The Fighting Prowess of the Yanbian Men

Day five.

Shen Cheng gathered everyone in the classroom.

The fire was still burning, its light illuminating his face. He stood in front of the lectern, facing everyone.

His expression was grave and solemn, as if he had been preparing it for a long time.

Everyone looked at him in confusion. "Brother Cheng, what's wrong? What happened?"

"Did you find a Faceling?"

Shen Cheng nodded and said calmly, "Yes."

At those words, everyone's breath caught. They stared straight at him.

"Who is it?!"

"I..." he began, his voice quiet, every word tinged with heartache.

"Since we came back, I've never checked Brother Lin. I trusted him. He's kept us alive this long. He's the last person I wanted to suspect!"

He paused. Everyone's breathing caught along with him.

"But he's been acting too strangely these past few days. He refused when I asked him to stay with me, wouldn't go fetch water, and wouldn't help look for food.

"I kept wondering if Brother Lin had some reason he couldn't tell us about." He raised his hand and pointed straight at Lin Yang, who was sitting in the corner.

"So I checked him!"

Shen Cheng lowered his hand and took a deep breath, as if making an extremely difficult decision.

"He's a Faceling!"

The classroom erupted!

Chen Yu was the first to cry out.

"Impossible! Lin Yang killed a Faceling! He was the one who exposed Li Wei! If he's a Faceling, why would he kill one?"

The girl with the ponytail stood up too, her lips trembling.

"Could there be a mistake? Brother Lin has been helping us from the very beginning..."

"Bullshit! Facelings know how to put on an act!"

The man surnamed Wang immediately chimed in, his voice louder than anyone else's, drowning out all the objections.

"They're better actors than humans! So what if they kill one of their own? What wouldn't they do to earn our trust?

"If he's a Faceling and kills another Faceling, wouldn't that make him even more believable? He almost fooled us!"

"Brother Cheng is the only seer here! How could his result be fake? Whoever he says is a Faceling is a Faceling!"

"Besides, hasn't Lin Yang been acting strange enough these past few days?!"

Those last words were like a bucket of cold water over everyone's heads. A seer's check couldn't be wrong.

Shen Cheng was the seer, so Lin Yang had to be a Faceling. The logic was airtight, provided that Shen Cheng really was the seer.

But was there a second seer here now? So there was only one truth!

Lin Yang was a Faceling!

Shen Cheng raised his hand, motioning for everyone to be quiet.

"I don't want to believe it either. But that's what the check showed. If you trust me..." He glanced toward Lin Yang, a perfectly measured hint of regret in his eyes.

"Then tie him up for now. Once we've found all the Facelings, we'll deal with him. I don't want to accuse him unfairly, but we can't let him move around freely either!"

Once Lin Yang was tied up, he had a hundred ways to kill him! A slip of the hand, an accident, a mistake.

Once Lin Yang was tied up, his fate would no longer be his to decide.

Seeing how reluctant Shen Cheng was, even as he put righteousness above personal ties and dealt with a Faceling, everyone trusted him a little more!

The man surnamed Wang was already approaching with a rope. He had found it in a desk drawer: hemp rope as thick as a thumb, with frayed edges.

He walked up to Lin Yang with a sneer that seemed to say, "I never liked you anyway," and reached for his arm.

Jiang Yu'an stepped forward, spreading her arms in front of Lin Yang.

"Wait. Shen Cheng says Lin Yang is a Faceling, but he's never shown us any proof! Have you forgotten what Lin Yang said before we killed the balding Faceling? Without absolute proof, you can't kill someone!"

"Proof? The seer's check is proof!"

The man surnamed Wang shoved her. She staggered back two steps, and a girl beside her hurriedly caught her.

"You haven't been cleared as an ordinary person either, so you're a suspect too! Move!"

Shen Cheng's expression didn't change.

He stood beside the lectern, watching it all like an impartial judge!

His expression was just right: serious and grave, with the helpless look of someone who didn't want this either.

The fat man grew anxious. "Lin Yang, say something!"

Lin Yang said, "If I told you Shen Cheng lied to you and he's the Faceling, would you believe me?"

"Well..." Everyone froze.

Because no one would believe that.

Lin Yang's standing had gradually declined after Shen Cheng appeared. This had been a setup from start to finish!

If he revealed his identity as the seer, he would die. If he didn't, Shen Cheng would smear him as a Faceling!

