Resurrection from the Dead?

When Ma Liu and the others pushed open the warehouse doors and saw the scene inside, everyone was stunned.

The room was in complete disarray. The medicinal herbs they had painstakingly organized the night before were now scattered and trampled into a mess.

Even more glaring was the fact that the dry rations left behind for emergencies had been eaten clean.

As for the culprit, anyone with working eyes could identify him at a glance.

Jiang Feng was the only person in the entire warehouse. He sat leisurely in a corner, chewing on the final piece of a dry ration cake, with a pot set up before him, bubbling away as it brewed something unknown.

Seeing this chaotic sight, several hot-tempered individuals in the group exploded on the spot.

"Jiang Feng, have you lost your mind? Do you have any idea what the consequences of this will be!"

"If you want to die, go find a place where no one is around to do it! We worked so hard to organize these herbs, and you've ruined it all by yourself. Have you no shame?"

"And you ate all the food? That was everyone's rations for the next few days!"

The crowd poured their fury onto Jiang Feng, shouting over one another.

Ma Liu, however, did not join in the cursing. His shifty little eyes kept scanning Jiang Feng up and down.

Jiang Feng was currently draped in a tattered, old garment, and the skin exposed beneath was covered in wounds of all sizes, crisscrossing his body. To describe him as "wretched" would be an understatement.

Recalling Fan Qingyang's cryptic instructions from the night before, Ma Liu's mind automatically filled in a series of miserable scenes.

He even felt that this current situation was likely a trap intentionally set by Fan Qingyang—to splash all the blame onto Jiang Feng first, and then slowly deal with him once he was pushed to the edge.

After all, this wasn't the first time they had done such a thing; they had used similar tactics to toy with many of the serving maids back at the Medicine Hall.

The few people beside him who were shouting the loudest saw that Jiang Feng didn't even lift an eyelid, showing no intention of offering an explanation. Their anger flared, and they rolled up their sleeves, ready to resort to force.

Ma Liu reached out and blocked them, advising them in a measured tone, "Hey, brothers, don't be impulsive."

Those men were filled with indignation, clearly genuinely enraged:

"Brother Ma, how can we not be impulsive? To save on rations, none of us ate last night, and now this bastard has finished it all by himself! What are we supposed to do for the next few days? We still have to go up the mountain to gather herbs!"

"Exactly, gathering herbs on the mountain is hard physical labor!"

Ma Liu raised a hand to signal for everyone to calm down, his tone unhurried as he said:

"This matter isn't for us to decide. Let's wait for Boss Fan to return and let him make the call. After all, he is the leader of this expedition."

Once these words were spoken, the others fell silent, though the fury in their eyes remained undiminished.

Ma Liu naturally saw this. He coughed twice and added another sentence, his tone heavy with implication: "You all need to have faith in Boss Fan. He will certainly deliver the most 'fair' punishment."

He deliberately emphasized the word "fair."

There were no fools present; naturally, everyone caught the subtext. The bad blood between Fan Qingyang and Jiang Feng was common knowledge. If Fan Qingyang let Jiang Feng off lightly after such an outrageous act, it would be a miracle.

They even vaguely guessed that Boss Fan would likely punish Jiang Feng by forcing him to replace all the missing herbs alone.

That was no easy task. If one person were forced to work day and night to finish it, it wouldn't be strange if he were worked to death.

Thinking this, the anger in their hearts gradually subsided. They stopped shouting and walked in twos and threes to the other side of the room to rest, waiting only for Fan Qingyang to return.

Jiang Feng didn't even glance at the noisy crowd.

After swallowing the last of the grain cake, he reached out and lifted the lid of the small pot in front of him.

A refreshing, exotic fragrance instantly permeated the air, filling the entire warehouse. The stomachs of the apprentices, who had been hungry and hadn't eaten all night, began to growl on the spot.

"Hmph, this kid sure knows how to enjoy himself, actually using medicinal herbs to brew soup. We don't even get that kind of treatment back at the Medicine Hall."

"Damn it, when Boss Fan gets back, I'm going to make him vomit back up every drop he drank."

"If you ask me, let's just go over there and snatch the soup now. We brothers are truly starving."

"Don't be impatient. When Boss Fan returns, this pot of soup will have to be shared with everyone anyway. Jiang Feng is just keeping it for us for a while."

A wooden spoon stirred gently in the pot, with Red-Beard Ginseng, Golden-Thread Angelica, Deer-Blood Vine, and a host of other herbs rising and falling in the thick broth.

This pot was a medicinal meal Jiang Feng had specifically brewed to replenish his blood and qi. The battle last night had been too draining, especially that final strike to kill Sun Bowei; to ensure nothing went wrong, he had almost completely exhausted the blood and qi in his body.

Coupled with the injuries sustained during the fight, if he didn't replenish himself in time, he truly wouldn't be able to hold on.

As for the task of collecting herbs, he naturally wouldn't be doing that anymore.

The matter of killing Fan Qingyang could not be hidden. Even if he explained that Fan Qingyang had struck first, with Xue Zhao and Wu Han there, his explanation would be no different from passing wind.

He definitely couldn't go back to the Medicine Hall.

He calculated that once his blood and qi were mostly recovered, he would leave this outpost, change his identity, and start over somewhere else.

In any case, he had already stepped into the seventh stage of the Blood-Moving Realm and mastered the skill of refining Blood-Qi Pills. In the vast Ping'an County, there would surely be room for a man like Jiang Feng.

He scooped out a bowl of the thick soup while it was hot, blew on the steam, and began to enjoy it with satisfaction.

Feeling the nearly dried-up blood and qi in his body gradually refilling, a long-lost, comfortable smile couldn't help but tug at the corners of his mouth.

But just then, his ears twitched, and he jerked his head toward the direction of the warehouse door.

He heard heavy footsteps cutting through the curtain of rain, rapidly approaching the warehouse.

Jiang Feng's gaze swept over Ma Liu and his group, silently counting them: eight, not one more, not one less.

His brow furrowed instantly. In this kind of weather, there shouldn't be any outsiders coming. Who could be outside the door?

While he was still puzzled, a rapid knocking sounded at the door.

Ma Liu and the others were instantly energized, springing up from the floor, faces full of excitement:

"It must be Boss Fan returning!"

The group swarmed toward the door.

Jiang Feng's cold voice came from behind them: "I advise you all, it would be best not to open that door."

The crowd was stunned for a moment, then their faces filled with undisguised mockery.

"What, now that Boss Fan is back, you finally know fear? You'd better spend your time thinking about how you're going to explain this to him."

"It's too late for regrets, Jiang Feng! Just wait to be punished!"

As they spoke, several of them worked together to pull the heavy warehouse doors open with a violent jerk.

In an instant, the gale, carrying the torrential rain, poured into the warehouse. An inexplicable chill surged in with it, and the entire room seemed to drop several degrees in temperature.

Jiang Feng had been staring fixedly at the doorway, but the moment he saw who it was, his pupils constricted violently, and a massive sense of absurdity surged from the bottom of his heart to the top of his head.

Because the person who had arrived was none other than Fan Qingyang!

Ma Liu and the others greeted him with beaming smiles, fawning over him as they scrambled to be the first to lodge their complaints.

"Boss Fan, you've finally returned! Come in and take a look—see what a mess Jiang Feng has made of this entire warehouse!"

"That's right! All our hard work from last night has been ruined by this brat!"

"The most infuriating part is that he ate all of our reserve rations by himself!"