Neighbors Conspire in a Killing Trap, Mud-Hands of Ants Dare Seize Heaven

In Mud Alley of Black Mud City's outer district, the thick sour stench could not conceal the bloody reek on the ground.

Zhang Elder was drenched in sweat, both hands locked tightly around the heavy black-iron war boots as he dragged them step by step toward the back courtyard.

The guard's corpse, clad in heavy armor, was far too heavy.

The old man's shriveled chest heaved violently as he gulped down rough breaths.

Over those few dozen paces, the guard's heavy armor scraped against the exceedingly rough muddy ground, creating immense resistance.

Zhang Elder's old back was nearly breaking. His joints cracked under the unbearable strain.

Sweat ran down his deeply wrinkled face and splashed into the filthy puddles on the ground.

Gritting his teeth until they nearly shattered, he endured and dragged the corpse all the way to the dark, deep cellar in the back courtyard.

With one push of both hands, the corpse rolled down the shaft and slammed into the bottom with an exceedingly muffled thud.

Zhang Elder collapsed to his knees in the mud, roughly yanked over a heavy wooden board from nearby, and sealed the cellar entrance tight.

His two blood-smeared hands grabbed yellow mud from beside him, ready to seal the gaps between the boards where the smell might leak out.

At that critical moment—

From beyond the half-collapsed earthen wall beside him, a disheveled head suddenly poked out without warning.

It was Fourth Li, the firewood seller next door.

He was famous in Mud Alley for being timid and afraid of trouble. Normally, if a guard merely raised the whip in his hand, he would not even dare talk back, only hunching his neck and taking the beating.

Now, Fourth Li lay sprawled atop the wall, his eyes wide and round as he stared fixedly at the cellar cover.

Zhang Elder's heart instantly rose to his throat. His Adam's apple bobbed uncontrollably.

The old man flung away the yellow mud in his hand. His right hand shot out like lightning and seized the blunt iron hoe beside him, its head smeared with brains and fresh blood.

He straightened up and raised his head. His aged eyes locked onto Fourth Li atop the wall, naked murderous intent flashing in their depths.

If that spineless coward dared open his mouth and cry out even half a word—

This heavy hoe would split his skull open on the spot.

On top of the wall, Fourth Li's legs trembled violently in midair. Dry clods of mud shook loose from the earthen wall and pattered down.

Yet faced with Zhang Elder's man-eating expression, Fourth Li did not turn and flee.

He suddenly clamped his mouth shut.

His upper and lower teeth bit down savagely on the tip of his own tongue.

The taste of rust burst through his mouth, and the sharp pain forced his terror-numbed mind awake in an instant.

Not only did Fourth Li make no sound at all, he braced both hands against the ruined earthen wall.

With movements stiff as wood, he climbed over and jumped into Zhang Elder's courtyard.

The instant his feet touched the ground, he scooped up the bundle of dry firewood by the wall—the kind he normally could not bear to burn.

He did not say a word throughout.

Holding the firewood, Fourth Li scrambled and rolled toward the cellar.

He piled the dry wood tightly atop the cover, directly concealing the fresh yellow mud and the gaps in the boards.

Even after doing all that, Fourth Li's limbs were still trembling.

He turned and threw himself toward the earthen stove beside him, grabbing a large handful of coarse plant ash.

Following the bloody groove Zhang Elder had left while dragging the corpse, he scattered the ash directly over it.

The two men did not even need words to communicate.

Zhang Elder came back to his senses, immediately tossed aside the hoe, and grabbed fistfuls of rotten mud.

One after the other, they used hands and feet alike, frantically smearing over every trace in the courtyard.

The plant ash and yellow mud mixed together, forcibly burying every trace of blood on the ground cleanly.

Once the last shred of evidence had been covered up—

Fourth Li collapsed into a muddy pit as though all strength had left him.

His ash- and dirt-covered hands twisted tightly together, his knuckles squeezed white.

