Something Unclean

The chill night assailed them; the falling rain chilled their souls.

Su Mo's hand trembled slightly around the Heavy Crossbow as he gazed regretfully at the shattered arrowhead on the ground.

It had been... Su Mo's mainstay.

He had pulled that arrowhead from the corpse of an Immortal Cultivator who had died in this world. A weapon capable of killing cultivators was naturally an Immortal Object itself.

With that single arrowhead, Su Mo had led the little girl safely through one crisis after another.

He knew, of course, that he could not unleash the full power of this Immortal Object, so he had thought of the heavy crossbows from his previous life...

This world had its own unique black iron and mystic beast tendon. Neither was an immortal material, but combined, they could still make a terrifying weapon.

He could not draw the bow himself, but after incorporating certain mechanisms...

This crossbow had become the only immortal weapon in the world that an ordinary mortal could draw, provided he spent enough time on it!

Paired with the Heavy Crossbow, the arrowhead had been like an evil ghost in the night, silently killing the leader of the black-robed men. And the Immortal Cultivators of this world were not like those in the novels of his previous life, capable of overturning rivers and seas upon reaching foundation establishment! Here, those at qi refinement and foundation establishment were merely somewhat stronger than ordinary people... Only at core formation could they fly through the air. Flight at foundation establishment was no more than briefly leaving the ground, nothing like the aerial flight of core formation.

At this sudden turn, the monk and the Daoist exchanged bewildered looks.

Su Mo stared dazedly at the black-robed man kneeling on the ground, his head bowed and his life extinguished.

He had arrived before the monk and the Daoist, hiding in the darkness on a distant tree branch outside the courtyard wall on the other side.

He had watched the black-robed men bring a dozen or so mortals into the courtyard, watched those mortals try to escape, and watched them slaughtered like livestock.

His eyes had nearly split with rage, yet there was nothing he could do. Without the monk and the Daoist, he could only have watched, then left! He had someone of his own to care for!

He was only a mortal. How could a mere Heavy Crossbow in his hands let him stand against more than a dozen cultivators?

But then the monk and the Daoist had arrived and entered the courtyard...

He had waited until they killed everyone else, leaving only one foundation establishment cultivator.

He knew this was his sole chance to strike, and he would have only one shot. Either that last foundation establishment cultivator died, or Su Mo would flee while the man was too occupied with the Daoist and the monk to spare him any attention.

Faced with that choice, he had still raised the crossbow in the darkness and drawn its string...

The monk retrieved the Golden Alms Bowl and exchanged a glance with the Daoist. He walked over to Su Mo and bowed with his hands clasped. "Thank you for coming to our rescue, young man."

They had both heard the exchange between Su Mo and the black-robed man.

He was actually a mortal?

He had killed a foundation establishment expert with nothing but a mortal's strength?

Both men looked at the black Heavy Crossbow in Su Mo's hands.

Was it because of that Heavy Crossbow? What sort of divine weapon was it...?

Su Mo slowly rose, slung the Heavy Crossbow onto his back, and returned their salute. "There's no need to thank me. You were doing exactly what I wanted to do. On my own, I couldn't have done anything..."

Su Mo had seen their earlier actions and could tell that neither meant him any harm.

The Daoist looked at Su Mo, hesitating to speak.

The monk eyed the Daoist's reaction curiously.

"Are you really a mortal?" the Daoist finally asked.

Su Mo nodded. There was no point hiding it; cultivators could surely tell anyway.

"What should we call you, young man?" the Daoist asked.

"My surname is Su, my given name is Mo, and my courtesy name is Jing Yan."

"I'm Mude, and this damned bald donkey is Zhixuan," Mude introduced them.

The monk Zhixuan immediately bristled at Mude's introduction.

"You have an extraordinary physique. You must be a rare cultivation prodigy. Why not join our Daoist sect? I'll ask my master to take you as his disciple!" the Daoist said with a grin, revealing his intentions.

The monk froze, then stared at the Daoist in disbelief.

