Seven days passed in a flash.

Zhao Lin and Liang Song played a daily game of cat and mouse with the bandits.

Every night, they would make their appearance at one of the four city gates: east, south, west, or north.

Relying on his superior speed, Zhao Lin always managed to evade the bandits’ attempts to corner them.

The bandits were spread thin across the four city gates. Their numbers were limited, and they had to be wary of the city’s garrison, so they didn’t dare assemble in large numbers. All they could do was watch helplessly as the boys escaped.

"Damn it! Those two brats got away again!"

Drilling Mountain Leopard’s face was livid. In the flickering firelight, he looked exceptionally fearsome.

They had sent out nearly everyone tonight, yet they still couldn’t catch two mere whelps. He had lost all face in front of his men.

Drilling Mountain Leopard’s word was law around Baitou Mountain, but the county seat wasn’t his territory. The larger gangs here wouldn’t give him the time of day.

Going in to snatch them was out of the question. The newly appointed County Magistrate and garrison commander were itching to use his head to curry favor with their superiors.

"Chieftain, I don’t think we can go on like this. It’s damaging your prestige."

The strategist, Sky-Upholding Pillar, whispered.

"I know!"

Drilling Mountain Leopard’s face was grim. He summoned a subordinate. "Get a message to Heartless Pillar. Tell him to strike before that brat leaves the city. Finish him!"

"Yes, sir!" the subordinate responded loudly.

...

"Boatman, please move the boat a bit further from the shore. And could you prepare two more fish for us?"

Aboard a fishing boat on the Qingxi River, a young man with thick eyebrows and large eyes poked his head out of the cabin and called to the boatman at the oar.

"You got it!"

The boatman gave a shout and put his back into rowing the boat away from the pier.

A short while later, he brought a platter of steamed fish into the cabin.

"This is delicious. I haven’t had fish this fresh in a long time."

Zhao Lin praised it profusely.

Liang Song picked up his chopsticks and said, "Drilling Mountain Leopard would never dream that the two of us are sleeping on a boat tonight."

Zhao Lin took two more bites of fish. "Even the safest place can’t be used forever. A crafty rabbit has three burrows, after all."

"The cellar was well-hidden, but if we’d been cornered in there, we would’ve had nowhere to run."

Looking at the fish in the pot, Zhao Lin suddenly had an idea. ’If I absorbed a fish’s Essence Soul, I’d become an expert swimmer. I could probably outswim even the legendary water-masters of old.’

’Too bad. Besides making it easier to escape by water, the skill has very limited use. It’s not worth taking up a slot in my Spirit Beast Scroll.’

The next day at dawn, Zhao Lin went to the Liuhe Sect to practice his martial arts as usual.

Pressure brings out a person’s latent potential. With the threat of Drilling Mountain Leopard hanging over them, Zhao Lin and Liang Song’s martial skill had advanced by leaps and bounds these past few days.

Liang Song had already undergone four skin-sheddings and was not far from his fifth.

While his pace couldn’t compare to Zhao Lin’s, it was quite impressive for someone who had only begun training in his late teens.

Zhao Lin’s bone tempering was also progressing at a startling rate. When he threw a full-force punch, a faint humming sound would emanate from his joints, a sign that he was nearing mastery of the technique.

A few days prior, some of the other apprentices had been resentful upon learning that Zhao Lin had been accepted as Zhu Huaishan’s disciple ahead of schedule. But after witnessing the speed of his progress, they were left speechless.

Before evening, Zhao Lin and Liang Song went to the brokerage and paid the remaining amount.

"Which gate should we leave from today?"

With the property deed in hand, Liang Song was in high spirits and asked Zhao Lin with a smile.

Zhao Lin thought for a moment. "Let’s use the east gate. We used it yesterday, so if we use it again today, we might just catch them off guard and avoid any trouble."

Perhaps the bandits feared they would be ambushed, or perhaps they’d realized the two weren’t planning to flee Qinghe County, but for whatever reason, no one was tailing them today.

The eastern part of Qinghe County was mostly inhabited by the poor—dockworkers, manual laborers, and shop clerks.

