A dark and windy night.
At some point, dark clouds had blanketed the skies over Longxing County. Chilly gusts blew in bursts, and the darkness deepened—harbingers of an impending downpour.
Wang Ping nearly held his breath.
The magistrate standing before him—whether in his breathing, heartbeat, or the circulation of blood and qi—had in every physical aspect transcended the bounds of a mortal.
For an instant, an illusion even flickered before his eyes, as though the figure standing in the night was not a man at all, but a golden-winged Peng bird with burning eyes and outstretched, sky-blotting wings, poised to swoop down and slaughter him at any moment. Facing him was like a rabbit coming upon a starving tiger.
This was a disparity in the very level of life itself.
Every cell in his body screamed in agony at this moment, animal instinct urging him to turn on his heel and flee for his life—the further, the better!
"...Whew!"
In the next second, Wang Ping discarded a martial artist's perceptions and circulated his spiritual sense, finally puncturing that inexplicable illusion and seeing his opponent's true form once more.
"Hm?"
Almost simultaneously, the magistrate of Longxing, Xu Bingzheng, seemed to notice something as well. A look of surprise crossed his face. "Interesting. Is this another sorcery of the White Lotus Sect?"
"A lesser heavenly circulation physique, an internal strength martial master with minor mastery—not even the equal of Chen Haoyan when he was alive—yet you managed to break through the suppression of my divine intent. It seems the White Lotus Sect didn't sweep through all those counties and carve out such a grand reputation across Changle Commandery purely on luck; they do possess some real tricks." Xu Bingzheng's tone remained calm.
"Speak."
His gaze rested on Wang Ping as he said placidly, "About the White Lotus Sect, and about the pills you stole that night—you must have at least three things to say."
After a moment of silence, Wang Ping raised his head. "...How did you find me?"
"That wasn't one of them."
The words had barely left his mouth when a searing pain flared across Wang Ping's body. By the time his senses caught up, he found a bloody wound carved across his chest.
Blood gushed out instantly.
Wang Ping took a step back at once, circulating his internal strength to stem the loss of blood from the wound, though the color drained from his face, leaving it pale.
'So this is a titled martial master?'
'It is still internal strength, perhaps vaster, more refined, and far more potent than mine... but that is all. There doesn't appear to be any qualitative leap.'
The sharp pain did not cloud Wang Ping's thoughts. From the moment he killed Chen Haoyan and took the risk of returning to the county yamen, he had prepared himself for the day he would be exposed. He hadn't expected it to happen so soon, but no matter—with the Fiend from Beyond, to him it was nothing more than starting over again.
Thus, rather than the injury, he cared far more about something else.
The next step of the martial path—what exactly was a "titled martial master"? If he wished to reach it, what conditions had to be met?
With this in mind, he spoke once more:
"How did you find me?"
The same question, the same unwavering demeanor. This time, Xu Bingzheng did not deliver a second slash; instead, he knitted his brows in mild perplexity.
"You aren't afraid of dying?"
Xu Bingzheng considered himself a judge of countless men and would not misread a person's demeanor or state of mind. He could tell that the young constable before him truly had no fear of death.
"I am certain you won't kill me,"
Wang Ping said calmly. "You want those pills. But to you, they're practically useless—except for one whose purpose I haven't figured out."
"Where is it?" Xu Bingzheng's tone hardened.
Wang Ping did not answer, merely repeating, "How did you find me?"
Both fell into a brief silence. Rain began to fall from the sky, pattering against the ground, the chill it brought adding a sharper edge of tension to the air.
"...It wasn't difficult."
At last, Xu Bingzheng broke the silence. "All the senior constables in the yamen have been implanted with my thrall dragon strength. They are my eyes and ears.
"Anyone capable of intercepting and killing Chen Haoyan on his way back to the county seat had to possess an intimate knowledge of it. Hence, I was certain the killer was a martial artist within the city. Moreover, having taken so many pills, the killer would undoubtedly need to enter closed-door seclusion to digest them. Thus, whoever chose to enter seclusion and refuse visitors was a likely culprit."
Hearing this, Wang Ping understood immediately.
"So that's why there was a constabulary competition to have the constables mobilize their connections... That was merely a pretense. Your real intention was to have them investigate on your behalf!"
The yamen constables hailed almost entirely from the county's prominent clans.
In particular, those seasoned, senior constables were the local bosses of the county seat; mobilizing their networks was essentially a covert dragnet of the entire city!
And with thrall dragon strength planted within them, everything they saw, heard, and discovered would be known to Xu Bingzheng, whether they attempted to conceal it or not.
