The gang’s front doors were left ajar. Candlelight spilled through the crack, mixing with the sour stench of cheap liquor and the greasy aroma of roasted meat. Chen Yuan used the tip of his saber to lift a corner of the door curtain. The hall wasn’t large. Right in the middle sat two square tables pushed together, strewn with a mess of cups and plates. Eight men were present—two were already dead drunk, one sprawled across the table, and the other leaning back in his chair, their snores rising and falling. The remaining six were gathered around the table, playing drinking games and urging each other to drink, their wine bowls clinking together.
Chen Yuan’s gaze swept over the six men’s faces one by one. Five were ordinary gang members, their faces flushed and eyes unfocused, hands trembling as they played the drinking games. But the lean man sitting further inside was different. He was also holding a wine bowl and wearing a smile, but the amusement didn’t reach his eyes. His finger joints were thick, and the hand holding the bowl was as steady as a rock. He wore a tight-fitting martial outfit, sleeves rolled up to his elbows to reveal his forearms. His skin tone was darker than a normal person’s, gleaming with a faint waxy luster under the candlelight—the distinct resilience of newly tempered skin and membrane. This had to be the remaining initiate Martial Artist of the Golden Saber Sect.
He would be hard to kill. Chen Yuan made his judgment. A sneak attack could only be used on the first target; the moment he struck, the others would react instantly. If he failed to kill this initiate Martial Artist right away, getting caught in a siege would be troublesome—two fists couldn’t match four hands. He had to clip the man’s wings first, then focus his energy on the main target.
He took a deep breath, sinking his breath to his Dantian. Then, like a cannonball fired from its barrel, he crashed into the hall. Executing the darting step of the Xin Yi Liu He Fist, his back foot crushed half a blue brick, and his shoulder burst the wooden doors open with a resounding BANG. The five fingers of his left hand clamped onto the back of a yellow-toothed man’s neck by the door like an eagle’s talons. Riding the momentum of his forward dash, he viciously slammed the man’s head into the tabletop.
CRACK!
His forehead smashed a porcelain plate. Shards embedded into his flesh, and the man slumped down without even a grunt.
At the same time, the Bone-Cutting Saber flew from his right hand. The blade spun twice in the air before plunging viciously into the throat of the man next to the yellow-toothed thug. The tip protruded half an inch from the back of his neck. The man had just been bringing his wine bowl to his lips. With a CLATTER, the bowl dropped onto the table as his hands instinctively flew up to clutch his neck, but they only grasped the saber’s hilt.
From breaching the door to throwing the saber, merely a single breath had passed.
That was two down.
The room erupted into chaos.
"Who’s there?!"
"Damn it, an intruder!"
The remaining three ordinary gang members didn’t react too slowly. They were gangsters, after all; despite the alcohol going to their heads, their instincts remained. One snatched up a long bench, another drew a short knife from his waist, and the last one, emboldened by liquid courage, lunged at Chen Yuan barehanded.
The lean man moved at the exact same instant. Pressing both hands against the tabletop, he vaulted backward, landing steadily with slightly bent knees and feet staggered in a fighting stance. This wasn’t a retreat; it was the instinctive reaction of a trained fighter. When faced with a sudden ambush by an unknown assailant, immediately creating distance to assess the situation was the mark of a veteran.
But Chen Yuan didn’t give him time to observe. He kicked the long bench in front of him, sending it tumbling toward the unarmed thug who was lunging at him. The man instinctively raised his arms to block. Using the momentum from the kick, Chen Yuan shot forward like an arrow released from its bowstring, pouncing straight at the lean man.
His right hand whipped out from his waist—a Beng Fist. The fist traveled straight down the center line. Spurred by Manifest Force, the bones and sinews of his entire right arm popped and cracked in a continuous barrage. Before the fist even arrived, a fierce gale blasted against the opponent’s face.
The lean man’s pupils contracted. He had already opened up the distance, planning to discern the attacker’s style before engaging, but he hadn’t expected the assailant to completely ignore the three gang members behind him and charge straight at him. The punch was too fast, too heavy, and too direct. There was nothing flashy about it—just a straight explosive strike aimed directly at his heart, right down the center line. Without time to overthink, he crossed his arms and pressed down to seal off the path of the Beng Fist.
THUD!
Fist met arms with a muffled boom like a beating drum. The lean man felt a spiraling, wrapping burst of close-range force drill straight through his forearms. The shock numbed the webbing between his thumb and index finger, forcing the blood and qi in his entire arm to surge backward toward his shoulder. He was horrified. This man’s Manifest Force was more than a notch heavier than his own, and the resilience of his tempered skin was certainly no weaker. This was no ordinary opponent. Riding the recoil of the punch, he retreated another three steps. He realized he had run into a thorny opponent who would be tough to handle unarmed, so he used this opportunity to grab his own saber.
