It was the one who destroyed the bandit stronghold!
A sudden realization dawned on Li Yan.
The massacre at Gushui Village had finally taken clear shape in his mind.
Squire Lu and his family had fled from the imperial capital, and their true background was anything but simple. More importantly, he had carried a precious painting with him.
That item had to be extraordinary. Someone in the capital had issued orders, mobilizing the prominent greenwood outlaws of both Guanzhong and Qilu to rob the Lu family together, orchestrating the village slaughter as a cover.
Furthermore, more than one faction was scheming for the prize.
Squire Lu's concubine was a Yaohei from the Yan Sect. Working from the inside in collusion with the outside, she had seized the chaos to steal the painting, while this older man had followed close on her heels, driving demonic snakes to butcher the bandit stronghold.
If Li Yan had not uncovered these details by sheer coincidence, he truly would have been left in the dark.
With so many lives lost, that painting undoubtedly concealed a great secret!
Of course, none of that mattered to Li Yan right now.
The critical issue was the middle-aged man—he was definitely an adept of Xuanmen!
If he released those cockscomb snakes, no one present would escape.
With this thought, Li Yan inconspicuously edged closer to Sha Lifei while forming the Yang hand seal with his fingers, trying to catch whatever other scents might reveal the man's preparations.
Suddenly, as if sensing something, the middle-aged man glanced right at him.
*He can detect divine powers?!*
Li Yan's heart jolted, and he dared not make another move.
He was now certain that this was the most formidable sorcerer he had ever encountered; even if Luo Mingzi were here, he likely would not be his match.
On the other side of the courtyard, the scarred youth made his move.
The constables' raised crossbows seemed to have enraged him completely. With a low roar, he charged forward, swinging his guduo mace.
"Fire!" Guan Wanche commanded without hesitation.
He had already determined that the two intruders were dangerous criminals.
Besides, the youth had admitted to flaying people alive and wiping out entire households. Anywhere under heaven, that was a major case bound for the Ministry of Justice.
*Swish! Swish! Swish!*
Three crossbow bolts tore through the air.
Crossbows and traditional bows each had their merits.
A master archer was naturally more formidable—a treasure to any faction or magistrate's yamen—yet archers required rare talent and years of training. Crossbows, by contrast, demanded less skill, offered higher accuracy, and delivered devastating lethal force.
Against ordinary martial artists of the jianghu, crossbows were far more effective, which was why they were standard equipment for constables across the Great Xuan Dynasty.
At such close range, ordinary men could never dodge them.
Yet the scarred youth showed no fear. Raising the guduo mace in his right hand, he deflected left and parried right. With two crisp clangs, he knocked two bolts aside.
Such eyesight and reflexes far exceeded those of common martial artists.
More astounding still, his left hand had not stayed idle. With a twisting snap akin to the silk-reeling grappling technique, he caught the final bolt in midair. Using the momentum, his body vaulted into the sky, flipped, and whipped his arm forward, sending the bolt screeching straight toward Zhou Pan.
The entire sequence was fluid, crisp, and clean.
*Clack!*
Zhou Pan was no amateur. He raised a hand and plucked the bolt from right before his brow, then squeezed. With a snap, he broke the shaft in two, tossed the pieces aside, and a fierce glint flashed in his eyes.
Coiling the muscles of his legs, he bounded out from the main hall.
It was the ape leap technique, yet Zhou Pan executed it with sublime mastery.
High in the dense canopy and along sheer cliffs, apes could often be seen leaping effortlessly through the mist—just as the saying went, *A thousand apes leap through the cassia boughs, catching glimpses of the open sky through the narrowest crevice.* Zhou Pan's leap was driven by explosive hidden jin. The tremendous force propelled him forward like a catapult, carrying him clear out of the hall.
When an ape leaps to grasp a branch, it leans forward and thrusts its arms out.
Zhou Pan did the same. In the blink of an eye, he crossed the stone steps and met the charging youth, his right claw raking directly toward the youth's face.
His timing was honed to perfection.
Though the youth had a weapon, it would be useless here.
If the youth's reactions were half a beat too slow, the claw would blind him or crush his skull in a single blow.
