The bloody stake had pierced through Heiwa's chest. Some of his organs hung from the tip. Blood covered his chest and ran down through his visible ribs.He drooped there, arms and legs hanging empty, head lolling back weakly, his already-dilated pupils seeming to look out at Mo Qian.Mo Qian still remembered the first time he had stepped into this courtyard. Heiwa had been too shy to come out, hiding behind the door, showing only half his face to look at the stranger.Later, they had grown familiar. Every time Mo Qian came, Heiwa had looked up at him with a smile, showing his white teeth.The last time Mo Qian had come, Heiwa had pressed two bird eggs into his hands and told him to roast and eat them.Mo Qian looked at Heiwa's drooping head on the stake, and the image of that bright, white-toothed smile kept flashing through his mind.The tears in Mo Qian's eyes could no longer be held back.His consciousness moved into the house. Inside were three bodies. Old Man Qin had been beheade

The bright ring of gold on stone and the dull thud of the body hitting the ground came almost simultaneously.Everyone turned around. They looked toward the entrance of the secret room and saw the body lying at the base of the steps — including Hu Hong and Zhou Zhong, who had been carrying the chest."Something happened in the secret room — what's going on?"The instant the sound reached everyone's ears, Mo Qian burst from behind the rockery. The Cloud Snake Step at minor mastery carried his body like a ghost.And in the same instant, a plum-blossom afterimage bloomed in his hand.The timing was precise, the moment perfectly seized — and naturally, his first and most lethal strike was aimed at the most dangerous man present, the one who had reached the great perfection of the fourth level.The boss had just turned his head toward the secret room entrance when his instincts fired. His first thought was that something had gone wrong down there.But even as that thought rose, his heart l

Mo Qian stood looking at the burning head and the mound of earth before him. He tilted what was left of the liquor into his own throat, then smashed the jar on the ground behind him. He looked toward the village not far away. The faint smell of blood still drifted on the wind. There were still many bodies there — far too many for one person to bury alone. Mo Qian turned back to the grave and clasped his fists. "Old Man Qin. Heiwa. Travel well." He turned and walked to the carriage waiting a short distance behind him. Mo Qian had used the carriage to carry the Qin family's bodies here. The horse had already died back at Old Man Qin's house, leaving only the empty carriage. Mo Qian stopped beside it for a moment, then channeled his inner breath into his arms. He heaved the large chest out of the carriage, turned, and slammed the carriage itself against a nearby tree with a burst of inner breath, shattering it to pieces. Then Mo Qian shouldered the heavy chest and set off toward Wil

Mo Qian scooped a small amount of the green soup with a wooden spoon. He gave himself a long internal pep talk before finally tilting the spoon into his mouth. He had already thought it through — if it turned out to be toxic, he would first take one of the antidote pills from Shen Ping's bottle to stabilize the poison, then begin detoxifying himself from there. With his current attainments in poison, he could already handle even the corpse-rot poison that had once been considered incurable — unless it was Poinsettia, he could manage it. Even with this reassurance firmly in mind, as Mo Qian raised the spoon of green soup to his lips, the image of Pan Jinlian feeding arsenic to Wu Dalang surfaced in his head entirely without his permission. The medicine went down. Mo Qian immediately rose and went to the courtyard to stand in his round pile stance. He released his consciousness and turned it inward, probing carefully through his body to observe whether the medicine was addressing the

After drinking, Mo Qian did not bother with the reek of dried sweat and road dust still on his body. He fell onto the bed and slept like the dead.Mo Qian slept until afternoon.He lay on the bed and moved his limbs, taking stock of himself. His inner breath had recovered — and it was noticeably stronger than before.Mo Qian's eyes flickered. One day and one night at Gushan had been worth three days of standing practice in the courtyard.Mo Qian thought it through and decided to go to Gushan every three days from now on. Gushan was good, but it wrung the dantian completely dry. If he went every day, it would be easy to damage his foundation. Once every three days was manageable — one day at Gushan to drain it clean, then two days standing in the courtyard to recover.He worked it out in his head, then got up from the bed, went to the courtyard, and gave himself a thorough wash.It was already afternoon. Mo Qian finished washing and went to the street to eat something. After his meal h