Need More Money

"Thank you, young hero, for saving my life!" Chu Qingwen said, bending her knees slightly in salute to Zhang Yu.

Zhang Yu glanced at her. "How are you going to thank me?"

"Huh?" Chu Qingwen froze. She had not expected Zhang Yu to ask that.

"Young hero, I left in a hurry and did not bring much silver with me," Chu Qingwen said.

"No money?" Zhang Yu no longer wanted to bother with her. No money, then what the hell was she talking about?

"Man Cang, Xiao Yue, take the children and move out," Zhang Yu called to Man Cang and the others.

"Yes, Master!"

The group immediately set off again.

"Miss, what kind of attitude is that..." The maid Xiang Ju protested on her mistress's behalf.

"Shut up." Chu Qingwen shot her a glare, then hurried after Zhang Yu. "Young hero, please wait."

Zhang Yu pretended not to hear and kept walking.

The other party was clearly a huge trouble. They had merely taken one distant look earlier and nearly brought about their own deaths. If they truly got involved with her, they might get dragged into some terrible mess.

"Young hero, I am Chu Qingwen, daughter of the Chu Family of Southern Azure City. Thank you again for saving us just now. I have no silver on me at the moment, but if you escort my maid and me safely to Southern Azure City, the Chu Family will certainly offer ten thousand taels of gold," Chu Qingwen said as she caught up with Zhang Yu again.

She could tell by now that Zhang Yu only recognized money.

Hearing Chu Qingwen's words, Zhang Yu curled his lip. An empty promise, and he had to escort her all the way home? He had no time to swallow that pie in the sky.

So he did not turn around and merely urged Man Cang and the others to hurry up.

"Young hero..."

The more Chu Qingwen called out, the faster Zhang Yu walked.

Am I really that ugly? Why is he walking so fast? Chu Qingwen felt deeply frustrated.

She was the foremost of Southern Azure City's Four Great Beauties. Countless talented young men considered it an honor just to speak with her.

He doesn't want silver? But he clearly stuffed all the loose silver from the West Ridge Three Fiends into his pocket. Chu Qingwen frowned slightly. Does he want heavenly treasures? Or martial arts manuals?

A few minutes later, she caught up to Zhang Yu again. "A second-rate cultivation method, including stance training and breathing techniques, footwork, and palm techniques."

Zhang Yu slowed his pace.

He was stuck at the peak of Dark Force. Without stance training and breathing techniques, he had not the slightest clue how to break through to Force Transformation.

This time, Chu Qingwen had struck right at Zhang Yu's vital spot.

"A first-rate cultivation method," Zhang Yu said, turning his head.

"Young hero, the Chu Family is a merchant family, not a martial arts family. This second-rate cultivation method was accumulated over several generations. Originally, only those who signed a death contract with the Chu Family could learn it. Now, as long as you escort my maid and me back to Southern Azure City, you may learn this cultivation method," Chu Qingwen said.

Zhang Yu's face remained expressionless. "Add another ten thousand taels of gold."

"Deal!"

Hearing Chu Qingwen agree so readily, Zhang Yu unconsciously scratched his head. Did I ask for too little?

Their group of sixteen soon became eighteen.

At the next county town, Chu Qingwen found one of the Chu Family's branches and procured three carriages. The children finally no longer had to walk, and their speed increased considerably.

(Zhang Yu had rented carriages before, but the world was in chaos, and drivers would only travel within their own county.)

A day later, Zhang Yu sat in a carriage with a slight frown. At the edge of the woods ahead stood a black-clad man in a bamboo hat, staring at their carriages.

"Exactly what force is trying to kill you?" Zhang Yu asked Chu Qingwen inside the carriage.

"Hm? I don't know," Chu Qingwen said.

She truly had no idea.

"The man ahead has vigorous blood and qi. I can sense it even from this far away. He is at least at the late stage of Dark Force. A minor force should not be able to send out an assassin of that caliber." Zhang Yu tipped his chin toward the woods and said to Chu Qingwen, "I want the truth. Otherwise, our agreement is void immediately."

