It was still the same dilapidated courtyard where Lin Yan had arrived in this world.
That warrior who had appeared at the teahouse sat in the seat of honor, dressed in fine clothes.
Anyone whose wits were still about them would have noticed something was wrong.
Why would a dignified warrior show up in this run-down courtyard?
But Lin Yan was playing the part of a boy struck dumb with joy at the news that he could practice martial arts, so naturally he wouldn't call them out.
"Sir, I bought these pastries especially for you from the Orchid Fragrance Pavilion. Please accept them."
When Lin Yan opened the paper wrapping, Zhao Chuan and Zhang Dahai exchanged glances, a trace of disdain in their eyes.
What a naive fool. A few packets of pastries, and he thought that was worth offering?
Still, the more foolish he was, the easier he'd be to fool.
"You're thoughtful."
Zhao Chuan picked up a pastry and took a bite.
"Sir, how does it taste?"
Zhao Chuan was taken aback. What a clueless brat. Only when an elder or superior gave a younger person pastries would the recipient ask if they tasted good. How could a junior like him have the nerve to ask?
Still, Zhao Chuan instinctively took another bite and said mildly, "Not bad."
"Sir, Lin Yan is determined to learn martial arts. Last time, you examined his bones, and he's been nourishing his qi and blood with medicinal soup ever since. This time, he wants to take you as his master."
Zhang Dahai, standing to the side, couldn't hold back any longer. He didn't want to watch Lin Yan clown around. It was time to get down to business.
"Is that so? I remember something about this. Come forward, and I'll examine your bones again."
At his words, Lin Yan stepped forward. Zhao Chuan placed a hand on him and felt around with practiced air for a while. When he finally let go, he sighed. "Your qi and blood are much stronger than last time, but you're still some way from being able to practice martial arts. It'll be difficult."
"Ah, how could that be?"
Lin Yan looked anxious. Zhang Dahai hurriedly chimed in, "Sir, Lin Yan is utterly sincere. Could you see if there's any way to help him?"
"There is one way. There's a pill called the Blood Refining Pill. Taking it can make up for a deficiency in qi and blood, but it's not cheap. One pill costs thirty taels."
Good grief. They wanted not only his family's old home, but the house where he and his aunt lived now, too.
One thirty-tael pill, plus the money he already owed for medicinal soup, would put him more than fifty taels in debt.
Lin Yan looked flustered. Zhang Dahai gritted his teeth. "My young friend Lin has the makings of a martial artist. I'm willing to pay for him. May I ask, sir... where can I buy this Blood Refining Pill?"
"At an apothecary in town."
Listening to the two of them perform their double act, Lin Yan felt a little puzzled. If he bought it at an apothecary, surely the shops in town wouldn't play along with their scheme?
"Young friend Lin, wait here a moment. I'll go to an apothecary."
"Brother Zhang!"
Lin Yan looked deeply moved, but in his heart he understood. Zhang Dahai was probably going to come back with some random pill and try to fool him.
Zhang Dahai left, thoughtfully closing the courtyard gate behind him.
"Sir, could you have felt wrong just now? How about feeling again?"
Lin Yan looked unwilling to give up. Zhao Chuan gave a soft snort. "How could I have made a mistake? But since you're not satisfied, come forward and let me check again."
Zhao Chuan placed his hand on Lin Yan. This time, Lin Yan immediately focused on the Martial Dao Tree in his mind.
In his mind, the gray branch of the Martial Dao Tree had now separated from the green branch. It had fallen beside the green tree and become an independent gray tree, though it was a head shorter than the green one.
At the same time, a leaf had sprouted from the gray tree's trunk, with words appearing on it: Wild Bull Stake.
The same thing had already happened in his mind just moments ago, along with information about the Martial Dao Mountain.
Whenever someone touched his body while he was unguarded, the gray Martial Dao Tree could sense their martial arts realm and reveal the strongest technique they knew.
The gray tree's height represented their realm, while its leaves represented their techniques.
