Ripple Effects

With Wen Qingkong's mastery of the Shaolin Golden Bell Shield and the Thirteen Iron Bodyguards, after converting it into the Nine Revolutions Golden Body Art, he had only reached the fourth revolution. If he wanted to break through to the fifth on his own, it would probably take a full sixteen years.

The only way was still to find a means of gaining external martial cultivation through stitching, then convert it into the Nine Revolutions Golden Body Art and shorten the time needed to cultivate it.

Suddenly, Wen Qingkong's ears twitched slightly.

Someone swept across the rooftop.

They were likely Black Stone assassins coming for Zeng Jing.

Wen Qingkong gave no sign of it and continued cultivating.

Over the following days, Li Lan gradually grew familiar with Auntie Cai and Zeng Jing whenever she went out to buy groceries.

The three often chatted together. Li Lan even set up a stall selling cosmetics such as rouge and face powder for women, right beside Auntie Cai and Zeng Jing's stalls.

Wen Qingkong had once stitched up a peddler, so he knew the buying and selling prices of such cosmetics extremely well. He provided Li Lan's stall with considerable help.

Li Lan admired her husband more and more. It seemed there was nothing he did not understand.

Watching Wen Qingkong play with Shuang'er across the street, Auntie Cai asked Li Lan curiously, "You haven't had any business for so long, yet your Wen doesn't seem worried at all. Isn't he afraid of eating through all your savings? Is he really going to rely on you, a woman, to make a living by selling these cosmetics out in public?"

Li Lan understood the principle of not flaunting one's wealth. But she also knew that people as loose-lipped as Auntie Cai would spread all manner of rumors once they had enough to gossip about.

Her husband was so capable. She could not let others look down on him.

"Auntie Cai, you worry too much. We go three years without business, then one job feeds us for three years."

"These days, what ordinary person has money to spend on stitching? Only the wealthy are willing to pay. One stitching job costs ten taels of silver. Two or three jobs a year are enough to cover our expenses, with plenty left over."

"He did not want me to set up a stall in the first place. He was only afraid I would feel bored at home, so he let me come out and socialize."

Li Lan was immensely proud, while Auntie Cai's eyes widened in disbelief.

She had only known that corpse stitchers were sinister and unlucky. She had never known they could make so much money!

If it paid this well, who cared whether it was unlucky or not?

Zeng Jing was different from Auntie Cai. Having traveled the martial world, she was skilled at reading people. When Li Lan mentioned stitching, she did not emphasize the ten taels of silver at all, letting the matter pass lightly. That meant Wen Qingkong charged far more than ten taels for a stitching job.

Yet stitching merely left the dead with an intact corpse. No matter how skilled he was, could someone really pay a hundred taels of silver for it?

Still, since she had decided to retire from the martial world, she naturally would not concern herself with such matters.

Just like Li Lan, Zeng Jing had a full eight hundred thousand taels of silver in her possession. She did not lack money either. Setting up a stall was merely a way to blend into the lives of ordinary people.

After playing with little Shuang'er for a while, Wen Qingkong noticed shadowy figures among the pedestrians in the distance. Every so often, someone's gaze would sweep over this place. Though they appeared casual, every gaze that passed over them inevitably went through Zeng Jing.

Wen Qingkong knew Black Stone was about to make its move.

That night, after the three of them had finished dinner, Li Lan went alone to clear away the dishes.

Just as Wen Qingkong was about to teach little Shuang'er some characters, his expression suddenly changed.

He kicked the red bench into the air.

Thud! Thud!

Two muffled impacts rang out.

Two hand-crossbow bolts sank into the bench.

Wen Qingkong darted forward and crashed into the kitchen, where a black-clad assassin was about to seize Li Lan.

Wen Qingkong raised his leg like a whip and swept it through the air!

Furious, he unleashed all the strength his external martial arts had tempered into his body. The force of the blow was immense!

