Pests!

The night was deep, yet the gambling den was still brightly lit and bustling with noise.

The howls of gamblers who had lost their shirts mingled with the triumphant laughter of winners.

Wang Lang bypassed the main entrance and scaled the wall from the side and rear, landing in the backyard.

Unlike the clamor out front, the backyard was much quieter.

A few rooms had lights on, and the sounds of finger-guessing games and drinking could be faintly heard.

Judging by the auras, the strongest source of Blood Essence was in the largest room in the center.

Body Tempering second layer, that must be the gang leader, Zhao Hu.

Wang Lang didn't hesitate and walked straight towards it.

"Who?!" The two gang members on guard at the door, seeing a dark figure approach, shouted out in challenge.

Wang Lang flickered, appearing before them like a phantom. His hands clamped onto their throats, and he applied a slight bit of force.

Crack.

The two men collapsed softly to the ground, their eyes still wide with shock.

Wang Lang pushed open the door.

Inside, Zhao Hu, the leader of the Changle Gang, was drinking alone at a table laden with food and wine.

Hearing the commotion, he looked up in surprise and saw a strange young face. Enraged, he bellowed:

"What little bastard are you, daring to barge into my..."

Before he could finish, Zhao Hu's pupils contracted sharply.

A sense of mortal danger, one that made his soul tremble, washed over him!

Wang Lang moved. No wasted words, no probing, he channeled fifty points of Intent into his right fist and threw a punch!

Zhao Hu, being Body Tempering second layer, reacted swiftly. His entire body erupted with Blood Essence, attempting to block.

But it was a complete mismatch in stats.

A dull thud echoed.

Zhao Hu's head exploded, just like Liu Biao's, a mixture of red and white matter along with bone fragments spraying radially onto the wall and screen behind him.

His headless torso swayed for a moment before crashing to the ground.

Wang Lang didn't even glance at the body and turned to leave the room.

His objective was clear: the Changle Gang, leave no one alive.

Wang Lang's figure flickered through the various rooms in the backyard.

With the physical strength of Body Tempering second layer, amplified by Intent, each strike inevitably took a life.

Some gang members met Yama in their sleep.

Others were startled awake, only to have their chests pierced by a fist before they could even grab their weapons.

Some knelt and begged for mercy, tears streaming down their faces:

"Sir! Spare me! I just joined today, I haven't done anything!"

"I have an eighty-year-old mother and a three-year-old child at home, I was forced into this!"

Wang Lang turned a deaf ear, his expression unchanged, his fist falling with each word.

He knew the Changle Gang.

Before Old Wang's lesson three years ago, one had to commit ten evil deeds as a letter of introduction to formally join the gang.

Although they outwardly restrained themselves afterward, their dark deeds never stopped.

Anyone here, one by one, was not innocent.

To spare them would be the greatest injustice to those they had oppressed, or even killed.

Mercy towards evil is cruelty towards good.

He understood this principle even in his previous life.

Screams, pleas for mercy, the sound of shattering bones... rose and fell in the night, and soon fell silent.

After the last gang member, who tried to escape by climbing the wall, was killed by Wang Lang's palm strike from a distance, the entire backyard fell silent.

Wang Lang stood in the center of the courtyard, corpses strewn at his feet.

The thick smell of blood rose to the sky, and even the distant clamor of the casino seemed to diminish.

He found kerosene, piled up the bodies, and set them ablaze.

Flames shot up with a roar, spreading rapidly.

The fiery orange light illuminated his calm, unruffled face, and also reflected the dancing light in his eyes.

He wondered, why?

Why did Qinglin City have a City Lord's Mansion, yet allow a tumor like the Changle Gang to exist for so many years?

Impossible.

Or perhaps they couldn't be bothered? But the City Lord's Mansion had several Body Tempering martial artists and Qi Induction cultivators stationed there.

Then, they simply didn't want to get involved? Or were there some hidden benefits at play?

Flames crackled and spat, reddening half the sky.

Wang Lang flickered, appearing on a distant tree to observe the aftermath.

"Fire! Quick, call for help!"

A cry of alarm and the clamor of people fighting the fire echoed from afar.

The shouts attracted a crowd, but when they saw the fire was in the backyard of the gambling den, all intentions of helping vanished, replaced by a silent understanding among the onlookers.

They stood in silence, merely ensuring the flames wouldn't spread to their own homes.

