Arrangement

"Lord Yizhe!" Seeing Yizhe deal with the intruder, Qing Shi hurried over on his short little legs.

"What is it?" Yizhe stared fixedly at the corpse lying in the pit and asked coldly.

His battle with Furukawa Muchi, a ninja rich in real combat experience, had taught him a great deal. He had been an enemy worthy of respect.

"The person lying in this pit... could he be?" Qing Shi asked cautiously.

The corpse at the bottom of the pit was covered in mud and snow, making its face impossible to see clearly.

"Yes. He was Furukawa Muchi, deputy leader of the Red Ant Bandit Group!" Yizhe answered blandly, as though the person lying in the pit had been utterly insignificant.

"Hiss—" Qing Shi sucked in a cold breath.

"Then... he snuck in so late at night in order to..." Though Qing Shi had his suspicions, he still did not dare confirm them.

"Yes—he came for you!"

Yizhe answered casually, then plopped down on the ground.

He was truly exhausted. One momentary mistake had allowed Furukawa Muchi to seize an opening and bombard him relentlessly until he could barely catch his breath.

He had nearly suffered a major loss!

The entire battle had been almost completely one-sided! If Furukawa Muchi had not exhausted his chakra, the outcome would have been hard to predict.

Especially the danger of being treated like a living target in midair—outsiders could never understand it!

"My lord, what is wrong?" Seeing Yizhe suddenly sit down, Qing Shi asked with concern.

Yizhe was now the guardian deity of the entire caravan. If he had not displayed such divine prowess, the caravan would have long since fallen to the bandit group.

Therefore, Qing Shi had no choice but to care about Yizhe's condition. After all, it concerned the safety of the entire caravan.

"It's nothing. I'm just a little tired." Yizhe waved a hand, signaling that there was no need to worry.

"Then... how should we deal with this corpse?"

Qing Shi stared at the mangled, rag-like corpse in the pit, a strange glint flashing through his eyes.

"What do you have in mind?" Yizhe turned back and saw that Qing Shi's fat face was full of excitement.

Could he have a thing for corpses? And this is a man's body! A chill ran through Yizhe's heart!

"Brother, both his brother and son died at our hands. I'm afraid this grudge cannot be settled! The last remaining Red Ant leader definitely won't let us off easily!"

"Once we cross Cold Wind Bridge ahead, we'll reach the Land of Iron. It's easy to defend and hard to attack, and it's also the road we must take. The Red Ant Bandit Group surely won't let this last chance slip away. How about..." Qing Shi stopped halfway through, seemingly hesitant, and swallowed the rest of his words.

"How about what?" Yizhe frowned and asked impatiently.

"How about we use this corpse as leverage and make him let us pass?" Qing Shi cautiously voiced his idea.

"The dead deserve respect. Aren't you afraid of bad luck for desecrating someone's corpse like this?"

"Besides, his son and brother are already dead. Why would he care about a corpse? All this will do is provoke him into a killing spree! By then, even if I deal with him, there probably won't be many people left in your caravan!"

Yizhe shook his head, disapproving of Qing Shi's idea.

"His brother and son both died by my hand. Naturally, he hates me the most! When the time comes, I'll lure him away, and you can charge through while you have the chance!"

"Once I shake him off, I'll come back to find you!" Yizhe revealed his plan.

A direct clash with the Red Ant Bandit Group could no longer be avoided. He had decided to lure the tiger from the mountain, reducing the ninja's damage to the caravan before looking for a chance to escape.

With the lives of his brother and son in Yizhe's hands, the blood feud between Yizhe and the Red Ant leader ran too deep. A battle between them was inevitable!

Yizhe was not afraid of losing to him. What he feared was that the man would be bent on dying and fight to the death without end!

"Do you need all of us to help?" Qing Shi asked tentatively.

Hearing that Yizhe planned to lure away the Red Ant leader alone, Qing Shi sighed in relief. But then he thought about it again—if Yizhe lost and died, the Red Ant leader certainly would not spare the caravan.

To ensure absolute safety, the last Red Ant leader had to become a dead man!

That was why he wanted to ask whether Yizhe needed any help. If they could pick up the scraps and take down the enemy, that would be even better!

"No need. He's waiting to risk his life! No matter how many of you go, you'll all die!" Yizhe rejected him without any courtesy.

"But..."

"No buts! Go down!" Yizhe impatiently cut Qing Shi off and sent him away.

Light snow began to drift down from the sky, gradually covering Furukawa Muchi's corpse.

Those wide-open eyes were filled with unwillingness, but their owner had already fallen silent.

This was the first time Yizhe had truly killed someone. Although he had previously beaten Furukawa Kazekaze into grave, near-fatal condition, he had still left him with one final breath.

He had not watched him stop breathing before his eyes.

But Furukawa Muchi's life had been ended by his own hands, witnessed by his own eyes.

In his previous life, he had never even killed a chicken. Yet now, he had learned to take human lives.

His heart felt heavy, filled with an indescribable melancholy.

"Ah..."

Yizhe sat beside the pit, brooding for a long time, but he still could not let it go. All he could do was sigh deeply, rise to his feet, press his palms together, and pray sincerely.

"Dust to dust, earth to earth, all things return to nothingness!"

After speaking, he walked down into the pit and closed Furukawa Muchi's eyes.

Only then did he feel a little better.

At the same time, he finally understood why people held funerals after death.

It was not to deliver some so-called dead soul from suffering, but to comfort the hearts of the living.

"Please forgive any offense," Yizhe said, bowing to Furukawa Muchi's corpse.

He planned to examine Furukawa Muchi's body and inspect his injuries.

The spot on the corpse's chest struck by the Rasengan had been utterly shredded, torn apart by twisting force. A visible inward spiral wound marked the flesh.

That wound had been formed when the Rasengan's twisting force forcibly pulled and tore the skin and flesh into folds!

"Byakugan."

With a thought, Yizhe activated the Byakugan and looked beneath the flesh.

There, he saw that the ribs in the corpse's chest cavity had been completely shattered and tangled together with the flesh. The two lungs had also been minced into pulp by the twisting force.

It was truly too horrific to bear looking at!

When Jiraiya had taught him the Rasengan, he had said that it was the ultimate technique of chakra shape transformation and possessed tremendous destructive power.

While practicing, Yizhe had used it to smash rocks and snap trees with ease, so he had already formed a rough estimate of the technique's power.

But this was the first time he had landed it solidly on a person. Seeing such a horrifying result with his own eyes still left him greatly shocked.

"The Rasengan is indeed highly destructive, but its flaw is too obvious! It can only be effective through close contact with the opponent!"

"As the saying goes, length brings strength, while short reach brings danger! Once you get close, the danger to yourself increases many times over! If the opponent is skilled in taijutsu, this technique becomes even harder to use!"

"For me, close combat is already my specialty, so I won't have many opportunities to use this technique! It really is somewhat useless!"

Yizhe sighed inwardly, sorted through his thoughts, slowly climbed out of the pit, and casually buried Furukawa Muchi's corpse where it lay.

That night, word of Furukawa Muchi's death in battle was quietly delivered into the Red Ant Bandit Group.