Fight If You Can, Die If You Can't

Perhaps infected by Chen Qiu's confidence, or perhaps because he remembered the bold words he had just spoken and did not want to show weakness now, Fat Dragon's expression shifted several times before he finally nodded with difficulty.

"Alright, let's gamble on it!"

He had rarely gone all-in in this life. Countless fellow entrepreneurs who had fallen in his previous life had taught him one truth: whether a company could survive long enough was not determined by how much profit a project made.

What truly determined it was how much the company would lose if that project failed.

He had never wanted to make his company bigger. He had only wanted it to live a little longer.

Compared to profit-taking points, he had spent far more of this life considering stop-loss points.

Only by living long enough could one wait for miracles.

Whether in his previous life or here.

"Mm."

Chen Qiu nodded with a smile, then headed straight outside the city gate. The few men outside the gate who looked at him in surprise were the people sent by the Huang Family. The moment they saw him step beyond the gate—

They tore off their black robes, drew long blades from their sleeves, and surrounded Chen Qiu and Fat Dragon, staring at them like hungry wolves and cutting off their route back to Heaven-Question Market.

These thugs looked rather old. Some even had age spots on the backs of their hands, yet the aura they gave off was not weak in the slightest.

"The Huang Family is conducting business!"

"Bystanders, stay clear!"

"Please give us some room!"

An elderly man in the Huang Family's standard long robe, his hands clasped behind his back, emerged from the crowd with a gloomy expression. He stopped before Chen Qiu and the others, remaining silent for a long while before saying with a half-smile, "You killed the Huang Family's young master and still swagger around so openly, not even wearing a cloak."

"You've got guts."

"Do you really think the Huang Family has no temper?"

Very soon—

Another three or four Huang Family thugs arrived, tearing off their black robes and joining the encirclement with long blades in hand. They stared fixedly at Chen Qiu and Fat Dragon, ready to swing their blades and kill the two of them at a single command.

These people were probably the Huang Family's Seventh Elder at the Eighth Level of the Qi Refining Realm mentioned in Fat Dragon's intelligence, along with the thugs the Huang Family had prepared to deal with them.

The people around them seemed long accustomed to such scenes. They scattered to either side without even a hint of surprise. As long as no fighting took place within Heaven-Question Market, no one would interfere even if the outside world was turned upside down.

"What do we do?"

Fat Dragon swept his gaze over the Huang Family thugs surrounding them with long blades in hand. He leaned close to Chen Qiu, constantly scanning their surroundings as he lowered his voice. "Whatever your plan is, shouldn't you tell me now?"

He had more or less guessed Chen Qiu's plan.

Just like last time, they would use the Earth-Escaping Technique and the Illusion Technique to flee. It was just that both techniques required the scene to be chaotic enough for them to fish in troubled waters.

So, Chen Qiu should be planning to create chaos later—perhaps by scattering a few Spirit Stones on the ground and dragging the surrounding spectators into the mess.

The temptation of several Spirit Stones was no small thing. There should be plenty of people unable to resist it.

When Windward City's Heavenly Dao Trait melee erupted, the Chen Qiu brothers were likely planning to use those two techniques to snatch chestnuts from the fire. The risk was a little high, but if they succeeded, the rewards would be astonishing.

Just as he had prepared himself to cooperate with Chen Qiu—

He suddenly felt a chill at his back.

"Hm?"

Fat Dragon instinctively turned around and saw a resentful spirit floating in midair behind him at some unknown time. Deathly energy clung to its entire body, making one's spine go cold.

The appearance of that resentful spirit was also extraordinarily familiar. It was none other than the Huang Family's young master who had died in the secret realm last night—

Huang Shikai!

"Huh?"

Fat Dragon could not help slowly opening his mouth wide, staring blankly and incredulously at the scene before him. He found it hard to imagine that Chen Qiu's plan could really be to charge out and kill them so directly.

Was he insane? This fucking counted as a plan?

Fight if you could win, die if you couldn't, was that it?

Then, the very next moment—

"Kill!!!"

Chen Qiu roared, violently pulling his Yellow Grade, Lower Class spirit treasure, the Heaven-Slayer saber, from his chest. He grabbed Huang Shikai by the collar and charged forward.

At the same time, the Huang Family's Seventh Elder shouted "Kill!" with an exceedingly ugly expression.

Naturally, he recognized the resentful spirit in Chen Qiu's hand as their Huang Family's young master. A hundred people had entered the secret realm last night, but only two had emerged alive. They had not known who killed the young master and could only vent all their resentment on these two survivors.

But he had not expected that these two beasts had truly killed the young master!

The order was given, and blades left their sheaths.

The Huang Family thugs surrounding Chen Qiu and Fat Dragon shouted in unison, their expressions resolute and cold. Without holding back in the slightest, they all swung their blades at Chen Qiu. Though they were old and their condition had declined somewhat, they had lost none of the combat experience accumulated over the years.

When it came to ganging up on the few, they were the most experienced.

However—

"Clang!"

Several sounds like blades striking steel rang out abruptly.

It worked, just as expected.

A curve rose at the corner of Chen Qiu's mouth. His left hand clutched Huang Shikai by the collar, while his right gripped the saber hilt as he charged into the crowd and began hacking wildly!

He did not understand any saber techniques.

But he knew that when a blade struck a neck, someone died.

Huang Shikai's trait effect was the yellow trait, No Attacks from Behind or the Sides. Attacks coming from behind or from the sides of the body would be completely nullified. While alive, this trait was not particularly useful, and its drawbacks were somewhat severe.

But after death, once he became a resentful spirit, this trait became exceptionally useful—like a shield possessing absolute defense.

Especially since resentful spirits were soul-type existences and had almost no weight. Holding one in hand did not affect movement at all.

In practically no time at all, the six or seven Huang Family thugs at the Fifth and Sixth Levels of the Qi Refining Realm were lying in pools of blood without the slightest ability to fight back.

The gap between the Sixth Level of the Qi Refining Realm and the Seventh Level of the Qi Refining Realm was not as vast as heaven and earth.

But it was not small either.

His realm already crushed theirs, and on top of that, he had a massive shield with absolute defense. Killing them came with no pressure at all.

Before Fat Dragon could react, Chen Qiu was already carrying Huang Shikai in his left hand and waving his long saber in his right as he charged toward the Huang Family's Seventh Elder at the rear.

"Come!"

At that moment, Chen Qiu was somewhat bloodshot-eyed from killing. The ferocious aura he carried made even the surrounding bystanders instinctively retreat several steps.

Several breaths later.

Fat Dragon stared blankly at Chen Qiu's back. Before he could even draw his own blade and join the battle, he saw Chen Qiu already beginning to dismember the Huang Family's Seventh Elder's corpse.

Arms, thighs, head.

He dismembered it with the effortless ease of a master butcher carving an ox. Then, with practiced familiarity, he searched through Elder Huang's robe. After a while, he pulled out three storage bags and stuffed them into his robes with satisfaction. He then ran over to the other thugs and searched their bodies for quite some time before finally turning back to Fat Dragon.

"Did you come here to watch the show?"

"Want me to sing you another song?"

"Was it really that simple and brutal?"

"What else would it be?"

Chen Qiu nodded, rolling his eyes at Fat Dragon irritably. He patted his bulging money pouch with satisfaction, casually took out a few taels of silver, and tossed them into the hands of the commander of the guards at Heaven-Question Market's gate. "Sorry to trouble you brothers with cleaning up this mess later."

"Just a little tea money."

.