Late at night, a blood-soaked figure in blue skimmed across the Divine Splendor River, racing over its surface under cover of darkness.
Like a bat in the night, he reached a large pleasure boat in the middle of the river, then soared into the air and landed soundlessly in a room on its third floor.
Only two candles burned in the room, their flames flickering in the river breeze.
Beneath their light appeared a handsome, refined face utterly devoid of color.
It was none other than "Bloodwind Sword" Li Daogui. The tall red crown on his head was gone, and his black hair hung in disarray down his back.
More than a dozen holes also riddled his blue disciple's uniform, its layers drenched in blood.
Upon entering the pleasure boat, Li Daogui stripped off his upper garments and questioned the other person in the room as he tended his wounds.
"How did it go? How many escaped?"
"Besides you, Sword Master, only six escaped."
The speaker was a red-clad youth with a hooked nose, deep-set eyes, and a cold, sinister air. Seated across the square table, he looked pale and dejected. "No one below the seventh rank survived. Two seventh-rank fighters died as well."
Li Daogui was sprinkling medicine onto the saber wound on his chest. At the words "only six," he crushed the medicine bottle in his hand to powder with a crack.
"Cao Xuan!"
Li Daogui clenched his teeth, his cheeks bulging slightly and his eyes cold and dark. "That man's schemes run deep. We wracked our brains and risked our lives for clues to the God-Defying Banner, only for him to reap the benefits. But the real culprit is still the bastard who killed the Spellcaster. Have you found out who he is?"
"I've already made inquiries. His name is Chu Xisheng, a newly promoted inner disciple of Zhengyang Martial Academy. He specializes in swift saber strikes."
A cold, ruthless look also appeared on the blood-clad youth's face. "Once the Embroidery Guard ease their pursuit a little, I'll bring you his head, Sword Master-"
Before he finished, another figure slipped in through the window.
"What Chu Xisheng? You've got the wrong person." It was a one-eyed young man wearing an eyepatch. He snorted, his voice cold and low. "The one who killed the Spellcaster was a bitch skilled in spells, not some mere inner disciple of Zhengyang Martial Academy."
"A bitch? A woman?"
Li Daogui and the blood-clad youth exchanged a glance, each seeing astonishment in the other's eyes.
"I saw it with my own eye." The one-eyed young man was badly wounded too. He likewise tore open his clothes and forcibly pulled out the barbed arrowheads one by one without a change in expression.
"The girl was under fifteen, but her cultivation had already reached the seventh-rank realm. She also practiced dual cultivation of technique and martial arts, with particular skill in escape and transformation arts. I pursued her for a while, yet could do nothing about her. The situation was already dire then. I was worried about being surrounded, so I didn't keep chasing."
Li Daogui's brows drew into a deep frown. "Dual cultivation of technique and martial arts? Draw her face later. I'll have someone investigate her identity. That girl has the blood of twenty-seven of our Bloodwind Bandits on her hands. Unless I tear her into ten thousand pieces, my hatred won't subside. As for that Chu Xisheng-"
Expressionlessly, he used a dagger to dig several silver needles out of his arm. "We Bloodwind Bandits have always kept our word. Since we said we'd take his worthless life within a month, we certainly won't wait until after that month.
"The problem is that a full-scale search is underway both inside and outside Xiushui Commandery. We can't stay here much longer. A mere ninth-rank lower isn't worth either of us risking a trip. Bloodclothes, when you go to the Jiangbei Black Market the day after tomorrow, post a bounty of two hundred taels of demon silver while you're there."
The blood-clad youth looked troubled at this. "Sword Master, we're out of money."
Li Daogui was startled. "How can we be out of money? We only just plundered a merchant ship half a month ago."
The blood-clad youth gave a bitter smile and produced a crumpled Explosive Flame Talisman. "Sword Master, you said we should make a bigger spectacle this time. The more Explosive Flame Talismans, the better-ideally enough to blow their Library Tower sky-high."
