Slaughtering jackals, first word of cultivation (please bookmark)

Yang Xiao crouched on the ground, working on the corpse while Butcher watched behind him. Suddenly, Butcher scanned their surroundings, his gaze settling on the west as his right hand slowly moved toward the Pig-Slaughtering Saber at his waist.

After tying up the corpse, Yang Xiao clapped his sand-covered hands to shake off the yellow grit, then stood and turned. "All done. Let's get moving."

Only then did he notice that Butcher stood motionless with his back to him. His gaze fell on Butcher's right hand, which had closed around the knife's handle. His eyes narrowed, and an ominous feeling rose in his heart. Had he run into a bandit? Was Butcher going to kill him?

Yang Xiao slowly backed away and asked evenly, "What happened? Why aren't you moving?"

With his back still turned, Butcher said, "Are jackals approaching?"

Yang Xiao looked around. Yellow sand stretched between heaven and earth. He gave an awkward laugh. "What jackals? Did you sleep badly last night and start seeing things?"

Awooo!

Several jackals howled the moment he finished speaking. A few appeared on the dunes to either side, their pairs of gleaming green eyes sending chills down his back. Perhaps he was imagining it, but Yang Xiao felt that these jackals were staring only at him.

"Run!"

Yang Xiao shouted, turned, and ran. He could no longer spare a thought for Butcher. At a glance, there were at least ten jackals coming. An ordinary person might survive one; against two, he would have one chance in ten. Against ten, he could only leave his fate to heaven.

The jackals had come from the west. In the instant he had stood stunned, they had begun closing a ring around them. Yang Xiao ran toward the eastern dune, but how could two legs outrun four? Before he was halfway up, jackals blocked his path, frightening him into tumbling down the dune.

As luck would have it, he rolled straight to Butcher's feet. Unlike him, Butcher remained utterly calm under the stares of more than ten jackals. He looked at them as though they were already dead.

Knowing he could not escape, Yang Xiao rose from the ground and watched his surroundings warily. He bitterly regretted not bringing the kitchen cleaver. At least then he would have had a weapon to fight back with and could have killed a few for revenge before dying.

Perhaps he was imagining it, but there seemed to be some wariness in the jackals' eyes as they looked at them.

The jackals kept growling, something they did only when confronted with a powerful enemy.

He looked at Butcher. He knew perfectly well how much he himself amounted to; the only person the jackals could fear was Butcher.

"Great hero, if you know any supreme martial arts or divine magic, hurry up and use them. I'll refund your deposit if I have to. Consider this trip the price of my life," Yang Xiao said nervously.

Butcher frowned. "Can you use a knife?"

Yang Xiao looked at the Pig-Slaughtering Saber at his waist and licked his lips, a surge of hot blood rising in his chest.

He glanced at the jackals around them. Though they had surrounded the pair, they clearly did not dare approach. They were truly afraid of Butcher, though Yang Xiao had no idea why.

He had never encountered so many jackals before, but with a weapon, he might just dare to fight them.

"Catch." Butcher tossed him the Pig-Slaughtering Saber. This was his first full look at it. Its handle was round, and its blade was twice the size of an ordinary Pig-Slaughtering Saber. It looked less like a tool for killing pigs and more like one for... killing people.

For some reason, holding the Pig-Slaughtering Saber filled Yang Xiao with excitement. As he looked at the surrounding jackals, icy killing intent glinted in his eyes.

Awoo!

One jackal growled, leaped off the dune, and lunged at him with its jaws open.

Yang Xiao fixed his eyes on it. Just before it reached him, he dodged swiftly and slashed backhand, splattering himself with blood.

He swallowed. The Pig-Slaughtering Saber was far too sharp, like a divine weapon from the martial arts novels of his previous life. A single slash had cleaved the jackal in two.

The surrounding jackals watched him uneasily, growling again and again, yet not one dared approach.

