Grudge Spine Sword, a Young Hero's Ambition! (Please Keep Reading)

Two hours later, the woman in purple began asking about the three men's conditions.

The yellow-haired smoke fiend said that aside from sweating a lot, there was nothing unusual. In fact, he did not even feel much like smoking Immortal Leaf today.

This rather surprised the woman in purple, and she wrote down, "Suspected smoking-cessation effect."

The gaunt man said that he really had grown much stronger. He wanted to immediately take on several more laboring jobs and earn more silver, so his wife would not have to suffer alongside him.

Gu Qingfeng and the other two were too powerless to criticize him.

Today, they had truly witnessed a real turtle!

Ever since taking the medicine, the gaunt man had occasionally stood there twitching.

Gu Qingfeng had always thought the man would twitch himself unconscious. He had not expected him to feel so good about himself, rushing off to become a laborer.

He had originally wanted to casually warn him. Given the man's condition, taking more of this Liver-Severing Qi-Killing Pill might kill him.

But at this point, he could not be bothered to say anything.

Turtle people had their own blessings. He would not involve himself in a turtle's karma.

Gu Qingfeng, meanwhile, said that after taking it, his temper had become a little irritable, and he could not help wanting to slap her again.

The woman in purple looked at his palm, her body tensing. She hurriedly paid him and sent him away.

After leaving the Ghost Hand Apothecary, Gu Qingfeng felt refreshed and invigorated, with ten taels of silver more on him.

Who would have thought that the first bit of startup capital he earned after coming to this place would come entirely from working hard to take medicine?

Whether it was because the pill's liver-protecting effects were so obvious or something else, he felt that even the air carried a sweet fragrance.

Having only just arrived, Gu Qingfeng was quite curious about Red Tears City and decided to take a stroll.

Following the apothecary upward, he found that the streets were still packed with people.

Red Tears City had been built on a mountain, yet the terrain within the city was flatter than he had imagined.

Only when he saw over a hundred laborers digging away at the mountain did he understand why the city was flatter than expected.

Uneven stretches of mountain were dug away like this, expanding the usable area of the entire city.

At that moment, a shop ahead was packed shoulder to shoulder, buzzing with activity.

He was not someone who liked joining the excitement, but curiosity got the better of him, so he squeezed inside as well.

He wanted to see what they were selling that could draw so many people.

He had seen quite a few shops along the way. Even that beautiful young married woman selling human-milk skin had not drawn this many people.

According to the diners there, human milk was the spirit of all things. Human-milk skin was a great tonic, and eating it would make one's cultivation progress even further.

What could be more popular than human-milk skin?

Only after squeezing in did he learn that it was a weapon shop.

As expected of the Returning Ruins, where folk customs were so simple and honest—weaponry was even more popular than human milk!

Gu Qingfeng squeezed farther in and discovered that an auction was underway in the shop.

"Today's grand finale!"

"Spine swords! The Grudge Spine Swords just forged by Fire Qilin Manor!"

"There are only three of them!"

"They are heavy with resentment and incredibly powerful!"

As he spoke, a burly red-haired man yanked away the red cloth covering the swords.

In an instant, three pale-white spines appeared before everyone's eyes.

A few bright-red talismans were carved into the spine sword blades, while human faces formed the sword pommels above them.

The blades and pommels were clearly one whole, likely taken from the same person.

Spine swords were all about matching sets!

The three faces belonged to both men and women. Where their facial skin was missing, stark white bone showed through, making them rather horrifying.

Yet everyone else stared at them fixedly, their faces full of yearning.

Some were even drooling.

In Red Tears City, owning a sword like this was standard equipment for the strong. People would look at you differently when you walked down the street.

The red-haired man reached out and touched one of the sword pommels. That face-pommeld sword suddenly opened its mouth wide and tried to bite his hand.

"See that? Isn't it vicious?"

"Starting at four hundred taels of gold! Highest bidder wins!"

Hearing the price, someone below could not help complaining, "This is truly more expensive than gold!"

The red-haired man shook the three spine swords, saying impatiently, "Four hundred taels is expensive? These are the same style of spine swords used by Feng Kuang, the foremost divine swordsman!"

