Just a Little Favor

The man in black passed away peacefully.

The moment the sword light reached him, he had actually put up a struggle.

He rapidly condensed a mass of black wind before his chest. Countless locusts seemed to swarm within it, frantically eating away at the spiritual sense Yue Wen used to control his flying sword, trying to wrest the weapon from him.

As long as Yue Wen's spiritual sense wavered, he could break it. Once the flying sword slipped out of his control, its sword light would dissipate on its own.

But to his shock, this young man who had appeared out of nowhere had a cultivation foundation a hundred times more solid than that immortal sect disciple from earlier! His true qi was densely condensed, his spiritual sense powerful.

His essence, qi, and spirit had no weaknesses whatsoever!

This was entirely a disparity in cultivation methods. If he could so thoroughly outclass a disciple of the Riverside Gate, did he come from an even higher-ranking immortal sect?

The man in black thought of those renowned sects at the very pinnacle of the mortal world. No matter how he tried, he could not understand how he had provoked someone of this caliber into taking action.

And someone like that had actually spent all this time pretending to be a corpse just to ambush him!

Do you want me dead that badly?

Fine, then. Kill me.

The True Dragon Method circulated at full speed. Wave after wave of majestic true essence poured into the flying sword, and in the blink of an eye, it punched straight through the man in black's chest with overwhelming force.

Pfft-

A cloud of blood burst from his back.

Like the minor demons from last night, he had no legal protection whatsoever. The difference was that those demons had not dared commit any crimes, so Yue Wen had not had the heart to kill them.

Against an evil cultivator with countless atrocities to his name, however, he felt no such qualms.

The sword pierced his heart, and the evil cultivator fell to the ground, his eyes brimming with resentment. He murmured, "I've never met you. Who sent you here...?"

Yue Wen stood halfway up the slope and replied calmly, "I run the Yue Family Cultivation Office. The East City Cemetery paid me a thousand yuan to clear out the evil spirits."

"A thousand... a thousand yuan..." The man in black's eyes bulged. Blood gushed from his mouth, his face filled with disbelief. "For a thousand yuan, you... I..."

Before he could finish, the man in black breathed his last.

Yue Wen waited a while. Only after confirming that he had not moved again did he approach to get a good look at his face.

He was a middle-aged man with deathly pale skin and deeply sunken features, looking little more than skin and bones.

Had Yue Wen encountered him on the street, he might have mistaken him for a frail invalid. He would never have guessed that the man was an evil cultivator who killed without blinking. But in this day and age, plenty of people like him lurked in the streets and alleys of the city.

Although killing a person did not earn him any evil-suppressing money, it would not leave him empty-handed, either.

After once again confirming that the man was dead, Yue Wen stepped forward and began searching him. Evil cultivators like this wandered from place to place, so they usually carried whatever valuables they owned.

While Qi Dian was still unconscious, anything he found would be his alone.

A long fishing-rod case lay on the ground. It was empty, presumably used to carry the large banner planted nearby. This evil cultivator clearly had no storage artifact, so he had to roll up the banner and disguise it inside a fishing-rod bag.

That made searching him all the easier.

The large banner looked rather impressive, but Yue Wen did not dare take it.

It was obviously an evil artifact, refined using who knew what. Whether he used it himself or sold it, he would be committing a serious crime. An evil cultivator had no scruples, but Yue Wen was a respectable man with a home and a business. He could not do that sort of thing.

He first found a waist pouch on the man in black. Opening it, he discovered a stack of cash inside, roughly forty or fifty thousand yuan.

"Thank you, boss." Yue Wen offered his thanks and pocketed the cash without hesitation.

Next, he took the man's phone from his pocket. He could see that someone was sending him messages, but without the passcode, he could not access any further information.

That was not something supernatural abilities could solve. It required technology.

He would leave it to the Supernatural Affairs Bureau when they came to clean up.

Then he searched the man's chest and found half a skull carved from black gold. It looked finely crafted, with an antique luster and intricate scale-like patterns covering its surface. It did not look like an evil artifact, though he had no idea what sort of treasure it was.

Although Yue Wen did not know what the object itself did, the material looked like blackwater dragon-pattern gold, a highly valuable metal used by cultivators.

"I'll get it tested." After a moment's thought, Yue Wen put away the half-skull as well.

He searched the man from head to toe once more but found nothing else.

For an independent cultivator, owning one or two artifacts already counted as being well-off, so Yue Wen was not disappointed. Even after finishing all this, however, he still did not rush to save Qi Dian.

Instead, he went over to "Zhang Wei's" corpse.

The leader of the Meow-Meow Cult was looking for him, and so was the boss behind this evil cultivator. Yet Zhang Wei, who had died in an accident, was merely an antique shop employee with no cultivation whatsoever.