He had already noticed that this man's Martial Dao Tree wasn't as tall as his own, but he'd been afraid he'd sensed it wrong, so he'd asked the other man to check him again.
Now that he'd confirmed the man was weaker than him, there was no need to keep up the pretense.
"I told you there was no mistake. You—"
As Zhao Chuan's hand reached Lin Yan's waist, Lin Yan's bones shuddered. He swung his arm and threw a sudden punch straight at Zhao Chuan's face.
At such close range, Stone Waist Savage Spine unleashed its full power.
The punch landed. Zhao Chuan didn't even have time to groan before his brow bone caved in and he toppled to the ground.
Lin Yan didn't know whether the punch had knocked Zhao Chuan out or killed him, so he didn't stop. He pulled a dagger from his robe, drove it into Zhao Chuan's chest, and twisted it hard. Only after confirming Zhao Chuan was well and truly dead did he pull the dagger free.
"If I'd known he hadn't even reached Foundation Cultivation, I wouldn't have wasted those pastries."
Looking at the pastries on the table, Lin Yan felt a pang of regret. The few packets had cost him thirty copper coins, and he'd laced them with knockout medicine. They were no longer fit to eat.
Over the past two months, besides practicing martial arts, he'd also been thinking about how to deal with Zhang Dahai's gang.
Report it to the authorities? The Patrol Bureau wouldn't even bother with gang fights, so why would they care about something this small?
The escorts of the Might-Vast Escort Agency traveled far and wide and had all sorts of ways to protect themselves. They were especially familiar with knockout medicine. Lin Yan had gone to Zhang Wei and asked him to have one of the agency's masters prepare a dose.
At the same time, he'd drawn on the wisdom of those who came before him. He'd sewn two inner pockets into the loose sleeves of his clothes, putting lime powder in the left one and pepper in the right. He'd specifically asked his aunt to sew the openings with slipknots, like the drawstring closure on a sack. A tug on the loose end would open them.
Unfortunately, he hadn't needed any of it just now.
Lin Yan didn't rush to search the bodies. Instead, he went to one side of the courtyard gate, gripped the pepper powder in his left hand, and waited, concentrating.
Zhang Dahai had never practiced martial arts. Otherwise, after touching Lin Yan several times, the strange tree wouldn't have remained unmoved.
Even so, Lin Yan didn't dare let his guard down.
Waiting was a long business, but Lin Yan had patience.
When he heard footsteps, his body tensed. The moment the courtyard gate swung open, he flung the pepper powder with his left hand without hesitation, then immediately followed up with a punch from his right.
"Damn, I—"
Thud, thud, thud!
A few faint sounds later, the courtyard fell silent again.
When he'd killed Zhao Chuan, his heart had still been racing a little. By the time he killed Zhang Dahai, he was calm.
After bolting the courtyard gate, Lin Yan began searching the bodies.
Zhang Dahai was poor. He truly had only a few dozen copper coins on him. But aside from that, there were quite a few pieces of paper. Lin Yan glanced over them. There was the IOU he'd signed, but there was also one from someone else. Altogether, the debts added up to fifty taels.
"Good grief, this guy borrowed even more than I did. So Zhang Dahai was driven to poverty by this other fellow?"
Lin Yan took a fire starter from his robe and burned all the IOUs. Then he turned to Zhao Chuan's body and searched it as well.
Jackpot!
Lin Yan was overjoyed when he saw the banknote in his hand.
Fifty taels!
With so much money, he could have been drinking Qi-Nurturing Soup like water and still ought to have reached Foundation Cultivation. Was he some kind of miser?
Lin Yan naturally had no idea that the money was Zhao Chuan's planned fee for joining a martial arts school. Now, it had fallen into his hands instead.
Besides the banknote, there were some bits of silver and copper coins, worth another seven or eight taels. Lin Yan took them all.
Looking at the two corpses on the ground, he felt no fear at all.
A martial artist was supposed to have the heart of a warrior. It wasn't just something people said.
What he was thinking about now was how to dispose of the bodies.
