Old Affairs

At Rebirth Temple, dark clouds gathered heavily overhead. Rain poured down, and the air was thick with damp oppression, making the temple seem all the more bustling.

After kicking the burly man more than six meters away, Lu Li left beneath a host of terrified gazes.

A woman with rouge smeared across her face, flushed cheeks, and a gauzy dress watched Lu Li's retreating figure with some regret.

"So he wasn't cutting in line..."

"Still too late."

Holding Dog Child, Lu Li hid in a remote corner of Rebirth Temple, taking in everything happening more than three hundred meters away from the corner of his eye.

A group of people clad in light armor and carrying iron shields appeared within the temple. Their ranks were neat and orderly, exuding a grim, murderous air.

At the front of the crowd, a tall man in a black robe embroidered with cloud patterns caught Lu Li's attention.

Lu Li merely glanced at him from afar and sensed the weighty, condensed aura emanating from him.

"Fifth Layer of Meridian Opening? Huang Shang? And he brought a squad of armored soldiers."

After assessing the situation, Lu Li's heart sank.

Martial arts experts could fight a hundred foes alone. In theory, a sufficiently powerful expert could even tear through a properly organized military formation.

But there was one prerequisite: there could be no experts within the army.

If there were experts working together with a military formation, their might would be far beyond that of ordinary martial artists.

Lu Li observed calmly. With his current strength, even if Intransigent Qi advanced further, he would still be hard-pressed to kill everyone before him.

The danger was considerable as well.

"There's still a chance to escape."

Turning the matter over in his mind, Lu Li remained calm. He lowered his head slightly and looked at Dog Child in his arms.

From afar, he had only thought the child was wearing a layer of skin, but holding him now, Lu Li could feel his injuries far more clearly.

A reeking layer of dog skin clung tightly to his body, mingled with the stench of scorched flesh and bitter medicine. He was light as nothing, gaunt to the bone, like a skeleton wrapped in skin.

Harvesting lives and mutilating bodies... the trade of the Myriad Life Sect.

As if sensing Lu Li's gaze, Dog Child slowly raised his head, revealing the only part of him that still resembled a human: a pair of eyes like glowing coals, pitch-black yet gleaming, exceptionally lively and spirited.

As though he had sensed Lu Li's goodwill, he slowly extended a pair of hands covered in sores, letting out a low whimper that resembled a dog's bark.

After enduring the torture and conditioning of harvesting lives and mutilating bodies, Dog Child had lost most of his ability to speak and could no longer talk normally.

"Hah... A pack of beasts. One day, I'll hunt every last one of you down and make you suffer every torture known to man!"

Lu Li drew a deep breath, icy killing intent settling in his eyes. He did not consider himself a saint, but he could not stand by and watch such misery.

Just then, a burst of barking rang out beyond Rebirth Temple. The commotion was enormous, and the man in the black robe immediately shot outside like an arrow loosed from a bow.

"Hm? Perfect chance!"

Seeing Huang Shang drawn away by the disturbance, Lu Li immediately prepared to force his way out.

The instant he moved, a hoarse whisper suddenly sounded behind him.

"This way!"

Following the voice, Lu Li saw a thin figure with graying hair hanging upside down from a roof beam.

"You..."

Lu Li froze. This person was Madam Peng, the woman who had blocked his path before he entered town.

Madam Peng paid no attention to his surprise. After speaking, she crawled toward the other rooms like a spider.

Seeing this, Lu Li immediately followed her.

Rebirth Temple contained numerous courtyards. The front compound housed a gambling den, while the rear courtyard contained not only dogfighting rings but also places where fighting dogs were raised.

Madam Peng seemed extremely familiar with the place. She led him through the temple to a secluded courtyard, where a cellar entrance lay in the ground.

Madam Peng leaped down from the roof, landed on the ground, and opened the cellar in one smooth motion, without the slightest trace of madness.

Was she pretending to be insane?

