Nightmare Deepens

Zhou Ji could hardly believe it. The young master had only just reached Full Muscle-Tendon Tempering... yet one punch had sent him, a Half-Step Organ Tempering fighter, flying and coughing blood.

Luckily, the blow had struck him head-on, not in a vital spot...

Otherwise, that punch could have killed him outright.

This young master... had been training in martial arts for barely a month. It was absurd.

Zhou Ji wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and stood. "Young master, your fists are unmatched. I concede wholeheartedly."

Xie An gave a slight nod.

Until now, he had never mastered the third level of Taishan Fist, so the force behind his punches had been limited.

After all, the third level held the true essence of Taishan Fist—and its killing move.

Now that his third-level Five Mountains Collapse was perfected, its power had naturally leaped to another level.

Xie An patted Zhou Ji's shoulder. "That's enough for today. Collect fifty taels of silver from the treasury, along with two portions of Tiger-Viscera Essence Decoction."

"Thank you for the reward, young master!"

After watching Zhou Ji leave, Xie An felt unsatisfied. He had been unable to unleash the full force of Taishan Fist, and the restraint left him pent up.

Clearly, a martial artist at the third stage, Bone Tempering, could no longer meet his needs.

He needed a stronger sparring partner.

Xie An went out to inspect the Martial Arts Training Ground.

It was already past noon, but more than twenty guards were still gathered there, practicing and sparring.

Xie An watched from beneath the corridor for a while. Using Qi-Gazing, he roughly judged that one guard had reached Organ Tempering:

The man was burly, with a scar across his face. He sat at the edge of the Martial Arts Training Ground holding a blade, quiet and taciturn, with the air of someone who let his actions speak for him.

Xie An walked up to him. "What's your name?"

Hearing the question, the scarred man looked up. When he saw Xie An, he did not rise or offer a greeting. "Li Dao," he said flatly.

Xie An asked Li Dao about his background in detail. Li Dao had once been a constable. During a pursuit of bandits, one had slashed his face, though Li Dao had still captured him. But the chief constable and several senior constables had stolen the credit. Utterly disillusioned with the yamen, Li Dao had resigned and become a guard at the Xie Residence.

"Come spar with me in the West Courtyard from now on. I'll add fifty taels to your monthly pay and give you two portions of Tiger-Heart Blood Essence Decoction each month. Are you willing?"

Li Dao was stunned.

Tiger-Heart Blood Essence Decoction was indispensable for breaking through to Blood Tempering, and each portion sold for thirty taels.

That amounted to an extra hundred taels a month for nothing.

Seeing that Xie An was not joking, Li Dao finally stood and cupped his hands. "I am willing."

"Follow me."

Xie An brought Li Dao to the West Courtyard, took off his fox-fur cloak, and opened with perfected Taishan Fist.

Li Dao had never expected the spoiled young master he knew to enjoy martial arts. At first, he thought little of it. But after taking two punches from Xie An, his expression changed, and he no longer dared to be careless.

An Organ Tempering martial artist was, after all, a level above Zhou Ji.

Li Dao took Xie An's Taishan Fist head-on and held steady.

Xie An threw himself into a furious barrage. The Five True Forms surged together with Taishan Fist. At last, he could fight to his heart's content, and now and then he heard the great tendons inside his body snap taut.

Clearly, under this kind of training, the other great tendons in Xie An's body were steadily opening up.

In the days that followed, the young master's schedule grew busy.

Each morning, he sparred with Li Dao to hone his fighting skills and open his tendons along the way.

After sparring, he bathed in Tiger-Tendon Essence Decoction.

The days were dull and repetitive, yet deeply fulfilling. Every day, he could feel his martial arts improving.

Seven days passed in a blink.

That day, while sparring with Li Dao, one last great tendon snapped open with a sharp report.

Xie An knew that all 485 great tendons in his body had fully opened.

Though he was still at the Muscle-Tendon Tempering stage, he could now hold his own against Li Dao, who had recently entered Organ Tempering, winning roughly four exchanges out of ten.

By dusk, Li Dao was drenched in sweat. "Young master, you truly are a martial arts prodigy. You're only at Muscle-Tendon Tempering, yet you've opened all 485 great tendons in your body. In twenty years of training, I've never seen anything like it."

Xie An raised a hand to stop. "That's enough for today. You may go."

After dismissing Li Dao, Xie An returned to the bath chamber and soaked in Tiger-Bone Essence Decoction.

