A Great Uproar

Less than ten minutes after Chen Jue rushed out of the old black-market alley, an earth-shaking boom that stunned the entire city erupted behind him.

A massive green mushroom cloud shot into the sky, turning into a green downpour that scattered over four or five nearby blocks.

Chen Jue's pupils shrank sharply. If that rain fell, he did not dare imagine what kind of hell on earth the outer city would become.

Fortunately, when the sky fell, there would always be tall people to hold it up.

In the direction of the black market, a brilliantly colored Five Elements array rose from the ground like an enormous rag, sweeping toward the sky.

In an instant, it was as though a piece of the sky had been wiped away.

The green rain and mushroom cloud, along with the gloomy autumn weather, were wiped clean by the Five Elements array, leaving only a broad, long stretch of sky as blue and clear as a mirror.

"!!!"

Chen Jue turned back to witness this godlike feat, too stunned for words.

Was this the strength of Linjiang's top factions and their foremost experts?

With a single strike, they could split the heavens and remake heaven and earth!

This grand spectacle dealt a tremendous blow to his young heart of 240 months.

After the shock passed, Chen Jue carried his things and continued fleeing, winding through several alleys without surveillance cameras.

Only after climbing over walls, breaking into a home, stealing someone's clothes, and changing his appearance did he finally return to Happiness Estate.

"Ah Jue, are you all right?!"

The moment He Yuanshan learned that something had happened at the black market, he called.

"I'm fine, Uncle. We'll talk after work."

Chen Jue did not say much over the phone. He drew the study curtains, then laid out everything he had obtained that morning across the narrow desk.

First came the precious medicines and spiritual materials.

Among those he recognized were Foundation-Nourishing Ginseng with more than ten years of medicinal potency, ordinary-looking Energy-Nourishing Grass, the water-aspected spiritual plant Blue Firefly Grass, and several Scarlet Spirit Flowers of the fire aspect.

Among those he did not recognize was a scarlet herb with one stalk and five leaves, its entire body red and its surface covered in fuzz.

There was also a whole shrub about a foot tall, resembling rapeseed flowers, its leaves covered in tiny flame-colored scale patterns.

And there were branches of precious medicine with vermilion stems and long, narrow leaves, pale-red burning liquid flowing from their broken ends.

Most wondrous of all was a patch of soft red moss. The moment it covered the tabletop, it began breathing in and out spiritual energy and slowly growing. It felt faintly hot to the touch and carried a light scorched fragrance.

Taken together, this assortment was worth at least six hundred thousand treasure notes. No wonder people of the martial world said, "Murder and arson bring a golden belt." So this was where the saying applied.

Aside from the precious medicines and spiritual materials, Chen Jue's main haul from this trip was the USB drive containing a large number of martial arts manuals.

However, he had already thrown away the physical USB drive. While borrowing someone else's clothes, he had conveniently used that homeowner's computer to upload its contents to anonymous accounts across several different websites.

Chen Jue used a VPN and downloaded the contents back onto an obsolete old phone.

He casually skimmed through them. After confirming that nothing was missing, he closed the phone and turned to the two physically printed movement-art manuals.

Silent Step and Wandering Dragon Body Technique.

He had never forgotten his teachers' earnest teachings from his student days.

If the foundation was unstable, the earth would shake and the mountains would sway; if one's mindset was unsteady, disaster would come sooner or later.

Being able to seize the many martial arts manuals on the USB drive was merely an unexpected delight.

Now, Star Demons lurked throughout the outer city. Undercurrents surged, and danger lay everywhere.

If he did not follow his original plan and rapidly grow stronger, but instead lost sight of priorities and greedily pursued too much, he would surely drown in the outer city's treacherous undercurrents.

Silent Step emphasized concealing one's aura and landing without a sound, excelling at stealth and assassination.

Wandering Dragon Body Technique was agile and swift, ever-changing, and excelled at close-quarters entanglement.

