First Kill!

After making sure the vicious visitors had gone far away.

Madam Zheng finally emerged from behind the door, trembling, her face full of despair and panic:

"Eldest son... We can't afford to provoke such ferocious thugs. Wh-what are we supposed to do?"

"Mother, don't panic."

Shen Xiuhan turned around, his expression already calm again. He stepped forward and comforted her softly:

"Tomorrow morning, I'll prepare a generous gift and go to the martial hall, asking the senior brothers to speak to the Golden Dragon Gang on our behalf. The inner courtyard senior brothers carry weight; those lowly street thugs won't dare refuse them face."

Hearing this, Madam Zheng remained deeply worried, but she had no other choice. She could only pray that the martial hall's name would truly cow those fiends.

The night deepened. All was silent.

A crescent moon hung high in the sky.

Shen Xiuhan lay flat on the wooden bed, his eyes tightly shut, his breathing long and even, as though he had already fallen asleep.

Just after midnight.

In his sea of consciousness, a streak of golden light cleaved through the darkness.

[Today's intelligence has refreshed!]

[Intelligence ①: Ma Xianyang, the third inner courtyard disciple of Through-the-Back Martial Hall, has been stuck at the peak of Blood Tempering for a long time and urgently needs Treasure Fish to break through. He is well acquainted with the habits of all kinds of Treasure Fish. Silver-backed Fish are usually found in the depths of Cloudwater Lake and rarely swim in the shallows.]

[Yet you have neither boat nor net, and still managed to catch one. From this, Ma Xianyang has concluded that you may possess some secret method for tracking Treasure Fish in shallow waters. If you refuse to hand over this method, he will kill your entire family and leave no future trouble!]

[Current location: Inner City, Ma Residence.]

[Intelligence ②: Yu Zhe, a member of the Golden Dragon Gang, possesses no qi and blood. He came from the outer courtyard of Through-the-Back Martial Hall and has been assigned by Ma Xianyang to keep watch.]

[Current location: A gambling den on Locust Tree Street in the inner city. He is drinking and throwing dice, and is expected to drunkenly return at the hour of the Ox to the home of his prostitute lover in East Creek Ward.]

[Intelligence ③: Tian Erhu, a member of the Golden Dragon Gang, also possesses no qi and blood. He too came from the outer courtyard of Through-the-Back Martial Hall and serves Ma Xianyang alongside Yu Zhe.]

[Current location: Staying in Wild Shrine Ward of the outer city, the fifth house from east to west on Two Fortunes Street.]

In the darkness, Shen Xiuhan's eyes suddenly opened.

Ma Xianyang's baseless deduction had gotten the process absurdly wrong, yet by a twist of fate, it had guessed his trump card right!

What Ma Xianyang had set his sights on was not the fish at all.

It was the nonexistent "treasure-seeking secret method" he supposedly possessed!

However...

For now, I can't afford to provoke Ma Xianyang...

But two ants who haven't even opened the gateway of qi and blood dare bark and leap about before me?!

They truly have grown tired of living!

Shen Xiuhan held his breath and listened carefully to the sounds inside the house.

At the other end of the bed, Madam Zheng gave faint snores. Shen Momo was curled up in Madam Zheng's arms, her breathing soft and even.

After confirming that both mother and daughter were sound asleep, Shen Xiuhan silently lifted a corner of the blanket.

He put on an inconspicuous coarse gray robe and tied up his cuffs and trouser legs.

"Creak..."

The wooden door let out an extremely faint groan, then was closed again.

Shen Xiuhan first went to the kitchen, then silently vaulted over the fence and melted into the night, racing toward Locust Tree Street.

On a dark night with high winds, it was the perfect time to kill!

Locust Tree Street.

"Master Yu, your luck's still blazing hot tonight! You're leaving already? Why not shake a few more rounds and sweep the whole table!"

"Fuck off! Master Yu has proper business to handle tomorrow. I'll come back another day!"

Yu Zhe lifted the wind curtain and stepped out of the gambling den. The night wind did not make him feel cold; instead, it left his entire body burning hot.

He weighed the money pouch in his arms, unable to suppress the smugness on his face.

Tonight, luck had practically descended upon him. In just two short hours inside, he had won nearly two taels of silver!

Adding the three taels that Senior Brother Ma had rewarded him when he returned from that mudleg's house earlier that evening...

"Damn it, I finally scraped together enough."

Yu Zhe muttered a curse under his breath.

With this money, he could finally buy another Blood Origin Pill!

His natural talent was atrocious. He had scraped together the tuition by selling everything he owned, entered Through-the-Back Martial Hall, and endured half a year of hardship, yet he had never even touched the edge of qi and blood.