Li Daogui's expression shifted uncertainly. "Then eighty taels! Don't tell me we don't even have eighty taels?"
Eighty taels of demon silver was the minimum bounty at the Jiangbei Black Market.
The blood-clad youth could only take a money pouch from his sleeve and look back at Li Daogui with innocent eyes.
Li Daogui glanced at the pouch and estimated that it probably held less than ten taels of silver.
Just then, a breeze swept past the window with a series of whistling sounds.
Li Daogui felt that the atmosphere in the room was rather bleak.
He gave a soft sigh. "Since we're short of money, we'll put it off for now."
The bastard could count himself lucky!
Chu Xisheng had no idea he had narrowly escaped disaster.
He was on his way back to the Storage Yard when he noticed that the Martial Dao Points on his illusory screen had inexplicably decreased by one, dropping from 27 back to 26.
Chu Xisheng was dumbfounded. He felt as though he had been sitting peacefully at home, only for calamity to fall from the sky.
After his moment of bewilderment, Chu Xisheng sank into thought again.
He wondered what mechanism governed the rise and fall of Martial Dao Points. Could they drop below zero? What would happen if they did?
Since Martial Dao Points could decrease, could his renown decrease as well?
Chu Xisheng opened the Martial Dao Treasury again, hoping to spend them before his Martial Dao Points fell any further.
But after looking through it, he found nothing he particularly wanted among the eleven remaining colored icons.
Chu Xisheng turned his attention to the origin art field instead.
A piece of information appeared in his mind.
-You have mastered the method for breaking through to the second level of the Origin-Nourishing Art. Would you like to spend fifteen Martial Dao Points in place of the secret medicine to raise the level of the Origin-Nourishing Art?
Chu Xisheng rejected it without hesitation.
At most, he only needed another five or six days of cultivation and enough money for a dose of secret medicine to achieve the breakthrough. Spending Martial Dao Points to improve his origin art really was poor value.
After weighing it for a long while, Chu Xisheng decided to wait a little longer.
The Martial Dao Treasury refreshed once every calendar month, though he could also pay one Martial Dao Point to refresh it.
In two days, it would be the first day of the eighth month, when the treasury's wares refreshed.
Chu Xisheng hoped this refresh would bring something he could use.
By then, he had reached the entrance to the Storage Yard.
But when Chu Xisheng pushed open the gate, he saw a dark figure standing in the courtyard.
His expression immediately sharpened, and he pressed a hand to his Hundred-Forged Light Steel Saber. "Who's there?"
Could this be a Bloodwind Bandit who slipped through the net? Had he come for revenge?
"No need to be nervous. It's me."
The voice was deep, powerful, and cold.
As a fire stick flared, a middle-aged man with an unusual face, green hair, a green beard, and green eyebrows appeared before Chu Xisheng, dressed in the uniform of an Embroidery Guard thousand-household commander.
It was Cao Xuan, the thousand-household commander of the Embroidery Guard's Xiushui Thousand Household Office.
He stood in the courtyard with his hands behind his back, regarding Chu Xisheng with a smile.
Chu Xisheng gave Cao Xuan a surprised look, then cupped his hands expressionlessly. "This commoner greets the Lord Thousand-Household Commander."
The man was not aboveboard in his dealings, and Chu Xisheng wanted nothing to do with him.
He also wondered privately why a dignified Embroidery Guard thousand-household commander like Cao Xuan had come here late at night-and alone, at that.
"No need to stand on ceremony, young Chu. There are some things I cannot conveniently discuss in public, so I've taken the liberty of visiting late at night. I should be the one asking your forgiveness."
Cao Xuan looked at Chu Xisheng with a smile, not at all angered by his tone. "Shouldn't you invite me inside for a chat, young Chu? Surely you aren't unwilling to offer me even a cup of tea?"
Chu Xisheng first knitted his brows, then relaxed them.
Whatever the other man's purpose, he would counter each move as it came.