Divine Feet Scripture

Ren Qing opened the first page and felt an impulse to gouge out his own eyeballs.

He forced down the discomfort and carefully read page by page.

The characters recorded in the "Eye-less Method" were neat and orderly, but to him they felt like writhing maggots trying to crawl off the paper.

Moreover, half the book was written about how to devour human eyes raw.

If he hadn't already mastered the Eye-less Method, he would likely have been influenced by the text—it showed just how eerie the Hundred-Eyed Old Monk who authored it truly was.

By the time Ren Qing finished reading the "Eye-less Method," his clothes were soaked through with cold sweat, and his eyes were bloodshot and sunken, as if he hadn't slept for days.

He tucked the book close to his body, then thought better of it and pulled out a brick from the corner under his bed, hiding it in a secret compartment.

Then Ren Qing closed his eyes to rest, organizing the contents of the book in his mind.

First, he could confirm that although he had mastered the Eye-less Method by consuming his lifespan, it was only at the entry level.

The cultivation method of the Eye-less Method involved visualizing the boundless darkness of blindness, gradually mutating the eyes and gaining inhuman power.

Ren Qing had thought he'd already accepted this grim style, but the content on the last page of the "Eye-less Method" was too bizarre.

To speed up the mutation, one could hold fresh human eyes in their mouth during cultivation, at the cost of growing eyes all over their body.

Fortunately, Ren Qing learned of the other two branches of the Eye-less Method.

From this, it was clear that the information flow could extract hidden details from the techniques.

For example, the Single-Eyed and the Double-Pupil User.

Another example: although the book recorded that swallowing eyeballs raw could heal injuries, it never mentioned extending lifespan—likely something even the Hundred-Eyed Old Monk himself hadn't realized.

Ren Qing had already made his choice in his heart.

Compared to growing eyes all over his body or becoming a single eye, the Double-Pupil was indeed easier to accept—at least it barely fell within the range of normal...

Without realizing it, Ren Qing had begun to get used to the eerie settings.

The crow of a rooster sounded.

He rubbed his temples and walked out of the room; the warm spring sunlight dispelled the chill from his body.

A scorched stench of burning corpses came from the courtyard.

Over the next few days, unless someone else died unjustly on Tan Street, the furnace wouldn't stop, since they had to clear out the mortuary as soon as possible.

Xiao Wu sat on a stone pier in the courtyard, idly reading a book. The three of them took shifts, with two watching the furnace at a time.

"Qing Ge'er, I saw you didn't eat at noon, so I saved some for you."

Xiao Wu put down the Thousand Character Classic he was using to learn characters and handed a steamed bun to Ren Qing.

When he worked at other Fire Refining Halls, besides doing heavy labor every day, he often went hungry, so he was genuinely grateful to Ren Qing.

"I need to step out for a while; I should be back soon."

Ren Qing checked the furnace again and, seeing no issues, headed out of the yamen.

On the way, he encountered all kinds of yamen runners, but most were patrol officers changing shifts; fire refiners and lictors were few.

After leaving the yamen, Ren Qing headed straight for the butcher's shop. Since he could increase his lifespan by swallowing eyeballs raw, he naturally wanted to try it.

As he pushed through the dense crowd on the street, he gained a clear awareness of his vision, easily spotting details he wouldn't have noticed before.

Stains on the old man selling candied hawthorns, the scholar whose purse was lifted after drinking.

Even a woman caked in rouge and powder—he could clearly see a bee resting on the tip of her hair.

His use of the Eye-less Method grew increasingly familiar.

His peripheral vision landed on a beggar by the roadside, and he couldn't help but frown.

The beggar looked over thirty, limping as he stretched out his hand to passersby for money, a pained expression on his face.

Ren Qing noticed the beggar's sick leg—it was a full twice as thick as a normal person's leg, and the skin was covered in pus-filled blisters.

With inflammation that severe, could he still move freely?

He paused his steps and walked over, then took out some loose change and placed it in the beggar's broken bowl.

"Thank you, officer, may you live a hundred years..."

The beggar was full of gratitude. Ren Qing's hand holding the coins seemed to casually brush against the other man, and a flood of information gathered before his eyes.

[Chen Ergou]

[Age: Twenty-eight]

[Lifespan: Thirteen years]

[Art: Divine Feet Scripture (Incomplete)]

Part of the information about the Divine Feet Scripture then appeared.

[Created by the Heavenly Cripple Daoist. To cultivate this method, one must, during childhood when bones are still growing, have both legs severed at the root, be confined in a pickling vat, and fed specific medicinal agents. If one survives three years without dying, divine feet will grow.]

Ren Qing's breathing quickened. He set aside going to the butcher's shop for now and wandered around West of the City District a few times.

Soon, he made a startling discovery.

The beggars along the street were mostly crippled in the legs, clearly having cultivated the Divine Feet Scripture, but they were concentrated only in the western part of the city.

Ren Qing realized he had fallen into a misconception.

If all the techniques in this world were this bizarre and inexplicable, then talent requirements simply weren't that high—and human life was worth next to nothing.

For many factions, passing down techniques brought only benefits and no drawbacks, even allowing them to control a large amount of martial force.

On the surface, Sanxiang Town appeared calm and peaceful, but in truth, no one knew how many cultivators were hidden within.

Moreover, the town's population was abnormally large; otherwise, there wouldn't be enough people to squander.

Ren Qing sucked in a cold breath, and the restlessness born from grasping the supernatural had vanished without a trace.

He returned to Tan Street and walked into the butcher shop closest to the yamen.

The butcher was a burly man wearing a greasy apron, sharpening his cleaver as the reflected light sent chills down one's spine.

Just as Ren Qing was about to speak, the butcher said on his own, "Oh, it's A Qing. Haven't seen you in a few days—thought something had happened to you..."

"Ah, look at my lousy mouth. Today I'll give you an extra two ounces of meat."

Ren Qing gave an awkward smile. His predecessor's reclusive personality meant he barely knew anyone at the yamen, so how could he be familiar with a butcher?

He carefully pried the whole story out of the butcher.

The butcher's surname was Zhang. The main reason was that his predecessor's older brother had been close to him, and before dying, he had specifically asked Butcher Zhang to look after Ren Qing, making him one of the few people Ren Qing could exchange a few words with.

"Brother Zhang, I've been having trouble seeing when walking at night lately. Could I ask you for some pig eyes to improve my eyesight?"

"No problem. If you want them, I'll save them for you from now on."

Butcher Zhang agreed readily. The offal was still bought by some poor folk to eat, but pig eyes were usually thrown to the stray dogs on the street.

He first chopped a few catties of pork belly for Ren Qing, then wrapped it in oil paper and began using a small knife to dig out the eyeballs from the pig's head.

"A Qing, if you'd come asking a while ago, I probably wouldn't have had any pig eyes to give you."

Butcher Zhang said with a smile, "Someone actually spent silver to buy pig eyes. Strange, isn't it?"

Ren Qing's pupils dilated. He reached out to stop Butcher Zhang: "Brother Zhang, just give me the loose pig eyes. No need to dig them out specially—it'll ruin the pig head's appearance."

"Also, don't tell anyone that I'm getting pig eyes from you..."

Butcher Zhang simply thought Ren Qing was afraid of being embarrassed if found out, and readily agreed.

But Ren Qing realized that the person who had passed the "Eye-less Method" to the bookshop owner was still in Sanxiang Town—and had already begun eating raw human eyes.