A Skinny Horse Was No Horse

At some point, the sky overhead had turned black, as though a pot had descended over the heavens, covering all of Fan City.

The stars, moon, and white clouds had vanished from the sky, leaving only thick darkness.

Xu Chunliang felt an instinctive sense of oppression in his heart, as though someone had covered his head with a large black umbrella.

Fireworks Lane had also turned pitch-black. Countless screams and eerie laughter rang out from the brothels of all sizes lining the road.

Clearly, all manner of unexpected tragedies were taking place.

Xu Chunliang tipped his head back and burst out laughing.

"Haha~!"

"Hahahahahaha~!!!"

So many weird creatures had been hiding in Fireworks Lane. What a wonderful thing!

Xu Chunliang lowered his head and looked coldly at the woman who had emerged from a dark alley three meters ahead, drawn out by his laughter.

She was a very, very thin woman, tall and slender, carrying a round lady's fan and wearing a dress resembling a qipao. She swayed gracefully as she emerged from the darkness.

Only when she came closer did Xu Chunliang get a good look at her, and a smile rose to his lips.

The brothels of Jiangnan Circuit in the southern State of Chu were said to have a custom of raising skinny horses, which officials and nobles flocked to. Xu Chunliang had always thought "skinny horses" was simply shorthand for a type of girl.

Now, looking at the woman before him, he realized that a skinny horse was not only skinny, but also a horse.

Beneath her shapely upper body, she had no slender human thighs. Instead, she had the body of a horse from the grasslands.

Even more remarkably, the four legs visible beneath the slits of her qipao, which had been tailored to her horse body, still looked like the long legs of a human woman.

Paired with her gentle appearance as she lightly waved her round fan, it was utterly bewildering and utterly alluring.

Xu Chunliang couldn't help recalling a remarkable comment he had remembered from reading fairy tales in his previous life:

[The prince and the white horse smiled at each other, and both grew excited...]

A skinny horse was no horse, but a centaur.

Xu Chunliang felt even the hand gripping his saber harden.

Such a bewitching, beautiful weird creature naturally had to be killed.

Just as Xu Chunliang raised his saber to attack...

Shuffle... shuffle... shuffle...

Footsteps sounded, and more skinny horses emerged from the darkness. One, two...

Thirteen in all.

They were all thin, delicate and slender, holding either fans or silk handkerchiefs. They stood quietly in the street, looking curiously at Xu Chunliang.

Awoo! Eerie Tiger Howls at the Heavens!

Xu Chunliang slashed out with his saber, and three eerie tigers charged into the herd.

In an instant, people and horses were thrown about, bones broke, and blood flowed.

Streaks of white light flew into Xu Chunliang's body. His attribute points increased by 13.

They're this weak? After a moment's thought, Xu Chunliang had his answer. These skinny horses were probably weird creatures that had only just been spawned by tonight's strange events.

They were not yet powerful.

Stepping over the skinny horses' corpses, Xu Chunliang headed home.

There was still an injured person lying at home. Xu Chunliang might not have been a good person, but he wasn't a bad one either.

He had to go check on the little girl.

Not long after Xu Chunliang left,

Another wave of green Weird Madness Qi swept past. The skinny horses' corpses, shattered and scattered across the ground, began to squirm and merge together, forming a great cocoon of flesh and blood.

A chilling, eerie, terrifying aura drifted from the cocoon, and it split open.

A naked skinny horse with a long, powerful body broke out of it.

She was four meters tall, shapely, and flawlessly white. Only two parts of her body were black.

Her lips and her hair.

Her white eyes were at first bewildered. As fragments of memory surfaced, they gradually cleared, only to be overtaken by chaotic madness.

"All men deserve to die!"

She roared and reached out, grasping at empty air. The Jade Splendor Pavilion beside her collapsed with a crash, and a roof beam flew toward her hand, wood chips constantly peeling away from it.

By the time the beam, thick enough to take a person's arms to encircle it, reached her hand, it had become a three-meter-long wooden spear.

Shattered roof tiles flew up and covered her body, forming armor like fish scales. Spear in hand, she galloped out of Fireworks Lane.

As soon as she left the lane, she swung her arm and hurled the spear. With a howl like a dragon's cry, it flew dozens of meters and pierced the vermilion-lacquered gate of a grand walled residence beside the road,

Pinning a fat squire who had been hiding behind the gate and peeking out at the road firmly to the ground...

Xu Chunliang returned home to find the little girl still sleeping soundly. After a moment's thought, he struck the back of her neck with the edge of his hand again.

To make sure she could sleep even more soundly.

Then he placed a bag of steamed buns beside the little girl and wrote a note: "Something has happened in the city. Stay hidden here and don't move. Wait for me to come back."

Xu Chunliang picked up bundle after bundle of firewood and covered the little girl with them, hiding her beneath the wood.

Once he had done all that, he quietly left the house again, deciding to look for Blind Chen.

Perhaps he could get an answer from him about the secret behind all these changes.

After leaving his courtyard, however, Xu Chunliang felt somewhat helpless. He knew nothing about Blind Chen.

He had no idea where the man might be at this moment.

After making his way through the alleys for a while, he decided to take the risk of checking the street where he had met Blind Chen.

Because of the black pot in the sky, the whole of Fan City was incredibly dark. Even Xu Chunliang, who had reached the Moon Glow Realm, could barely see three meters ahead.

He tried hard to remember where the street was. After taking three wrong turns and killing five newly spawned weird creatures worth only one attribute point each, he finally found his way back to it.

He stepped into the street.

Xu Chunliang's whole body instantly turned cold and numb.

Black paper cranes fluttered through the street. The light from every lantern was suppressed to the tiniest point, like specks of starlight.

A group of Yin Immortals stood in the middle of the road, the character for "immortal" covering their faces.

They stood silently in the center of the street.

The instant Xu Chunliang appeared, they turned their heads, and all of them "looked" at him.

And so Xu Chunliang died without the slightest ability to resist.

Whew...

Xu Chunliang let out a long breath and struck the little girl on the back of the neck with the edge of his hand. Then he wrote the note, put down the steamed buns, and covered her with firewood.

When he was done, he left the house again.

He slipped toward the Demon-Slaying Bureau.

Since looking for Blind Chen was a dead end, he could only seek out the organization.

The flag officer was an expert in the Sun Halo Realm. He should have a way to break out of this predicament...

Probably.

Screams and eerie laughter sounded from time to time in the darkness, but Xu Chunliang no longer paid them any attention.

On the panel, the attribute points needed to advance from the Moon Glow Realm to the Solar Halo had increased a hundredfold, reaching a staggering twenty thousand.

Xu Chunliang didn't expect these newly spawned weird creatures to help him break through tonight.

So getting there was more important.

Just before he reached the Demon-Slaying Bureau, Xu Chunliang was forced to stop.

A huge curtain had been erected across the broad road he had to take to reach the Demon-Slaying Bureau.

A whistle sounded from somewhere, and a yellow light appeared behind the curtain.