Water-Cutting Saber Art

Night lay heavy.

Li Feng and Wang Meng walked along the road home.

For safety's sake, they deliberately avoided the direction of the South City District. A new gang had recently sprung up there and was secretly vying with the Black Tiger Gang for territory, leaving the area unsettled.

After they had walked some distance, Wang Meng broke the silence. "Feng, the Chief Constable told you to resign as a White Runner tomorrow. What are you planning to do? Are you really going to quit?"

Li Feng looked at the pitch-black street ahead and shook his head. "I've considered it, but I haven't made up my mind."

"The Chief Constable was right, though. This job is too dangerous."

Wang Meng sighed. "You saw what happened today. Even with his Martial Dao cultivation at the qi-blood third stage, Constable Lin had his right hand crippled by a single palm strike and was severely injured. If he hadn't put himself on the line to protect us, all our brothers might have met their end there..."

"If there's no other way, find a martial arts school and train. Your sister-in-law has been a Chief Constable for several years, so she should have saved some of her pay. Once you've made a little progress in the Martial Dao, joining an escort agency or guarding the estate of a great lineage would both be good options. Either would be much safer than serving as a runner."

Li Feng nodded. "I understand. I know my sister-in-law is doing this for my own good."

"In these troubled times, where the Martial Dao reigns supreme, it's hard to survive without learning martial arts." Wang Meng patted Li Feng's shoulder and said earnestly, "Anyway, give it some serious thought when you get home. Whatever path you choose, staying alive matters more than anything."

Li Feng nodded silently. "I understand, Brother Wang. Head home. Be careful on the way."

"You keep your wits about you, too. Don't go wandering out at night." Wang Meng sighed, waved, and turned away, disappearing into the darkness.

Watching Wang Meng leave, Li Feng hurried home as well. After making sure the doors and windows were shut, he lay down on his bed. The day's ordeals had exhausted him, and before long, he fell into a deep sleep.

Early the next morning, dawn had barely broken, and Blackrock City was still shrouded in a thin mist.

Li Feng rose on time and, as usual, went to the front courtyard of the City Guard Office to report for duty.

As soon as he stepped through the courtyard gate, he saw that quite a few White Runners in identical uniforms had already gathered in small groups, whispering among themselves.

Li Feng was about to find a corner to stand in when hurried footsteps suddenly sounded beside him.

"Li Feng! Brother Feng, over here!"

Li Feng turned and saw a skinny young man rushing toward him.

He was Zhang San, a fellow White Runner at the City Guard Office.

"What is it, Zhang San? Why are you in such a hurry?" Li Feng asked, puzzled.

"The higher-ups just sent down an urgent assignment!"

Zhang San caught his breath and continued, "Something happened on the streets over in Changle Ward! The Black Tiger Gang and another gang just had a bloody clash there. Plenty of people were killed or wounded. They want us to hurry over and clean up the scene. We'll probably get chewed out if we're late."

The moment he heard "clean up the scene," Li Feng understood.

Blackrock City's outer city was utterly chaotic. Gang clashes were as commonplace as everyday meals, with a dozen or twenty people dying at the drop of a hat.

"Washing the streets" meant clearing away the wreckage and bodies left after a gang battle.

Without wasting words, he nodded, turned around with Zhang San, and hurried toward the scene.

Before long, the two reached the site of the clash.

Even though Li Feng had lived two lives and his temperament was already far from ordinary, the sight before him still made him frown slightly.

More than a dozen corpses lay scattered every which way along both sides of the road. Their deaths had been gruesome. They appeared to have been hacked apart by a flurry of blades, leaving them scarcely recognizable as human. Dried blood stained the ground everywhere.

"Tsk, tsk. The Black Tiger Gang usually throws its weight around, but today they finally ran into a hard nut to crack." Muttering under his breath, Zhang San dragged a battered wooden cart out of a corner.

"Less talk. Get to work," another runner beside them said quietly, then grabbed his tools and prepared to clean up the scene.

Looking at the carnage, Li Feng could only shake his head.

He had only transmigrated into this world a month ago, yet this was already the second time he had seen such a sight.

According to his more experienced colleagues, gang battles like this were commonplace. Sometimes, entire households were slaughtered.

Even the better-regulated inner city had corpses tossed out of it from time to time, and temporary runners like them were responsible for cleaning up afterward.

Just last week, a colleague had taken a couple of extra glances at a wealthy lady coming out of the inner city. Her accompanying guard had broken both his legs in the street and dumped him by the roadside.

Wash the streets, wash the streets!

Li Feng stepped forward to help as well.

In truth, in such a chaotic world, a White Runner's work was already a reasonably good livelihood. Though it could not compare with being a regular runner, their lives were still tolerable compared with those of commoners at the bottom.

As long as they watched their tongues, did not stare at wealthy ladies, stayed out of other people's business, did not talk back to their superiors, and honestly kept to their place, they were generally fairly safe.

He had only obtained this job thanks to the sister-in-law he had acquired with this new life. After becoming a Chief Constable, she had pulled a few strings to arrange a temporary runner's position for him. If he managed to enter the Martial Dao later on, he could be promoted to a regular runner.

The men got busy, splitting up to deal with the aftermath.

Like the others, Li Feng made a show of cleaning while secretly feeling around the corpses.

It was not that he had some strange fetish. After a gang clash, the survivors were in a hurry to leave, so the remaining bodies would inevitably have a few valuables on them—some silver, jewelry, or other things worth money.

There was no reason to leave such easy pickings untouched. Looting corpses counted as an extra "allowance" for temporary runners like them. The higher-ups certainly knew, but kept one eye open and the other shut.

Sometimes, however, they found nothing at all. Their luck was not always so good, and some bolder commoners would get there first and take everything.

Li Feng searched the clothing of the corpse he was handling and found only a few scattered copper coins.

Still, he was pleased. For temporary runners like them, even finding a few loose copper coins was something to be happy about.

As Li Feng tucked the coins into his robe, he glanced at Zhang San nearby. The fellow had probably found something too, judging by the furtive way he was busily stuffing things into his pockets.

Not to be outdone, Li Feng moved to another corpse, crouched down, and continued feeling around. Suddenly, something felt odd beneath his fingers. It was neither hard copper coins nor silver fragments, nor any valuable jewelry. It felt more like something made of paper.

Li Feng's heart tightened at once.

In chaotic Blackrock City, taking loose silver from a dead man was one thing, but strange paper objects like this were not to be touched carelessly. No one knew whether they might bring a deadly disaster down upon him.

But after a brief hesitation, reckless daring rose in him. Using the darkness and the corpse as cover, he lifted the dead man's inner garment slightly and took a look.

It was a small, rather worn booklet stained with a little blood. A few indistinct words were faintly visible on the cover: Water-Cutting Saber Art.