Chen Jue liked both movement arts. As he read, he could not help comparing them, weighing their strengths and weaknesses, and entertaining thoughts of borrowing one's strengths to make up for the other's shortcomings.

But he was no martial arts grandmaster. Trying to combine their strengths and compensate for their weaknesses while still a beginner was inevitably aiming too high and leaving him stretched in every direction.

Of course, Chen Jue had not expected to master them all at once.

Whenever he could not sort out his thoughts, he would sit cross-legged in meditation and accumulate Five Elements true qi.

His vitality and blood value had now reached 160%. With the River Chariot's third circulation, his efficiency was already 2.7 times that of a single circulation, allowing him to accumulate one strand of Five Elements true qi in two hours.

Yet it was precisely because his efficiency was too high that the vitality and blood consumed within his body often could not recover in time. He could only interrupt his breathing exercises midway, turn instead to practicing the Six Directions Saber Art, and further study the newly acquired movement arts.

Meanwhile.

Inner city, Wu residence.

Wu Nanyuan, of a collateral concubine branch, was suffering a brutal punishment under the family rules.

"You're saying that the person who robbed you defeated you without using true qi, but did not kill you in the end, only taking the universal USB drive?"

"And Wu Cheng, Wu Yu, and Wu Tian were brutally killed merely for trying to stop that person?"

"Why?"

"..."

Wu Nanyuan was still dressed in the thin black shirt from that morning, kneeling in the private ancestral hall of the Twelfth Branch.

Wu Yue and a group of collateral-branch elders kept bombarding her ears with aggressive questioning.

She had not lied.

But her parents had died early, and she had never displayed her talent before the clan. Her status was insignificant, and her words were as light as feathers, carrying not the slightest weight.

Besides, she did not want to argue. It was only a whipping. From childhood to adulthood, she had suffered more than she could count.

She was used to it.

But this time, she had clearly still underestimated the malice in people's hearts.

The one administering the family punishment was Wu Yu's mother—a wretch who had lost her beloved son, yet vented the venom in her heart upon another person's child.

Wu Nanyuan endured fifty lashes. Even with the true qi of "two waters, one ice" supporting her body, her back was still dripping with blood, not a single patch of flesh left intact.

She knelt with difficulty before the densely packed ancestral tablets of the Twelfth Branch's forefathers. The wounds beneath the scraps of cloth stuck to her back began to fester, and a sudden fever burned her consciousness into a muddle.

In her haze, Wu Nanyuan saw her mother's back.

She saw her anxiously waving at her, urging her to flee quickly and leave this man-eating devil's den.

Six in the evening.

He Yuanshan returned to Happiness Estate right on time. The moment he entered, he unleashed a burst of emotion at Chen Jue, who was reading.

"Hahahaha! Ah Jue! What a shame you were still on leave today!"

"You have no idea—when Zhang Wei learned that all four of the nephews and juniors he sent out had died at the entrance to the old alley..."

"That look of shock, fury, and stifled resentment, the way he clenched his fingers until they cracked—it was a legendary scene among legendary scenes!"

Chen Jue was practicing the two movement arts with gestures. Seeing how delighted his uncle was, he said, "We weren't the ones who killed them. What are you so happy about?"

"Haha, as long as I see Zhang Wei suffer, I'm happy."

"Besides, Linjiang Martial Arts College's graduation season has already passed. It'll be harder than climbing to heaven for their Fourth Group to replenish their manpower. For the next year, they'll probably have to carry out missions at full capacity, or their performance rating will definitely go negative... truly miserable."

He Yuanshan went on and on. Watching Zhang Wei have bad luck made him happier than picking up money himself.

"Oh, right! Ah Jue! What exactly happened over at the black market today? The commotion was so huge, and even experts from the inner city made a move..."

"This has already caused a great uproar online."

"Some people saw the green mushroom cloud and guessed that a chemical plant had exploded..."

"Others saw the green tree and guessed that demons had invaded. All kinds of outrageous rumors are flying everywhere..."