Li Hanqiu carried Ning Rongrong back to the girls' dormitory.
When he pushed the door open with his toe, Xiao Wu was brushing her teeth in a shower cap, her eyes half closed as she yawned.
Hearing the wooden door creak, she said without turning around, "Oh, you're back... huh?!"
Xiao Wu glanced toward the doorway and saw Li Hanqiu carrying Ning Rongrong bridal-style.
Her eyes immediately widened like brass bells. She didn't even notice the toothbrush falling from her hand.
"Xiao Wu, take care of Rongrong. I'm going out for a bit."
After giving that instruction, Li Hanqiu bent down and gently placed Ning Rongrong on the bed, then pushed the door open and left without looking back.
Xiao Wu's little mouth hung open, still stunned.
She looked at Ning Rongrong lying on the bed with her face flushed, then at Li Hanqiu disappearing into the night.
"This, that, you, he... what happened?"
Ning Rongrong bit her lip, seemingly still savoring Li Hanqiu's embrace. Blushing, she buried her head in the blanket, little muffled hums coming one after another.
Xiao Wu: (\"･-･)ﾉ???
And, Teacher, you put Ning Rongrong in the wrong place! That's my bed!
Meanwhile, Li Hanqiu naturally couldn't hear Xiao Wu's complaints. Having settled Ning Rongrong in, he had turned and set off.
"If I remember correctly, Gangzi lives in a shabby brick house at the foot of Back Mountain, right?" Li Hanqiu murmured, frost running wild in his eyes.
The road was difficult to navigate at night, but purple light shone in Li Hanqiu's eyes, and each step was swifter than the last.
This was precisely the night vision granted by [Netherworld Eyes]. Before long, Li Hanqiu arrived outside Yu Xiaogang's house.
From a distance, he saw that the brick house's door stood ajar, letting out a sliver of dim yellow candlelight.
Li Hanqiu approached and abruptly kicked the door open.
Yu Xiaogang was sitting on his bed picking at his feet. The bang startled him so badly that he sprang up.
"L-Li Hanqiu! What are you doing?!"
"Yu Xiaogang." Li Hanqiu stood in the doorway, moonlight spilling in behind him and leaving his face half lit, half shadowed.
"You tampered with that batch of soul beast leather armor I bought, didn't you?"
Yu Xiaogang's expression changed drastically, and his voice rose several pitches. "That's a vicious accusation!"
Li Hanqiu couldn't be bothered to waste words on him and waved a hand.
Holy Light Ao darted into the room with a whoosh and sniffed around. Finally, he stopped before a battered wooden chest beneath the bed. A swipe of his claw overturned it, sending several small bottles rolling out.
Li Hanqiu bent down, picked one up, pulled out the stopper, and passed it beneath his nose.
An extremely faint, fishy odor spread.
"Soul-Eating Powder." He raised his eyes and stared straight at Yu Xiaogang. "Gangzi, since this has nothing to do with you,
"why don't you tell me how this stuff ended up on Rongrong?"
Yu Xiaogang opened his mouth, still denying everything. "That... someone else put that under my bed! I don't know anything!"
"Oh?" Li Hanqiu took a step closer. "Then tell me who this 'someone else' is.
"I'll go find him right now, so I won't wrongfully accuse you."
"H-how would I know..."
Li Hanqiu's expression abruptly turned cold.
"Holy Light Ao."
Thunderlight rumbled in the dragon beast's throat, flooding the room with white light and illuminating Yu Xiaogang's utterly bloodless face.
"I'll ask you one more time," Li Hanqiu said. "Were you the one who poisoned Rongrong?"
Yu Xiaogang's legs buckled, and he dropped back onto the bed with a thump.
"I, I-"
"Stop!"
Flender's voice came from outside.
He was wearing his underclothes and hadn't even bothered to change his shoes. He clung to the doorframe, panting, clearly having run all the way there.
"Teacher Li! Teacher Li, we can talk this out! What are you doing?!"
Without looking back, Li Hanqiu tossed the bottle in his hand toward Flender.
"Dean, you've arrived just in time. Yu Xiaogang put Soul-Eating Powder on my personal belongings.
"Rongrong touched that leather armor and was poisoned. She's still lying in bed."
Flender caught the little porcelain bottle and held it beneath his nose for a sniff. His expression changed at once.
He turned toward Yu Xiaogang, who had curled into a ball, and clenched his teeth. In the end, however, he still turned back to Li Hanqiu and forced a smile uglier than tears.
"Teacher Li... Xiao Gang was momentarily possessed by his demons and did something wrong.
"Look, Ning Rongrong hasn't suffered any serious harm, and we're colleagues..."
"No serious harm?" Li Hanqiu sneered.
"If I hadn't arrived in time, she'd be dead."
Flender choked on his words.
Yu Xiaogang, on the other hand, suddenly found his nerve. He climbed off the bed, hid behind Flender, and poked his head out to shout:
"I did nothing wrong! Li Hanqiu, you were the one who pushed me too far first! You stole all my disciples! What's wrong with using a little poison?! That girl didn't die!"
"Heh." Li Hanqiu gave a cold laugh.
No one could see how he crossed the distance.
A white blur flashed, and he was already beside Flender, stepping forward.
Flender instinctively moved to block him.
But instead of throwing a punch, Li Hanqiu opened his fist into a palm. With a hooking motion, he shifted Flender half an inch aside.
At that instant, Holy Light Ao lunged from the other side, opening his blood-filled maw.
Crack.
A crisp snap rang out.
Yu Xiaogang's left leg was severed cleanly at the knee!
"Aaaah!"
A scream like a pig being slaughtered tore through the night over Back Mountain.
Yu Xiaogang collapsed, clutching his bloody stump and rolling across the floor. In the blink of an eye, a large patch of his gray robe was soaked through.