Lu Li's gaze shifted. The background information on Madam Peng had contained only a few brief lines. He knew only that she was Zhao Xingming's adoptive mother.

Watching Madam Peng descend into the cellar, Lu Li put away his thoughts and followed her in.

Zhao Xingming had conducted himself with righteousness and integrity all his life. It was clear that Madam Peng was not a vicious person either.

The cellar was spacious, with sweet potatoes piled all over the floor. It seemed to be nothing more than an ordinary place for storing food.

As Lu Li looked around, Madam Peng lightly touched one corner of the wall, and a hidden passage opened on the other side of the cellar.

She immediately walked in. Lu Li followed, and with another press against the wall from Madam Peng, the original passage closed at once.

Mechanisms!

Witnessing this, Lu Li became certain that the woman before him was not mad.

They walked through the hidden passage, Lu Li following behind Madam Peng. Neither of them said a word the entire way.

After roughly the time it took to drink a cup of tea, they reached the end of the passage and emerged from a private residence outside Rebirth Temple.

"Give him to me."

Madam Peng finally spoke. Her gray-white eyes seemed no different from those of an ordinary person.

"What are you planning?"

Lu Li studied her and did not hand Dog Child over immediately.

Madam Peng sighed at this. She did not explain, merely saying:

"Come with me."

Lu Li was full of doubts, but he followed Madam Peng once more. After making their way through the town, they finally stopped at a temple outside it.

The temple was dilapidated. Rotten beams and pillars had collapsed, while a furious-eyed Vajra statue lay tilted upon the ground, covered in dust. Thick spiderwebs tangled beneath the eaves. Only the ground seemed to have been swept and was still relatively clean.

Lu Li's eyes shifted slightly. This temple was the Rebirth Temple he had intended to visit.

The moment he stepped inside, Lu Li sensed many gazes fall upon him.

A faint rustling sound arose, and a child who was half-human and half-dog emerged from the darkness.

At first glance, he looked exactly like Dog Child after growing up.

"This..."

Before Lu Li could ask, more than twenty Dog Children gradually emerged from behind the Buddha statue.

"This is what those beasts from the Huang Household did!"

Madam Peng said bitterly.

Lu Li stood stunned in place. Looking at these half-human, half-dog "monsters," a desolate sorrow rose in his heart.

This was a torture several times crueler than death!

Before entering town, he had heard Tian Wang say that Madam Peng seemed to be raising a litter of wolf cubs. He had never imagined the truth was this.

"Why didn't you ask the Peng Household to help you?"

Suppressing the churning emotions in his chest, Lu Li looked at Madam Peng.

"Help me? I couldn't even protect my own son. Who could possibly help me?"

Madam Peng gave a miserable smile.

"Nine years ago, my husband's Household incurred a bloody calamity. They went to the Xue Household for help, and when they returned, they became withdrawn and silent..."

The Xue Household. The only Household capable of making the Peng Household wary was the Xue Household, one of the Jing Dynasty's three great Aristocratic Clans, a prestigious family that cooperated with Merging Cavern.

By this point, Lu Li had already vaguely guessed the truth.

"The condition for the Xue Household to act was my poor son! My son weighed ten jin at birth, and his natural talent and bones were exceptional. He should have become a master in his own right one day, but now he has become a tool for those beasts!"

"The Xue Household, the Myriad Life Sect... they all deserve to die!"

As Madam Peng spoke of this, an unforgettable hatred burst forth from her expression.

The other Dog Children in the temple seemed to echo her, releasing strange, mournful whimpers.

Lu Li's gaze moved, and only then did he notice that all these Dog Children crawled on the ground, their arms and legs bent backward, unable to speak.

"These people truly deserve to die!"

Lu Li clenched his fists, his gaze deep and dark.

After her grief and indignation, Madam Peng gradually calmed down. Looking at Lu Li, she said softly, "You're a good person."

With that, she waved her hand. Four Dog Children carried out a long case.

The long case was locked, but through the Weapon Lord's perception, Lu Li already knew what was inside: a long saber.