Glutton

Whoosh— With that ringing shout came a blaze of brilliant rainbow light in midair. Dazzling radiance lit the wilds on every side, and within a few hundred meters all around it turned as bright as day. Hard on its heels rolled a long crash of thunder! Last of all, a lone figure descended amid the lightning and thunder — a man in white, drifting down on the wind. "Qi Dian of the Linjiang Sect is here! Who dares make trouble?" Crack! A great boom tore across the sky, and Qi Dian made his dazzling entrance. "So cool." Even Yue Wen down below couldn't help marveling. Truly worthy of an immortal sect disciple. Just the fanfare of the man's entrance was more than rogue cultivators like them could ever hope to match. At the sight of Qi Dian sweeping in through the air on that dizzying show of sound, light, and electricity, a flicker of wariness crossed the man in black's eyes. He wrenched the great banner up off the ground and swept it through the air with a fling of his arm! Hoo— The great banner whipped up a turbid yin wind, which became a bolt of black silk, lancing through the air at Qi Dian. In midair, Qi Dian flipped his hand and drew out a long sword, cold light flashing along its edge — no common blade. He urged out a three-foot glow of sword light, meaning to cut that yin wind clean in two! Boom! Sword radiance and yin wind collided — shuddered — and broke. The yin wind burst into a cloud of black mist on the spot, and Qi Dian, without another word, was blasted out of the air. He hit the ground flat on his back and lay there, out cold. On stage less than three seconds. Qi Dian was straight-up KO'd. "So it was all just for show?" Yue Wen covered his face. That instant had been chaos, but with his own cultivation level backing his eyes, he had seen it clearly enough. The yin wind the man in black had fanned out had a chaotic mental attack mixed into it. Sharp as Qi Dian's sword radiance was, the moment it touched that wind he could no longer hold his technique together — the clarity of his spirit palace was gone, the sword light scattered, his true qi wavered. That was how a single clash put him on the ground. And his mind never woke from it. "Fuck." Even the man in black was a little surprised. He spat a curse: "Turns out he's just a small-time punk." The man had come on so fiercely that the black-clad cultivator had actually been nervous for a moment. Since when did the East City Cemetery keep a cultivator stationed in it? He'd assumed it was Supernatural Management Bureau people lying in wait for him specifically. With skills like that, why make your entrance so flashy? The man in black raised his hand again. Four black steel needles shot through the air and punched into Qi Dian's four limbs, pinning his whole body to the ground in a temporary seal. "Hmph." A vicious grin curled across his face. "Since you're an immortal sect disciple, there's no hurry to kill you. The Linjiang Sect isn't any great sect, but it's been rooted in Jiangcheng for years — it ought to have a tidy fortune put away. Tie you up, squeeze a ransom out of them first, then strip out every supernatural power and magic implement you carry, and finally refine you into a corpse puppet. That's what I call making full use of you. Heh-heh-heh-heh…" Listening to that evil cackling, Yue Wen had a fair idea of what this man was. Qi Dian had called him a heretical cultivator the moment he arrived. The powers he'd used — corpse-summoning, soul-bewitching, that sort of thing — fit the type, and so did his way of doing business. There was no doubt left at all. Of the heretical cultivators the righteous path spoke of, there were two kinds. One kind had cultivation talent but, hungry for greater power, trained in evil methods that harmed others. The other kind had no talent at all, and could only step onto the path of cultivation by paying certain prices — prices that usually meant falling into heresy. Either way, a harmonious society had no place for them. And every last one of them was a desperate outlaw who would stop at nothing. The man in black was presumably the former kind. His methods were sinister and dark, but in overall shape he still looked human. Heretical cultivators like that could never stand the light of day; their only livelihood was taking jobs from the underworld. Today's job, presumably, was to come here on his client's behalf and summon corpses, hunting for the "Zhang Wei" the client wanted. Yue Wen's mind spun fast, weighing his options. If he went on sitting back and watching, the man in black would finish the job and walk off with Qi Dian. Hiding to the very end might keep Yue Wen himself safe, but Qi Dian would certainly suffer at the fiend's hands. If he stepped out and fought, he had no guarantee of winning — he had never crossed a heretical cultivator before. He knew neither the man's cultivation level