"Li Hanqiu!"
Flender's eyes reddened. Soul power surged wildly, and a layer of golden light enveloped his body with a hum as a Cat Owl phantom flashed behind him.
A wind blade had already formed in his palm, yet he held back from releasing it.
"Flender." Li Hanqiu turned to look at him, his gaze terrifyingly calm.
"He poisoned my student, and I only took one of his legs. Since you're protecting him today, I'll grant you this much face."
He stepped forward, leaving barely three feet between them.
"But you only get that courtesy once. Next time, I won't show mercy."
Flender trembled all over. The wind blade buzzed and quivered in his palm, but in the end, he never released it.
Li Hanqiu turned and walked toward the door.
"Holy Light Ao, let's go."
The dragon beast shook his jaws as though he had merely bitten through a dead branch, gave a contemptuous rumble, and followed his master.
The night wind swept into the room, making the oil lamp flicker between light and darkness.
Flender didn't leave that night.
He sat beside Yu Xiaogang's bed without a word, wrapping strips of cloth around the severed leg.
Yu Xiaogang kept groaning in pain, tears and snot smeared all over his face.
"Dezi... you have to get justice for me..."
"How am I supposed to get justice for you?" Flender continued working, his voice cold and strained.
"Soul-Eating Powder, a planted trap, and you caught red-handed with the evidence. Even if Li Hanqiu had killed you on the spot, I wouldn't have had a word to say in your defense.
"And you still expect me to stand up for you?"
Yu Xiaogang sucked in a breath and fell silent.
"Xiao Gang, let me be honest with you." Flender tied off the bandage and spoke earnestly.
"You can't beat Li Hanqiu. You couldn't before, and you certainly can't now.
"The only reason you escaped with your life this time was that I spent what little face this old man had left."
He stood and headed for the door.
"I'll find a healing soul master to reattach your leg. Stay out of trouble from now on, Xiaogang."
The door creaked shut behind him.
The room fell quiet.
Yu Xiaogang lay on the bed, no longer groaning.
He stared at the ceiling, his eyes slowly turning red.
"Can't beat him?"
His lips spread into a smile both bitter and crazed.
"Li Hanqiu... you took my leg..."
He slowly propped himself up and reached for the branch Flender had found for him beside the bed. Pushing against the floor with his remaining leg, he limped out through the door.
Late at night, at the northernmost edge of Suotuo City.
Black Street lay here. By day, no lamps were lit, but at night, it came alive. The Underground Fighting Arena, bare-knuckle fights, debt collectors, and businesses that could never see the light of day were all crammed into this place.
Yu Xiaogang leaned on his crutch, its tip tapping the wet stone pavement again and again as he struggled forward.
By the moonlight, he turned into a narrow doorway.
Several oil lamps burned inside, smoke hanging thick in the air. Three men sat around a table drinking.
One was missing an ear, another had a scar stretching across half his face, and the third was short and skinny, like a dwarf who had never fully grown.
"I've got a job." Yu Xiaogang pulled a money pouch from his robes and slapped it onto the table.
"Kill someone for me."
The one-eared man looked up, hefted the pouch, and lifted his eyelids. "Talk."
"A teacher at Shrek Academy. His name is Li Hanqiu."
"Cultivation?"
"S-soul king."
The three exchanged glances.
Scarface snorted with laughter. "A soul king? That's going to cost extra."
"He also has an external martial soul, a golden dragon beast. It's very powerful."
"A dragon?"
The tall, skinny man's gaze turned grave, and he demanded sharply, "He has nothing to do with the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Sect, does he?!"
At the mention of the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Sect, Yu Xiaogang seemed to recall something, and his expression grew even more complicated.
Only after a long while did he say firmly, "I can swear on my life that Li Hanqiu has absolutely no connection to the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Sect!"
"Then we'll have to raise the price even more. Dragon-type martial souls aren't easy to deal with."
"Money is no object!" Yu Xiaogang kept his voice low, his eyes bloodshot. "As long as you can kill him, I, the Grandmaster, will pay whatever you ask!"
The one-eared man smiled and blew a mouthful of smoke into Yu Xiaogang's face.
"All right. Lead the way. Let's meet this Li Hanqiu."
Yu Xiaogang told you where Li Hanqiu lived, his daily routine, the mountain paths he frequented, and even the state of Shrek Academy's defenses.
Detail by detail, Yu Xiaogang spilled everything.
What the four didn't know, however, was that in a little teahouse in the southern part of the city, at a second-floor seat by the window,
Li Hanqiu was sitting with a cup of completely cold tea before him.
Now that their enmity had become a matter of life and death, he couldn't simply sit and wait for his doom. Tonight, he truly had formed the intent to kill.
Taking just one of Yu Xiaogang's legs wasn't nearly enough!
That was why he had followed him out, hoping to find a chance to kill Yu Xiaogang outside Shrek Academy.
Had he not followed, he wouldn't have known. But once he trailed Yu Xiaogang, he saw the man enter Black Street and actually hire assassins to kill him.
Li Hanqiu raised his gaze slightly.
Deep in his eyes, the eerie glow of Netherworld Eyes flickered softly.
In the underground Black Market, the three assassins and Yu Xiaogang's teeth-grinding rage-all of it appeared before his eyes with perfect clarity.
He lifted his tea and took a sip.
"Decisive enough when it comes to killing, but..."
He set down the cup, his tone even.
"Schemes without the strength to back them up do nothing but give me a little extra trouble.
"Yu Xiaogang, I'll be taking that life of yours."
The night wind swept across the street.
As the lamplight swayed below, Holy Light Ao appeared silently at his side, golden eyes suddenly blazing in the darkness.
Before you continue