Cultivation Method

The next morning.

As usual, Zhou Yan climbed up from his straw mat, put on his straw sandals in the dark, and tightened the hemp rope around his waist.

A woodcutter's knife was tucked at the small of his back, its handle polished bright from use.

He casually grabbed two cold steamed corn buns and tucked them into his clothes, then pushed open the courtyard gate and went out.

There was no one on the village road, with only the occasional rooster crow carrying over.

He followed the dirt road at the village entrance toward the foot of the mountain. The farther he went, the narrower the road became, while the shrubs on both sides grew denser and denser.

After walking for roughly half an hour, he reached his usual firewood-cutting spot.

At the foot of the mountain lay a patch of mixed woodland, the ground carpeted with dead branches and fallen leaves.

Several crooked-necked trees leaned across the slope, and the stumps from trees he had cut on previous visits still showed fresh pale cuts.

Zhou Yan stopped just as he was about to begin.

Suddenly, he heard a burst of noise from the distance.

Instinctively, he crouched down and held his breath.

The sounds were coming from the mountain hollow.

He felt his way toward them.

He placed each footstep lightly, probing with his toes before stepping down. He avoided dead branches and did not touch loose stones.

After passing through a patch of low woods, a ruined temple appeared before him.

The temple was not large, and half its courtyard wall had collapsed.

A huge hole had opened in the roof of the main hall, with broken tiles scattered chaotically across the ground.

The temple gate hung crookedly to one side, with only one door panel still barely standing.

The weeds in the courtyard were waist-high, and moss covered the stone path so completely that not a crack showed through.

The sounds were coming from the main hall.

Zhou Yan lay hidden in the bushes outside the temple and peered inside through a gap in the broken wall.

Inside the main hall, three or four people were surrounding and attacking one man.

The besieged man wore a brocade robe embroidered with cloud patterns. It was high-grade silk, the sort Zhou Yan had seen before when he went to the county town. The man wore a square headscarf and had a jade pendant hanging at his waist. One look was enough to tell that he came from somewhere important.

He gripped a long saber, its blade longer than an ordinary saber by a good stretch, its edge gleaming with a cold light.

Though his moves were fierce, he had already suffered wounds in several places.

A large piece of fabric had been sliced from his left shoulder, exposing a gaping, curled wound beneath. Blood streamed down his arm.

He had also taken a slash to the thigh, and his trousers had been dyed dark red.

His movements grew slower and slower, yet those attacking him were not having an easy time either.

Two people already lay on the ground, motionless, dead or alive unknown.

The remaining two circled him like two wolves surrounding a wounded beast.

One wielded a short blade, while the other held an iron hook. Neither dared to rush him head-on, merely prowling around him.

Swish!

A flash of saber light.

The brocade-robed man suddenly spun around, sweeping his long saber sideways.

The short-blade wielder could not dodge in time. The blade sliced across his throat.

Blood sprayed out. The man clutched his neck and staggered back two steps before falling flat on his back.

The remaining iron-hook wielder panicked.

He retreated several steps, his back slamming into a pillar, and the iron hook nearly slipped from his hand.

The brocade-robed man used the chance to force him back with a slash, but he himself staggered backward and crashed into the offering table.

Boom!

The incense burner atop it toppled over and rolled far away.

That man pulled out a handful of hidden weapons from his clothes and scattered them.

Though Zhou Yan was far away, his eyes were sharp, and he saw it clearly.

Seven or eight flying knives shot out at once, sealing off the brocade-robed man's retreat.

The brocade-robed man could not dodge in time. One knife struck his shoulder, and another buried itself in his lower abdomen.

He let out a muffled grunt and dropped to one knee, using the saber tip against the ground to keep himself from falling.

His chest heaved violently, blood seeping from the corner of his mouth.

Seeing him in such a state, the man hesitated before taking half a step forward.

The brocade-robed man raised his head, his eyes locked onto him. His grip around the saber tightened again.

Suddenly, saber light flashed!

The man stopped.

A bloody line appeared across his neck, and with a thud, he fell to the ground.

The temple fell silent in an instant.

Only the brocade-robed man remained, kneeling before the offering table and gasping heavily.

Blood ran down the saber blade, dripping onto the stone slabs one drop at a time.

Zhou Yan remained hidden in the bushes.

He did not move, pressing even his breathing down to the faintest whisper.

This man was a Martial Adept!

Even gravely wounded, a final desperate strike from him was not something an ordinary person like Zhou Yan could withstand.

Those few slashes just now had all been killing moves—fast, precise, and ruthless.

Another hour or so passed!

The sun gradually climbed higher.

