act by the book, this time we'll get a response."
His certainty made Lu Huaiqian pause.
He sighed inwardly. His son was still young, after all, and thought dealings with the authorities were simple.
He had only given them money twice. If that were enough to get a foothold in the Peacekeeping Bureau,
he would have thrown money at them long ago.
The Peacekeeping Bureau wasn't something money could buy.
But Lu Huaiqian did not explain this to him.
He figured that once the files failed to arrive tomorrow, Lu Jing'an would understand.
After finishing this matter,
Lu Jing'an took his leave and returned to his room.
He had only just gotten back to his room
when he saw the prompt, [Refining Complete].
Lu Jing'an had previously refined the soul of that mysterious Martial Cultivator.
Now it was time to see what he had gained.
[Refining Complete]
[Obtained orange Affix: Absolute Protection]
[Obtained one Wang Xiong Memory Bead]
[Obtained 3 Energy Points]
"Another brand-new orange Affix."
Seeing the color of the new Affix, Lu Jing'an was quite pleased.
He immediately checked the details of his newly acquired Affix.
[Absolute Protection] (Orange)
[Description]: Permanently increases defense by 5 points.
Equipping this Affix reduces damage from cultivators of the same level by 80%.
Damage from cultivators one level higher by 40%.
Damage from cultivators two levels higher by 10%.
Can trigger Absolute Protection once, actively or passively, for three seconds.
After checking the Affix's details,
Lu Jing'an was extremely satisfied with its abilities.
Especially the final effect, Absolute Protection.
Even if it only lasted three seconds,
there was no limit on the level of the attacker.
That meant it worked against anyone, no matter their level.
Even if they were more than ten levels above him,
even if they were among the highest beings in the world of cultivators,
he could still block them for three seconds.
After reviewing the Affix,
Lu Jing'an felt even more keenly how powerful his master, Chen Xuan, was.
To refine an Affix like this from a soul,
Wang Xiong must have been a Martial Cultivator of great skill in defense when he was alive.
With that thought, Lu Jing'an's estimation of his master Chen Xuan rose another notch.
To have dispatched a cultivator skilled in protection so cleanly,
his cultivation was probably even higher than Lu Jing'an had imagined.
The Lu Family was truly blessed to have such an Attendant.
After finishing refining Wang Xiong's soul,
Lu Jing'an began refining the remaining three souls as well.
The souls of the two remaining Martial Cultivators and one Smoke Cultivator were all inferior to Wang Xiong's and Lawrence's.
Refining all three together would take about as long as refining Wang Xiong alone.
Deep in the Black Pine Forest, thirty li from Yinshan County.
The moonlight was chopped to pieces by the dense canopy.
Only a few bleak patches of light filtered through.
They barely illuminated several figures standing rigidly among the trees.
They made no sound, like wooden stakes driven into the earth.
Only when the night wind blew did their sleeves stir faintly, lending them an even more eerie air.
"Roar!"
All at once,
a low, savage tiger's roar erupted from deep in the forest,
startling the crows roosting for the night.
At the sound, the motionless figures all shuddered in unison.
Then, with a strange, synchronized movement, they began to walk through the woods.
Their steps were stiff and their motions identical, like puppets manipulated by invisible strings.
At their head was a short, stout old man: Elder He, the Li Family's Martial Cultivator.
But the sharp glint that once filled his eyes had completely vanished.
Only a hollow, ashen emptiness remained, and his face had turned a bluish white in the dim light.
Behind him followed Li Zhaolin and several Li Family servants.
Every one of them had a blank expression and vacant eyes. They had clearly become Chang Ghosts under the Tiger Demon's control.
The Tiger Demon lurked in the deepest darkness.
Its enormous demonic eyes gleamed with cruelty and amusement.
It was testing out its new toys.
With a mere thought, it sent the Chang Ghosts toward the edge of the woods to probe the boundary.
But just as Elder He and the others were about to step beyond the core of its demonic aura,
a sudden change struck!
Deep in Li Zhaolin's vacant eyes,
a faint but unusually clear glint of ferocity suddenly flashed!
The next moment, his rigid body bent sharply forward.
Like a spring wound tight for ages, he tore himself free of that invisible restraint.
Then he bolted toward the mountainside, running for his life!
His steps stumbled, yet he moved astonishingly fast, nothing like his earlier daze.
"Roar!"
The Tiger Demon had clearly never expected its dead toy to fight back.
Fury and shock mingled as a more powerful roar burst forth.
The sound wave solidified, sending a visible ripple sweeping outward.
Branches and leaves thrashed from the trees all around, and dust shuddered across the ground.
Li Zhaolin, sprinting wildly, was struck as if by a heavy hammer.
His head rang, and darkness swam before his eyes.
A metallic sweetness surged into his throat, and he nearly fell.
But he bit down hard on his tongue. The sharp pain jolted him awake.
