Crimson Repentance Coin

Blood dripped from the long blade, and a reeking wind blew out of the old alley.

Chen Jue pointed the tip of his blade at the burly martial artist. The black-clad security guards sprawled across the ground with their hamstrings cut were filled with terror.

"Hero, we were wrong! Spare us! Spare us!"

The burly martial artist was the strongest among them, so naturally his injuries were worse than those of the other guards.

Chen Jue had severed the tendons in both his hands and feet. Pressed by the edge of Chen Jue's long blade, he could only use his thighs and buttocks to shuffle backward until his back struck the brick wall behind him.

"I can spare you. Just answer a few questions honestly." Chen Jue's starry eyes were dim as he lowered his gaze to the burly martial artist before him.

"Ask away, Hero. This little one will tell you everything he knows, holding nothing back..."

The burly martial artist wanted to kneel in "gratitude," but with all four limbs crippled, he could only wriggle a little. For the moment, he could not manage such a fawning gesture.

"Very good."

Chen Jue turned toward the lackeys lying in the alley. "You listen carefully too. If your boss deliberately conceals anything or misleads me, you can report him."

"If you are right... he dies, and you live."

"Understand?"

Chen Jue's words instantly drained the color from the burly martial artist's face.

Meanwhile, the lackeys with their hamstrings cut looked eager to try. Beyond their fear of Chen Jue, their eyes now held a trace of yearning for survival.

The corner of Chen Jue's mouth curled faintly as he asked his first question.

"How did you identify the goods sellers offered as belonging to the powerful and noble families of the inner city?"

The burly martial artist explained everything plainly. "Every aristocratic clan that has entered the ranks possesses an officially verified pedigree issued by the Great Ming Divine Dynasty. Based on those records, these powerful clans design family crests, which their craftsmen either engrave secretly or carve in relief on the insides of objects. Some families even have special hidden patterns for their residences because of the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate lines, used to differentiate rank and status..."

"Things like those serve no purpose beyond displaying noble status... Ordinary objects would not go through such trouble and expense for no reason."

"Besides that, some jewelry, if produced by the authorities or exclusively operated by aristocratic clans, bears exclusive marks, seals, embossed patterns..."

As Chen Jue listened, he learned.

Just as he was about to ask his second question, someone among the lackeys lying prone on the ground suddenly raised a hand and shouted, "Hero! He's fooling you! He's fooling you!"

Chen Jue paused, then turned sideways to look at the man reporting him, amusement surfacing in his eyes.

It was the "Skinny Monkey" who had advised the burly martial artist to cut the tendons in Chen Jue's hands and feet.

The burly martial artist's expression changed drastically. His eyes bulged with rage as he glared at Skinny Monkey, the underling he had valued most in the past.

"What the fuck are you spouting?! Everything I said was true! What good does framing me do for you?!"

Skinny Monkey had a pointed mouth and monkey cheeks, with a shrewd mind to match.

He knew perfectly well that if several of them had to die, then he—the one who had clamored for their "boss" to stop talking and get straight to it—would absolutely be the first to die.

So he had to "atone for his crimes with merit" and make up for the impression points he had lost.

"Boss Zhu, it's not that your brother lacks loyalty. It's just that the Hero said if we point out where you deliberately lied, we can live..."

"Every man for himself, or heaven and earth will destroy him! Boss Zhu, forgive me!"

As Skinny Monkey spoke, he kept watching Chen Jue's expression. Only when he saw no disgust, mockery, or other negative reaction did he breathe a little easier and continue.

"Hero! The reason we moved to surround you was because among the things you were selling cheaply was something called a 'Crimson Repentance Coin.'"

"That kind of coin has been the most fashionable plaything among the inner-city lords these past few months. They say it comes from the Room Fire Cult..."

"One can only obtain a Crimson Repentance Coin by sacrificing a human life to the Room Fire Cult. And every Crimson Repentance Coin can be exchanged with the Room Fire deity, through the Room Fire Visualization Method, for one hundred wisps of star power similar to True Qi..."

Chen Jue's expression shifted. Then he thrust his blade backward, driving it into the burly martial artist's shoulder hollow.

"Second question. In your neighborhood, does the Guard Office or the gang call the shots? And how strong is the leader?"

Amid the burly martial artist's miserable shrieks, Chen Jue pulled the long blade from his shoulder hollow. His gaze was cold and sinister, carrying an unspoken warning.

"The gang!"

With Skinny Monkey's example before him, the burly martial artist no longer dared conceal anything. He poured it all out like beans from a bamboo tube. "Sun Kai, chief of the Red Forest Guard Office, is a paper tiger... a good man. He has been suppressed by Zhou Xing, the chief of our Red Forest Gang, all year round. Now, more than half of the black and gray industries in Red Forest District are in the hands of our Red Forest Gang..."