nor his tricks. And if he secretly phoned the Supernatural Management Bureau, odds were he'd be found out — and the Bureau's people would still need a while to get there. After turning it all over, Yue Wen looked at the overalls-clad figure standing up ahead — and his eyes suddenly lit. A plan came to him. ... The man in black laid a temporary soul-suppression seal on Qi Dian so he wouldn't wake, then turned back to the crowd of corpses in front of him. The proper job still wasn't finished. Even heretical cultivators who stop at nothing must complete the jobs they take. Otherwise they lose their credibility, and with it the backing of the underground forces — through legitimate channels they simply cannot survive, let alone cultivate. So in certain matters, heretical cultivators kept to the rules more faithfully than righteous cultivators did. He sent another voice message to the other end. "A righteous cultivator tried to stop me just now. He's been dealt with. Send over any more information you have on the target." A long reply came back almost at once, all about "Zhang Wei." Then one more line: "I expect you to move faster. My patience has limits." "Rest easy, Boss." The man in black vowed earnestly: "With this much information, if I still can't pinpoint the target, I'll go eat shit!" He put his phone away and looked confidently at the five figures standing ahead. "Zhang Wei — single from the womb, forever alone — the graduate of Jiangcheng Technical College who got drunk during military training and pissed in public under the girls' dormitory, insisting he wanted to show everyone his 'military hardware'; who confessed to the girl he liked with a can of fermented herring; who took selfies in stockings in his dorm room and sold them online as 'original flavor,' only for the buyer to turn out to be his roommate; who after graduation worked at an antique shop, and who, during an overtime shift before his death, stole the master copy of an important item from the shop… Step forward!" With that, he broke into a confident smile and watched the five restless corpses, waiting for the target to step out on his own. They had already shuffled several steps forward, so these corpses had come down to the foot of the slope, very close to him now. He could see their faces clearly — mangled flesh and blood, still wearing, it seemed, the struggle and agony of their dying moments. That was the expression he most loved to see… Thud. Thud. The smile had barely settled on his face when two corpses took a great step forward, together. "…" Silence. A yin wind swept dead leaves across the slope. The man in black stared ahead, mouth hanging open, struck dumb. Total, utter, one-hundred-percent disbelief. Huh—? Only after a long while did he mumble: "There can be two of them?" Could the world really hold two such legends? Both named Zhang Wei, and both buried right here… He began to wonder if he had learned the corpse-summoning art wrong. This was way too freaky! Well — there were only the two corpses; bringing both back for the employer would still pass. Only, remembering the big boast he'd just made, the man in black felt a twinge of worry. The employer wouldn't take him for some kind of glutton, would he? "Eh?" Puzzled, he ran his eyes over the two corpses and back again — then suddenly frowned. One corpse wore overalls and a center-parted hairstyle, face unreadable. The other was fairly clean in its clothes, head drooping so the face couldn't be seen; judging by its general outline, it should be a handsome one. Its bearing was a shade more dashing than the other corpses', too. It kind of stood out. He stared at the handsome corpse standing out like a crane among the dead and asked, with a flicker of doubt: "Was this one here just now?" While he was still pondering, the "corpse" suddenly lifted its head, revealing a face of bright eyes and star-clear brows, and grinned at him. "Pretty good memory you've got." "A living man?!" Horror jolted through the man in black, and he flung himself backward to flee. Half a lifetime spent playing with corpses, and this was the first time one had scared him. But it was already too late. The disguised handsome corpse was, naturally, Yue Wen. Worried that coming out to save Qi Dian head-on might not end in his favor, he had quietly slipped in among those "Zhang Weis." Taking the chance as they shuffled forward, he had closed the distance to the man in black. And now was the moment to explode into action! Sword-control art! A streak of cold light shot from Yue Wen's wrist in an instant, sword light swift as Hou Yi shooting down the sun — fast beyond all measure! At a longer range, the man in black might still have had a chance to dodge. But the space between them was now less than seven paces. Beyond seven paces, the flying sword is fast. Within seven paces, it is fast and true! Shhk—