The cicadas in the woods began to cry noisily, one call after another.

Sunlight filtered through the gaps between leaves, swaying back and forth across the ground.

The brocade-robed man's breathing grew weaker and weaker. His body swayed several times before finally toppling sideways onto the ground.

His saber slipped from his hand as well, clanging into a crack between the stone slabs.

Zhou Yan waited patiently for another half hour.

His eyes never left the man's body until he finally confirmed that the man no longer had the strength to resist.

Zhou Yan stood up, but his legs had gone numb from crouching. He flexed his knees, then stepped through the gap in the broken wall and entered the ruined temple.

The brocade-robed man lay on the ground, his chest still rising and falling faintly.

His face was ash-pale, his lips blue, and his pupils had already begun to lose focus.

With effort, he opened his eyes, seeming to look toward Zhou Yan. His lips moved as though he wanted to say something.

But only bloody bubbles rose from the corner of his mouth, swelling once before bursting.

Then his head lolled to one side, and he breathed his last.

After waiting a moment, Zhou Yan crouched down and reached out to check his breath, confirming that it was gone.

He felt for the pulse at the side of his neck as well. There was no movement there either.

Dead as a doornail!

He swiftly searched the corpse.

He felt something hard inside the man's robe and pulled it out.

It was an oilcloth bundle.

The oilcloth was wrapped tightly, and it felt heavy.

Zhou Yan opened the oilcloth. Inside were two booklets, along with roughly twenty taels of broken silver.

One was titled Basic Stance Art, and the other was titled Mountain-Breaking Fist.

Stake Stance!

A fist art!

Zhou Yan's heart gave a violent leap.

The hands holding the two booklets trembled slightly.

The rough texture of the pages traveled up from his fingertips, as though something had slammed against the walls of his chest.

This was a cultivation method.

A cultivation method that could turn a farmer's son into a Martial Adept.

He took a deep breath.

There was no time to examine them closely. He carefully wrapped the two booklets back in the oilcloth and tucked them close against his body.

First, he dragged the corpses in the temple to the back courtyard.

Zhou Yan chose an open patch of ground and began digging. Mountain soil was hard, full of rocks and tree roots underneath.

Before he had dug even half a foot down, the skin on his palms had already been rubbed raw.

As he dug deeper, sweat began to stream down his forehead. He wiped it away with his sleeve and kept digging without bothering overmuch.

The pit was three feet deep and three feet wide.

It was enough to bury these corpses.

He dragged the bodies into the pit one by one, stacking them neatly.

When the brocade-robed man was pushed in last, he lay on top of the others.

That ash-pale face stared up at the sky, his eyes half open.

Zhou Yan crouched by the pit and took two breaths.

He pushed soil into the pit by the handful.

Burying people was hard labor too.

First he covered their feet, then their legs, then their chests, and finally their faces.

Once the pit had been filled level, Zhou Yan scattered the excess soil and smoothed it flat. Then he carried several broken stones from beside the wall and pressed them on top.

By the time he finished all this, the sun had already tilted westward.

He returned to the main hall.

The bloodstains on the ground were still there.

Zhou Yan brought dry soil and fallen leaves in armfuls from outside the courtyard, scattering them over the bloodstains handful by handful.

He tamped them down with his feet, scattered another layer, and repeated the process several times until the bloodstains were completely covered.

He set the offering table upright and put the incense burner back in place.

Then he stepped back a few paces and looked the place over.

It looked much the same as before.

Mm!

Not bad. Who would have thought he had a talent for burying people?

Afterward, Zhou Yan left the ruined temple and followed the way he had come back to the firewood-cutting spot.

Once he reached the mixed woodland, he began chopping wood.

His hands were still trembling, and he could not put any strength into them. His first swing actually went crooked.

He steadied his mind and raised the knife again.

One chop, two chops, three chops—the sound of dead branches snapping echoed through the woods.

After cutting enough for one bundle, he tied it tightly with hemp rope and hoisted it onto his shoulder.

The rope bit painfully into his shoulder, but the weight on his back made him feel steadier instead.

The sun had sunk far to the west, mountain shadows pressing over the land as the light in the woods dimmed.

Zhou Yan carried the firewood down the Mountain Road, his pace neither fast nor slow, just as usual.

When he reached the village entrance, several old men were still playing chess beneath the old locust tree.

A skinny dog lay beside them. It lifted its eyelids to glance at him, then rested its head back on its paws.

"Third boy, you cut quite a lot today." One old man looked up and called out.

Zhou Yan answered with a smile. "Yes, Fifth Uncle. I found a good spot today."