Never Let Revenge Wait Overnight

The sun sank in the west, and darkness once again became the only tone.

At the western end of the village, a somewhat grand two-courtyard house was filled with a thick stench of blood. Liu Ci's face was deathly pale. Halfway through meditation, he spat out a mouthful of blackened, clotted blood.

His congested chest loosened once more, rising and falling.

"Chu He!!"

Liu Ci viciously slapped the bed as if venting his fury, grinding out Chu He's name word by word, as though he wanted to swallow him whole and tear him apart.

"We cultivate the same technique. I broke through half a year before him, so why is his strength greater than mine? Why!" Liu Ci's overwhelming confusion turned into a heart full of resentment and jealousy.

His defeat in their first exchange had nearly driven him mad!

Yet Liu Ci's extreme reaction only made the strands of hair inside his skull increasingly active. Again and again, they swam across his pupils, gradually interfering with his judgment and thoughts.

Liu Ci's eyeballs gradually began rolling about beyond his control. The dense blood vessels in the whites of his eyes seemed ready to stain his entire eye sockets red, yet he appeared utterly unaware as he took a black wooden box from his robes.

Inside the wooden box was a grayish-white pill.

His fingers lightly brushed over its surface, while boundless malice seeped from his words. "As long as I take this pill, I'll have a chance to break through to the second level. Then I can quietly kill that bastard Chu He, take the pills in his possession, and secretly steal Eldest Senior Brother's pills as well."

"Then I'll open the gates and let the strange things in the dense fog into the village to draw everyone's attention, while I leave this damned place myself!"

After laying out his evil plan, Liu Ci did not burst into laughter. Instead, he became even more enraged and kicked over the wooden bucket beside the bed.

"It's all Chu He's fault!" Liu Ci's face twisted viciously, his hatred for Chu He bone-deep. "If I could get his pills, reaching the second level would be a sure thing. Why would I be gambling on the other half of the odds like this?"

"You piece of trash, you still dare talk about me!!"

A furious roar suddenly rang out above Liu Ci's head.

His expression changed drastically as he abruptly looked up. A black-clad, masked man clung to the beam like a web-spinning spider. His tiger-like eyes radiated icy chill and piercing killing intent, impossible to look directly at.

"Chu—"

Bang!

The wooden bed collapsed and shattered with a crash, countless splinters flying everywhere.

Like a falling meteor, Chu He tore through the air, wielding a rusty iron blade as he cleaved straight down at Liu Ci's head.

Crack—

Upon the ruined bed, Chu He pressed one knee against Liu Ci's chest. His blade grazed Liu Ci's neck before plunging vertically into the ground.

Liu Ci lay sprawled on the ground. To him, the black-clad Chu He seemed like a demon king of the night, emanating an invincible aura.

He wanted to exert strength, to struggle, but Chu He was like a towering mountain reaching into the clouds, pressing him down until he could not even move a single finger.

A profound feeling of powerlessness swept through his entire body.

Liu Ci was horrified. How had this guy become even stronger?!

"Listening to you from the rafters, I discovered that you really are an animal!" Chu He's deep, cold eyes seemed able to see straight into his heart. "It must be exhausting, wearing human skin all the time, isn't it?"

"Chu He!" Liu Ci put on a fierce front despite his inner cowardice and loudly threatened, "Let me go and leave at once! I can pretend none of this ever happened. If you refuse, you'll definitely regret it in the end!"

At this point, he suddenly gave an eerie smile. "If the Village Chief and Eldest Senior Brother learn about your bizarrely skyrocketing strength..."

"Too noisy!"

A cold glint flashed through Chu He's eyes. He grabbed Liu Ci's left hand and viciously snapped one of his fingers.

"Ghk—ghk—ghk..."

Liu Ci's eyes widened from the pain. He instinctively wanted to scream, but Chu He had him by the throat and would not let him make a sound.

"I'm not a patient person. If you think you have enough nonsense to say, go right ahead. I just don't know how many times your fingers will last through your nonsense."

Seeing the chilling killing intent on Chu He's face, Liu Ci concluded that if he said a few more pointless words, he would definitely be tortured to death.

So he nodded vigorously in fear and decisively surrendered.

Chu He narrowed his eyes, his emotions unreadable. "I'll ask you a few questions. Do you know what Eldest Senior Brother and the Village Chief are plotting?"

"I know..."

Liu Ci hesitated for a moment, only to hear Chu He add a rule. "Let's play a rapid-fire question-and-answer game. Every time I ask a question, if there's even the slightest hesitation in your answer, I'll snap one of your fingers as punishment. If all your fingers are broken, I'll break something else, such as..."

In a daze, Liu Ci suddenly felt a chill between his legs.

Chu He smiled warmly and patted Liu Ci's cheek. "Don't worry. If you accidentally die, I won't torture you anymore."

Liu Ci: "..."

"Oh, right. Since it's a game, there should naturally be rewards and punishments. What if you ask what the reward is? Maybe I'll let you go." Chu He stared at Liu Ci, seemingly looking forward to him asking that question.

"Uh... then, what's the reward?"

Forced by Chu He's strength, Liu Ci could only obey his every command.

Yet a sliver of hope inevitably rose in his heart.

"The reward is... no reward!"

Chu He's smile vanished as he stared at Liu Ci with a sinister, savage expression.

"Don't you think it's a little shameless for an animal like you to ask for a reward?"

"..." Liu Ci.

Fuck, you're the real strange thing, aren't you?

"Fine, no more wasting time. The game officially begins! Same first question: Eldest Senior Brother and the Village Chief..."

"Don't know!"

"..."

Chu He paused and stared deeply at Liu Ci.

"What is the origin of the strange thing in the Land God statue?"

"I only know that strange thing is a human head."

"How much do you know about the suppression back then?"

"I... ah, ghk-ghk-ghk... hiss... I'll talk, I'll talk..."

After a string of rapid-fire questions and answers—and the effectiveness of crippling seven fingers—Chu He had already extracted all the useful information from Liu Ci's mind. Now, only two questions remained.

Looking down at Liu Ci, whose tears and snot had mixed into a mess from the pain, leaving him utterly miserable, Chu He felt not the slightest pity. He had even asked what color the man's underwear was, so naturally he had not overlooked the filthy deeds Liu Ci had committed in secret.

After hearing it all, he could only say that among those who had died bizarrely by the walls, Liu Ci had played a part.

"Eldest Senior Brother gave you this? How many have you taken in total?"

Chu He picked up a black wooden box from the side. Inside was precisely the gray pill that had been in Liu Ci's hand earlier.

"Mine... that's mine! Give it back!"

The weak and listless Liu Ci seemed pumped full of blood at the sight of the pill. He struggled wildly, trying to seize it.

"You want it? I can give it to you."

Chu He took out the pill, but by the time he placed it in Liu Ci's hand, it had become a pile of useless crumbs.

"I... I'll kill you!!"

Staring at the remnants in his palm, Liu Ci's eyes became bloodshot. Black strands of hair pierced through his pupils, twisting and writhing madly like earthworms.

He seemed possessed, his entire body filled with violent madness.

Chu He fixed his gaze on the frantically struggling Liu Ci and spoke calmly. "Final question. Are you... still yourself?"

"I'll kill you... kill you... kill..."

Shing!

Chu He drew his blade in one motion, spraying out a line of blood. The crazed muttering came to an abrupt stop, and a large head rolled to his feet.

"Ding! Strange energy absorbed. Energy +2!"

Chu He took a deep breath and steadied his emotions.

"Looks like he wasn't."