Wen Yuquan and Yin Feng were still fighting nearby.
Lu Ding flung away the corpse hanging from his hand, turned, and lunged into the crowd.
Like a savage beast that had hibernated all winter and was already so hungry its belly clung to its spine, he plunged into a flock of sheep. Flesh and chunks of corpses flew everywhere. Not one of the Heavenly Principle Sect fiends who died at his hands was left with an intact corpse.
The nearby cleanup crew entered the scene. When they saw the hellish battlefield on the expressway, even they could not help turning somewhat pale.
They had seen plenty of major scenes, but those had all been left by cult fiends or savage spirits and monsters.
No one in Bureau 749 had such a brutal fighting style.
They looked over at Lu Ding beside the expressway.
His bloodstained hand held an all-black cigarette and brought it to his lips.
He exhaled a mouthful of smoke.
Yin Feng tilted his head over to look at him. "Before, I thought you just had some ability and were a bit too full of yourself. For a trainee investigator, your attitude was pretty arrogant. But looking at it now, you were actually very polite when we first met."
His words made Lu Ding choke on his smoke. He rolled his eyes at him. "If you don't know how to hold a conversation, keep your mouth shut."
"Hahahahaha! I'm complimenting you, aren't I? Seriously, if I get any good missions in the future, I'm definitely calling you. Your combat strength is no joke. You even killed Yuan Baifeng. After today, your name will probably spread all over this little patch of Yunhai. Wonder what nickname they'll give you."
"Hopefully something cool that sounds fairly elegant."
Yin Feng looked him up and down.
His clothes were dyed blood-red all over.
"What part of this has anything to do with elegance? You're the very embodiment of violence. Only with that face of yours can we tack on the word 'aesthetics.'"
Wen Yuquan walked over just then. "If Lu Ding hadn't joined Bureau 749, he'd definitely be our bureau's most wanted."
After saying that, he exchanged a look with Yin Feng, and the two laughed without restraint.
Beside them, Lu Ding was rather speechless.
"Hey, Lu Ding, why don't you take your shirt off? Isn't it uncomfortable, covered in blood like that?"
Shi Yinghe's eyes were shining as she said it.
Lu Ding thought she had a point, so he simply stripped off his shirt, baring his upper body and revealing a physique of well-defined, powerful muscles.
Paired with his neat, short hair, sword-like brows, and star-bright eyes,
he was an absolute lady-killer.
Shi Yinghe stared, transfixed.
"Shi Yinghe, you're drooling!!"
Yin Feng made it sound so convincing that Shi Yinghe felt her chin. When she found nothing there, her face flushed on the spot, and she shouted in annoyance.
"You bastard, Yin Feng! I'll kill you!"
Quite a few people had witnessed what happened on the expressway with their own eyes, and some videos had even circulated online.
But they were only a flower blooming for an instant. Before they could cause a widespread sensation, they were censored.
Although the incident had not caused a sensation among ordinary people,
within the circle of Qi Refiners in Yunhai,
Lu Ding had thoroughly made a name for himself.
His brutal methods, the terrifying, bloody battlefield he left behind, and a whole series of other things combined to earn Lu Ding the nickname Corpse-Dissecting Taisui.
Almost everyone who died at his hands was left without an intact corpse.
So the nickname was fitting.
Lu Ding had also stepped over Yuan Baifeng's corpse to make his name.
Back at Bureau 749.
Everyone, Lu Ding included, was called in for an interview, mainly because this incident had caused too much of a stir.
There had been too many ordinary people on the expressway.
Inside the interview room.
A man and a woman looked at Lu Ding.
"So you really went off and killed Linggu just because of a threat?"
"Not entirely. The main thing was that she used evil arts to harm people. As a Bureau 749 investigator, I have an obligation to arrest or stop Qi Refiners who cause harm and trouble like that."
Lu Ding's answer was watertight.
The two did not press him for many details. After closing their notebooks, they said, "Here's the situation, Lu Ding. This incident has had quite an impact, so take some time off for now. Don't go on missions for the time being, to avoid being recognized by ordinary people."
