Xiaocui

"I..."

Long Shi touched his chest in horror.

It was a clean hole straight through, yet strangely, his inner qi still circulated normally, quickly gathering to stop the blood that kept flowing.

Huang Deyou had vanished somewhere.

Jiang Ding sheathed his sword and said flatly, "Who sent you to find me?"

Long Shi forced himself to say, "No one. Greed got the better of me, and I came alone. Please be magnanimous..."

Clang!

The sword left its sheath, then returned.

His left arm was severed and sent flying. Blood poured out in great torrents, and his inner force could no longer stop it.

"Ahhh!"

Long Shi screamed miserably, startling flocks of birds into flight.

Jiang Ding watched him calmly until his screams had weakened, then said, "Continue."

Long Shi's body trembled.

The youth before him wore flowing green robes and had handsome features, but he was no less ruthless than any other martial artist.

He understood what "continue" meant.

It meant continuing to live, or continuing to die. The choice was entirely his.

"It was the Zheng Clan."

Long Shi barely suppressed the agonizing pain in his left arm and said in a low voice, "I received orders from Chen Chen, a retainer of the Zheng Clan, to come here and test you."

"The reason I was able to gain a foothold on Rotten Plank Street was entirely due to the Zheng Clan's support. I didn't dare refuse their orders."

"The Zheng Clan? Relatives by marriage to the Marquis's estate."

Jiang Ding muttered to himself.

"Would such a prominent household also come out to rob people?"

"It was probably a private job."

Long Shi lowered his voice. "Chen Chen specializes in dirty work for the Zheng Clan and has connections with many underworld forces. I wouldn't dare confirm with my superiors every time whether it was truly an order from the main family."

Jiang Ding pondered for a while.

If the Zheng Clan really was so shameless, then he could only run.

He could not defeat a large army laying siege to him.

But there was no need to be overly afraid. If he could not win, he could flee. Even with the city's cramped terrain and drones monitoring from the sky, it would not be so easy for a large force to surround him.

"Let's leave it at that. It wouldn't be good to completely tear things apart." Jiang Ding sighed. "Hand over the internal cultivation method you practice, then get lost."

"Remember, there will only be one chance. If there's a next time, come better prepared."

Long Shi was overjoyed, almost unable to believe his ears.

"Young master, how could this lowly one ever forget such great kindness? If I do, may heaven strike me down, may my descendants be cut off!" He pointed at the sky and swore, burying the cold resentment and venom in his heart as deeply as possible without revealing the slightest trace on his face.

"Cut that out."

Jiang Ding laughed and scolded, "If you can chop off my dog head someday, that'll be your own ability."

Long Shi mumbled wordlessly, then called over someone outside and whispered a few words into his ear.

A short while later, a martial artist in tight-fitting clothes hurried over. He gave Jiang Ding a fearful glance before handing a bundle to Long Shi.

"Young master, this is the cultivation method this lowly one practices. It is called Wild Wolf Force." He smiled ingratiatingly. "Of course, it cannot compare to even a fraction of what you cultivate."

"And this gold and silver is all my savings. I offer it to you as well, young master."

Beneath the manual was a small pile of gold and silver, roughly four to five hundred taels' worth—about half the value of a ninety-year-old ginseng root.

"Leave."

Jiang Ding took the manual. He wore transparent gloves at all times, so he was not afraid of contact poison.

Long Shi did not dare argue. He wrapped up the remaining gold and silver, joined the fifteen uninjured riders outside, and fled as though flying. They did not even dare retrieve Wolf Four's corpse from the ground.

Jiang Ding said softly, "Steward Huang."

"Boss."

Huang Deyou emerged from who knew where again.

"Find a professional corpse collector to clean this place up. Leave no loose ends. Do you know anyone who can handle it?"

"I do, Boss."

Huang Deyou nodded repeatedly. He had grown up on Rotten Plank Street. Though he did not run with gangs, he knew everything he needed to know.