Wang Jianjun pointed at Lin Yang and sneered.

"See? This guy doesn't even dare argue back! What else is there to say?"

Lin Yang said nothing. He simply looked at the two Yanbian men in the corner of the classroom.

The slightly shorter Yanbian man's lips curled. He looked at Shen Cheng and gave him a slight nod.

"This kid really was right..."

Shen Cheng looked coldly at Lin Yang. "Brother Lin, I never thought you'd turn out to be a Faceling! And now you're trying to slander me about my identity! You hid it well! Grab him!"

But before he could finish speaking-

The next second!

Pfft!

A sharp pain shot through Shen Cheng's lower back!

Something sharp and cold forced its way between his flesh!

He looked down and saw a knife stabbed into the right side of his lower back, nearly a third of the blade buried inside him,

A hand gripped the handle, thick calluses covering the web between its thumb and forefinger and the inside of the forefinger!

The middle-aged Yanbian man with prominent cheekbones had circled around behind him at some point,

Standing right at the boundary between the fire's shadows and the noisy crowd.

Everyone's attention had been on Lin Yang and Jiang Yu'an. No one had noticed the man who never spoke get up from the corner.

Shen Cheng let out a hoarse, low roar!

It wasn't a human scream. The sound was lower, more muffled!

His body surged forward, the knife sliding out of his lower back as blood poured from the wound.

He turned around, his eyes wide, his pupils trembling violently. At the same time, his body instinctively recoiled, but the other Yanbian man was already behind him.

The shorter Yanbian man crouched on the ground and pulled a second knife from the outside of his lower leg! It was a hunting knife with a blood groove, its blade pitch-black, a thin line of cold light gleaming along its edge in the firelight!

He plunged it into Shen Cheng's abdomen. The tip grazed past the femoral artery, missing it by half an inch!

It didn't sever the artery, but it cut a deep gash in his muscle, and black blood instantly soaked his pant leg.

His face tore open in strips from the corners of his mouth toward his ears, as if something beneath his skin could no longer be contained and was forcing its way out!

His neck went limp and twitched beneath his head like a noodle!

It hurt too much! The pain was so intense that he couldn't maintain his disguise!

"No!... It hurts... ugh! Die!!" He let out a tearing roar! Then he lunged at the two Yanbian men, intent on killing them!

But those two were too ruthless!

They were like battle-hardened killers!

They dodged sideways, kicked him, then raised an axe and started chopping!

Shen Cheng was struck in the shoulder and let out a harrowing howl!

His arm bent backward at the joint, and the bones throughout his body twisted beneath his skin.

He couldn't suppress it anymore!

"Aishibal! That damned Faceling bastard hid himself well!"

The man with prominent cheekbones stabbed Shen Cheng in the shoulder from the side, driving the blade into the gap in the joint. Shen Cheng's right arm instantly lost its strength!

The shorter man circled behind him, held his hunting knife in a reverse grip, and hacked at the back of his neck!

The blade cut through the flesh at the back of his neck and struck a vertebra with a sharp crack! But it didn't break.

Shen Cheng pitched forward and crashed to the ground. Black blood poured from the back of his neck and spread across the concrete floor.

But he wasn't dead yet!

His body continued to writhe on the ground, his nails scraping black marks into the floor as he uttered garbled syllables.

He was incredibly fast! With a whoosh, he bit down on the taller Yanbian man's leg.

The pain made him bare his teeth! "That bastard's vicious!"

He tossed the axe to the shorter man, who caught it and brought it down.

A chunk of flesh was bitten off the taller Yanbian man's leg!

Shen Cheng began to convulse, wildly thrusting his hands at them!

The two men started dodging!

"He's gone crazy!"

The fat man was the first to react, looking at the fight.

"Wh-what's going on?"

Looking at Shen Cheng's twisted posture, he froze for a few seconds before realization dawned. As if he had seen something terrible, he cursed under his breath and started forward to help.

But the Yanbian men's knives were too fast and vicious for him to join in!

He turned, held a table leg across Liu Jialiang's path, and shielded Shen Yue behind him. Then he roared at the people behind them who were still standing there in a daze.

"What are you standing around for?! Get back!"

Then he turned to look at the frenzied Shen Cheng, at the face split from the corners of the mouth to the ears, at the pair of vertical pupils trembling wildly in the firelight. His lips quivered several times before he forced out the words.

"Fuck! So this guy's a Faceling! This beast is a Faceling!"