If the youth blocked, Zhou Pan could seize the arm or weapon, transitioning seamlessly into joint-dislocating chin na locks to subdue him on the spot.
Zhou Pan favored the second outcome.
The reason was none other than the traveling physician standing opposite him.
Though Zhou Pan possessed no divine powers, a martial artist's instincts were sharp. He felt the terrifying threat radiating from that middle-aged man, and taking the youth hostage would give him leverage.
Both men moved like lightning, their clash unfolding in a single breath.
Everyone in the hall could tell that the youth was extraordinarily skilled. His hidden jin circulated freely with every motion, hovering near the peak of the hidden jin realm.
Yet before Zhou Pan, that was still not enough.
The old monkey was a master of transformative jin, uniting force and spirit as one. When he traded blows, every gesture seemed light and effortless, but contained boundless depth—like flowing water conforming to whatever vessel held it, round or square as required. The secret lay entirely in that word: *transform*.
No matter how fierce a hidden jin practitioner's strike, transformative jin could effortlessly dissolve it.
Yet facing Zhou Pan's lethal claw, the youth did not flinch. He dropped his stance, tucked his chin, rounded his chest, and turned his back directly toward Zhou Pan.
*What kind of bizarre move is this?*
The back was a vital area; a single palm strike from Zhou Pan could shatter the spine.
No martial art fought like this—was he courting death?
While the crowd watched in astonishment, Zhou Pan's expression changed drastically.
Being close, he saw more clearly: the youth's back bulged unnaturally beneath his clothes. It looked like a hunchback, yet the shape was rigid and squared. It was clearly a concealed mechanism.
A surge of crisis gripped Zhou Pan's heart. Unfortunately, he was suspended midair and could not alter his trajectory. All he could do was cross his forearms before his vitals.
Yet it was already too late.
The youth's left hand had hooked a ring hidden in his sleeve and yanked it hard.
*Boom!*
A deafening blast erupted, billowing thick gunpowder smoke as a storm of needles shot outward. The youth had indeed concealed a mechanism across his back—an iron plate fitted below, with spring-loaded needles and a charge of powder mounted above to detonate a blinding screen of smoke.
"It's poisoned! Fall back!" Li Yan smelled the danger and shouted a warning.
The onlookers had never witnessed such vicious tactics. Their faces went pale, and they scrambled backward. The nearest constables were too slow; inhaling the foul smoke, their faces turned crimson, and they clutched their throats, coughing violently as blood streamed from their noses.
The unluckiest by far was Zhou Pan.
He had trained in martial schools and, though seasoned in the jianghu, had always adhered to the rules of the older generation. After rising to leader of the Divine Fist Association, he had lived in comfort and rarely traded blows in anger.
He had never encountered the underhanded methods of a desperate madman.
Even a transformative jin master remained flesh and blood.
At point-blank range, almost all the flying needles sank into his body.
Whatever poison coated them was not instantly lethal, but it set the nerves ablaze, feeling as though thousands of white-hot iron spikes were being driven into his flesh.
"Aaargh!"
Even Zhou Pan could not hold back a shriek of agony.
That cry broke his breath, scattering his defensive force, and caused him to inhale a massive gulp of toxic smoke.
The youth was also jostled, spitting blood from his lips, yet the murderous glint in his eyes only burned brighter. Hidden jin surged through his legs, propelling him forward in an instant. His right hand thrust the guduo mace straight ahead in a classic sword stance: *Chasing the Stars, Pursuing the Moon*.
No one noticed his thumb depressing a catch on the shaft.
*Thud!*
The blow struck Zhou Pan squarely in the chest.
Zhou Pan's internal force had already collapsed from the poison. Driven by hidden jin, the youth's strike shattered his sternum with a sickening crunch.
Yet that was not the end.
The fluted garlic-bulb head of the guduo mace sank inward under the impact, revealing a pitch-black opening. An instant later, another thunderous bang roared out, shrouding them in smoke.
Zhou Pan's body stiffened and froze.
He looked down at his chest in utter disbelief, where a blood-rimmed hole the size of a fist now gaped.