Fourth Li panted heavily and lifted his head to look at Zhang Elder.

He lowered his voice, but it still trembled with barely contained hatred.

"Elder..."

Fourth Li pointed at the pile of dry firewood.

"Good that he died."

Zhang Elder froze where he stood.

Fourth Li's teeth ground together with a clacking sound.

"My wife just had her leg whipped broken by them."

"Bone shards were sticking out everywhere."

"They don't treat us like people..."

In the Mud Alley of the outer district in the past—

It was commonplace for mortals to inform on one another and trample one another for half a moldy coarse flour cake.

No one dared show even the slightest dissatisfaction toward the lackeys of cultivators.

But yesterday—

The thirty-thousand-jin City-Guarding Stele in Black Mud City's inner district had come crashing down.

That thunderous boom had completely shattered the shackles in the hearts of these lowly ants.

The lofty authority of the immortal sect had been ripped to shreds, fist and foot, by that bare-chested young man.

The fear that had once filled every corner of these ants' hearts had finally split open with an exceedingly brutal crack.

If even immortals could be smashed to death right in the face—

Why could their lackeys not be killed?

And it was not only Fourth Li.

In the muddy main alley outside the courtyard gate—

The one-eyed beggar who normally could only lean against a wall and beg for food—

Unexpectedly stood up.

Hunched over, he dragged a rotten straw mat covered in filth and fleas.

Step by step, without a word, he dragged that mat, reeking with an utterly vile stench, to the shattered courtyard gate of Zhang Elder's home.

The rotten mat was hung over the threshold.

It completely blocked all eyes prying into the courtyard from outside.

At that moment, the lowly mortals of the entire outer-city Mud Alley formed an exceedingly secret alliance of resistance.

At the other end of Mud Alley—

The guard commander in charge of tax collection stood atop a relatively clean bluestone slab.

He weighed the money pouch he had just snatched in his hand, Mortal Silver clinking and rattling within.

The commander's brows drew tightly together.

The guard responsible for the end of this alley had been completely out of contact for half an hour.

Usually, squeezing oil and fat from these mortal ants did not take nearly this long.

The commander drew the artifact saber from his waist with a backhanded motion.

A sharp halo of true essence glimmered over its blade.

Pointing toward the depths of the alley, he barked an order.

"Surround every courtyard at the very end!"

"Go in and search!"

A large group of guards clad in black-iron heavy armor drew their weapons and pounced toward the alley's end like wolves and tigers.

The rotten straw mat the one-eyed beggar had hung on the gate was brutally kicked away by the leading guard.

More than a dozen guards crashed through the broken wooden gate and charged straight into Zhang Elder's courtyard.

The refined-steel spearheads of their long spears aimed at the rotten mud and piles of debris in the yard as they began wildly stabbing about.

Zhang Elder and Fourth Li huddled in the corner.

Both lowered their heads, pretending to be scared out of their wits, their entire bodies trembling.

A guard carrying a long spear strode over to the pile of dry firewood in the corner.

He gripped the shaft and drove the spear down viciously into the woodpile.

Clang!

The sharp spearhead pierced through the firewood and scraped against the cellar's wooden cover beneath, producing a muffled grinding sound.

The spearhead was only three inches away from the corpse beneath the boards.

Zhang Elder held his breath, cold sweat instantly soaking through the ragged thin padded jacket on his back.

Both hands clenched tightly around his trouser legs.

Just as that guard was preparing to reach out and pull apart the firewood to see what lay beneath—

Fourth Li, crouching nearby, suddenly sprang up.

He turned and lifted the two wooden buckets that had just been gathered in the corner of the courtyard.

Both buckets were filled with pungent night soil.

Fourth Li pretended that the government soldiers had frightened him mad and that he was trying to flee.

Carrying the yoke, he charged toward the middle of the courtyard.

Then his feet slipped with an exaggerated sudden jerk.

The two heavy buckets lost balance and smashed directly onto the bluestone slab in the center of the courtyard.

