Unsheathed Sword Must Draw Blood

Rumble!

The woman's chest suddenly caved in with a massive dent, accompanied by the crisp snap of fracturing ribs. The force flung her six or seven meters through the air, and she slammed heavily against the ground, vomiting a mouthful of blood as she glared at Xie An with eyes full of venom.

Only now did Xie An get a clear look at her appearance.

She was around twenty-something, with only a few strands of sparse hair left, and her looks... bore a striking resemblance to Qiu Qianchi of the Iron Palm Lotus.

It seemed Zhou Yun had been unhappy after taking a second wife not just because he was coerced... but also because his new bride's appearance was unsettling.

Seeing that his opponent still had the strength left to resist, Xie An had no intention of holding back.

Smack!

Xie An flicked both hands as his great sinews snapped and snapped with explosive force, skimming rapidly through the rain toward the woman.

Right at that moment, the woman abruptly jammed her five fingers straight into her chest, snapping one broken rib after another back into place. Amidst a few clicking sounds, her sunken chest surged outward once more. She flipped up instantly, her five fingers clawing straight at Xie An.

Re-setting bones on the spot?

What kind of martial art was this...

Xie An dared not grow careless, bringing the Taishan Fist down once more in an overwhelming press.

Boom!

The woman raised a hand to block the force of the punch without taking it head-on, instead guiding it off to the side to dissolve seven or eight tenths of the power. Immediately following that, a vicious claw tore toward Xie An's chest. Her long, pointed nails were as sharp as iron, instantly leaving three striking bloody trails across Xie An's chest accompanied by a faint, stinging pain.

Yin Claw Art?

Opening his Qi-Gazing, he found that the density of the woman's Vital Breath was about the same as Li Dao's, putting her roughly at the Organ Tempering realm of the Four Barriers.

Xie An settled his mind and instantly changed moves to White Tiger Sky-Roar, attacking with both claws hooked. Yet he found that her body was as slippery as an eel.

No matter how immense his strength, the woman always managed to slide past and neutralize the vast majority of his force.

Moreover, relying on her iron-sharp fingernails, the woman repeatedly suppressed Xie An's offensive.

These were definitely not ordinary nails; some sort of metal plating must have been embedded into them.

Clearly his strength outmatched hers by a tier, yet he was precisely wary of her nails. For a time he had strength he could not deploy, forced to rely on Azure Deer Life-Attraction and Mystic Crane Shadow-Scour from the Five True Forms just to spar with her.

The woman finally spoke. "Why must Young Master Mingxi press me so relentlessly? Grant me a path to survival, and this concubine will not trade lives with you."

Xie An's pupils instantly constricted.

You still want to trade lives with me?

Xie An suddenly stared past the woman's shoulder, a look of pleasant surprise crossing his face. "Master Registrar Xu, you've finally arrived!"

Hearing that her adoptive father had arrived, the woman was startled and abruptly whipped her head around.

Yet there was nothing behind her...

Bad!

Right at that moment—

Boom!

The Taishan Fist, amplified by the superposition of fivefold force, erupted once more and smashed fiercely into the woman's chest.

Squelch!

The woman was sent flying and crashing to the ground once more, spitting blood, but she immediately flipped back up and used her five fingers to reset her ribs. "Despicable!"

Still can't finish her off, huh... Employing Mystic Crane Shadow-Scour, Xie An pressed the attack again. "Was it not despicable when Madam previously had Zhou Yun place the Yin Cloth Doll beneath my bed?"

"Since Young Master Mingxi leaves no path of survival, do not blame this concubine for dragging you down to hell together!" The woman cried out in exasperation with a cold drink, violently tearing off the inch-long nail of her right index finger and stabbing it like a dagger straight into Xie An's palm.

Squelch!

Fresh blood flowed!

The woman laughed with near-manic madness. "The nails are laced with a fatal poison; you cannot live! You forced this!"

Xie An, experiencing his very first mortal combat, was indeed somewhat spooked, but he did not panic. He reversed his grip to clasp the woman's right hand. "I'm afraid I must disappoint Madam."

