BOOM!

Thunder cracked from a clear sky, yet the white lightning failed to pierce the haze shrouding Baili Village.

Flickering, mottled light and shadows made the horrifying, blood-soaked, and mangled corpses scattered throughout the village appear even more grotesque, as if they might leap up at any moment.

SPLASH!

A torrential downpour began to fall without the slightest warning.

PATTER PATTER PATTER PATTER!

The forest was already a scene of devastation. Drenched by the rain, the boy was soaked to the bone. Wracked by hunger and cold, he shivered on the old man’s back.

"Young Master," Wang Cangyun said, his face a deathly, bloodless white. He still forced a smile to comfort the boy. "Once dawn breaks, we’ll be able to leave the village."

Wei Chen managed a strained smile and nodded forcefully. "Uncle Yun, we’ll definitely make it out alive. Together."

Wei Chen knew he never should have been born.

Everyone wanted him dead.

Only Uncle Wang, a man with no blood relation to him, was willing to risk his life to save him and stay by his side.

Resting on Wang Cangyun’s broad back, Wei Chen felt a growing sense of security.

’This is what a father must feel like,’ he thought.

Wang Cangyun turned to look at the gloomy gray sky, letting the torrential rain lash his face.

After comforting the Young Master, Wang Cangyun’s expression tightened. ’This is bad,’ he thought.

"Never enter a forest during a thunderstorm." It was a truth every veteran of the Jianghu knew—you’d get struck by lightning.

Heaven didn’t care whether you had a guilty conscience or not. In the forest, Heaven couldn’t see you anyway.

"Uncle Yun..."

BOOM!

BOOM!

BOOM!

One thunderclap followed another, the flashes of lightning illuminating the deathly pale faces of the old man and the boy.

Not far away, with a loud CRACK, a tall, solitary tree burst into flames. Black smoke billowed out, only to be quickly snuffed out by the torrential rain.

Wei Chen was about to say that the monster had already left and that they’d be safe if they just stayed quietly in the forest. But the words died in his throat as the sight of the lightning-felled tree terrified him into silence. Wang Cangyun quickly carried Wei Chen back toward the village.

Wang Cangyun had been stabbed in the abdomen. The wound was a mangled mess of flesh and blood, his internal organs damaged. He left a long trail of blood in his wake. Wei Chen cried, begging to be let down, desperate to no longer be a burden to Wang Cangyun.

GURGLE GURGLE—

In the village, the downpour washed the villagers’ blood into the puddles, dyeing them a bizarre red. The blood gathered into streams, all flowing toward the river. Wang Cangyun had just set Wei Chen down and taken a couple of gasps for air when he heard the sound of cartwheels rumbling over the cobblestone road.

Neither had time to look. As the rainwater converged, the river swelled higher and higher. In its waters, the Baili carp churned and rolled, as if leaping the Dragon Gate.

The horrifying monster dragged its twisted, bladed right arm along the ground. With its left hand, it pushed a flatbed cart laden with several barrels toward the river.

"Shh!"

Wang Cangyun’s eyes were sharp. He quickly clamped a hand over Wei Chen’s mouth and took a peek. A flash of lightning lit up the scene, and the contents of the barrels filled Wang Cangyun with both shock and rage—he could vaguely make out that it was Humans, chopped into pieces!

’Younger Brother Zheng?’

Sorrow overwhelmed Wang Cangyun. He and Younger Brother Zheng had felt like old friends from the moment they met, and he had hoped they could both escape this bizarre village alive.

To one day drink and chat with Younger Brother Zheng under the moon and flowers, discussing the nineteenth slash of the Coiling Dragon Eighteen Slashes—what a joyous occasion that would have been! But he never imagined that their recent parting would be their last. Now they were separated by life and death, an old man mourning one younger than himself!

SPLASH! 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

The monster tipped the chunks of meat from the barrels into the river. The water began to churn as if boiling, white scales flashing as the school of carp emitted a bizarre sound.

After silently feeding the fish, it quietly pushed the cart and turned back.

At this moment, it was difficult to reconcile this creature with the frenzied madman who had been on a killing spree just before.

"Younger Brother Zheng! On this day next year, I will pour out three cups in your memory!" Wang Cangyun wiped the rain from his face. It was salty. He closed his eyes, wishing this were all just a nightmare.

The rain kept falling.

It soon returned with another cart, still laden with several barrels full of meat chunks and bone fragments.

Feed the fish.

Return.

Another barrel.

As the monster continued its feeding and the rain poured down, the river rose higher and higher, overflowing its banks.

In what felt like the blink of an eye, two hours had passed. The floodwaters were already past Wang Cangyun’s knees. Following the current, the Baili carp scrambled out of the river and began to swim rapidly through the flooded streets of Baili Village. The carp swarmed the villagers’ corpses, gnawing on them with sickening CRUNCHES.

The horrifying scene terrified Wei Chen, leaving him weak-kneed. Wang Cangyun, however, knew what to expect. His men had once tried to escape by jumping into the river, hoping to swim to freedom. But the moment they entered the water, they were swarmed by the Baili carp and devoured alive amidst their screams.

Wang Cangyun knew the river "ate" Humans, but he never imagined it could eat so much.

In a matter of moments, tens of thousands of Baili carp swarmed into the village, devouring every last corpse until nothing remained.

A school of Baili carp sped toward Wang Cangyun, their movements in the water phantom-like. Wang Cangyun pulled Wei Chen back as, with a series of SWISHES, several flashes of blade light sliced into the water.

"Hungry... hungry..."

