The Situation I

He pulled his hand out of a heap of mangled flesh and grease, looking at the bald man before him whose upper body had been completely mashed into pulp.

Only then did the light in Jiang Jingnian's eyes slowly fade.

"Feeling a little better."

He rose to his feet and casually shook his hands. "My hands... don't itch as much anymore."

The scorching restlessness roiling within him had eased considerably.

His hands gleamed with a bronze luster, as though wrapped in a thin membrane. All the filthy grime stuck to his palms and the backs of his hands was separated by that bronze film, then shaken loose and flung onto the ground.

At this moment.

The alley was narrow, silent, and deserted.

He glanced toward the residential houses farther down and saw that all their doors and windows were tightly shut. After hearing the commotion here, the residents had apparently hurriedly sealed themselves inside, terrified that trouble might fall upon them by accident.

The martial artist community.

To most local residents, it was hardly a secret.

After all, even on the bustling streets, gangs could occasionally be seen fighting each other. From time to time, unlucky passersby would get swept into the fray.

Yet so long as the affected area was not too broad, the foreign police would naturally turn a blind eye to the deaths and injuries of one or two civilians. At most, they would make inquiries afterward and have the martial artists compensate the victims with some money, and the matter would be considered settled.

As for paying with their lives?

Impossible.

In every era of Chen State, martial artists had belonged to a privileged class. Even after the Western Allied Forces shattered the Dragon Vein and their status declined, they still stood far above ordinary civilians.

"A pity I couldn't pry any information out of him."

"But the only people who've had direct conflicts with me recently are those few. And the ones capable of hiring Black Warriors to kill me are most likely people from Garden Celebration Hall."

"No wonder they've been so quiet lately. They neither came to cause trouble nor tried to reconcile. Were they waiting to see me end up dying in the street?"

A chill surfaced in Jiang Jingnian's eyes.

Though he had no conclusive evidence, that did not hinder his speculation.

After all, there were only around three people who were most likely to bear him a grudge.

The Tao Family's Sixth Young Master, Qian Shiqi from the escort agency, and Garden Celebration Hall's Young Hall Master.

There was no need to say much about the Tao Family. If they had truly discovered something wrong with the Hongfeng Mountain incident, they would definitely deal with him personally. They would have had the Black Flood Dragon Army surround the escort agency long ago; there was no need to go to the extra trouble of hiring assassins.

As for Qian Shiqi, the runner at the escort agency, the day after his master had accepted him as a disciple, Qian Shiqi had brought several young men and women to apologize and offer gifts. The matter of the arena challenge had been turned over, a page already flipped.

Of course, it was also possible that they had deliberately lulled him into letting down his guard, only to secretly hire someone for revenge afterward. That possibility did exist.

But it was unlikely.

By comparison, the Young Hall Master of Garden Celebration Hall, whom he had injured only a few days ago, was overwhelmingly more likely to have hired killers for revenge. Combined with some of Garden Celebration Hall's recent actions, that was probably exactly what had happened.

As for Tang Shiming, whom he had spoken with in the department store a few nights ago, Jiang Jingnian ran through him in his mind as well before placing him lower on the list of possibilities.

After thinking briefly.

Jiang Jingnian bent down to search the corpse. Yet after feeling around the remains for a while, he discovered that apart from several concealed weapons, the man had brought nothing valuable with him—no jewelry, no money pouch.

Not even a single copper coin.

"These martial artists are way too cautious, aren't they? They don't carry valuables on them?"

"This is a little different from those web novels I read in my previous life! Shouldn't equipment, martial arts manuals, map fragments, gold, and silver be exploding all over the ground?"

"There's actually nothing at all."

Jiang Jingnian was somewhat speechless at this. He turned around and began searching the two sunglass-wearing men lying on the ground.

The moment these two Martial Masters who cultivated the Corpse Garment Technique laid hands on him, he had broken their weak points in reverse.

Like the Copper-Mirror Iron Garment Technique, the Corpse Garment Technique was a variant of the Iron Garment Technique.

Yet although both were variants, the difference between them was absurdly vast—greater even than the difference between fist techniques and blade techniques.

As a quick-success evil art, the Corpse Garment Technique not only had many side effects, but also countless flaws and weaknesses.

It was adequate for dealing with martial artists from wild, unorthodox backgrounds.

But against a Martial Master like Jiang Jingnian, who also cultivated hard techniques and possessed Mirror Reflection Insight, its weak point was naturally exposed at first contact.

After their Corpse Garment Technique was broken, the two immediately suffered backlash. In the next instant, the recoil of his qi and blood knocked them unconscious.

They still had not awakened.

That was the drawback of suffering backlash from cultivating evil arts.

If they had been proper Martial Masters at the Bone Tempering Stage, they could at least have exchanged one or two moves with him.

"Good. Both of them have money pouches."

Jiang Jingnian rummaged through them, weighed the money pouches in his hands, and found at least several dozen silver dollars inside. A gratified smile appeared on his face.

"Mm..."

At that moment, the man on the right, wearing sunglasses and with iron-blue skin, let out a dazed sound from where he lay.

He was gradually waking from his earlier unconsciousness.

Smack!

Thud!

The instant that muffled sound arose, two crisp, watermelon-like cracks suddenly echoed through the alley.

The two black-robed men whose Corpse Garment Technique had already been broken, necks and all, burst apart like fruit.

Red and white splattered across the surrounding bluestone pavement.

Jiang Jingnian stepped over the two headless corpses with an indifferent expression. He casually ground his boots against the ground beside them a few times, scraping the filth from their soles.

Then, without looking back, he left the alley.

After being ambushed like this, his vigilance had risen to the utmost limit. He worried that if he continued wandering outside, he might encounter the enemy's follow-up measures.

So Jiang Jingnian swiftly headed to another street at once. After finding a rickshaw parked by the roadside, he immediately set off back, instructing the rickshaw puller to travel only along the main roads where there were plenty of people.

As for reporting the matter to the foreign police?

That possibility did not remain in Jiang Jingnian's mind for even a second.

That was because he had never truly trusted those foreigners.

The following morning.

Having rested and recuperated for the night, Jiang Jingnian emerged from his room, intending to find the steward in charge of this line of business at the escort agency and report last night's ambush.

After all, whether Garden Celebration Hall had hired assassins behind the scenes or not.

This Su Family bodyguard assignment required more support, or a stronger escort master, to handle it.

Yet as soon as he came downstairs to the entrance of the courtyard, he discovered that Chai Li and several other familiar runners were already waiting beneath a nearby tree.

They chatted beneath the tree while eating steaming meat buns.

When Chai Li saw Jiang Jingnian emerge from the building courtyard, her eyes lit up. She hurried forward to greet him. "Escort Master Jiang, good morning!"

She then handed over a breakfast wrapped in oiled paper. "Have some. Steward Li came by just now and informed us that we're to attend a meeting in the conference hall of the central courtyard later."

"What's going on?"

Jiang Jingnian casually accepted the paper packet and sniffed its contents. Only then did he pick up a meat bun, take a huge bite, and stuff most of it into his mouth. "Weren't we supposed to have the regular meeting tomorrow?"

The escort agency's regular meetings were held on the same two days every week.

Unless something unusual happened.

"I'm not sure either. I asked Steward Li earlier, but he only said the escort agency was going to adjust its business recently or something, so the regular meeting had been moved up."

Chai Li shook her head.

She was merely a runner at the escort agency. Though she had more seniority than most runners and apprentices, compared to those escort masters who formed the backbone of the agency, she was still only someone who did odd jobs.