Withered Abyss!

A force capable of withering and rotting all creation was suddenly injected into the woman's right hand.

Fatal poison?

The poison itself was rotted away!

That metal nail withered and rotted directly, followed swiftly by... the woman's right hand rapidly withering and shriveling down.

"Ah!!!"

Shoving Xie An away with all her might, the woman staggered back several steps before collapsing heavily onto the ground, attempting to halt the continuous shriveling and withering of her arm, but it was useless!

She could only watch helplessly as her right palm withered into the hand of a dried corpse.

What was even more terrifying was that the withering force continued to spread upward along her blood vessels and muscles.

In the blink of an eye, her lower arm had completely shriveled and withered.

And it was still spreading toward her upper arm and shoulder.

There was simply no stopping it!

Goosebumps erupted all over the woman's body as she seemed to behold her own fate of transforming entirely into a mummified corpse.

"My hand... Ah!!"

Right at that moment—

Squelch!

A soft sword slashed out fiercely, shearing the woman's entire right arm off cleanly at the root.

"Ah!"

Clutching the stump of her right arm, the woman rolled continuously upon the ground. "Ahhh, my hand, my hand..."

Rumble!

A flash of thunder cleaved the sky through the heavy curtains of rain.

Xie An stood in the rain, his right hand gripping the recovered soft sword with its tip pointing toward the rolling woman on the ground, his eyes devoid of any sympathy.

"Since you hardly had any hair left anyway, losing another hand is no great matter.

Speak, who made you put the Yin Cloth Doll under my bed?

Otherwise, I'm afraid your left hand won't be safe either."

Xie An stepped forward to pin the woman's left hand beneath his foot, resting the longsword against her arm.

Gritting her teeth, the woman's eyes grew bloodshot. "It was entirely my own idea."

Xie An tightened his grip on the hilt, the blade slicing through the skin of the woman's arm as thin beads of blood seeped out. "I'll give you one more chance to speak."

Because this woman was the adoptive daughter of County Magistrate Registrar Xu Zhengyang, Xie An instinctively suspected that Xu Zhengyang had instigated the plot.

And since Xu Zhengyang was Xu Wenjie's third uncle, he still needed to exercise some caution.

Xie An required conclusive evidence.

The woman glared viciously at Xie An. "I said it was my own idea! I simply can't stand the sight of you."

Xie An frowned. "We are utter strangers; how is it that you can't stand the sight of me?"

The woman sneered coldly. "I am a native of Wuqiao Town. Do you have any idea what kind of days the common folk of Wuqiao Town live through? Do you know that everyone is reduced to eating tree roots, that everyone is trading their children to eat? Yet your Xie Household built a granary holding three hundred thousand shi of grain in Wuqiao Town, alongside a silver treasury holding a million taels! On what grounds!?

Every single coin and grain belonging to your Xie Household is stained with the blood of the common people. Why shouldn't I try to kill you? People like me... countless numbers of them! May I ask, Young Master Mingxi, can you slaughter them all?"

A single shi in the Great Qian was roughly sixty kilograms.

Three hundred thousand shi was equivalent to nearly forty thousand piculs of grain.

Not to mention a silver treasury worth a million taels...

Xie An was somewhat bewildered.

My family hoarded so much grain and silver in Wuqiao Town, and as the eldest legitimate son, how come I knew nothing about it?

Naturally refusing to take her at her word, Xie An swept away stray thoughts and said, "Fabricate a Yin Cloth Doll right here on the spot and let me see it! If you can make one, I'll believe you."

The woman roared in furious indignation. "Why should I make one for you to see? I refuse!"

So stubborn?

Xie An glanced at the soft sword in his hand, then back down at the woman's left arm.

An unsheathed sword must draw blood!

Without a shred of hesitation, Xie An slashed his sword toward the woman's left arm.

Squelch.

Her entire left arm flew three meters away, the fingers still twitching.

Scalding hot blood spattered across Xie An's face.

The young man's eyes remained utterly devoid of expression. "Still refusing to name the mastermind behind you?"