Smelling the rot and stench inside the cavern, the young man glanced once more at the headless corpse of the shanxiao.
"Where did this beast even come from?"
He wondered this because monkeys were social creatures by nature. While strays did happen, he had never heard of such things inhabiting the Qinling Mountains. He had seen clever monkeys before—they were primates, after all—but one this malicious, versed in combat tactics, psychological maneuvering, and outright cunning, was truly rare.
If he had not crossed paths with it today, then in another two years, once its vital energy grew even stronger, it would have become a dreadful scourge. Hunting people and beasts aside, it would have been little different from the mountain spirits and monsters of bizarre folklore.
None of that mattered anymore, though.
Lian Youming looked with a sigh at the skeletons on the ground, especially those of the two children. Judging by the clothes stripped from them, they had died not long ago—only two or three years.
Squatting down, he was about to toss the shanxiao out when his gaze suddenly froze. His expression turned peculiar. Extending his right hand, he slowly parted the black fur on the nape of the beast's neck.
The fur was stiff and dense, much like the bristles of a wild boar. Yet the patch of flesh beneath was bare, as if burned, and stranger still, bore a branded mark—a symbol resembling a lotus flower.
"A lotus? Could it be the White Lotus Sect? Surely it's not that beast-driving technique again?"
Lian Youming furrowed his brows and inspected it closely, but found nothing else. Moreover, the creature's natural stench was rank and foul to begin with, and mixed with fresh gore, the fumes were thoroughly nauseating.
Not even wanting to touch it again, he hooked his right foot under the carcass and swept it out of the cavern.
With that done, Lian Youming turned back to reexamine the two strange skeletons.
Both lay propped against the wall, one slightly taller, the other shorter, entangled in gnarled vines of varying thickness. Rooted in a slender fissure in the rock, the vines crept down the wall like an immense woven net, with several thick tendrils reaching almost to the cave entrance.
The shorter one wore a changshan, positioned on the left.
The taller one wore Manchu attire, positioned on the right.
Lian Youming drew closer to look. The changshan on the left skeleton had long since deteriorated from mountain drafts, faded and brittle. At a rub of his fingers, the fabric crumbled instantly into dust, exposing the stark white bones beneath.
Yet when he shifted his gaze to the skeleton's chest, his pupils constricted sharply, and his shoulders jolted. The ribs were covered in countless fractures, as though struck by an unimaginable impact. The damage spread outward in a spiderweb pattern; while the blow had landed on the heart, the force had dispersed across the entire chest and abdomen, encompassing almost the entire upper torso.
Lian Youming's breath hitched, his eyes filled with both marvel and dread.
This was his first time witnessing firsthand the devastation wrought by internal martial arts force.
It was terrifying.
Not only the ribs, but the skeleton's right leg and left arm were completely mapped with fractures.
"What a brutal way to die."
As for this person's opponent...
Lian Youming turned to the skeleton on the right.
This set of bones was tall and robust, with exceptionally broad shoulders and bizarrely long arms that nearly reached the knees.
Not only were the arm bones long, but they were thick and hard, and the knuckles were remarkably large. Four or five rings and thumb rings were fitted onto the fingers, some suffused with blood-red jade veins, others set with cat's-eye stones the size of pigeon eggs.
"This man definitely trained in external martial arts, and possessed overbearing hand techniques... Huh, where's the wound?"
Lian Youming looked left and right, yet found no visible fractures or trauma.
"Could his internal organs have been destroyed?"
As he inspected it carefully, he noticed a faint, inconspicuous notch on the neck vertebrae.
The edge of the notch was neat, clearly caused by a sharp weapon.
"A sharp weapon?"
His eyes flickered. He originally intended to move the two bodies aside, but the vines were tangled like serpents, deeply entwined with the dry bones to the point of becoming almost one.
Without hesitation, he drew his military dagger. With swift, clean cuts, he severed the surrounding vines and freed the skeletons from the ground.
After carefully laying the body out in an open space, Lian Youming slipped off all the rings and thumb rings in one sweep.
"Could this guy have been some imperial palace expert?"
The skeleton in the forest farm's secret room had clearly been discovered long ago; aside from the eye-refining manual, almost nothing remained to prove that person's identity.
As for this one...
With a thought, Lian Youming reached into the figure's pouch and inside his robe.
The Manchu attire on the skeleton was remarkably sturdy. Though heavily faded and somewhat frayed, it had not degraded to the point of disintegrating upon contact, remaining largely intact.
Sure enough, his search turned up a handful of loose silver dollars and copper coins from the pouch.
There was something inside the breast of the robe as well.
Using his military dagger to pry it open, Lian Youming found a hidden lining sewn into the lapel, stuffed with what felt like a hard object and a letter.
"What's this?"
Pulling them out, the first thing he saw was a dark yellow medallion the size of a child's palm. One side bore a large character: "Zhan." The other side was engraved with several small characters:
"Shangyu Spare Bureau, Deputy Commander."
Seeing this title, Lian Youming pondered for a moment, then pursed his dry lips. "The Zhan Ganchu?"
Looking at the letter, it was impossible to pick up. Though it appeared intact, it had rotted through like soggy mud, crumbling into ash at the slightest touch.
Rubbing the paper dust between his fingers, Lian Youming returned to where the two had lain and sliced through the remaining vines on the ground with his dagger.
As the vines were pushed aside, an object clattered free.
It was an ancient sword, nearly three feet long.
Coated in dust, it emitted a crisp, trembling ring the moment it hit the stone.
"Looks like this was the sharp weapon."
Lian Youming picked up the sword, a look of regret in his eyes.
Though ancient in form, the blade was heavily corroded with rust. No matter how sharp it had once been, it was now reduced to scrap metal.