Therefore, the issue wasn't that he had cultivated the Heavenly Peng Dragon Seizing Physique Chart. Even if he hadn't, simply appearing in the sight of any constable was equivalent to exposing himself to Xu Bingzheng's view—and the rapid advancement of his martial arts could never have escaped the magistrate's notice.
"Precisely."
Xu Bingzheng nodded. "I am the magistrate of Longxing County. As yamen constables serving the imperial court, it is only right that they serve as extensions of my hands.
"Still, I never imagined that a young constable who had only just joined would be the mastermind behind it all—and because your martial arts were so low, you nearly slipped through the net." Xu Bingzheng's voice grew darker. "It is truly astonishing. How did you kill Chen Haoyan?"
"Perhaps I'm just exceptionally gifted,"
Wang Ping brushed it off casually. After all, such things were difficult to explain to someone without cheats—and more than answering questions, he had far more pressing concerns.
Rumble!
High above in the vault of heaven, thunder clapped.
In an instant, the world flashed brilliant white, and Wang Ping's spiritual sense precisely caught a dense, translucent web spreading wide.
It reminded him of Xu Bingzheng's title.
Rank 342 on the Weapon Register: Xu Bingzheng of the Immortal's Rope.
On one hand, the title praised his peerless lightness skill; on the other, it described his weapon—a great net woven from Western Regions heavenly silkworm silk.
Clang! Clang!
The ring of a blade resounded: Yanluo Demands a Life! An eerie, demonic blade light slashed directly toward the descending net, bursting into a shower of searing sparks beneath the night sky.
Yet it was utterly futile.
The blade light could not cut through the net in the slightest, nor could it halt its descent. Wang Ping, whose mind was connected to his weapon, suddenly felt an unspeakable, sharp pang.
'Not good!'
Wang Ping stepped back, his expression shifting slightly. He saw that his normally well-maintained oxtail saber now bore a grain-of-rice-sized notch on its edge.
'It's clearly just a light, sheer net, yet it's inconceivably heavy. More importantly, it moves without a sound. If not for my spiritual sense, relying solely on a martial artist's perceptions, I would already have been bound tight by this net and captured alive without offering the slightest resistance!'
Wang Ping's mind raced, arriving at a conclusion:
'A sharp weapon... no, a renowned treasure!'
A weapon ranked on the Weapon Register, renowned throughout the world and imbued with vast reputation and fortune, clearly exceeded the realm of ordinary armaments.
It possessed supernatural properties!
Even as he thought, Wang Ping did not pause in his movements. He immediately sheathed the saber, drew the Black Hornless Dragon Bow, nocked an arrow, and poured all his internal strength into the arrowhead.
"Roar—!"
In an instant, the bow shook violently. The two hornless dragons coiled upon it seemed to come alive, and the moment the arrow left the string, it erupted with a sound like a dragon's roar.
The moment the arrow flew, Wang Ping stamped forward, surging alongside the shot. Right as the arrow struck the invisible net, he drew his blade once more and slashed with all his might. Only then did he finally pry open a momentary arc in the seemingly featherlight net, creating a gap that lasted for but a fleeting instant.
Whoosh!
Wang Ping's figure flashed by in the blink of an eye. Trailing a spray of blood, he slipped out from under the invisible net's canopy, half his body laced with cuts scored by the threads.
These wounds were distinctly peculiar, constantly emitting white smoke as they spread aggressively, seeking to corrode his muscles, bones, and every meridian in his body.
"Whew!"
Seeing this, Wang Ping did not panic. He immediately channeled Qi Restriction, and the surging true qi generated by the spell rushed into his flesh, swiftly suppressing the corrosion of the wounds.
"You truly have secrets." Xu Bingzheng flicked his wrist, reeling in the great net, his gaze upon Wang Ping turning even more astonished. "You haven't formed divine intent, yet you can see my Immortal's Rope. You possess only minor mastery of internal strength, yet you can suppress my Heavenly Peng strength and prevent it from eroding your entire body.
"You truly are a talent."
Having said that, he did not press his advantage, instead adopting a solemn expression. "The Heaven's Will Soul-Returning Pill—if you haven't swallowed it yet, hand it over.
"You truly are gifted.
"Give me the pill, and from now on you will be the county yamen's chief constable. Chen Haoyan is dead, but I can also transfer his post in the capital's Divine Constabulary to you.
"His recent merits in surveying fields and auditing household registers can also be credited to you. As for the portion skimmed from the autumn taxes, I will grant you five percent.
"What do you say?"
Hearing this, even Wang Ping was somewhat surprised.
'He wants to recruit me?'
In all fairness, the terms were exceedingly generous: the post of chief constable, administrative merits, substantial wealth, and a bright future were all included.