The residential buildings, varying in height, were crammed together amidst scattered trash and general squalor.

It was now dinnertime, and plumes of white smoke rose from the rooftops, lending the scene an air of peace and quiet.

As they passed through a residential alley, Zhao Lin suddenly felt uneasy. He frowned and scanned his surroundings.

"What’s wrong?" Liang Song asked, surprised.

"Something feels... off. The fact that no one’s following us is actually making me more nervous."

Zhao Lin said, his voice uncertain.

Ever since absorbing the Wild Beast Essence Soul, he would occasionally be struck by an animal-like intuition.

Intuition wasn’t always reliable, but sometimes it was dead on. Zhao Lin didn’t dare let his guard down.

"Then be careful!"

As a former hunter, Liang Song trusted intuition even more than Zhao Lin did. He placed a hand on the hilt of his saber, his body angled to one side.

The two continued on. Just as they were about to exit the residential district, they passed by a dilapidated house.

Out of the corner of his eye, Zhao Lin saw that the door was ajar, and he was instantly on alert.

"Some—"

The word had barely left his mouth when a cold light flashed. A sharp sword, thin as a cicada’s wing, thrust out from the doorway at an unbelievable speed.

Zhao Lin leaped back, but his opponent was clearly a cut above him. The blade descended, leaving a white fissure in the air.

With a ripping sound, it sliced into his left side.

If he hadn’t dodged, the sword would have run him through the chest.

Zhao Lin felt his Qi and Blood roiling at the site of the wound, and he nearly lost his footing.

’A Qi Realm expert!’

Zhao Lin had sparred with Yuan Cheng before, so he knew the greatest difference between the Qi Realm and the Power Realm was the cultivation of "Qi Strength."

Qi Strength not only increased one’s power but also amplified their explosive force. Furthermore, upon reaching the Second Layer of the Qi Realm, that force could be projected outward.

As the sword thrust forward, a tall, slender figure charged out of the house. With a flick of his wrist, he unleashed a flurry of sword strikes, each one aimed at Zhao Lin’s vital points.

Zhao Lin tried several times to draw the axe at his waist but was suppressed by the sheer aggression of his opponent’s swordplay.

Liang Song reacted, spinning around and slashing with his saber. The tall figure parried with a backhand stroke. CLANG! The short saber was knocked to the ground.

Zhao Lin caught his breath. Realizing this opponent was too strong to fight head-on, he grabbed Liang Song and bolted back the way they came.

The man was hot on their heels, his sprinting speed no slower than Zhao Lin’s. He lunged forward with several more thrusts.

Zhao Lin felt the cold tip of the sword graze his back as he dodged by a hair’s breadth. He sprinted for dozens of yards without stopping for breath.

When he looked back, the tall, slender figure was standing at the entrance to the alley, watching them with a cold gaze.

Zhao Lin suddenly felt a draft on his back. Reaching around, he felt a large tear in his clothes. ’That was close,’ he thought with a shiver.

"Fuck!" Zhao Lin yelled, flipping the man the middle finger.

The man flinched, then slowly retreated into the alley and vanished into the darkness.

"Are you okay?"

Zhao Lin set Liang Song down to check his injuries and found an inch-deep gash on his arm.

"Lucky me. He almost severed the tendons in my arm," Liang Song said, sucking air through his teeth in pain.

"He must have been sent by the bandits. Do you know who he is?"

With that man guarding the way, there was no chance of leaving through the east gate, and it was too late to try another route. Zhao Lin took out the Antiseptic Elixir and began dressing both his and Liang Song’s wounds.

Liang Song frowned in thought for a moment before speaking. "Drilling Mountain Leopard has his Eight Great Protectors. The two best fighters among them are Sky-Upholding Pillar and Heartless Pillar."

"Sky-Upholding Pillar is Wang Mazi. He’s skilled with heavy weapons and is a beast on the front lines. I hear he’s a huge, burly man, which doesn’t match our attacker."

"The other one is Heartless Pillar, Zhao Feilong. He specializes in dirty work like assassinations and kidnappings. His description matches the man we just fought. It must have been him."