Among them.
Hu Long was the quickest to adapt.
For someone who had mastered Comprehensive Combat Arts to perfection, this was a piece of cake.
He had already shown off in front of Hu Zhenkui, so there was no need to hold back now.
"Hu Long's movements are textbook perfect. You should all learn from him."
Hu Qitian had naturally noticed this, and a flicker of surprise crossed his eyes.
But then he thought of Hu Long's past.
He had heard that Hu Long had already mastered some Integrated Force. That meant his combat training had reached a considerably advanced level.
It was only natural that he could do this well.
Once everyone had grasped the basics of Mountain Standing Stake, Hu Qitian fetched several birdcages from somewhere. Inside were little sparrows with brown, mottled feathers and black patches on their cheeks.
He placed one on each person's shoulder.
The birds weren't afraid of people. Perched on their shoulders, they looked this way and that, occasionally preening their feathers, then staring wide-eyed at their human companions.
"When you can train until the bird wants to fly but can't,"
"then you'll have truly mastered Integrated Force."
"Sparrows and most other birds need to push off when they take flight from a standstill.
If you can dissipate that subtle force through your body, they won't be able to push off, and naturally they won't be able to leave your shoulder."
Hu Qitian explained.
As he spoke,
he demonstrated for everyone.
Sure enough, no matter how hard the sparrow flapped its wings, it couldn't fly away.
Hu Zetong didn't believe it and moved ever so slightly.
The next moment, the sparrow flew off him.
Hu Long tried as well, but he didn't succeed either.
The others all had the same result.
Clearly, this required an extremely fine degree of control over Integrated Force.
That night, the moon was bright and the stars were sparse.
Linhai City, an urban village.
The roadside night market stalls still glowed with dim yellow lights. Cooking smoke mingled with the night breeze, drifting through the damp air.
"Boss, cut me a pound of pig's head meat."
"Coming right up!"
The cleaver thudded against the cutting board, and the meat was soon handed over in a paper wrapper.
Wang Ting wore a mask and carried a pack of cold appetizers as he walked home with his head down.
Whenever he passed someone, he instinctively moved a few steps away, not daring to get close.
He didn't want anyone to recognize him.
Fortunately, it was flu season, and there were plenty of people wearing masks on the street. He didn't stand out.
As he neared home, he paused, turned, and slipped into a nearby convenience store that was still lit. He came out with the cheapest bottle of liquor.
His place was in a remote area. The streetlights had been broken for a long time, and junk was piled in the corners.
He took out his key and was just about to line it up with the lock when his vision suddenly went black.
He didn't make a sound. His body simply crumpled to the ground.
More than ten minutes later.
In the old bathroom, the faucet hadn't been turned off properly. Water dripped onto the tiles with a soft, steady patter.
On the floor, bright red blood wound along the gaps between the white tiles and flowed into the rusted drain.
Wang Ting lay facedown like a torn sack, covered in blood. He occasionally twitched, his breathing faint.
He struggled to lift his eyelids and looked at the two figures standing before him, his pupils filled with terror.
"I... My name is Wang Ting... but I really don't know anything about the Sheepskin Scroll... The Xue Wu family... I had nothing to do with them... You've got the wrong man..."
As he spoke,
he felt utterly aggrieved.
If his own enemies had caught him, he would have accepted it.
But judging by the situation, these two had come for the Xue Wu family.
The problem was, he hadn't done it. But they wouldn't listen at all. They had broken all four of his limbs, and even used some method he didn't understand to make him suffer pain like being flayed alive.
He couldn't even kill himself. He was nearly driven mad.
At his words, the masked woman leaning against the doorframe lowered her eyes to look at him. Her gaze was as still as well water, utterly unruffled.
It was as if she weren't looking at a person, but at a stray dog by the road or an insect in the corner.
To Wang Ting, she was far more terrifying than the murderous criminals he had encountered before.
"Oh."
She spoke softly.
"If you've held out this long without talking, it seems we really did make a mistake."
At her words, Wang Ting relaxed, a look of relief rising on his face.
"It's fine, as long as we've cleared things up. I..."
—Pfft!
A dull thud.
Before he could finish, a bloody hole suddenly appeared in the center of his forehead.
The shot pierced straight through his skull.
Blood and brains splattered across the yellowed tiles behind him. The faint look of relief froze on his face.
His body slumped facedown on the floor, never to move again.
"Why did you kill him?"
Under the bathroom light,
a man and a woman stood facing each other.
They were Bai Ling and Tail Fire.
They had been searching for this man for a long time.
They had thought they might learn the whereabouts of the Green Bag Fragment, but they hadn't expected this result.
As for whether he had been telling the truth, it was unlikely he'd been lying.
No one could endure the pain of having their bones, muscles, and fascia snapped apart by force. It was several times worse than being flayed alive.
Even the toughest man couldn't hold out.
Tail Fire's expression didn't change.
As he spoke, he raised his right hand to his forehead in a gesture resembling a devout prayer.
It was the Pure Fire Sect's unique purification ritual.
"It's just a shame I wasted one of my Blood Tracking Talismans."
Bai Ling looked pained.
The Blood Tracking Talisman she mentioned was clearly precious.
Then she looked at him.
"So what do you think we should do now?"
"It's simple. Since this man doesn't have the Green Bag Fragment, there are only two possibilities.
"First, those people from the Pivot Court already took it.
"Second, he handed it over to someone else beforehand.
"If it was the first, we should have been attacked by those people as soon as we found him.
"Besides, with the two of us, there's no way we could take the Green Bag Fragment back from the Pivot Court.
"So I'm leaning toward the second possibility. No, more precisely, we can only hope it's the second."
Tail Fire spoke calmly.
"So I suggest we start with someone who knew him."
"According to what we've learned so far, that woman's son is named Xue Wu. He used to have a girlfriend.
"But that girlfriend was from a collateral branch of the Hu Clan."
Tail Fire's voice paused slightly as he mentioned the Hu Clan.
There was no need to say more.
Bai Ling understood why he had hesitated.
The Hu Clan was only just powerful enough to qualify as a mid-tier clan.
But the terrifying thing about the clans was how deeply intertwined their relationships were. Any clan that had survived to this day was more or less connected to those few upper-tier clans with thousand-year legacies.
If they provoked one of them, they might face endless retaliation.
When the Pure Fire Sect was attacked, everyone thought it was because of its cruel cultivation methods.
But only a very small number of people knew the real reason the Pure Fire Sect had nearly been wiped out.
The Pure Fire Sect had accidentally killed a member of an upper-tier clan. That had enraged the clan, which then unleashed a devastating retaliation.
The Pure Fire Sect hadn't been completely wiped out. It had escaped Yu State.
But it had suffered severe losses and took nearly forty years to recover somewhat.
Even so, it no longer dared approach the heartland of Yu State and only dared linger in border cities.
If their leader hadn't ordered them to retrieve the lost Green Bag Fragment, the two of them would never have come here.
"Investigate first. If she has no connection to the main family, then we can act directly."
Bai Ling spoke softly.
These clans were powerful, but they were also arrogant to their core.
Only members of the main family were truly considered their own.
So attacking a collateral clan member was entirely different from attacking someone from the main family.