The three servants never realized that the conversation had already ended.

A shadow detached itself from the rooftop.

There was no warning.

The man exposed neither any killing intent nor the sound of his footsteps. One second the table before them was empty with a stack of wine jars, and the next second...

A figure gracefully landed in the middle of it all, like he was making some last-second entrance.

The three servants could only watch in silence as their brains refused to acknowledge what had happened right before their eyes.

But they did not stay still for more than a second.

One of the servants reached out for the blade hidden inside their pants while the other tried to stand.

"Who are you—?" The last one tried to speak, but none of them could finish their actions before a cold sensation touched them all over their bodies.

A faint whistle drifted under the moonlight, and the next second, something felt pressing against their skin.

Splash!

Like a fish on a chopping board in some anime, their bodies exploded into perfectly cube-shaped pieces. The pressure from the wires even caused their eyeballs to pop out of their sockets.

Dressed in black robes from head to toe, Shen Yuan remained standing exactly where he had landed.

The thin metal wire hanging from his fingers slowly relaxed before coiling around his wrist like a living serpent.

He quietly observed the scene for several breaths.

Shen Yuan had killed them in a way that neither their blood had splashed everywhere, nor did their jiggly body parts. Everything had just gathered in a pile on and around the stone benches they were sitting on.

’That makes ten.’ From his words, they were not the first people he had killed tonight. ’I should cleanup first before moving on.’

He looked down at the pieces of three serpents and picked up the only thing he had left intact.

Shen Yuan bent down and picked up three forefingers, belonging to each one of them, and placed them in his inventory.

"I am getting better at using the wire now." Shen Yuan spent the next 15 minutes cleaning after himself.

He threw every piece of the bodies into several body bags and stored them away. Then he proceeded to take the stone bench along with the seats with him.

"It would take hours to clean blood off that stone, and I don’t have the time." Once it was done, Shen Yuan ran to the far end of the district. It was an abandoned area that had recently been activated after a casual abduction of the man living here.

Shen Yuan walked to the edge of the cliff and threw down the bloody paper bags along with the stone benches.

The paper bags disappeared into the darkness below.

Shen Yuan did not bother waiting to hear them reach the bottom.

He simply turned around and walked away.

The cold mountain wind swept across the abandoned cliff, carrying away the last traces of blood lingering in the air.

...

By the time Shen Yuan returned to his small servant hut, the moon had already climbed high above the sect.

He quietly closed the door behind him before removing the black robes covering his body.

The dark cloth disappeared into his inventory.

A bucket of water appeared beside the bed.

Shen Yuan washed the dust and sweat from his hands before changing into an ordinary set of servant robes.

Only after everything had been returned to normal did he finally sit down on the edge of his bed.

There wasn’t the slightest sign that he had left his house tonight. His expression remained as calm as ever.

A thick book appeared in his hand.

Myriad herbs and pills.

The worn pages quietly flipped beneath his fingers. His eyes slowly moved across each line.

Every few moments, another page turned. The room remained completely silent, and only the soft rustling of paper could be heard.

Yet...

Shen Yuan wasn’t truly reading.

Every now and then, his gaze would leave the book for the closed wooden door standing opposite him.

Then it would calmly return to the next page.

it was as though...

He was waiting, waiting for someone or something to happen.

Time slowly passed.

Flip!

Flip!

The final Chapter spoke about preserving medicinal properties after harvesting, followed by several common mistakes novice alchemists often made while refining pills.

Shen Yuan had finally reached the final paragraph of the book.

Crack-

Just before he could comprehend the words, the wooden door of his house slowly opened. He slowly closed the book, but the image of the page was already burned into his mind.

"..."

Shen Yuan did not seem surprised; there was even a faint smirk on his face that he hid the moment it appeared.

There was no knock. The person who stood beyond the gate did not even announce themselves.

They simply pushed it open and walked inside as though entering their own room.

Shen Yuan merely lifted his eyes from the closed book resting on his lap.

"...I did not think it would work. But you really came." The figure closed the door behind them with practiced familiarity.

Shen Yuan slowly rose from the edge of the bed. The wooden frame let out a faint creak beneath the shift of his weight.

He placed the worn copy of Myriad Herbs and Pills onto the small table beside him before taking two unhurried steps toward the figure standing by the door.

Neither of them spoke.

The oil lamp resting on the corner of the room flickered quietly, its dim light stretching their shadows across the wooden floor until they merged into one.

Shen Yuan stopped less than an arm’s length away. "...Shi Jin."

Hearing his own name spoken so calmly, Shi Jin merely smiled like he always did. "How can I not come when you practically shouted for me to come find you?"

"Asking around about me. Then killing my people right after you came back from your near-death experience with Peng Ho. How can I not come when you got me so curious"