Holding the sword, he casually struck a few stances, but his gaze gradually settled on the floor.
"Journeyed north to eradicate demons; no regrets even in death. An alliance of united wills, I did not dishonor... Disciple of the Wudang Lower Dan Sect... bones buried here..."
Reading the mottled, faint carved characters, Lian Youming froze in place.
The strokes were broken and varied in depth, showing that the writer could barely muster his strength, on the verge of death with his oil exhausted and lamp gone dark.
This was a dying testament.
"Wudang Lower Dan Sect?"
Lian Youming's expression grew serious.
Could the corpse here be connected to the skeleton in the forest farm's secret room?
By intuition alone, he felt it was highly probable.
They wore the same Manchu attire, and the eras were not far apart.
The difference was that the two here had perished together, whereas the one in the secret room had clearly been slain under another's fist.
"Journeyed north to eradicate demons? An alliance of united wills? Demons?"
Lian Youming's thoughts spun rapidly. The only thing that came to mind was the living man buried beneath the earth, an existence over a century old. Or perhaps those heretics who cultivated martial arts by consuming the vital energy of martial artists.
In some sense, all of them fit the description.
Yet glancing at the corpse of the Zhan Ganchu deputy commander, his heart thumped.
"Could it have something to do with the fallen imperial dynasty?"
After turning it over in his head, Lian Youming shook his head. There was simply too little information. Furthermore, judging by that horrifying internal force capable of shattering half a man's bones in a single punch, it far exceeded anything he could currently fathom. Even looking at it left one shaken and fearful; anyone else might have been scared away from the martial path entirely.
The only certainty was: "It seems some unimaginable events once transpired in the martial world."
Pushing aside his thoughts, Lian Youming cleared the remaining vines from the cave walls. Yet aside from a few fist marks, sword gouges, and traces of battle, there was nothing else useful.
After pacing around the cavern a few more times and finding no further discoveries, he climbed back up the cliff along the vines.
Outside, the warm sun hung high in the sky.
Taking a deep breath facing the sun, Lian Youming retraced his path.
When he returned to the ruined Daoist temple brimming with questions, the scene before him made him blurt out, "Holy crap."
The mother bear and her cub were sitting amid a patch of Solomon's seal, gorging contentedly as if crunching on cucumbers. The ground before them had been excavated into a massive crater.
The King of Scraps sat nearby, chewing on a few raw pieces of Solomon's seal, mouthful by mouthful.
"Why didn't you stop them?"
Lian Youming hurried over, intending to chase the mother bear away. But when he saw the Solomon's seal roots inside the pit—gnarled like a serpent's nest and piled high like a decorative rockery—he could not help but suck in a sharp breath.
"There's so much of it!"
The King of Scraps lifted his aged eyes, looked Lian Youming up and down, and seeing the cuts left by the shanxiao, curled his lip. "You really haven't seen the world, kid. Hurry up and dig."
"Right! Haha, we're rich!"
Lian Youming had no mind for anything else. He scrambled to the edge of the pit, grinning excitedly as he prepared to dig in, when the mother bear suddenly lunged at him.
"Damn you! Repaying kindness with enmity? You eat my Solomon's seal and now you want to hit me?"
His expression shifted slightly. Quietly channeling his internal force, he prepared to throw a heavy counter-punch, but hesitated as his fist rose, altering his stance into a defensive guard. In an instant, man and bear collided.
The King of Scraps stood up, dusted off his trousers, and said sluggishly, "That mother bear found this patch before you did. There were digging marks here already; the shanxiao came because of it too. Between the two beasts, we're the latecomers."
"Old man, stop babbling and help me take it down!" Though Lian Youming possessed a sturdy frame, he was still dwarfed by the mother bear. A single swipe of those massive paws shredded his sleeves into ribbons.
The King of Scraps said calmly, "You're not allowed to hurt it. Observe the Dao of Heaven, enact the workings of Heaven. This mother bear shows no wild bloodlust and radiates no malice. Haven't you steadied your mind? Try responding to it with your own peaceful qi."
"This is a bear! I'll be damned if I can stay peaceful!"
Lian Youming gritted his teeth, holding off the mother bear's forearms. Even as he spoke, an immense brute force shoved him backward step by step.
The King of Scraps limped toward the other side. "Then use the clumsy way: wear it down until it drops."
Lian Youming called out hurriedly, "Where are you going?"
Without looking back, the King of Scraps replied, "I'm going to gather herbs for you. Deal with her first... I'll say it once more: you're not allowed to harm her. Do that, and don't expect me to answer any of your questions ever again."
Lian Youming's expression warped. "Don't! Old man, are you getting back at me on purpose? ...Ah, she's pressing down!"
The only answer he received was a cold chuckle from the King of Scraps.
Left with no choice, Lian Youming braced himself to meet the mother bear head-on. The boy and the beast grappled like ordinary brawlers in a wrestling match of sheer strength, rolling from the crumbling ruins into the woods, and from the woods back into the Daoist temple.
To be fair, the mother bear truly showed no signs of frenzy. She kept trying to snap her jaws, but Lian Youming held her arms in an iron lock, leaving her only able to claw and grapple with her hind legs.
After a grueling tussle, man and bear wrestled for over half an hour.
By the time the King of Scraps strolled leisurely back from the forest, he found Lian Youming with a stiff face, tangled hair, and a swollen cheek. The boy sat slumped over a charred log, groaning in sheer exhaustion. His freshly bought clothes had been reduced to tatters, exposing bare arms and thighs, looking every bit like a beggar.
As for the mother bear, she had finally collapsed from exhaustion, sprawled flat on the ground with limbs splayed wide, still chewing on Solomon's seal while looking as if she might try to haul herself back up.
Chapter 70