As it happened, he also wished to explore the next steps of the martial path. If he could take the official route and advance his studies at the Divine Constabulary in the capital, his path would be secure, with a foreseeably brilliant future awaiting him. Compared to all that, the price he had to pay seemed unimaginably small.
"However, I refuse!"
Wang Ping raised his head, offering Xu Bingzheng an affable smile, and delivered his answer word by word, without the slightest hesitation.
"...Why?" Xu Bingzheng could not comprehend it.
"Compared to what I am offering you, all you have to give up is a single pill."
Wang Ping shook his head. "It's more than a pill."
Besides that, he would have to take Chen Haoyan's place, becoming yet another blazing sun over Longxing County, clinging to the backs of the common people and gorging upon their blood.
The former was merely a pill.
The latter was his conscience.
"Unluckily for you, my conscience weighs a bit more than yours." Wang Ping stood with his blade in hand.
Xu Bingzheng clearly failed to understand, merely urging him with greater earnestness: "The White Lotus Sect is a rabble of outlaws. What future is there for a talent like you to follow them?
"Joining the imperial court is the righteous path.
"My teacher is a great Confucian scholar of the imperial court. With my recommendation, you are certain to be given high responsibility in government. If such talent is not used to benefit the common people, wouldn't it go to waste?"
"...Benefit the common people?"
Wang Ping raised a brow. "Which common people?"
Xu Bingzheng paused, taken aback, then answered without thinking, "The common people under heaven, of course. We practice martial arts and study the classics precisely to bestow great righteousness upon all under heaven."
"...Ha!"
Wang Ping laughed. "Outside the city, famine victims cover the ground. The people are either starving to death or already starved. Those four words—'all under heaven'—are not yours to utter."
"Famine victims? Impossible!"
Xu Bingzheng was even more astonished, his scowl deepening as he retorted, "What famine victims could there be outside the city? There are only the common folk who produce grain..."
In the next instant, realization finally dawned on him. His mouth parted slightly, and boundless fury flared across his features. "Insolent fool! You actually regard those common folk as human?
"Can common folk even be considered human?
"They are nothing more than remnants of the former dynasty, weeds that must be cleared away every season. To treat them as human is an insult to humanity itself!"
Xu Bingzheng spoke with absolute conviction, as if this were no cruel heartlessness, but self-evident universal principle, completely unshaken in his beliefs.
"Especially the White Lotus Sect—when they swept across the commanderies and counties, they spread these notions everywhere, deluding countless ignorant scholars and literati while inciting those common folk to rebel, shattering what was once a peaceful and stable realm. Who knows how many upright citizens died because of them? Truly an unpardonable sin..."
Xu Bingzheng's tone was thick with visceral hatred.
Then, looking back at Wang Ping, his expression turned cautious and grim. "I had thought you only recently joined the White Lotus Sect...
"Now it seems you are already deeply poisoned by them.
"In that case, I have no choice but to capture you first and search for the pill at my leisure. It will make too much noise to conceal from everyone, however."
Xu Bingzheng sighed. "So I must first manipulate you into killing Liu Ye, then Madam Su, and then slaughtering the entire Su household. In the end, I will punish you as the criminal and make you take the blame. The outcome will be the same, only that more people must die, and an upright family in the city will be wiped out.
"You have brought this upon them.
"The White Lotus rebels—their poison truly runs deep!"
At this, a sorrowful expression appeared on Xu Bingzheng's face. "Through my momentary negligence, I allowed a scoundrel to bring turmoil to this county. Afterwards, I must surely submit a petition of self-reproach to the commandery..."
Before the words had fully faded, Wang Ping was already moving.
For under the detection of his spiritual sense, even as Xu Bingzheng sighed, that invisible net had unfurled once more, dropping down toward him!
'This dog official...'
Wang Ping moved like lightning. With the Black Hornless Dragon Bow in hand, he loosed three arrows in the blink of an eye and retreated at full speed, yet the sense of danger in his heart did not diminish in the slightest.
"It seems your horizons are limited; you have never seen a titled martial master."
Xu Bingzheng's voice followed him like a shadow, drifting eerily, as the invisible net in the air shifted direction, pursuing Wang Ping with pinpoint accuracy.
The net was not particularly fast.
Yet for reasons unknown, no matter how Wang Ping dodged and weaved, it accurately cut off his path of escape, hovering perpetually less than three feet above him.
And as time slipped by, that distance continued to shrink.
'How is he doing this?'
'Is this the divine intent of a titled martial master? Can it actually foresee the future? If not for my spiritual sense, I'd probably have died a hundred times over already!'
Chapter 27