Why?

The man in black had revealed earlier that Zhang Wei had stolen something from the antique shop. It was probably connected to that item.

Since all these people wanted his corpse, there was a good chance the item was hidden on his body.

He had the opportunity now anyway. It could not hurt to see what it was.

Many of Zhang Wei's bones were broken. It looked as though he had been in a particularly horrific car accident. Yue Wen gave him a quick search but found nothing.

Bodies of people who died in accidents were certainly searched before burial. Their personal effects would be sealed away, awaiting collection by their families.

Since his body had already been buried, there was bound to be nothing left in plain sight. That was no surprise.

If those people still wanted his corpse, they had probably already used various means to inspect his sealed personal effects.

But found nothing.

Yet Zhang Wei was only an ordinary person. He could not use storage artifacts. If he had not lost the item somewhere else, where could he have hidden it most securely?

Rather than rack his brains, Yue Wen activated the Spirit-Searching Needle.

Precisely because Zhang Wei was an ordinary person, everything on him was mundane. Anything giving off spiritual fluctuations should be the treasure they were looking for. There would be nothing else to interfere.

At a time like this, the Spirit-Searching Needle was perfect for treasure hunting.

A hazy glow shrouded the Spirit-Searching Needle's dial. After two rapid rotations, it pointed straight at the top of Zhang Wei's head.

"Inside his head?" Yue Wen narrowed his eyes. "No, in his hair!"

He reached out and tugged hard. Sure enough, he pulled off a section of Zhang Wei's center-parted hair. It was actually a tightly secured wig!

Once he pulled off the wig, it revealed a sparsely haired head that resembled a kiwi. From between the wig and the scalp fell a thin piece

of purple cloth.

Zhang Wei had been losing his hair at such a young age?

His life really had been miserable.

With a sigh, Yue Wen picked up the cloth. Its edges were torn on all four sides, leaving an irregular shape, as though it had been ripped from something larger. It felt like sheepskin. The front was purple-gold, the back black, and both sides were blank. An intricate, bizarre emblem was engraved in the lower-left corner of the purple-gold side.

Countless long snakes with flickering tongues coiled around a tiger with bared fangs, seemingly both battling and merging with it, forming a circular crest.

The instant he saw the emblem, Yue Wen's eyes fixed on it, his gaze shaken!

He had seen this emblem before...

And he would never forget it.

So the item this man had stolen was connected to that place. No wonder it had drawn so many covetous eyes.

Yue Wen did not dare look any longer. He quickly tucked the cloth inside his robe, planning to study it carefully after returning home, then put the wig back on Zhang Wei's head.

As though nothing had happened.

Only after finishing everything did he stroll over to Qi Dian. He channeled true qi into his fingertips and removed the four steel needles from Qi Dian's body.

"Ah!"

As the needles left his body, Qi Dian woke from his sealed state at once. He cried out and sat bolt upright.

Still dazed, he saw Yue Wen before him and immediately said, "Yue Wen? Run! Go find the Supernatural Affairs Bureau. I'll hold him off! This evil cultivator is most likely a disciple of the Flame Ghost Hall. His cultivation is formidable. We can't beat him!"

"Brother Qi, don't panic." Yue Wen patted his shoulder twice in reassurance. "I've already killed that evil cultivator."

"You?" Qi Dian froze, seemingly unable to believe it. "Killed him?"

"There." Yue Wen pointed to the corpse at the top of the slope. Though the night was dark, Qi Dian's cultivation-enhanced vision had no trouble making out the evil cultivator's dead body at a glance.

Qi Dian's eyes filled with astonishment.

First of all, Yue Wen had actually managed it?

Even though Yue Wen was two minor stages above him, Qi Dian had not believed his combat strength could surpass his own.

After all, he was only an independent cultivator.

The stereotype was that independent cultivators lacked cultivation methods, supernatural abilities, artifacts... and even setting stereotypes aside, that really was the case.

Second, he had actually been willing to do it?

Old Mr. Huang had said hiring Yue Wen cost only a thousand yuan. Killing a few lantern monsters was one thing, but was killing evil cultivators really part of the job?

Who risked his life for a thousand yuan?

After staring blankly for a while, Qi Dian finally asked, "How did you do it?"

"I just..." Yue Wen mimed a sword strike. "Did this."

He did not want to reveal that he knew about the matters involving "Zhang Wei," so he boiled the whole process down to seeing Qi Dian in trouble, coming over, and killing the evil cultivator in passing.

"Just like that?" Qi Dian looked somewhat dazed, his shock beyond words.

"He was only a Unity Realm evil cultivator. How hard could it be?" Yue Wen shrugged, his expression perfectly calm. "Just a little favor."