Crash!

A huge splash of yellow-black filth burst out at once.

It sprayed across the entire courtyard.

The piercing stench exploded through the cramped courtyard.

Several guards standing nearby had their black-iron boots and the edges of their armor splattered with murky yellow grime.

The guard commander happened to reach the courtyard gate.

The nauseating stink hit him head-on and rushed straight to his skull.

The commander knew the cultivators' breath-holding technique.

But he felt that deliberately circulating the true essence in his dantian merely for the sake of a few mortal ants' rotten cellar would be nothing less than soiling his immortal arts.

That lofty arrogance made him disdain wasting even a trace of spiritual energy in Mud Alley.

The commander recoiled several large steps in disgust.

His left hand clamped tightly over his nose and mouth.

"Stop!"

"Quit digging around!"

The commander pointed into the courtyard and cursed furiously.

"The stench is choking! You mud-legged wretches only ever make disgusting things!"

The search was forcibly interrupted by the filth splashed all over the ground.

Those guards who had been smeared with the foul stuff also pinched their noses and retreated from the courtyard in disgust.

Standing several zhang away, the commander freed one hand.

From the storage pouch at his waist, he pulled out a bronze array plate.

It was a Blood-Seeking Array Plate specially used to detect fluctuations of blood aura.

He lowered his head and glanced at its surface.

The red bronze needle responsible for pointing the way rested steadily in the very center.

It did not so much as tremble faintly.

The commander snorted coldly.

He had no idea that—

Beside the corpse beneath the cellar lay a fragment that had broken off from the City-Guarding Stele.

The crude ancient rock patterns upon that fragment had long since devoured every last trace of the guard's spilled blood aura.

Forget this low-grade Blood-Seeking Array Plate.

Even if he personally released his divine sense, he would not detect the slightest bloody smell beneath the cellar.

The blood aura had been completely concealed.

"That useless Pockmarked Li must have taken the money to the inner district to drink and whore."

The commander cursed a few times.

In disgust, he stuffed the Blood-Seeking Array Plate back into his storage pouch.

"Staying in this damned place with these poor, lowly lives will make even my artifact grow mold."

The commander waved his hand.

Leading more than a dozen guards, he left Mud Alley while covering his nose and cursing.

The sound of heavy leather boots crushing through puddles faded farther and farther away.

Until not the slightest sound could be heard.

Zhang Elder and Fourth Li both collapsed to the ground, utterly drained.

Their soaked backs pressed tightly against the moldy earthen wall.

Their chests heaved violently.

After taking several deep breaths—

A heavily suppressed snicker suddenly rang out in the silent courtyard.

Neither dared laugh aloud, so they kept the sound trapped in their throats.

Their shoulders shook with laughter.

Tears mixed with the mud on their faces and streamed down.

Satisfying.

Satisfying to the extreme.

Zhang Elder slowly raised both hands.

He lowered his head and looked at the palms caked with yellow mud, plant ash, and dried blood.

He raised his head, his voice incomparably hoarse.

"Fourth Li."

Zhang Elder spread his hands and held them up in the air.

"These hands of ours aren't only good for digging dirt."

Fourth Li stopped his muffled chuckling.

He turned to look at Zhang Elder.

Zhang Elder slowly drew his hands back.

He slipped them into the tattered padded jacket that had been split open by a long whip.

Under Fourth Li's astonished gaze.

The old man pulled out that icy black fragment of a Dao Stele.

The weighty pressure on the fragment's surface, something beyond the mortal world, seemed to make even the air around them more stifling.

Zhang Elder held the black stone out before Fourth Li.

On that old face, furrowed with wrinkles.

Every trace of humility and cowardice had vanished without a trace.

The ruthlessness shining from the depths of his old eyes was colder than icicles in the bitterest days of winter.

"Immortals bleed too."

Zhang Elder's shriveled lips moved up and down, enunciating each word with absolute clarity.

"That young man yesterday left us a seed."