By then, Chu Qingwen had also seen the black-clad man in the bamboo hat.

"How can you be like this? My miss really doesn't know," Xiang Ju said.

"Xiang Ju." Chu Qingwen cut her off. "Young hero, I truly do not know. My Chu Family has been in business for three hundred years. We have always upheld the principle that harmony brings wealth and that helping others brings convenience. We have never offended any major force."

"If anything happened recently, it was half a month ago, when I offended the city lord's son in Jiangzhou City."

"How did you offend him?" Zhang Yu asked.

"He invited me to the city lord's residence to admire flowers, but I refused. He then said that no woman had ever dared refuse him. Could he have sent people to abduct me over such a trivial matter?" Chu Qingwen's eyes widened, her face filled with confusion.

Zhang Yu said nothing. The black-clad man in the bamboo hat was already walking toward them.

"It's you! I saw you beside Zhou Jingyuan," Chu Qingwen cried out when she saw the black-clad man's face.

Zhou Jingyuan was the son of Jiangzhou City's lord.

"My young master invites the lady to return," the black-clad man said. Then he looked coldly at Zhang Yu. "You killed the West Ridge Three Fiends, didn't you? I'll cut off your head and bring it to my young master."

Zhang Yu carefully sensed the other man's blood and qi and confirmed that he was, at most, at the late stage of Dark Force. His heart immediately settled.

As for his own blood and qi, the system concealed it. Unless he actively revealed it, no one could see through him.

At the moment, Zhang Yu's displayed realm of blood and qi was the peak of Bright Force.

"Young hero, can you beat him?" Chu Qingwen asked quietly.

"I can, but he is a great martial artist at the late stage of Dark Force after all. He's very formidable. It won't be easy for me to deal with him. If I get injured, then you see..." Zhang Yu stared into Chu Qingwen's eyes, his meaning crystal clear.

When he had raised the price by ten thousand taels of gold before, he had already felt that he had asked too little. Now was the perfect chance to jack up the price on the spot.

In truth, even if Chu Qingwen did not pay more, Zhang Yu would still kill the black-clad man. That one sentence earlier had already earned him a death sentence.

"Add a hundred-year blood ginseng," Chu Qingwen said.

"Deal!" A barely noticeable smile appeared at the corner of Zhang Yu's mouth.

"Brat, I was going to give you a quick death, but I've changed my mind." Hearing the conversation between Zhang Yu and Chu Qingwen, the black-clad man revealed a cruel expression. Soon, he would torture Zhang Yu to death properly.

Zhang Yu jumped down from the carriage, walked up to the black-clad man, and said, "Hey, do you have any martial arts manuals on you?"

"Did you bring silver?"

"Not talking? Fine, forget it. Once I beat you to death, I'll search you slowly myself," Zhang Yu said blandly.

Seeing Zhang Yu act as though he looked down on him, the black-clad man flew into a rage.

"Brat, you're courting death!"

Whoosh...

He struck a palm at Zhang Yu's chest on the spot. He cultivated the Mighty Stele-Smashing Palm, a palm art capable of splitting steles and shattering stone.

Zhang Yu did not waste words. He directly unleashed the killing move of peak Dark Force—Great Avalanche.

He sank his waist and lowered his stance, channeling all his Dark Force into his right fist before driving out a punch.

The black-clad man sensed that Zhang Yu's blood and qi were at most at the peak of Bright Force. Thinking not to kill him in one blow but to leave him half-dead for a slow torture, he did not use his full strength.

Bang!

Fist and palm collided.

In an instant, the black-clad man's eyes bulged wide, fear spilling across his face.

"No!"

He only had time to utter that one word before, with a bang, the right half of his body exploded.

The overwhelming force of Great Avalanche traveled from his palm into his body, instantly blasting half of him into mangled fragments.

"This..." Chu Qingwen and Xiang Ju, mistress and maid sitting in the carriage, stared with wide eyes. This was what he meant by not being easy to deal with? He died in one move.