My Gift of Gratitude, Is It Generous Enough?

Only after Wang Ji had completely ceased breathing did Qin Yao slowly let out the breath he had been holding.

After all, this Steward Wang was a genuine Third Layer of the Body Refining Realm martial warrior. Compared to Li Gang, whom Qin Yao had killed before, he was stronger by far more than a little!

Although Qin Yao was now at the Fourth Layer of the Body Refining Realm, seemingly a level above Wang Ji.

In truth, their strength was not that far apart, while the gap in their status was enormous.

If Qin Yao failed to kill him in a single strike and let him escape the mine tunnel...

Or if Wang Ji tangled with Qin Yao while shouting for help, drawing more powerful figures from the mine, the consequences would have been unthinkable!

Thus, the youth had not openly crushed him with sheer strength as he had done with Li Gang.

Instead, he first used the claim of "two more gold-digging sites" as bait, hooking Wang Ji until his heart itched with greed.

Then he deliberately collapsed the mine wall and buried himself beneath it.

Just as Qin Yao had expected, Wang Ji anxiously shifted stones and moved rubble, trying every possible way to pull Qin Yao out.

Steward Wang's thinking was simple: Qin Yao could die, but only after he revealed the exact locations of the other two gold-digging sites!

Qin Yao had seized upon this mindset. While Wang Ji was moving stones and rubble, at his least guarded, Qin Yao struck boldly and killed him in one blow...

Afterward, Qin Yao swiftly falsified the scene, making it look as though Wang Ji had been crushed to death by the mine tunnel's collapse.

Then, pretending to panic, he shouted at Liu Kuan, who was keeping watch several dozen paces away, "Sir, this is bad! Steward Wang has been pinned beneath fallen rocks! Come help!"

"What?!"

Liu Kuan's face changed drastically.

Earlier, he had indeed heard the thunderous rumble of ores piling down within the mine tunnel, but he had not thought much of it.

What kind of man was his brother-in-law? A Third Layer of the Body Refining Realm martial warrior!

A few falling rocks at most would leave some superficial wounds. Dust off his shoulder, and he would be a fine man again.

If Liu Kuan had rushed over in a fuss, he might instead have been scolded by his brother-in-law for leaving his post without permission.

But now...

Liu Kuan pushed the speed of someone newly entered into the Body Refining Realm to its limit. In the space of a single breath, he had rushed to the scene.

"Brother-in-law?!"

The half-exposed arm sticking out from beneath the pile of rubble was indeed clothed in Wang Ji's sleeve.

This made Liu Kuan panic badly!

After all, the good days for the rest of his life all depended on this brother-in-law of his!

"Damn it, why wasn't it you useless trash who got crushed?!"

With anxiety and rage tangled together, Liu Kuan viciously shoved Qin Yao to the ground, irrationally venting his anger on him. "If anything happens to my brother-in-law, I'll make you die as his burial companion!"

After venting, he turned around and went back to digging through the rocks to rescue him.

Qin Yao calmly rose to his feet, picked up the iron pickaxe beside him, and began striking another section of the mine wall as though nothing had happened.

"Clang! Clang! Clang..."

"Hm?"

Hearing the noise, Liu Kuan was visibly stunned.

When he turned around, he saw that lowly youth actually mining as if no one else existed?

He immediately flew into a rage. "Damn you, I'm over here trying to save someone, and you're calmly mining like nothing happened?

"Get over here!

"I told you to get over here! Did you hear me?!"

Qin Yao turned a deaf ear, still swinging his iron pickaxe at an unhurried pace.

His disregard made Liu Kuan feel utterly humiliated, and the veins on his forehead throbbed wildly.

"Fine, fine, fine. Are your ears stuffed with pig bristles or something?"

As he spoke, he lunged toward Qin Yao. His five fingers, like steel pincers, shot toward Qin Yao's ear. "I'll twist it right off!"

Yet before his hands could touch Qin Yao, the latter's casually swung arm was like a wall of bronze and iron.

With what looked like an offhand sweep, he directly knocked Liu Kuan off balance, nearly sending him sprawling.

"This?!"

Liu Kuan's pupils contracted, and a feeling both absurd and terrifying abruptly rose in his heart.

The absurdity was this: he had clearly followed his wife's elder brother's orders and meticulously checked Qin Yao's pulse, confirming that he had crippled meridians and a ruined body incapable of martial cultivation. So how could he unleash such inconceivable strength?

As for the fear, he thought of a possibility—could Wang Ji's death also have something to do with this fellow possessing "inborn divine strength"?

That was far too terrifying!

At the same time, after sweeping Liu Kuan aside with one hand, Qin Yao fiercely slammed the iron pickaxe in his other hand against the rock wall above and to the side.

"Clang!"

"Crash..."

In an instant, the section of rock wall above Liu Kuan's head came thundering down like a roaring waterfall!

"Ah!"

Liu Kuan cried out in pain and was buried beneath the rocks in the blink of an eye.

Qin Yao knew that for someone who had only just crossed the threshold into the Body Refining Realm, a genuine mine collapse would truly be enough to kill him stone dead.

That was why he had deliberately set a trap and waited for the other man to jump right in!

Qin Yao also wanted to make the "mining accident" look more convincing. It wouldn't do if one, two, three people all died from broken neck vertebrae, would it?

That would be far too much of a coincidence!

At this moment.

Only one of Liu Kuan's eyes was visible through a gap between the enormous rocks. He looked at Qin Yao in terror and despair, his breath as faint as a thread. "Save... save me..."

Qin Yao crouched down and stared straight into his eyes, speaking each word distinctly. "Didn't you say earlier that I ought to properly 'thank' Wang Ji?

"To thank him, I specially helped free him from the bitter sea of the mortal world and sent him to the Western Paradise.

"That gift of thanks was generous enough, wasn't it?

"As for you..."

Qin Yao paused, a cold smile that was not quite a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "Didn't you just say that you wanted me to be buried alongside Wang Ji?"

"I thought it over. He and I were neither related nor acquainted, so that wouldn't be appropriate.

"The job of accompanying him to the grave should be left to you, his 'brother-in-law'!"

"You... you..."

Liu Kuan struggled weakly once, but in the end, he could not even utter a complete sentence before his life utterly faded away.

Qin Yao then began arranging the scene again. He stuffed an iron pickaxe into Liu Kuan's hand, then took a torch himself and lay down amid the rubble.

To make the act more convincing, he deliberately scratched open his skin with stones and battered himself black and blue. He even gave himself a blow to the forehead.

Bang!

The stone shattered when it struck, while his forehead merely swelled into a modest bump.

Qin Yao froze for a moment. "Uh, a Fourth Layer Body Refining Realm head really is extraordinary!

"But the forehead is much tougher than the back of the head.

"The injury I fabricated for Wang Ji was from a sharp falling rock striking the neck vertebra connected to the back of his head. There shouldn't be any problem with its authenticity..."

After finishing everything, Qin Yao closed his eyes and carefully went over every nook and cranny of the scene, making sure he had left behind no traces whatsoever. Only then did he stretch out amid the rubble, pretending that he too had been knocked unconscious by the sudden mining accident.

For the sake of realism, he could not possibly escape unharmed every single time.

Who knew how much time passed.

By the time the still-burning torch clenched in Qin Yao's hand was nearly scorching him, someone finally discovered them.

"Manager Wang and the others are here!"

"Heavens, he's buried in the rubble!"

"Liu Kuan and Qin Yao are here too!"

"Quick, go get help!"

"Hurry up and dig Manager Wang out!"

For a time, the Ding Mine Pit was thrown into chaos like a pot of boiling porridge.