In the ten breaths it took him to retreat, bump into a pillar, and grab his weapon, three muffled thuds and a wretched scream echoed from behind.
After knocking back the lean man with his punch, Chen Yuan hadn’t pursued him. Pushing off the ground with his right foot, he used the recoil to twist his waist and spin a full one hundred and eighty degrees, his left foot carving an arc in the air. Whirling around with a chopping fist, the heel of his palm came down like an axe, striking squarely against the neck of the thug wielding the short knife. The man had just raised his blade to stab, the tip a mere half-foot away from Chen Yuan’s back, when the palm heel chopped into the side of his neck. With a crisp CRACK, his collarbone fractured. He flew sideways into the wall, his neck twisted at an unnatural angle as he slid to the floor.
That was three.
Two were left—one had just tossed aside the kicked-over bench, and the other had just scrambled up from the ground. The one with the bench hoisted it over his head, but before he could smash it down, Chen Yuan had already closed the gap to within two inches of him. He crashed into the man, dropping his left shoulder and slamming into his chest with his full, coordinated bodily force. The man spewed a mouthful of alcohol fumes and flew backward, crashing into and flipping a table. Smashed bowls and plates clattered to the floor. His chest caved in, an unknown number of ribs snapped.
That was four.
The last unarmed gang member turned to flee. But his legs were trembling so badly that he tripped over the bench on the floor after just two steps. Scrambling onto his back, he saw Chen Yuan walking toward him. Tears and snot streamed down his face in terror as he scooted backward on his hands and feet. "Don’t... don’t kill—"
Chen Yuan kicked him square in the jaw. The muffled sound of teeth severing a tongue was accompanied by the snapping of cervical vertebrae. The man slumped silently to the floor.
That was five.
By now, the only person left standing in the hall was the lean man, who had just managed to grab his machete. He gripped the blade with both hands, pointing the tip at Chen Yuan. His gaze was no longer fierce; it was filled with dread. The residual shock from that Beng Fist still lingered in his forearms, and the webbing of his hands remained numb. He had seen it clearly—after driving him back, this man had spun around and killed three people in quick succession. Three punches, two kicks. Clean and efficient. Though his five subordinates weren’t top-tier fighters, they weren’t made of paper either. Yet in the span of a few breaths, they were all dead.
"Who are you?" the lean man asked in a deep voice, pressing the tip of his saber down a fraction of an inch. "What’s your connection to the Black Dragon Gang?"
Chen Yuan didn’t reply. With a flick of his toe, he kicked up the short knife from the floor and snatched it with his left hand. Holding the short knife in a reverse grip with his left hand and keeping his right fist bare, he staggered his feet—three parts of his weight on the front, seven on the back—and settled firmly into the Santishi stance.
The lean man wasted no more words. Stomping the ground, he unleashed a hacking chop.
The machete tore through the air with a violent shriek, cleaving straight down toward the top of Chen Yuan’s head. The strike was heavy and powerful, fueled by Manifest Force and wrapped in a scorching gale. Chen Yuan didn’t block it. Executing a rapid series of inch-steps, he dodged backward. The machete brushed past the tip of his nose and struck the square table with a loud BOOM, splitting a foot-long gash in the wood.
His strike missing, the lean man flipped his wrist, changing his move with blinding speed—the downward chop morphed into a horizontal slash sweeping toward Chen Yuan’s midsection. Chen Yuan stepped back again, the edge skimming his robes and slicing off a corner of the fabric. The horizontal slash flowed into an upward sweep, the tip angling from below to hook Chen Yuan’s ribs. Chen Yuan turned sideways, his ribs barely avoiding the tip.
Seven or eight successive strikes followed, each one aimed to kill. The hall was left in ruins from his wild hacking—wood chips flew from the pillars, a table corner was sheared off, and a wine jug exploded as the blade swept through it, spilling dregs across the floor. Yet, he still couldn’t manage to touch Chen Yuan.
Chen Yuan maneuvered around the pillars, the overturned furniture, and the corpses on the ground. Alternating between inch-steps and skipping steps, every footfall landed precisely in the transitional pauses of the blade’s momentum. His figure darted left and right, advancing and retreating like a snake weaving through rocky crevices.
The lean man grew increasingly frantic with his chops. He found that every strike felt like cutting through water. What was worse, after a dozen or so swings, his breathing grew ragged, his footwork became unsteady, and the connections between his strikes grew looser. His hands were fast, but his feet were slow. He had upper-body skill, but his foundational stance training was severely lacking—his lower base couldn’t keep up with his upper limbs.
The fifteenth strike. It was a straight thrust, but the force was overcommitted, and the tip embedded two inches deep into a wooden pillar.
Now was the time.
Chen Yuan pushed off with his right foot and closed in. Raising his short knife horizontally in his left hand, he blocked the machete’s hilt with a loud CLANG, simultaneously driving his right knee hard into the lean man’s lower abdomen. The lean man let out a muffled groan. His body instinctively lurched forward, and his grip on the blade loosened by a fraction.