"What if I want to go on missions?"
With a golden finger at his disposal, making him stop killing monsters was simply worse than killing him.
There was no helping it. He just worked that hard.
The two interviewers exchanged a look. They really had not expected Lu Ding to say something like that.
But that mindset really did suit an investigator in Bureau 749.
It was not that investigators who completed one mission a month were bad; investigators who completed several missions a month and wanted to keep doing missions were simply better.
"How about this? You can patrol a jurisdiction. We'll assign you an area to patrol, and you can handle everything within it as you see fit. Patrolling a jurisdiction counts as one mission."
"If any special incidents occur during your patrol assignment and you handle them, each incident you resolve will count as one completed mission. What do you think?"
Patrolling a jurisdiction-Zhou Jie and Long Shanshan seemed to have been doing that before.
"Will there be monsters or supernatural incidents in the patrol area?"
Lu Ding had no objections to patrolling. His only concern was whether there would be monsters for him to kill.
The two interviewers' manner grew warmer, smiles appearing on their faces.
"There have been a lot of sudden incidents in Yunhai lately. If you want, we can assign you a jurisdiction where such incidents are more likely."
"Sure. Assign me somewhere with a higher frequency of special incidents."
"A patrol jurisdiction requires two people. Normally, we assign your partner at random, but since your strength far exceeds that of an ordinary trainee investigator, you can choose an investigator to accompany you. Do you have anyone suitable in mind, or would you prefer us to assign someone at random?"
"Yan Feifan, then. He's handy to work with."
Rather than getting to know another stranger, Lu Ding thought Yan Feifan would be better.
It would also spare him the process of learning to work together. What if they assigned him someone whose brain was wired wrong?
"All right. We'll arrange it right away. You should receive the jurisdiction details tomorrow. Make sure you go complete the handover."
"Okay."
The interview ended. Lu Ding was tired after two days without proper rest, and he was covered in blood and grime again.
He returned to his dorm, enjoyed a hot shower, and sent Wen Yuquan a message asking him to help inquire about selling the Wind-Calming Pearl.
Then Lu Ding went straight to dreamland, sleeping until evening.
He returned to his daily routine: eating, sleeping, and finally cultivating.
At this point, Lu Ding was at the first stage of the Illuminating the Jade Pivot Realm.
He had activated one-tenth of the qi vortices throughout his body.
Sitting cross-legged on his bed, he circulated the Flying Bear Pouncing and Killing Method, absorbing the spiritual energy drifting between heaven and earth and converting it into spiritual qi stored within himself. He then used his own spiritual qi to fill empty apertures, producing qi vortices that could revolve on their own.
As one qi vortex after another was filled,
Lu Ding naturally reached the second stage of the Illuminating the Jade Pivot Realm, like water flowing into a channel.
But he had no intention of stopping there. Instead, he pressed on in one sustained effort, continuing to absorb the spiritual energy drifting between heaven and earth, refining and converting it.
9:31:58 p.m., Illuminating the Jade Pivot Realm, third stage.
11:46:21 p.m., Illuminating the Jade Pivot Realm, fourth stage.
3:01:13 a.m., Illuminating the Jade Pivot Realm, fifth stage.
At precisely 7:30 a.m., Illuminating the Jade Pivot Realm, sixth stage.
Only when he felt waves of dull pain coming from the meridians within his body did Lu Ding stop.
The Illuminating the Jade Pivot Realm primarily involved absorbing the spiritual energy of heaven and earth and converting it into one's own spiritual qi to nourish the body and fill empty apertures, producing qi vortices. Never mind comparing Lu Ding's physique with those in the Illuminating the Jade Pivot Realm—even among Spirit Sea Realm Qi Refiners, few could match him. Only highly talented Spirit Sea Realm Qi Refiners who specialized in the physical body were qualified to compete with him.
So he could skip the step of nourishing his body.
When it came to absorbing the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, he had That Which Is Called Forgetting Form, which let him achieve Unity of Heaven and Humanity. Others could at most draw in the spiritual qi of heaven and earth slowly through a straw, but Lu Ding could switch on a water pump and suck it in.