Chapter Eleven: The Harvest

“Phew! Even a master of martial arts is still just flesh and blood!” Chen Fan turned and grabbed the steel blade that had fallen to the ground, delivering a final blow to both Biao and Pi Liu. Some of those who had fallen nearby had also been stabbed, clearly slain with blades snatched by Yuan Kuanglin, who had killed them in a variety of gruesome ways. Only after ensuring their deaths did Chen Fan feel at ease.

He then arranged the two corpses to make it look as though they had died while fleeing. After confirming that none of the fallen around him had survived, Chen Fan finally breathed a sigh of relief. Yet there was no time to relax. Summoning his courage, he strode directly toward Yuan Kuanglin’s corpse not far away.

This man, though grievously wounded, had managed to slay dozens in a matter of minutes—a demon in human form.

“So this man is called Yuan Kuanglin, a master of the Sixth Level of Martial Arts…” He still recalled the man’s defiant cry before death.

A greedy desire welled up in his heart.

He immediately stepped forward to search the corpse.

Cautious yet bold, Chen Fan meticulously searched Yuan Kuanglin’s body, carefully restoring his clothing afterward, and did not linger. He made no attempt to check any other bodies. Swiftly, he slipped away, vanishing into the darkness.

Not even a quarter of an hour after Chen Fan’s departure, a squad wielding torches arrived, their flames slicing through the night.

…

At home, after washing the blood from his body, Chen Fan burned his bloodstained garments to ash and disposed of them in the latrine. Only then did he stealthily return to his small hut with the treasures found on Yuan Kuanglin.

At last, he had a chance to look at the prompt that had appeared before him.

[You have comprehended the true essence of Tiger Fist during combat, gaining insight into the Sixth Form of Tiger Fist.]

Chen Fan was stunned.

He knew that the so-called “Tiger Fist” was a foundational technique for martial artists, designed to temper the body and containing only five forms. He hadn’t expected that, through actual combat, he would forge a sixth form out of nothing!

Seeing the progress bar for Tiger Fist, which had previously reached its end, now shifting forward again, Chen Fan felt a strange emotion arise in his heart.

Tiger Fist was a basic martial art, its main purpose to hone the body—the higher one’s mastery, the better! Unfortunately, Chen Fan already had three techniques training on auto, and even though Tiger Fist had broken through, he could not add it to the queue for now. He forced himself to set aside his excitement.

He took stock of what he had collected from Yuan Kuanglin.

There was not much. A waist pouch and a black ring strung on a cord worn around the neck.

Inside the pouch were a silver ingot, some loose change, rations, and various sundries.

There were no martial arts manuals or treasure maps, much to Chen Fan’s disappointment.

Then again, it made sense. A man like Yuan Kuanglin would hardly carry martial arts manuals on him every day. Chen Fan himself, after unlocking several techniques, had long since burned the manuals.

Chen Fan shook his head and picked up the ring Yuan Kuanglin had left. He was puzzled.

“This is clearly a ring, yet Yuan Kuanglin wore it as a necklace, as if he didn’t want anyone to see it. Clearly, it’s not an ordinary trinket…”

He turned the ring over and over in his hand but could find nothing unusual about it. It was black, plain in design, unadorned by any pattern.

“Could it be some kind of artifact that requires a drop of blood to recognize its owner?”

At once, Chen Fan pricked his finger, but his blood simply slid off the ring’s surface without being absorbed.

He shook his head and examined it a while longer, discovering nothing.

Lying in bed, he pondered in vain.

Clouds outside shifted, revealing the moon. Moonlight filtered through the window, falling upon Chen Fan. Suddenly, he noticed the black ring in his hand began to glow faintly, exuding a hazy radiance.

Chen Fan sat up abruptly.

He observed it for a long while.

“It seems this ring is absorbing the moonlight…”

…

While Chen Fan was already home, destroying all evidence, countless torches lit up the night.

You Shaohu squinted as he surveyed the carnage, sighing softly.

A man in scholar’s robes said, “Leader! We’ve found Yuan Kuanglin’s body. He didn’t escape after all! Pity for our brothers…”

You Shaohu glanced at Yuan Kuanglin’s corpse, a fleeting glint of joy in his eyes before he frowned.

Yuan Kuanglin’s body had been searched inside out; not a single valuable item remained.

You Shaohu frowned and said, “How can things be so coincidental? It’s not hard for our brothers to bring down a mortally wounded Yuan Kuanglin, but I don’t believe he managed to kill every last one of them before dying, taking them all with him… And a man at the Sixth Level of Martial Arts doesn’t even have travel money on him? How is that possible?”

The others were taken aback. The scholar asked, “Leader, you mean…”

You Shaohu cocked his head, straightened, and his eyes grew cold. “Summon every coroner in Feiling County! I want to know the cause of every death here! Also, detain the squad who first found the scene. Investigate them—see if any of them took things they shouldn’t have!”

Two days later.

At a Black Tiger Gang stronghold.

The morgue.

“Sir, this is the traitor’s corpse!”

As gang leader, You Shaohu respectfully guided a young man inside.

The young man was slender, wearing a silver half-mask.

If any members of the Black Tiger Gang or the great families of Feiling County had witnessed this, they would have been shocked. You Shaohu was not the most powerful in Feiling County—many families had stronger members—but for him to show such deference, this man could not possibly be from Feiling County.

A stone slab lay in the center of the morgue, upon which rested the massive corpse of Yuan Kuanglin.

Seeing the corpse, the youth’s eyes flashed with satisfaction.

He glanced at a table nearby, where clothes and sundries were laid out. After inspecting them, he turned to You Shaohu.

“These are all of Yuan Kuanglin’s possessions?”

You Shaohu nodded in affirmation.

The youth shook his head. Besides some clothing and personal items, there was nothing else.

He moved to Yuan Kuanglin’s body. With a crescent-shaped blade, he sliced the air, a shimmer of light dancing across the weapon.

Swish, swish!

Countless thin lines appeared on Yuan Kuanglin’s bronze-hued corpse; in the blink of an eye, the body was cut into pieces.

As a Sixth Level martial artist, Yuan Kuanglin’s body was tough as oxhide, yet it was so easily dismembered.

You Shaohu couldn’t hide his astonishment at the sight.

The youth calmly searched through the remains. After a long while, he shook his head. “Nothing unusual on the body, either. They said Yuan Kuanglin obtained the ‘Star Demon Sect’ legacy—how could he have left nothing behind…”

Blood trickled steadily off the stone slab.

You Shaohu, a man who killed without blinking, still felt uneasy at the sight of so much carnage.

“Could Yuan Kuanglin have known someone was after him, and hidden the item in advance?”

The youth muttered to himself for a long while, then turned to You Shaohu. “Are you certain none of your men kept something they shouldn’t have?”

Cold sweat beaded on You Shaohu’s forehead. “Sir, I have checked many times—there’s nothing left. However…”

“I had the county coroners examine the bodies of my fallen brothers—the ones who died alongside Yuan Kuanglin. Two of them had wounds different from the others; their bodies bore marks of a third party’s involvement…”