The sight excited Yang Xiao even more. With his extraordinary recovery, even an injury would heal quickly.

He took the initiative and charged at the jackals. Halfway there, three rushed to meet him.

Gripping the Pig-Slaughtering Saber, Yang Xiao accelerated into the attack. Before the jackals on either side reached him, he hacked the one directly ahead to death.

The other two reached his back just then. Taking a claw strike head-on, Yang Xiao hacked down the jackal on his right. Seeing this, the one on his left turned and fled, joined by the jackals on the dunes.

Yang Xiao cried out in excitement. In the past, he could only flee whenever he encountered more than three jackals, because an injury would mean being eaten, making even his recovery ability useless. Now things were different. With the Pig-Slaughtering Saber, he had frightened off seven jackals and killed three.

He walked up to the Butcher and handed the Pig-Slaughtering Saber back. Fine as it was, it did not belong to him.

The Butcher took the Pig-Slaughtering Saber and gave him a meaningful look.

Yang Xiao tore a strip from his black robe and bound the wound the jackal had clawed open. An injury like this would heal before long.

He walked up the dune and said, "Let's go."

The Butcher glanced at the corpse behind them. "Aren't you taking him?"

Yang Xiao smiled. "Dragging him along would waste our strength and slow us down. We can pick him up on our way back."

The ropes around the corpse were not merely there to prevent it from rising as an undead. They were also his mark, letting other desert corpse collectors know that this corpse had already been claimed.

That was a rule among desert corpse collectors.

"We'll reach Severed Dragon Valley tomorrow." As night fell, Yang Xiao found an underground shelter dug by earlier travelers, and the two settled inside.

A campfire burned in the shelter. Yang Xiao sat to one side eating dry rations. They tasted awful, but they were the best food to have in the desert; half a piece could sustain him for a day.

The Butcher sat opposite him, still holding the posture with his palms, soles, and crown facing heaven. After what had happened that day, Yang Xiao studied him anew. Anyone who could remain composed amid a pack of jackals was either a fool or someone with genuine ability. The Butcher was clearly the latter.

Watching the Butcher's posture, Yang Xiao tried to imitate it. Half an hour later, he lay down on the ground, his back and waist aching. It had done nothing at all. He had felt no wondrous power such as internal energy or spiritual energy.

"Those jackals were coming for you today." The Butcher's sudden words startled Yang Xiao. They had been together for several days, but this was the first time he had spoken of his own accord.

Still, the Butcher's words reminded him that he had felt the jackals staring only at him during the day. If they wanted meat, the Butcher was much sturdier and had far more flesh on him. If Yang Xiao were a jackal, he would certainly eat the Butcher first.

"There's something on you attracting them." The Butcher opened his eyes and looked at him with certainty.

Yang Xiao checked himself and discovered some white powder on his clothes. He had simply failed to notice it in his haste to travel these past few days.

He held it beneath his nose and sniffed, his pupils slowly contracting. Though the white powder's scent was faint, almost nonexistent, his years of dealing with corpses let him recognize it immediately as cremated remains—just not human ones.

Recalling the day's events, he knew there was only one thing that could draw more than ten jackals.

He had once heard an elder in town say that a desert corpse collector had used the ashes of jackal pups to lure a pack of jackals and kill a party traveling into the desert. The scene had been truly gruesome.

A passing desert corpse collector had discovered what happened. The townspeople had driven the murderer out of Ancient Sand Town and explicitly forbidden the method. So much time had passed that few people in Ancient Sand Town still knew of it.

Whoever had targeted him must have done so before he entered the desert. He thought of Gu Chen, but quickly ruled him out. They had made no physical contact during their argument. That left only one person: Gu Lian, who had suddenly bumped into him on his way home.

A cold gleam flashed through Yang Xiao's eyes. He was neither a bad man nor a good one. If someone tried to harm him, he would certainly repay them in kind.