"Our Red Forest Gang chief, Zhou Xing, is a martial artist at the peak of the ninth level of True Qi. He is only one step away from planting spirits in the five viscera. Hero, you may know him."

Chen Jue said nothing to the man's forced attempt at familiarity, merely sweeping his gaze over the lackeys on the ground.

They seemed to be racking their brains, yet no matter how hard they tried, they could find no concealment or flaw in the burly martial artist's words.

"Then the last question. Does the Room Fire Cult operate in Red Forest District, or do you know anything about it?"

Chen Jue's question suddenly became broad. If the burly martial artist did not want to be stabbed in the back by his underlings, he had to lay out everything he knew about the Room Fire Cult.

The burly martial artist's face turned deathly pale. He stammered for a long while, then finally lowered his head in defeat and began recounting everything he knew as though resigned to his fate.

The southern outer city was the Room Fire Cult's main breeding ground.

Therefore, those crazed cultists did not merely operate in Red Forest District. They were spread across more than thirty districts in the southern city, and their believers already numbered over a hundred thousand.

Moreover, that number was still exploding by thousands every day.

Such an enormous congregation conducted evil sacrifices in dark corners every day, producing vast numbers of Crimson Repentance Coins. Most of them flowed into the hands of inner-city nobles, while only a small portion was privately hoarded and made its way into the black market.

At last, Chen Jue understood.

So the root of why he had been surrounded was not that he was selling the possessions of powerful nobles, but that they had mistaken him for a middleman selling Crimson Repentance Coins for the Room Fire Cult.

Their so-called "share the wealth" meant they wanted him to reveal the sacrifice dens, so they too could reap considerable profits from them.

After all, as gang members, obtaining a few human lives for sacrifice was far too easy for them.

"If you are so eager to do business with the Room Fire Cult, why not ask your gang chief to take the lead and contact them?"

After his final question, Chen Jue raised another.

But the lackeys present fell silent as cicadas in winter. Who would dare criticize him for going back on his word?

"Some big shots in the gang brought it up, but Chief Zhou sternly rejected it. He ordered that gang members were forbidden from having anything to do with the Room Fire Cult. Any who disobeyed would receive forty lashes and be expelled from the Red Forest Gang..."

"At least he has some sense..."

Chen Jue swept his blade across the burly martial artist's throat, then turned to finish off the maggots crawling all over the old alley one by one.

However, after he had only killed two people, a mountain-like figure descended from a rooftop and landed less than a hundred paces away.

"Brother, you have already learned what you wished to know and severed the hamstrings of these offenders. As the saying goes, where mercy can be given, give mercy..."

"Why not spare them?"

The speaker had an honest, square face and an awe-inspiring air of righteousness. A pair of heavy maces was slotted behind his back. His blood and qi blazed like a furnace, while his body was as solid and heavy as a mountain.

Seeing the inspector's uniform on him and the Level Five clerk badge pinned to his chest, Chen Jue narrowed his eyes slightly.

Bang!

Chen Jue launched himself from the ground, taking a long stride as he charged forward with his blade.

Not because he wanted to kill the man, but because he wanted to test the mettle of this fellow inspector at the fifth level of True Qi.

Whoosh!

The burly inspector leaned forward, drew one heavy mace from his back, and smashed it at Chen Jue as he rushed in.

Clang!

A vast, unprecedented force traveled back through the blade's hilt. Chen Jue was shaken so hard that he dragged backward across the ground, his tiger's mouth going numb. He nearly lost his grip on the blade and sent it flying.

Holy shit?! Did this bastard use cheats? What monstrous strength!!!

Chen Jue was deeply startled. He had thought that with his blood and qi value, he was already like a little overlord among those in the early and middle stages of the True Qi realm.

Who would have thought there was always a higher heaven beyond the heavens? Today, he had run into a true hard case.

"Brother, your martial skill is truly exceptional. Why not give Meng some face and spare these people?"

After that strike, Meng Liang returned the Thirty-Six-Section Heavenly Astral Mace to his back.

"Since Inspector Meng has spoken, how could we people of the martial world refuse to give you face?"

Just as the squirming maggots on the ground thought they had survived by the skin of their teeth, Chen Jue's tone shifted. "However, this one is particularly wicked. I must take his life. Otherwise, if evil is not eradicated completely and he harms others again in the future, it will become my sin."

The Skinny Monkey, who had narrowly escaped death, saw Chen Jue point at him and nearly lost his soul. He kowtowed and begged, "Hero! Hero! You said that as long as we reported him, we could live! You can't go back on your word!"

Seeing that Chen Jue remained unmoved, Skinny Monkey turned pleading eyes toward Meng Liang, who stood nearby looking righteous and dependable.

To his surprise, Meng Liang remained silent for a long time before saying only, "Good."

Quite an interesting fellow...

Blade light silenced the clamor of pleading. Chen Jue wiped away the blood and sheathed his blade, then vanished from the alley in several strides.