Wang Lang withdrew his gaze, no longer paying attention.

He reached the city wall, channeled Qi into his legs, and leaped out with ease, disappearing into the night outside the city.

The next day, at dawn.

Qinglin City was like cold water thrown into boiling oil, completely exploding.

News of the Changle Gang's annihilation overnight and the burning of their headquarters spread through the streets and alleys at an astonishing speed.

In tea houses, taverns, and street corners, everyone was talking.

"Did you hear? The Changle Gang is gone! Heaven's eyes have opened!"

"I wonder which expert passed by and acted righteously, taking care of that scourge in one go!"

"Heh, my relative works for the yamen. They say the scene was incredible, tsk tsk, Zhao Hu didn't even have his head left!"

"Serves them right! Those damned scoundrels should have faced retribution long ago!"

"But I heard there was a guy named Li Laosi who ran out to hide yesterday afternoon because he owed money and wasn't at the gang's headquarters. He narrowly escaped.

When he came back this morning and saw the scene, he was so scared he wet himself and ran straight out of the city!"

"It's good he ran. Saves the expert from dirtying his hands."

"What does the City Lord's Mansion have to say about it?"

"What can they say? They posted a notice saying it's suspected to be a martial arts feud and they're investigating. Honestly, it's probably just a formality..."

All sorts of rumors swirled, with some applauding, some still trembling with fear, and others speculating about the powerful individual responsible.

The downfall of the Changle Gang was, for the people of Qinglin City, like a great stone lifted from their hearts.

And at this moment, the instigator of the event, Wang Lang, was in the vegetable garden he had cultivated behind Listening Waves Mountain Manor.

The morning sun shone on the lush green leaves, dew drops glistening.

The field was planted with the common Jade Green Cabbage of this world, similar to the napa cabbage from his previous life.

There was also a tuber crop called Red Root Vine, its leaves resembling sweet potato vines.

The tubers buried in the soil looked like beets, dark red all over, full of juice, and were the main source of his staple food in the past.

The crops were growing well.

He held a small hoe, first loosening the soil between the vegetable rows, then put down the hoe, and bent over to crush the plump green caterpillars clinging to the backs of the leaves with his fingers.

Looking at the insects devouring the leaves, Wang Lang's movements slowed.

He suddenly felt that villains were like these insects.

They lurked beneath the bright leaves, constantly gnawing at the flesh of the plant.

Today he saw it, it seemed clean.

But tomorrow, who knew from which corner new ones would emerge.

As if they could never be completely eradicated.

Wang Lang straightened up, looking at the small patch of land where he had once poured his heart and soul, and suddenly felt a sense of emptiness.

With the [Innate Qi], these foods had lost their most basic meaning for him.

He stopped killing insects and instead began to harvest the fully grown Jade Green Cabbage and Red Root Vines one by one.

"Since I'm not eating them anymore, it would be a waste to leave them. After this harvest, this land... I'll just let it lie fallow."

In fact, Listening Waves Mountain Manor had many fertile fields, most of which were distributed in villages and towns dozens of miles around Mingyue Mountain.

But Old Wang had gradually given them away to the peasants who rented them or were living in hardship over the past few decades.

He called it accumulating good deeds and virtue, benefiting the local community.

Wang Lang didn't mind Old Wang's behavior of being a generous benefactor.

Because he understood the old man's plight.

The Wang family of Listening Waves Mountain Manor was only on its third generation with Old Wang.

Old Wang's wife had passed away early after giving birth to their son. He had raised their only child through hardship, hoping for the family line to continue.

Unfortunately, fate was not kind. When Wang Lang was five years old, his adoptive father, who had not yet married, Old Wang's biological son, passed away from a serious illness.

From then on, Old Wang's last blood relative in this world was gone.

Perhaps it was these successive blows that caused him to divide his remaining emotions and hopes in life into two.

One part went into acting righteously for his own peace of mind, and the other part was placed upon him, an orphan he had found by the water.

Perhaps it was precisely because of this reliance that Wang Lang was able to continue staying at the manor.

Otherwise, Old Wang could have easily found a good family and given them some money to entrust Wang Lang to them.

But in the end, he did not do so. Instead, he guarded their last ancestral property and raised Wang Lang.

Wang Lang, holding a bundle of cabbages, looked in the general direction of the villages in the distance.

"I hope those common folk can hold onto the fields you gave them."