"Thank you." Yang Xiao looked up at the Butcher. Without him, he might still have been kept in the dark.

"No need. I simply can't stand watching wicked men hold sway." The Butcher closed his eyes again. In the firelight, his figure seemed to grow taller.

Yang Xiao took a drink. His waterskin was still more than half full, enough for their return journey.

He walked to the entrance and looked at the Butcher from a distance. The waterskin at the Butcher's waist bulged, still holding plenty of water; perhaps he had never drunk from it at all. The dry rations Yang Xiao had given him had also been discarded at some unknown point. Thinking back, he did not seem to have ever seen the Butcher eat or drink.

After nine days of trekking through the desert, an ordinary person would long since have fainted from hunger or become dehydrated. Yet the Butcher looked just as he had when they first met, his face faintly ruddy. The white cloth across his chest had already been removed, and Yang Xiao could not see his wound through his clothes.

The Butcher grew ever more mysterious in his eyes.

"Are you cultivating?" Yang Xiao could not help asking.

In the online stories he had read in his previous life, people who transmigrated either went to ancient times, where they became marquises or ministers with flocks of concubines, or entered a wondrous world, where they became Immortals and patriarchs.

Yet he had been in this world for a year. Apart from hearing people talk about wondrous things, he had never seen any for himself.

He did not deny that he, too, wanted to become powerful.

"I don't know what you mean by cultivating, but what I do is spiritual practice." The Butcher answered his question. Perhaps the day's events had brought them a little closer.

"Then can you fly? Can you live forever, move mountains, and overturn seas?" Yang Xiao asked.

Everyone harbored a dream of becoming an Immortal, and he was no exception.

"Yes." After a silence, the Butcher said, "Flying is simple, and Mountain Moving and overturning seas isn't difficult either. With decent aptitude and a little diligence, you can achieve all of those. Living forever... that is very, very difficult. For me, at least, it remains a legend."

"Are you very powerful?" Yang Xiao asked. The Butcher had spoken lightly, his tone growing heavy only when he mentioned living forever.

The Butcher opened his eyes, a faint smile touching his lips. "To you, I am very powerful. Powerful enough to kill you with a single glance."

Yang Xiao smiled. He found the Butcher's words hard to believe, yet wanted them to be true. "If you're that powerful, why did you need me to guide you? Couldn't you just fly straight to Severed Dragon Valley?"

The Butcher frowned. After a long while, he gave an astonishing answer. "I don't know the way. Besides, I need time to heal, because my enemy is very powerful."

He kept mentioning an enemy. Either he was a madman, or everything he said was true.

A gleam flashed in Yang Xiao's eyes. "What do you think of me? Do I have the aptitude for spiritual practice?"

The Butcher swept his gaze over him. Suddenly, his figure flickered, and when he appeared again, he was already in front of Yang Xiao. He grasped his wrist and closed his eyes.

Yang Xiao felt a warm current flow from the Butcher's hand, circle through his body, and then return to the Butcher.

The Butcher opened his eyes, shook his head, and sighed. "Your aptitude is very poor. Even if you step onto the path of spiritual practice, I'm afraid even Qi Gathering will be difficult. You would be better off remaining an ordinary person."

Though he did not know what Sea Condensation was, he refused to accept this. Having finally discovered that spiritual practice existed in this world, how could he give up merely because his aptitude was poor?

"Can't aptitude be changed? If it's fixed forever, then I'll work ten times, a hundred times harder than everyone else. Please teach me how to practice." In his previous life, he had heard that accepting a master required kowtowing. He dropped to his knees and bowed his head.

Suddenly, a large hand pressed against his forehead and lifted him to his feet.

The Butcher smiled. "I don't believe in fate. If I make it back alive this time, I'll take you as my disciple and teach you how to practice."

Yang Xiao clenched his fists, a fierce will to fight blazing in his eyes. No one willingly settled for an ordinary life. He would change his fate.