Chen Yuan’s right hand was already clamping down on the man’s wrist—Eagle’s Grasp and Dragon Form Wrist Wrap. His five fingers clamped around the wrist joint like an iron hoop, twisting inward and flipping outward.
CRACK!
The wrist joint dislocated. The machete fell to the floor with a CLATTER. The lean man screamed in agony, his left hand instinctively throwing a punch at Chen Yuan’s face. Driven by excruciating pain, the punch was completely wild. Chen Yuan merely tilted his head to dodge, keeping a vice-like grip on the man’s right wrist. Dropping his left shoulder, he smashed his entire body into the man’s chest—Bear Form: Bear Leaning on the Mountain.
BANG!
The lean man was sent flying, his feet leaving the ground entirely. His back slammed into a square table, sending bowls and plates shattering to the floor with a crash. He tumbled to the ground, covered in liquor and porcelain shards.
He struggled to stand, but the moment he propped up his upper body, a metallic sweetness rose in his throat, and he spewed a mouthful of blood. Chen Yuan walked over and stood towering over him. Though this man was also an initiate Martial Artist, his foundation was hollow and his blade techniques messy; it seemed more like his martial level was propped up by taking elixirs. If he hadn’t had a sharp blade in hand, he would have died ten times over by now.
The lean man looked up, the ferocity on his face entirely shattered. Propping himself up with his left hand, he scooted backward, his voice trembling. "Don’t... don’t kill me... I know I was wrong... You want silver? I’ll give it all to you! The territory is yours too!" Tears and snot mingled as they dripped down onto the massive bruise on his chest.
Chen Yuan crouched down and looked him in the eyes.
"Do you know what I hate the most?" His voice was as flat as ever. His right fist had already clenched, knuckles slightly protruding, the fist surface flat and perfectly still. "I hate it most when people apologize after the fact."
A Beng Fist. The force rose from the ground, unifying knees and hips, powered by the twist of his waist and spine. The spiraling burst of close-range force concentrated perfectly on the fist.
The punch blasted squarely into the lean man’s Adam’s apple.
CRACK.
The Adam’s apple shattered as the force of the punch penetrated straight through to his cervical vertebrae. The lean man’s body went rigidly stiff, his eyes bulging wide and his mouth gaping open. Then, like a marionette with cut strings, he slumped sideways onto the floor, twitched twice, and fell permanently still.
Chen Yuan stood up and shook the blood off his knuckles. He pulled the Bone-Cutting Saber from the yellow-toothed thug’s throat and walked over to the table. The two dead-drunk men were still there.
One of them groggily propped his head up. Seeing the blood all over the floor, his pupils abruptly contracted, sobering him up just a bit. He opened his mouth to shout, but the phlegm in his throat restricted his voice to a hoarse screech. Reaching out to grasp the hilt at his waist, his fingers had barely touched it before Chen Yuan appeared behind him. The Bone-Cutting Saber pierced into the back of his neck, angling upward to skewer his brainstem. Chen Yuan withdrew the blade, and the man slumped silently back onto the table.
The other one was still snoring, completely oblivious. Chen Yuan grabbed his hair, yanked his head up, and slit his throat with a single slash. Letting go, he allowed the man to slide back onto the table.
He followed up with finishing strikes on the rest to ensure they were all dead. Simultaneously looting the corpses, he found over twenty taels of silver and a few unrecognizable elixirs among the ten bodies. Their extortion of the commoners’ hard-earned wealth amounted to three months of his wages. No wonder they had no intention of running a long-term operation; this was a get-rich-quick-and-bail scheme. Chen Yuan clicked his tongue in thought. But ultimately, it had all fallen into his pockets. It truly lived up to the saying: murder and pillaging yield the quickest riches.
Looking back, the entire hall had fallen completely silent. The flickering candlelight illuminated the mess on the floor. Overturned furniture, shattered dishes, and sprawled corpses lay everywhere, while splattered blood slowly trickled down the walls. The stench of blood mixed with the sour tang of spilled liquor, so thick it felt almost solid.
Chen Yuan wiped the Bone-Cutting Saber clean on a tablecloth, walked over to the corner of the room, and cut the hemp ropes binding the three girls’ hands and feet, before pulling out the rags stuffed in their mouths. "Can you stand up?"
One girl looked up at him. Her eyes were red and swollen, and her lips were still trembling, but she gritted her teeth and nodded.
"Leave through the back door," Chen Yuan said, standing up. "Don’t look back."
He turned and pushed open the front doors of the hall. The night breeze surged in, carrying the scent of blood and causing the candlelight to flicker wildly. Outside, the night was too thick to disperse. The wind from the Yishui River blew through the alleyway, carrying the chill of late autumn. Chen Yuan pulled off his black face covering, stuffed it into his robes, and walked step by step into the profound darkness of the night.