"The one who killed you is the Chang'an Fire Ghost!" the youth spat with a cold snort, turning on his heel to leave.
Such brutal, merciless methods left everyone in the hall stunned and terrified. Even though the toxic smoke was clearing, not a soul dared pursue them. They could only watch in silence as the youth and the traveling physician walked away.
*Thud!*
Zhou Pan toppled backward onto the ground, his face dark blue, devoid of breath.
Zhang Shitong felt his scalp prickle with cold numbness. He could not resist turning to Zhang Yuanshang beside him. "Father, have you ever heard of such techniques?"
The old man knitted his white brows. "Never."
Meanwhile, Li Yan walked forward with a grim expression and retrieved a blood-smeared iron shot from the floor. His eyelids twitched, and he muttered under his breath, "Damn it all... even this thing has shown up..."
***
"Good grief, you should have seen it!"
Sha Lifei sprayed saliva as he recounted the scene with relish. "Gunpowder, poisoned needles, toxic smoke—every single bit designed purely for slaughter! Relying on that, a mere hidden jin fighter turned Old Monkey Zhou into a human hornet's nest!"
"Old Monkey Zhou thought he had calculated every angle, trying to buy off all the big factions while playing dumb to brush off young brother Yan. Who would have guessed he'd die at the hands of another aggrieved victim?"
Wang Daoxuan sat on the heated kang bed. Though he had regained consciousness, his face remained pale. Hearing this, he shook his head with a sigh. "When the sun and moon keep their heaven, they can illuminate for long; when the four seasons cycle in turn, they can endure and accomplish all things. When one's virtue does not match their station, disaster inevitably follows..."
Sha Lifei scoffed dismissively. "With the kind of rabble under his command, an incident was bound to happen sooner or later." Turning around, he asked, "Young brother Yan, what are you staring at?"
Li Yan gazed down at the iron pellet in his hand, his brow furrowed, and shook his head. "Nothing. I simply underestimated how treacherous the jianghu can be. It seems I must be far more careful from now on."
*Firearms!*
He should have realized it sooner.
Ever since the imperial court opened the maritime trade routes, merchant fleets had sailed the high seas, and cannons were used frequently. The presence of handguns and firearms was hardly surprising.
Of course, ordinary gunpowder was banned from civilian circulation. Moreover, martial arts flourished in this world; to elite jianghu experts, standard firearms were little different from powerful hidden weapons.
Yet the situation seemed to have changed.
The mechanism across the scarred youth's back used ordinary black powder, but the powder packed inside the guduo mace was far more potent, with a peculiar smell.
Combined with weapon skills and martial forms, it was virtually impossible to defend against—even Zhou Pan had failed to withstand it.
Judging by the shock on everyone's faces, they had never seen anything like it either.
That meant this new type of gunpowder had only recently appeared.
Furthermore, shortly after the incident, the Chang'an Commandant Bureau had dispatched a large contingent to seal the city gates and conduct a sweeping manhunt. Even Daoist Qingyangzi from the City God Temple had been summoned to track them using esoteric arts.
Unfortunately, the two suspects had vanished without a trace.
From all indications, the imperial court already knew about this new gunpowder—and very likely, it had leaked from within the court itself, which explained their extreme vigilance.
If his suspicion was correct, the world was about to change.
A firearm capable of killing a transformative jin master, if mass-produced and equipped by the imperial court, would tighten their control over the jianghu immensely.
And no wall in the world was completely airtight. Now that this weapon had slipped into the wild, others would learn of it sooner or later, and many established rules would crumble.
To say nothing of other dangers, take their recent rescue mission:
Chen Fakui had employed explosive bundles alongside sophisticated puppet mechanisms. If Chen Fakui had gotten his hands on this new gunpowder and packed it inside his puppets, it likely would have been Li Yan and his companions who died that day!
And then there was the true culprit behind his father's death—the Maitreya Sect!
The mere thought gave him a pounding headache.
Seeing Li Yan's furrowed brow, Sha Lifei quickly steered the conversation away, laughing aloud. "Well, whatever the case, Zhou Pan is dead as a doorknob! We can finally get a good night's rest. Today, we head back to Xianyang!"
Chapter 81