Three days earlier, once he had opened more than 450 great tendons, Tiger-Tendon Essence Decoction had stopped having any effect. He had switched to bathing in Tiger-Bone Essence Decoction.

The medicine flowed through the pores of his skin and gathered in every bone throughout his body, tempering them until they grew dense and compact...

After the bath, Xie An lay exhausted on his bed.

Perhaps because he had spent so much energy during the day, he slept unusually deeply that night.

In his haze of sleep, he had another nightmare.

Snow swirled around a lone carriage.

Xie An took Zhao Hu to Li Family Village.

There was the tax collector striking a brass gong at the village entrance to demand taxes, the line of grain payers as withered as dead vines, the corpses packed onto the old locust tree, the old Daoist performing a ritual... children chasing one another through the village, a peddler hawking his wares, and Li Degui fawning over him...

"It'll be dark soon. Young master, why not spend the night at my humble home? Tomorrow, I'll take you door to door to make your inquiries."

"There's no need to stay. Fill my hand warmer with hot water."

Xie An took the filled hand warmer and was about to leave when a piercing brass gong rang out:

"Clang, clang, clang... Grain collection! Pay your taxes..."

The last time he had dreamed this far, Xie An had woken up.

This time, he did not. The dream went deeper and continued.

The gong came steadily closer, until someone began knocking on the door.

"Knock, knock!"

Thud!

At the third knock, the door bolt—though firmly fastened—began scraping sideways of its own accord.

Then a deathly pale hand slowly slipped through the crack and pushed the door open.

Outside stood the tax collector who had demanded taxes at the village entrance that day. He held a ledger in one hand and a wolf-hair brush in the other. A blackened brass gong and mallet hung from his waist. His pale skin clung in wrinkles to his skull, his eye sockets were sunken like a dried corpse's, and he reeked of rotting fruit.

Standing outside the door, the tax collector addressed Zhao Hu first:

"Grain collection! Pay your taxes... A straw marker marks the debt, a vermilion brush settles the account. If you have money, weigh out silver. If you don't... fill the granary with years from your life. The Underworld Ledger records no debts, hee-hee... Have you paid your Grave Tax?"

Zhao Hu observed the taboo of never answering when a ghost spoke to him and said nothing.

But... the tax collector did not leave. Instead, he raised his head toward the doorway.

The Yellow Lantern that had hung high above the door had somehow vanished.

Then the tax collector in black stepped inside. His mouth suddenly gaped wide, revealing two dense rows of fangs. He pounced on Zhao Hu, tore open his chest with both hands, dug out his organs, and devoured them all.

The next moment, the black-clad tax collector slowly turned his head toward Xie An. Blood covered his mouth as he gave a strange smile. "Hee-hee... Have you paid your Grave Tax?"

What the fuck?!

Xie An cried out and jolted upright in bed.

It had only been a nightmare...

"That dream was too real. Too terrifying!"

The first time Xie An had dreamed of Li Family Village, he could still have dismissed it as just a dream.

But the second time, he had dreamed of the same place, and the events had gone much further... Something was wrong.

He vaguely remembered that when Uncle Shui had checked the Vital Breath in his body, he had specifically asked whether the nightmare differed from what had actually happened.

At the time, Xie An had said no.

Uncle Shui had replied that dreams followed one's thoughts by day, and that it was caused by excessive fright.

But now the dream... had changed.

That was deeply unsettling.

"Could I have been afflicted by something evil?"

Xie An hurried out of bed and went to the desk to look in the mirror.

He activated Spirit Sight and Qi-Gazing.

The strand of sinking qi in his body had unmistakably grown much stronger.

Xie An's heart sank.

"Something is definitely wrong with me!"

"The qi of the living rises, the qi of the dead stays still. Sinking qi... I may well have been tainted by a Specter. And it's connected to that nightmare."

Xie An let out a long breath and pushed open the window. Daylight had already filled the sky.

Outside, Qiu Lan was overseeing craftsmen repairing the Taihu rock.

"Qiu Lan!"

Xie An called out.

At his voice, Qiu Lan hurried into the room. "Young master, you're awake! I'll help you wash and dress."

Once he had washed and dressed, Xie An asked, "Is Uncle Shui at the residence?"

Qiu Lan shook her head. "Uncle Shui went out with the master early this morning."

Xie An said, "Prepare a gift. I'll visit Zhao Hu's home in a little while."

Xie An had a nagging feeling that this nightmare... might not be merely a nightmare.

In the dream, the Grain-Collecting Ghost had clawed Zhao Hu to death.

Xie An was worried. He wanted to check on Zhao Hu and see for himself.