Zhang Dahai and the others were doing things they couldn't let the world know about, so they certainly wouldn't tell anyone. As long as he got rid of the bodies, no one would suspect him for a while.
A short while later, Lin Yan climbed over the wall and left. Half an hour after that, he climbed back in, opened the courtyard gate, and pushed in a four-wheeled cart. He tossed Zhang Dahai and Zhao Chuan's bodies onto it, covered them with a sheet of white hemp, and pushed the cart straight out the gate without a shred of shame, heading toward the city gate.
Along the way, the pedestrians he passed all stepped aside with looks of disgust.
Even at the city gate, the few soldiers on guard merely glanced at him. They neither stopped him nor asked any questions.
Only after Lin Yan had gone some distance did the soldiers begin talking.
"Which gang in town got into a fight this time? Someone's already dead."
"These gangsters live high on the hog while they're alive, but once they're dead, they're just wrapped in hemp and dumped in the mass grave. They don't even get a headstone."
"The gangs in town have been fighting fiercely lately. I heard a new gang's fighting over territory."
Lin Yan was betting on hiding in plain sight!
After all, no one would believe that a murderer would dare push a cart of corpses right out through the western city gate.
When he reached the mass grave outside the city, Lin Yan dumped Zhao Chuan's body. But he kept Zhang Dahai's. He found another spot, dug a grave, and threw Zhang Dahai's body inside. Then he stuck a wooden plaque into the earth and carved on it with his dagger: "Tomb of Second Uncle Zhuang Hai, left by his nephew Zhuang Zheng!"
After finishing, Lin Yan entered the city through a different gate and went home.
He bathed, burned his clothes, and hid the money.
When all that was done, Lin Yan returned to his room, took out a notebook, and began recalling everything that had happened that day.
"I was still a little reckless."
After a long while, Lin Yan wrote the words "reckless" on the paper in heavy strokes.
Although he'd made plans in advance, looking back now, he'd still acted too impulsively.
Zhang Dahai had taken him there that day to trick him into signing a large debt, but he could have waited to make his move.
They'd surely take a month or two to come after him for repayment.
He could have kept practicing Rock Stance until he was stronger, and investigated Zhang Dahai and Zhao Chuan's backgrounds more thoroughly before acting.
"What you gain from books is ultimately shallow; only by putting it into practice will you truly understand."
Lin Yan murmured the saying. He'd read so many novels in his previous life, but when it came to himself, it was easy to be too close to the situation to see it clearly. He hadn't thought things through especially well.
Next time, he would have to avoid making the same mistake.
After reflecting, Lin Yan began inspecting the space inside his mind. But at the sight of it, he froze.
The gray tree had returned to its original form, intertwined with the green tree once again. Only, at some point, that original gray-green leaf had turned into a gray fruit.
The next moment, a new piece of information appeared in Lin Yan's mind.
[Martial Fruit: Formed by taking a martial artist's life; contains the length of time they spent practicing martial arts and can raise technique proficiency]
"Martial Fruit. Kill a man and take his fruit. What a treasure."
A gleam appeared in Lin Yan's eyes. With these Martial Fruits, all the martial artists under heaven were walking medicinal herbs to him.
Kill someone, seize the time they'd spent practicing martial arts, and pour it into himself.
This wasn't just a cheat anymore. It was downright broken.
[Zhao Chuan's Martial Fruit: Five months, four days]
Lin Yan stared at the gray fruit and willed himself to swallow it, ready to use it to practice Rock Stance.
But the fruit didn't budge.
The next moment, another message appeared in his mind.
Lin Yan: ???
Reading the message again, Lin Yan suddenly understood.
The time contained in a Martial Fruit could only be used to raise technique proficiency.
Rock Stance was only meant to increase his qi and blood, and it had already reached its limit. It couldn't be raised any further.
It made sense. If he could use the fruit to practice Rock Stance, wouldn't that mean conjuring qi and blood out of thin air?
This meant that if he wanted to advance any further, he had to learn a Skin Polishing technique.