Undercurrents

After Lu Bai had dug every last detail about the three men out of them.

The three bound men were already kneeling before Lu Bai in an exceedingly humble posture.

Their foreheads pressed hard against the ground, cold sweat pouring down their faces.

The time to decide their fate had come.

They hoped Lu Bai was a reasonable man and would spare their lives, since they had answered every question respectfully.

Among the three bandits, the one with thick eyebrows and large eyes had the most potential. After entering a dimension, he had formed a Skill Bar—a standard state for ordinary people.

The other two had incomplete Skill Bars as well, allowing them to make limited use of their modules.

If they entered dimensions a few more times, they could become Travelers too.

Of course, people like them would probably find that difficult.

Entering a dimension cost a great deal.

Take the Martial Forest Dimension, for example. It could only be opened about once every three months, and each time, no more than nine people could enter. Due to various restrictions, the number was usually kept to between three and five.

For ordinary families, each chance to enter a dimension was an insurmountable chasm—something they could only dream of.

Naturally, large companies owned more than one Dimension Key, but whenever a dimension opened, the company's own people were more than eager to claim a place.

"No wonder so few places ever become available."

Each place might represent a new Traveler.

There weren't many people like Lu Bai, who had three Skill Bar slots as soon as he entered a dimension. Many had to enter several times before becoming full-fledged Travelers.

And becoming a full-fledged Traveler didn't mean they no longer needed a place in a dimension.

On the contrary, they needed even more places.

They had to enter different dimensions to complete their skill sets.

Besides, even without that reason, after seeing the sights of different worlds, could anyone really endure the increasingly monotonous reality?

Becoming a Traveler wasn't the end. On the contrary, it was only the beginning.

Most of the places to enter dimensions each year were taken by Travelers.

Only the scraps they didn't want trickled out, giving ordinary people the chance to become Travelers.

And most of those, in fact, were claimed by large companies and turned into production bases for various modules.

Under these circumstances, the three men would have little chance of becoming Travelers. Unless they sold themselves into servitude, they probably couldn't afford the cost of entering a dimension again.

If that was the case...

Lu Bai's gaze gradually softened, and his imposing presence slowly eased.

The three men on the ground seemed to relax along with him. They thought they might survive after all.

But then came three soft thuds, and the men collapsed, blood slowly seeping out.

Pulling the iron spikes from their bodies, Lu Bai crouched beside the corpses. Before long, he extracted three modules.

These men had no principles either. To stay alive, they would have confessed anything.

At the same time, they knew Lu Bai's identity in the real world. If he let them roam free, they might cause trouble.

Now that the opportunity had presented itself, killing them to keep them quiet and ensuring none of them could return was inevitable.

Lu Bai had spared Qi'er before because he hadn't cared. At the time, she posed little threat to him. She was a native of the dimension, pregnant with a child, and he would only be there for two or three months. Whether he silenced her or not made no difference.

She had answered his questions, and when she came to her senses, she had shown little hostility toward him. Since she was of no consequence, Lu Bai had let her go.

Qi'er later becoming Phoenix Flying Lady had been a surprise, but even so, that was as far as she would go.

But these three men, no matter how poor their aptitude, still had the potential to become Travelers.

The real world wasn't like the Martial Forest Dimension. Lu Bai couldn't do whatever he wanted there, so naturally, he had to silence them.

The modules the three men had formed were completely ordinary: three Vitality Modules, useful only as fuel.

Lu Bai was a little disappointed with the result, but then he understood.

If Travelers could extract special modules from one another, that would be a serious problem.

Conflicts between Travelers would become many times more vicious.

The fact that he had killed Boss Zhang and obtained most of the modules from his body was already an unexpected windfall.

Soon, someone came to carry the bodies away. Lu Bai could feel the servants' gazes on him growing strange.

"Young master, the name Blood-Stained Rivers and Mountains is quite famous now." Qi'er came out of the room. She seemed to notice the servants' expressions too, and spoke with a smile.

"Word out there is that Lu Bai, Blood-Stained Rivers and Mountains, is nine feet tall and nine feet wide, with red hair and red eyes. He flies into a rage now and then, and when he does, he loves killing people for fun—and making sure there's blood everywhere."

"There are all kinds of stories about you, too. They say Blood-Stained Rivers and Mountains is the Heavenly Demon descended to earth, who abducts women, slaughters the innocent, bathes the world in blood, and does every evil imaginable."

"People are even using your name to scare naughty children at home."

Qi'er laughed as she told him all this. It didn't take much thought to guess that the Hundred Flower Grave was spreading these rumors behind the scenes.

Rumors could be very useful at times.

Take the servants, for example. They had been assigned by the Luo Family and had spent the past few days attending to Lu Bai, so they knew he wasn't like the figure described in the rumors.

But after Lu Bai killed the three men who had been brought to him, they couldn't help connecting him with that image.

Under those circumstances, it was easy for them to become a problem.

When people's minds wavered, they were easy to take advantage of. They might not dare to attack Lu Bai themselves, but plenty of them would be willing to pass on information about him.

Lu Bai had his bandages changed every day. Information about the medicine used, changes to his diet, even how long he spent exercising each day—

All of it could reveal the state of his injuries.

Even his small habits and mannerisms could count as intelligence, and might expose a weakness.

Over the next few days, everything in the little courtyard seemed unchanged, yet somehow different.

The Luo Family kept its distance from Lu Bai. The servants were no longer officially connected to the family, either; their contracts of servitude were now in Lu Bai's hands.

Everything had been separated cleanly.

Then, early one morning, a carriage entered the city and headed straight for the courtyard.

Two large banners were mounted on either side of the carriage.

The left one read, "Demon Butcher Lu Bai." The right one read, "Give Us Back Our Qilin Son!" Above them was a banner that read, "Avenge Our Grievance."

Quite a few people followed behind the carriage.

Clearly, the family of that little brat who had taken his anger out on Lu Bai at Heshan Pavilion had come.

And from the looks of it, someone might be supporting and funding them from behind the scenes.

In any case, trouble had come knocking.

The second update. Good night, everyone.