"Also, find someone to deliver this to the Four Seas Chamber of Commerce."

A chill flashed through Jiang Ding's eyes as he tapped Wolf Four's furious, wide-eyed head with his scabbard.

Whether the Four Seas Chamber of Commerce had an informant was none of his concern, but once it threatened his life, it became his business.

"Yes, Boss!"

Sitting in his chair, he flipped through Wild Wolf Force, the first local internal cultivation manual he had obtained.

"Hmm, it only has the twelve primary meridians, the eight extraordinary meridians, and the major and minor channels, for a total of just three hundred and sixty-five meridians. Its special effect is that the speed of attacks launched with both hands is twenty to thirty percent faster than ordinary internal cultivation methods. It can be cultivated up to the major completion of inner qi, so it counts as a fairly good one."

After casually flipping through it a few times, he found it very simple. With the education Jiang Ding had received at Immortal Sect High School, he could understand everything at a glance. There were no secrets to it at all.

If such a cultivation manual were submitted to the Immortal Gate Library, it would not even be worth 0.001 points.

Unless one wrote a paper like An Overview of Mortal Sect Cultivation Methods in Such-and-Such a World, which could earn dozens or hundreds of points. A paper with high reference value earning thousands of points was not impossible either.

"This inner force structure located in the Ren and Du meridians..."

When he reached the latter half, Jiang Ding found a certain inner force circulation structure somewhat familiar. He carefully recalled what his teacher had covered in language class.

"That's right, the spiritual root qi-conversion structure. Two points on a fill-in-the-blank question."

Jiang Ding clapped lightly.

"It can use the spiritual root to naturally absorb the spiritual energy of heaven and earth and convert it into inner qi, allowing cultivation to advance by leaps and bounds. The better the spiritual root, the faster the cultivation speed. There are capable people in the martial world after all."

Without spiritual roots, cultivation naturally became slower and slower. That was what people called innate bone quality and the like.

It was of no use to him, so Jiang Ding skipped past it at a glance.

More than twenty minutes later, Jiang Ding casually tossed the manual into a corner. He had memorized and understood it all, and it barely counted as expanding his reading.

Afterward, he recalled the contents of Minor Breath-Concealing Technique in his mind, and his entire body entered a dazed state.

His inner qi rolled from time to time, shifting according to an extremely complex circulation structure. At times, his presence became so ethereal that people instinctively overlooked him; at other times, it became extraordinarily conspicuous, drawing countless gazes.

Over the past few days, he had tried no fewer than a hundred times, yet Minor Breath-Concealing Technique remained difficult to perform.

However, he was close. Ever since obtaining the Rusty Sword Tip, his comprehension had continually improved. He was confident that he would be able to get started within a few more days.

Four Seas Chamber of Commerce.

"Who was it?!"

Long San stared at the head lying quietly in a wooden box, preserved with lime. His face flushed red as he growled.

"My Dragon clan has prospered for hundreds of years by conducting business honestly and treating others kindly. That was why the founding emperor favored us, allowing us to rise in one leap to become one of the Yue Kingdom's two great chambers of commerce."

"While serving the imperial family, we have also earned the trust of masters from all paths of the martial world, handling all kinds of miscellaneous affairs for them."

"Even though the Marquis of the Eastern Guard dislikes the Four Seas Chamber of Commerce, he still allowed us to establish ourselves here and provided protection. That is all because of the golden reputation we have built over hundreds of years!"

"Yet today—"

Long San roared, "Who wants to turn the Four Seas Chamber of Commerce into one of those lowly dens of thieves?"

After waiting for him to vent his anger, the maid at his side said calmly, "Shopkeeper, we found out. It was Xiaocui from the pharmacy. His older brother works for the Zheng Clan."

"The Zheng Clan? Hmph, merely nouveau riche, filthy trash. Who knows when they'll be finished."

Long San sneered.