Once the deadline came and he had no silver to renew his tuition, he was swiftly thrown out the door.

Fortunately, he was quick-witted. He had latched onto Ma Xianyang, done plenty of dirty work for him, and been taught a few loose-hand martial techniques.

Relying on those few shallow tricks, Yu Zhe had finally made something of himself in the Golden Dragon Gang.

But he knew full well that in Longcloud County, the Golden Dragon Gang was not worth a fart.

The Golden Dragon Gang was merely a dog working for the White Family, helping its masters control the fish market and the docks in the western market. Every month, it had to unfailingly hand over half its earnings as tribute.

As long as the money was paid on time, the White Family did not care whether it was the Golden Dragon Gang or the Black Dragon Gang.

Take recent days, for example. Through-the-Back Martial Hall and the White Family had torn all pretense apart, and the Golden Dragon Gang's profits from the fish market had also drawn the attention of the Turbulent Wave Gang, a group formed by hardened retired soldiers.

That Turbulent Wave Gang leader, Zheng Dadao, was no easy man to deal with.

His fists and saber were both peerless, and his Baleful Intent was extremely heavy.

After several bloody clashes, the Golden Dragon Gang had already lost three or four capable men!

But what about their masters, the White Family?

They stayed aloof, turning a blind eye!

Because they had never considered the Golden Dragon Gang's men their own.

In this world, only "martial artists" who had opened the Gate of Blood could be considered human!

If one did not become a martial artist, then even if one commanded a hundred or more ruffians, one was nothing but livestock that could be cast aside at will!

But with talent like mine, how could opening the great threshold of Blood Tempering possibly be easy? I can only pile up medicinal pills by brute force!

Yu Zhe clenched his fists.

A Blood Origin Pill from Through-the-Back Martial Hall cost a full five taels of silver each!

Over the past two years, he had gritted his teeth and bought three, swallowing them all. Yet apart from gaining a little brute strength, his qi and blood remained a stagnant pool of dead water.

He had nearly fallen into complete despair.

Who could have expected that Heaven would abruptly deliver him such a towering opportunity?

A mudleg from the outer city actually knew how to catch Treasure Fish.

Ma Xianyang's words surfaced in Yu Zhe's mind again:

Silver-backed Treasure Fish have always lurked deep beneath Cloudwater Lake and are extremely difficult to find in ordinary times... I pried information from the mouth of his childhood friend. He has neither boat nor net, so he must have caught the Treasure Fish in the shallows. How difficult is that? Therefore, I suspect... he may possess some folk remedy or secret method for finding fish!

"Hehehe..."

"A mudleg is still a mudleg. He doesn't even understand that a man carrying jade invites disaster. Senior Brother Ma has him completely in his grasp!"

Yu Zhe walked through the alley, a greedy smile spreading across his lips.

That performance earlier in the evening had been a probing stone cast by Ma Xianyang!

First, he had pretended to pressure Shen Xiuhan, demanding that he hand over another Treasure Fish to "settle their grievance."

If Shen Xiuhan truly yielded to the pressure and caught another Treasure Fish to offer up...

Then the existence of the secret method would be completely confirmed!

By then... he and Tian Erhu would tie up that entire family.

They could casually chop off two fingers from his widowed mother. Surely the brat would not dare let the secret method rot in his belly.

Once they got the secret method, he, Yu Zhe, would be able to haul in Treasure Fish without end from then on...

The Blood Tempering Realm?

It would be within my grasp before long!

"Hahaha!"

Thinking of that satisfying prospect, Yu Zhe could not help laughing aloud.

He licked his cracked lips, and a lecherous gleam flashed in his eyes:

"And that little sister of his... Tsk. She hasn't filled out yet, but she's truly tender as water..."

"Whoosh..."

A gust of night wind brushed past him, pouring down through his collar and making Yu Zhe shudder. More than half the lust blazing in his chest was extinguished.

He subconsciously hunched his neck and looked around. Everything nearby was pitch-black, so dark one could not see one's own fingers.

Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked twice, then fell silent again.

For no reason, Yu Zhe felt his scalp prickle. But then he shook his head and sneered at himself.

"After doing too much dirty work, I'm even jumpy walking alone at night... I'm really getting worse with age!"

He let out a breath and strode toward his lover's house, humming an off-key little tune:

"Brother's nature's Qi, sister's nature's Qi, even the maid in her dowry is named Qi; the Qi family's daughter marries into the Qi family, and at midnight when they turn over, Qi faces Qi..."

Still singing?

I've come to collect you!

A razor-sharp gale suddenly swept in from behind him without warning!

Yu Zhe's body stiffened, every hair on him standing on end.

"Not good!"