Driven by a streak of mad, savage determination,
he managed to keep himself upright.
He did not slow. He ran even faster!
Even the Tiger Demon, lurking in the shadows, froze for a moment.
It clearly remembered piercing this human's neck with its fangs.
His breath had stopped; he had been dead beyond all doubt.
How... could he still move, and even retain his mind?
Li Zhaolin's survival had nothing to do with his own cultivation.
Back when he had studied abroad, he had once, by a stroke of luck,
paid a huge sum to gain entry to a mysterious religious sect and found a method of returning from the dead.
He had planned to use it as his final trump card, escaping death at a crucial moment.
He had never expected to fall to a beast in these desolate mountains!
After all, the method could only be used once in a lifetime.
As he ran, Li Zhaolin suddenly felt a cold, sticky sensation in his abdomen.
With every jarring stride, something seemed to slip out and drag along behind him.
He instinctively glanced down.
In the bleak moonlight,
he saw that the hem of his long robe was soaked in blood.
A horrifying gash ran from beneath his ribs to his lower abdomen,
the flesh torn open and turned outward.
With each bouncing step, clumps of cold, indistinct organs
kept spilling out and dangling uncontrollably.
They even dragged over the ground, littered with broken stones and dead branches!
"Hah..."
A rasping breath wheezed from Li Zhaolin's throat, like air escaping a broken bellows.
Overwhelming terror and revulsion seized him.
This secret art could only keep a broken body alive for a short while.
With such grievous injuries and his organs displaced, even if his spirit remained intact,
this body could not hold out much longer before it completely fell apart.
After the terror came a towering hatred.
It burned like a raging fire, consuming what little reason he had left.
He hated the Li Family for its mistaken decisions. He hated his own ill fortune.
But deep within him, a blazing poison burned so fiercely it seemed ready to set his very soul alight.
It was aimed at the Lu Family, especially Lu Jing'an, who had repeatedly ruined everything!
"If I can't survive... then none of you will get off easy!"
A vicious plan, evil to the core, was taking shape in the half-heart of this dying man.
He abruptly veered off, no longer fleeing in a straight line.
Instead, relying on his hazy recollection of the place from his daytime exploration, he staggered toward somewhere in the forest.
The Tiger Demon finally came fully to its senses.
Fury at its prey's resistance and the humiliation of being tricked filled its chest.
It growled low, its massive yet nimble body bounding between the trees and rapidly closing the distance.
Li Zhaolin acted as though he didn't hear the foul wind bearing down behind him.
He charged into a cave half-hidden by vines.
The overpowering stench of wild beasts hit him in the face.
The cave was dim, but in a pile of dry grass in the corner,
a fuzzy tiger cub could just be seen, nestled close against its siblings as it slept soundly.
It made a faint snoring sound.
A savage, triumphant grin appeared on Li Zhaolin's face.
Summoning his last ounce of strength, he abruptly pulled a gleaming Browning from his coat.
Trembling, he aimed the barrel at the defenseless cub.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
The piercing gunshots rang out one after another, echoing through the cave and deafening all who heard them.
Flashes of fire lit up Li Zhaolin's face, spattered with blood and contorted with madness.
They also illuminated the sudden bloom of blood across the grass and the cub's brief, shrill cries.
All eight bullets poured out without a single one missing.
When the Tiger Demon charged into the cave on a gust of wind, this was the sight that greeted it:
Its cub lay in a pool of blood.
The tiny body had been torn open by several ghastly holes.
The dry grass was soaked with hot blood, and the thick stench of blood filled every inch of the air.
"ROAR—!!!"
This roar could no longer be described as anger.
It was madness, a heart-rending urge to destroy everything.
The entire cave seemed to tremble beneath the roar, as bits of rock pattered down.
Li Zhaolin casually tossed away the empty pistol.
The metal struck the stone wall with a clear clang.
He leaned against the cold cave wall, blood gushing from the wound in his abdomen.
His life ebbed away with his warmth, yet he laughed, louder and louder.
His laughter rang through the cave, hoarse and deranged:
"Cough... haha... cough, cough!
"Come on!
"You beast!
"If you've got the guts, swallow me whole.
"My Yinshan Lu Family will never stand with beasts like you."
Every word rang out with perfect clarity.
He especially emphasized the words "Lu Family," his voice steeped in bone-deep venom and the satisfaction of having gotten his way.
"ROAR!!"
His answer was endless darkness and tearing agony as the beast's gaping maw closed around him.
The Tiger Demon's fangs easily silenced Li Zhaolin's manic laughter.
Yet in the final instant before his consciousness was utterly devoured and sank into eternal chaos,
the last thing Li Zhaolin could feel
was the smile spreading across his lips, cold and triumphant, mingled with blood.
He knew he had succeeded.
This Tiger Demon, robbed of its cub and driven into a world-shaking frenzy,
would surely direct its boundless fury and hatred at the Lu Family.
Before you continue