"How can you bring yourself to say something so shameless?" the monk demanded. "One look at this young brother tells me he has a deep affinity with the Buddha. If he goes anywhere, it should be our monastery!"

"To graze on grass at your monastery? Not a scrap of meat, day after day." The Daoist scoffed.

The monk flew into a rage. "That's still better than joining your Daoist sect and swindling people every day!"

"Watch what you say! What do you mean, swindling people every day? We're all reasonable people..."

Their banter reminded Su Mo of friends fooling around at school in his previous life. That familiar feeling eased his heart a little.

Su Mo interrupted them. "Thank you both for thinking so highly of me, but I'm a scholar. I won't join a Daoist sect or become a monk!"

A scholar... The monk and the Daoist both sighed. Neither of their sects had any scholars, and neither knew how to guide a scholar toward enlightenment. They could only let the matter drop.

"What brought you here, young brother?" the monk asked.

Su Mo lowered his eyes. He did not know why he had come back, or why he had intervened.

After all, it was only the death of a stranger who had nothing to do with him.

What did it have to do with me?

I only came to look...

But to look at what?

Wasn't it simply fear...? We're all mortals. Today it could be them; tomorrow it could be me.

"To find an answer!" Su Mo said.

"What answer?" the monk asked.

Su Mo turned toward the house beside them.

Dim candlelight glowed inside, and the door stood open. Wind and rain swept into the room, making the candle flames sway...

"The gap between reality and fiction! In books... cultivators don't kill mortals without cause!"

That single arrow had pierced the woman's chest just like that, killing two people!

Did this cultivation world truly have no rule requiring the strong to protect the weak...?

A sinister gust swept past, and all three suddenly felt their hair stand on end.

"Let's pull out. We can talk once we're away from here. Something about this place feels eerie," the monk suggested.

The Daoist nodded in agreement.

Su Mo shook his head. Clad entirely in black, he stepped through the rain toward the house and spoke.

"You two go ahead! Since all the Immortal Cultivators here are dead, I want to take a look inside."

Su Mo wanted to investigate the house, where the reek of blood surged toward the heavens. He wanted to know exactly what the woman had wanted him to see...

The monk and the Daoist exchanged a glance, gritted their teeth, and followed.

If Su Mo dared to go in as a mortal, they were at least foundation establishment cultivators... They could not let him look down on them.

The house was dimly lit, a few faint candle flames flickering in the wind. Apart from the thick stench of blood, nothing else seemed particularly unusual.

Su Mo took the Heavy Crossbow off his back, worked the lever to draw its string, then loaded a fletchless arrow from his quiver, remaining carefully on guard.

The ink-black Heavy Crossbow, paired with the jet-black fletchless arrow, radiated a deadly sharpness. The sight made the monk and the Daoist's teeth ache... That was a killing weapon capable of slaying a foundation establishment cultivator.

The three looked around the room but found nothing unusual.

Suddenly, another sinister gust blew through.

Su Mo abruptly felt a strange sensation...

The Daoist and the monk's hair stood on end at once.

"Amitabha," Zhixuan said, trembling. "This poor monk keeps having an ominous feeling."

"Boundless... damned Heavenly Venerable. This poor Daoist feels something is wrong too," Mude said.

They looked at Su Mo, only to find him staring fixedly at a wall as though he had discovered something.

They approached with every muscle braced and asked, "Young brother, have you found something?"

For some reason, although Su Mo was plainly a mortal, the two of them unconsciously overlooked that fact.

In their subconscious minds, Su Mo was a cultivator just like them.

At that moment, Su Mo sensed something deeply uncanny.

He heard a sound!

A sound like crying, yet also like laughter.

It seemed to murmur right beside Su Mo's ear.

"Do you feel like there's someone else here besides us?" Su Mo asked.

At his words, the monk and the Daoist immediately felt their scalps prickle!

"Could there be... something unclean here?" the monk asked apprehensively, gripping his staff tightly.