The man's chest caved in, and he was sent flying into the wall with a bang.

Li Lan jumped in fright, yet instinctively covered her mouth and made no sound.

Two more black-clad assassins rushed in from outside, hand crossbows in their right hands aimed at Wen Qingkong. With two soft pops, they triggered the mechanisms, sending crossbow bolts flying toward him.

Wen Qingkong kicked a wooden table from the kitchen into the air, blocking the bolts.

Then he placed little Shuang'er in Li Lan's arms, pushed off the ground, and pounced like a cheetah.

Taizu Long Fist!

In the blink of an eye, he was in midair, his fists crashing down like two massive hammers!

Crack!

Amid the sound of shattering bones, the chests of the two black-clad assassins were smashed in as well. They collapsed limply to the ground, lifeless.

Li Lan covered little Shuang'er's eyes, her voice trembling. "Husband, are they people from Yujing City who have tracked us down?"

Wen Qingkong waved a hand. "Most likely, we got dragged into this because of Zeng Jing."

Wen Qingkong had not expected Black Stone to target him. They had only just moved here. Though Li Lan was somewhat close to Zeng Jing, did Black Stone really think it could seize Li Lan and use her to threaten Zeng Jing?

As Black Stone's former ace assassin, how could Zeng Jing be so easily threatened?

Zeng Jing?

Li Lan's mouth fell open in surprise.

Zeng Jing was quite pretty, but honestly, she was not a breathtaking beauty. She was roughly on par with Li Lan herself. The only difference was that Zeng Jing possessed an unusual air of calmness, as though nothing in the world concerned her.

Why would anyone want to kill her?

Though worried, Li Lan would never ask Wen Qingkong to save Zeng Jing.

They knew each other, but that was all. Her husband's life was undoubtedly far more important than Zeng Jing's. She could not let him provoke such enormous trouble just to save Zeng Jing.

Wen Qingkong dragged all three corpses onto a cold bed in the front courtyard.

Three assassins' corpses were better than nothing.

He then escorted Li Lan and her daughter back to their room and quietly waited for Black Stone to leave.

Elsewhere, Black Stone's leader, King Runner, had brought Magician Liansheng, Lei Bin, and Ye Zhanqing to Zeng Jing's home.

Ye Zhanqing bent down and carefully examined the unconscious Jiang Asheng on the bed.

Ordinary. Extremely ordinary.

She suddenly turned her head, her gaze toward Zeng Jing filled with disappointment.

"Just for a man like this, you abandoned Black Stone?"

Ye Zhanqing was the replacement King Runner had ordered Fatty Chen to find after Zeng Jing betrayed Black Stone. Even the martial art Ye Zhanqing cultivated, the Forty-One Styles of Water Splitting Swordplay, had belonged exclusively to Zeng Jing.

Ye Zhanqing was effectively Zeng Jing's replacement, so she had always been curious about Zeng Jing.

Until recently, when she saw Zeng Jing—a woman selling cloth from a street stall—who had even married an utterly ordinary errand runner.

Ye Zhanqing was deeply disappointed. She had imagined countless times what it would be like to meet Zeng Jing again.

In every imagined scene, they would engage in a fierce battle. Before King Runner, Ye Zhanqing would personally defeat Zeng Jing and prove that she was Black Stone's greatest assassin!

Only this situation before her had never crossed her mind.

The Black Stone assassin Drizzle, whose name had once shaken Mingzhou, was gone. In her place stood nothing more than the wife of a common fool.

"Hand over Rama's Remains."

"Then work for me again. Otherwise, he dies, and so do your neighbors."

"That family selling cosmetics—how happy the three of them are. If their entire family is wiped out because of you, how pitiful would that be?"

King Runner's voice was low and indifferent, leaving Zeng Jing no room to refuse.

As for the innocent neighbors, they were merely a warning to Zeng Jing.

To him, human lives had never been any different from weeds by the roadside.