Black Warrior

Peace City, within a courtyard compound.

Night had already deepened, yet the lights in the courtyard remained lit.

A middle-aged man with a long beard stood with a gloomy face, his hands clasped behind his back as he paced back and forth across the yard.

The air was thick with the mingled scent of various medicinal herbs.

Inside the eastern wing room.

An elderly physician in white robes, carrying a medicine chest, slowly emerged from the room. Seeing this, the middle-aged man hurried over and asked anxiously, "Doctor Ou, how is my nephew now?"

Doctor Ou merely shook his head, then nodded. "There is no immediate danger. His internal organs suffered some injury, but it will not endanger his Life Essence. He should recover after taking medicine for a week. It is only those arms..."

"What about his arms?"

The middle-aged man's expression changed, and he pressed the question repeatedly.

"His arms and finger bones were severely injured, shattered beyond recognition. Though I used special methods to set them and applied secret medicine everywhere, recovery will take at least half a year."

Doctor Ou paused, raising a hand to wipe the sweat from his forehead. Setting bones had been exhausting work for an old physician like him.

"Moreover, it may affect his future martial training."

"So his hands are ruined?"

"If he recuperates properly, he can still train normally. He merely needs to watch his strength at all times and avoid fighting others."

"For a martial artist, how is that any different from being crippled?!"

Hearing Doctor Ou's words, the middle-aged man's face turned extremely ugly. He then asked urgently, "Doctor Ou, your clinic is an old local establishment. You should have some rare medicines that can set bones and restore the meridians, no? So long as they work, I am willing to pay no matter the price!"

"Hall Master Cui, this old man does have some rare medicinal ingredients, but they are used to preserve lives or treat internal injuries. I do not have anything that can treat bones broken to this extent."

"But there is no need to panic. I have heard that the pharmacies run by foreigners may possess some expensive special medicines. They might have some effect."

By the end, Doctor Ou looked somewhat uncertain himself, but he still pointed this Deputy Hall Master Cui of Garden Celebration Hall toward a possible path.

"The foreign pharmacies only sell ordinary medicines on the market. As for the channels for those special medicines... sigh! Never mind, Doctor Ou. It is late now. I will have someone escort you home."

Cui Fangxing's brows knitted tightly. He then sighed and waved his hand, calling in a young subordinate from outside the courtyard to escort the physician home and settle the medical fees along the way.

He stood where he was, watching the physician's retreating back. Then he turned and entered the wing room, taking one look at his already unconscious nephew, Cui Budong. His face was full of heartache and fury.

"Damn Tongda Escort Agency, and that old bastard Duan Deshun!"

Cui Fangxing did not disturb his nephew's rest. He merely closed the door, then turned and crossed the corridor toward the reception hall on the other side.

In the darkness, a flicker of furnace fire swayed within the spacious reception hall.

A bald man, rather short in stature but extremely bloated in build, like a little spinning top, sat in a chair beside a square table. He casually crossed one leg over the other and drank tea by himself.

At his side stood two young men wearing round dark glasses and black robes, their facial skin iron-blue. They remained utterly motionless on either side of his chair.

If one did not approach for a closer look, one might have thought they were not people, but two corpses.

The fire beside the table burned fiercely, while steam from the boiling kettle drifted endlessly through the room, making the faces of the three men flicker between light and shadow.

"Brother Zhou, I have kept you waiting!"

Cui Fangxing stepped over the threshold, reined in all his earlier emotions, and cupped his hands in greeting toward the bald man with a face full of flesh.

This bald man was named Zhou Mo, a Black Warrior from the Stockade.

In his younger days, Zhou Mo had also come from a wealthy household in a nearby county. Later, in order to cultivate an evil art, he blood-sacrificed his family.

After arriving in Peace City, he had robbed and murdered quite a few civilians. Hunted by the Patrol Bureau, he fled into the Stockade and joined an assassin organization, carrying out assassination work that could not bear the light of day.

"Hall Master Cui, have you considered it carefully? If you have not, I will not be returning the deposit."

Zhou Mo set down his teacup, glanced sideways at Cui Fangxing, and smiled with amusement.

Cui Fangxing hesitated again and again. Thinking of his nephew's nearly ruined hands, he finally nodded forcefully, took several banknotes he had long prepared from his robes, and placed them on the square table. "I have considered it. Help me kill that brat Jiang Jingnian."

As Deputy Hall Master of Garden Celebration Hall, he had only been driven back by that old mongrel Duan Deshun at Su Family Restaurant a few days earlier.

If he personally moved against Jiang Jingnian again at such a critical juncture, any trace left behind could immediately provoke retaliation from the escort agency's experts.

Thus.

Cui Fangxing contacted the Black Warriors of the Stockade.

"I just looked over the information you gave me. That brat is the new disciple of that Duan Escort Chief, a Blood Tempering Stage Martial Master who cultivates an Iron Body Skill."

Zhou Mo glanced at the silver dollars on the table, the flesh on his face trembling incessantly. "These few hundred silver dollars will at most get me to cripple his hands as well. If you want him dead, you will need to pay more!"

He then continued, "Hall Master Cui, you also know that most Martial Masters who cultivate Iron Body Skills find it difficult to get started and difficult to advance. Yet compared with Martial Masters who train fist arts, leg arts, or weapons, they are much stronger, because both their physical toughness and recovery abilities are exceptionally formidable."

"Your nephew is, after all, a Bone Tempering Stage martial artist. Though he only entered that stage not long ago and his bones have not yet been fully nurtured, the fact that he was crippled by a single move shows just how fierce an Iron Body Skill Martial Master can be!"

After hearing him out, Cui Fangxing did not argue. He only pondered briefly before slowly asking, "How much do you want?"

"Besides the earlier deposit, one fixed price: fifteen hundred silver dollars!"

Zhou Mo raised a hand in a gesture.

"...Fine."

Even Cui Fangxing, a deputy hall master, showed a pained expression at that price.

Martial artists might earn quite a bit, but their expenses were enormous. There was no need to mention food, clothing, and daily necessities; there were also the costs of secret medicines, blood food, and all manner of resources. Money flowed away like water, and even a landlord's household had little surplus grain.

Even a Marrow Tempering Stage martial artist could not produce much cash at once.

He then went to another room to retrieve more banknotes. After returning to the reception hall, he stacked them together with the earlier notes and pushed them before Zhou Mo. "Brother Zhou, count them."

Zhou Mo took the banknotes and counted them. Then he smiled in satisfaction. "Good, then it is settled! Within a week, you will surely hear news of that young escort lying dead in the street."

Jiang Jingnian might be an Iron Body Skill Martial Master.

But were the three master and disciples not the same?

"Then I will sit and await Brother Zhou's good news."

Seeing this, Cui Fangxing smiled as well.

Two Bone Tempering Stage Martial Masters cultivating the Corpse Garment Technique, paired with Zhou Mo, a Marrow Tempering Stage Martial Master cultivating a special evil art.

With those three joining hands, he could not see how a mere Blood Tempering Stage Martial Master could possibly survive.

After all.

Even Duan Deshun could not remain at his disciple's side at every moment as a guard.