Plans Can't Keep Up With Change!

After cleanly and decisively dealing with Li Gang, Qin Yao swiftly began stripping off the other man's clothes and taking off his own.

Killing Li Gang had been the most crucial part of Qin Yao's escape plan!

Step one: use the exceptional eyesight granted by "Mining" at the perfected realm to inspect a spot prone to collapse, lure Li Gang there, smash him to death with one punch, then casually chip away at the mine wall a few times to stage the scene as though he had been killed in a "cave-in accident."

Step two: exchange his clothes with Li Gang's, then use the "Disguise Technique" to swap their faces as well.

Step three: Qin Yao would give full play to his "Acting" skill at the minor achievement realm, swagger out of the mine pit under the identity of "Overseer Li Gang," and announce that "Qin Yao" had died in a mining accident.

Step four: Qin Yao would personally transport "his own" corpse back to Tang Village and hand it over to Old Master Qin, thus confirming the news that "Qin Yao was dead."

Best if he made such a grand spectacle of it that all the neighbors knew!

That way, Qin Yao, the provincial top scholar who had been demoted for cheating on the Red River County examination, would have completely "closed his account" in this world.

The final step of the plan was for Old Master Qin, having learned that his grandson had died, to be "utterly disheartened," take the corpse, and move away from Tang Village.

As for Li Gang's corpse, disguised as "Qin Yao"...

Once they were out of the village, they could simply toss it into some forest. Within half a day, wild beasts would gnaw it clean!

Thus, Qin Yao would pull off a golden cicada shedding its shell, fleeing far away with his grandfather and younger sister.

With his cultivation at the fourth level of the Body Tempering Realm, no matter which village, town, or county he went to, he would always be able to ensure his family had food to eat and clothes to wear.

As long as he lay low in silence and did not show his true face for ten years...

Ten years later, Qin Yao would already be twenty-five or twenty-six, and his appearance would have changed as well.

Even if members of the Qin Family's main branch saw him, they might not recognize him.

Then the sky would be vast for birds to fly, the sea broad for fish to leap!

When that time came, Qin Yao would naturally pay a personal visit to Qin Yuwei, Qin Yongnian, and the others who had ruined him ten years ago, and wash away his shame...

In truth, it was precisely because Qin Yao intended to use Li Gang's body to "fake his death," and feared that his grandfather would see the disguised corpse and truly believe his grandson had died, unable to bear the blow...

That he had sounded the old man out in advance.

As for that little girl Qin Lan...

She was too young. Qin Yao feared that if she learned the truth beforehand, her "acting" would fall short and she would let something slip, which would make things troublesome, so he had not told her.

"Ah, I can't avoid making that girl sad for a while!"

Qin Yao's heart ached. Lan'er, Brother can only apologize to you once this is over.

As he murmured inwardly, Qin Yao had already removed his disguise tools from his waist.

It turned out that he had wrapped those little disguise trinkets inside two small flesh pouches, stuck them to his waist, and painted camouflage over them.

No wonder, when Li Gang had searched him that morning, he had teasingly said, "You've been eating well lately, huh? You've even grown love handles around your waist."

But how could those have been "fat around his waist"?

They were clearly pouches Qin Yao had used to hide his "tools of the trade"!

The youth spread his stance on the ground and took a deep breath to steady himself. "Hoo~"

Just as he was about to begin—"Clang! Clang! Clang!"

A rapid burst of gong-beating suddenly rang out from outside the cave entrance.

Immediately afterward came the thunderous shout of a martial artist, his breath sunk into his dantian: "On the Empress Dowager's hundredth birthday, the imperial family bestows its grace and grants a general amnesty!"

"Any mine slave who possessed scholarly credentials before being demoted may cast off the status of a criminal and report to the village yamen to be assigned a clerical post."

"The imperial grace is as vast as the sea. May you remember this kindness and repay it, burn out the rest of your lives, and serve our Great Yan!"

"Hmm?!"

Qin Yao's hands paused mid-motion.

He could not help but sigh that plans could never keep pace with change.

"The rest of the plan can be called off. That saves me the trouble of changing my appearance.

"More importantly, I won't need to flee by force and hide my name for years. Not bad!"

As his thoughts shifted, Qin Yao changed back into his own clothes.

Afterward, he crushed and flattened the two flesh pouches that had originally been stuck to his waist, along with all the disguise tools inside, and tossed the entire mess into Li Gang's crotch.

After all, those "disguise tools" were all purely natural animal hair, blood, fat, skin, and the like.

He mashed them together and stuffed them into Li Gang's crotch, passing them off as that bastard's little brother having been smashed to pieces by fallen rocks in the cave-in.

Qin Yao believed no one would be bored enough to inspect that particular area closely...

Once he had dealt with everything, Qin Yao picked up his iron pickaxe and launched a fierce assault on the "collapse-prone spot" he had surveyed beforehand.

"Clang! Clang! Clang..."

"Rumble—!"

Amid a roar of thunder, the cave-in Qin Yao had anticipated arrived right on schedule.

To make the accident look convincing enough, Qin Yao even deliberately dislocated his own left arm, pretending it had been struck by falling rocks.

"Ah!"

After letting out a miserable scream, he ran outside while shouting at the top of his lungs, "Quick, someone come!

"The mine tunnel has collapsed! Overseer Li has been buried!"

"What?"

"Master Li got buried?"

"Hiss, this is a sky-shaking disaster!"

"Quick, go get someone!"

The mine slaves who had been working were startled. Quite a few of them dropped what they were doing and ran off to find the stewards and report the news.

Even if they could not find Steward Wang of the Ding Mine Pit, it would do to find another overseer and tell him!

After all, opportunities to slack off openly like this were few and far between. They had to seize them...

Before long, Wang Ji, Steward Wang—the short, squat man with a face full of fleshy jowls—appeared before Tunnel Three of the T-Shaped Pit.

His scrutinizing gaze swept over Qin Yao as he asked, word by word, "When it happened, were you the only one beside Li Gang?"

"Yes."

Qin Yao nodded with a miserable expression. "I had just heard someone outside shouting, 'The Grand Empress Dowager celebrates her hundredth birthday; amnesty is granted to all under heaven!' I was so overjoyed that I ran toward the tunnel entrance.

"But after I had only taken a few steps, there was a huge crash behind me.

"Then Overseer Li was buried. I-I was struck on the arm as well.

"Luckily, I had run a few steps ahead. Otherwise, I'm afraid I would have too..."

Qin Yao looked as though the terror still lingered in his heart.

"Ding! Skill 'Acting' proficiency +2"

Wang Ji's face turned cold as he grabbed Qin Yao's dislocated arm.

"Ah, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts!!"

Sweat poured from Qin Yao's brow from the pain.

"Hmph. You really are lucky. It was only dislocated from the impact!"

After saying that, Wang Ji flung Qin Yao's arm aside as though tossing away a ragged sack.

There was no way he would show mercy and set Qin Yao's dislocated arm for him!

"You lot, get back to doing what you should be doing!"

"Yes, yes, yes..."

At Wang Ji's command, the mine slaves who had taken the chance to slack off under the pretext of reporting the news scattered like birds and beasts.

Steward Wang then ordered Qin Yao, "You. Lead the way."

"Hiss... all right..."

Qin Yao agreed while enduring the pain.

Behind Wang Ji stood a young man with inverted triangular eyes.

Whenever Wang Ji inspected any mine pit, this "Inverted Triangle Eyes" fellow was always at his side. He was presumably Wang Ji's trusted confidant...