The Baili carp, which had been sliced into several pieces by the blade light, let out a strange cry. It thrashed a few times and then fell still.

Wang Cangyun stared blankly at the mutilated fish carcass in the water. When he saw it clearly, his stomach suddenly lurched.

The head of the Baili carp... it was!

Twisted Human faces!

...

Master Zheng was still inside Feng’s Meat Shop.

He was relatively calm, having been able to drink tea now and then to settle his nerves.

Outside, the commotion was nonstop, the downpour punctuated by thunder.

The creature went back and forth seven or eight times, as meticulous as a clockwork machine. Push the cart, feed the fish. Drag a corpse, chop it up. Feed the fish again. Return to chop meat. Feed the fish again.

The crack in the door just so happened to face the chopping block, offering a clear view of the monster as it minced the flesh.

Master Zheng squatted down. Hunching his shoulders a little, he could align his eye perfectly with the crack.

Water seeped into the building, carrying the pungent stench of blood. Zheng Xiu frowned. The rain was absurdly heavy. If it kept up, the sealed room would eventually flood, and the two of them would drown.

’On the bright side,’ Zheng Xiu thought, ’this is one way of dying I haven’t tried yet.’

The water was already past Feng Bei’s knees. Wracked by hunger and cold, she trembled uncontrollably.

"We have to get out of here, or we’re both going to die."

Zheng Xiu said, looking back at Feng Bei. But she just kept her head down, muttering, "There’s no escape. No one can escape. ’They’ ate too much tonight."

"The Baili carp?"

Zheng Xiu asked.

Feng Bei nodded.

"Well, I’m going to try anyway!" A cold smile touched the Mighty Painter’s devastatingly handsome face. He crossed the room in a single stride, and before Feng Bei could react, he scooped up Little Feng Bei, effortlessly hoisting the frail girl onto his shoulder.

’The monster doesn’t attack Feng Bei. She’s a bona fide Protective Talisman.’

’Essential for clearing this level. I’ll just carry her off for now.’

Feng Bei had been incredibly resistant to Zheng Xiu’s touch. But when he forced the issue and threw her over his shoulder, Little Feng Bei abruptly went rigid, as if her pressure points had been struck, and she stopped moving entirely.

From behind her tangled hair, Feng Bei’s eyes were filled with shock and disbelief.

Feng Bei asked, "You... Who are you?"

"Zheng Shan! The Zheng from Zheng Haoran, the Shan from ’great philanthropist’!"

While he was outside drinking tea, Zheng Xiu had also been assessing the state of the night. With sunrise at most four hours away, victory was in sight.

He had conserved enough stamina during the first half of the night. With the max-level Constitution of a Mighty Painter who could take on ten men at once, he could kite the monster until dawn without breaking a sweat.

Assuming nothing went wrong, that is.

Just then, amidst the rain and thunder, an old man’s furious voice roared from outside, sounding as if he were locked in a fight to the death.

Something had gone wrong.

After a violent tremor, two figures crashed through the old wooden wall. A torrent rushed in through the body-shaped hole, and in a matter of seconds, the surging floodwaters were up to Zheng Xiu’s abdomen.

"Younger Brother Zheng, you’re still alive!" The Treasure King, who had just burst through the wall, coughed up a mouthful of bloody flesh. He was busy pulling Wei Chen out of the water when he noticed someone else in the room. Turning to look, he saw it was the "supposedly dead" Younger Brother Zheng, and his face lit up with shock and delight.

"Gurgle... gurgle... Uncle Yun, look out!" Wei Chen, flailing in the floodwaters, cried out a warning as he stared in terror at the hole in the wall.

"That fiend is here! Younger Brother Zheng, get away from here, fast!" Wang Cangyun spat a mouthful of blood. He swung his long saber through the water, casually flicking something up from beside him. The current, imbued with his power, became like a blade itself. A half-skeleton, wood splinters, and a flash of saber light flew in a chaotic mess toward the humanoid monster dragging its twisted arm.

Wang Cangyun had intended for the move to stall the creature for a moment. Master Zheng was actually touched that the Treasure King was still thinking of his escape at such a critical time. But when Zheng Xiu got a clear look at the "obstacle" the Treasure King had casually flicked up, his blood ran cold.

It was the skeleton of Feng Bei’s mother!

Zheng Xiu was dumbfounded.

Feng Bei’s eyes went wide.

In the downpour, a flicker of tenderness suddenly appeared in the monster’s savage eyes. It reached out its arms, moving to embrace the skeleton.

But it seemed to have forgotten that its right arm had become a blade. Or perhaps, *he* could no longer put that blade down.

The brittle skeleton was instantly hacked to pieces.

Its arms embraced only empty air. Its movements came to an abrupt halt, and it froze in the water.

Between Heaven and Earth, only the sounds of wind, rain, and thunder remained.

Wang Cangyun had already swung his saber. ’The mood feels off,’ he thought. ’Why did everyone suddenly stop moving?’

At that moment, standing to the side, Zheng Xiu finally understood the truth behind the Baili Village massacre of twenty years ago.

The one and only truth.

’Even if Master Zheng reloaded his save a thousand, ten thousand times, fending off storms and Demon Fiends, he could never stop the Treasure King from finding new ways to get himself killed.’

’Treasure King, you absolutely deserved to die twenty years ago.’

"Go! Now!!"

Zheng Xiu struggled a few steps through the water, then pushed off a bedframe. Carrying the grief-stricken, nearly catatonic Feng Bei, he leaped onto the roof.