Someone below chimed in with a complaint, "What same style? They're just imitations."

The red-haired man snapped, "Damn it, for four hundred taels of gold, do you expect me to seal Feng Kuang's soul inside for you?"

"I'll give you ten thousand taels of gold. Go rob the real one from Dusk Temple!"

The man was rebutted into silence.

Soon, people began bidding, each calling out a higher price than the last.

In the end, all three Grudge Spine Swords sold for a thousand taels of gold each.

Of the three buyers, one was a plainly dressed cripple, while the other two, a man and a woman, were extravagantly attired.

The man wore a small mustache and a sable fur wrap despite the scorching weather, his hair combed so neatly that not a strand was out of place.

Dressed so warmly, he nevertheless held a folding fan and gently waved it, looking exceedingly showy.

The woman wore a long snow-white dress, like a fluttering fairy maiden.

The moment she got the spine sword, she casually tossed it to an attendant and said, "Take it. Give it to my little sister as a toy."

The three left with their swords under everyone's gaze.

Those three departing people and three spine swords were undoubtedly the center of the crowd's attention.

Meanwhile, Gu Qingfeng stood amid the crowd like some nameless lackey.

At that moment, a married couple in front of him was discussing something.

"Who's that guy in sable? He's so showy... mmph!"

Before she could say the final word, her husband covered her mouth.

"Keep your voice down. Didn't you see the words on his fan?"

"What words?"

"Riches Bloom."

The moment those four words were spoken, the surrounding area grew much quieter.

Because they represented the Riches Bloom Gate.

This was the second time Gu Qingfeng had heard the name of this sect today.

The first had been before entering the city, when he learned that the employer behind the Liu Household caravan's delivery was this very sect.

It was clear that this sect wielded considerable power, to the point that even discussing it required others to tread carefully.

For some reason, seeing the red-haired man in the shop selling spine swords with a clear conscience, seeing those three buying spine swords and leaving with a clear conscience, Gu Qingfeng, standing there like a lackey, could not help feeling flames rise in his heart.

It was not because they were richer than him, or because their weapons were of a much higher grade.

It was because the things they did with such a clear conscience looked deeply wrong to Gu Qingfeng.

In his eyes, forging a person's spine and skull into a sword while locking that person's wronged soul inside was not much different from the Golden Core Celestial Venerable skinning people, extracting their bones, and refining them into human pills.

There was a saying: hate the house and its crows.

Gu Qingfeng hated everything about the Golden Core Celestial Venerable, and so he also hated those like him.

These evil demons and Outer Dao scum truly deserved to die!

He would work hard!

Work hard at taking medicine, work hard at cultivating, work hard at finding chances to kill them all!

Then good people like him could live long lives, instead of dying unnatural deaths like his junior brother.

Within the crowded tide of people, no one noticed the fury in the eyes of this young hero wearing shorts and looking very poor.

Even though it seemed as though lions were hidden in his eyes.

Because every gaze belonged to the strong.

Gu Qingfeng did not care about that. Instead, intense fighting spirit rose within him.

Because he felt that he had found his calling.

How could a man not have a calling of his own!

His starting point was low now, but someday he would rise high.

He would surely make his heroic name resound throughout this place!

Surely!

The sky gradually darkened. After buying a bundle of incense, Gu Qingfeng headed back toward the Ghost Hand Apothecary.

It was plain to see that there were far fewer pedestrians on the streets.

That was because curfew was about to begin.

Yet some people did not care about such restrictions.

These people either wore colorful sect robes or were clearly extravagantly dressed children of Aristocratic Clans. Some even had women in both arms, practically wishing they could grope them openly in the street before the patrols.

Because curfew could not control people of status like them.

It could only control people without status, like Gu Qingfeng.

By then, he could just see the lanterns at the entrance of Ghosthand's Eighteenth Apothecary casting a patch of orange-yellow light.

Since he had resolved to eliminate evil and let good people live long lives, he would start with this apothecary that used human lives to test medicine!

You wanted my liver, so naturally I would not be too polite!