Inside the cabin, Xu Qing opened his eyes.

Yanyan actually wasn’t the first person to have come to visit him. Both Ding Xue and Gu Muqing had been by. Xu Qing had been acting just the same as always, not giving any indication anything was different. If anything, he was a bit quieter than before.

Upon hearing Yanyan’s voice, he stood, walked out of the cabin, and looked calmly at the girl on the shore.

Seeing him, her face broke out into a wide, happy smile. At the same time, she leaped gracefully off of the shore toward his dharmaship. All she accomplished, though, was smacking into its defenses. A thump rang out, then she fell back to the shore. Climbing into a sitting position, she looked at Xu Qing with discouraged eyes that welled with tears.

Gripping her garments tightly, she said, “You don’t like me, Big Bro Xu Qing? Did I do something wrong? Just tell me, I can change….”

“Cut the act,” Xu Qing said quietly. “What do you want?”

The tears in her eyes vanished and a sly grin appeared on her face. Sticking her finger in her mouth, she bit it hard enough to draw blood. Something strange could be seen in her eyes as she sucked the blood. “I guess I can’t fool you, Big Bro Xu Qing. But I actually love it when you look at me like that. I came to bring you a little gift.”

Eyes glazing over a bit, she chuckled and waved her hand, causing seven black water barrels to appear. Each was roughly as tall as a person, and they were all tightly sealed with lids. However, sticking out of each lid was a human head. 1

Each water barrel had a cultivator inside, and most seemed to have three-flame cultivation bases. There was one who emanated Gold Core fluctuations and had a single heavenly palace. They had all obviously been tortured, yet weren’t dead. And now they were planted like flowers into pots. In response to the barrels thumping onto the ground, they opened their eyes. Upon catching sight of Yanyan, they looked completely terrified and despairing. Among the group were both men and women, and they were as pale as death. Some were missing eyes, ears, or noses, and one of them had their lips sewn shut. ．𝒄𝙤𝙢

“Big Bro Xu Qing,” Yanyan said happily, “when I got back to Eastnether Isle I started arresting all the Night Dove operatives. Thanks to some clues I got, I was able to track down these seven. They’re mid-level leaders from South Phoenix who were fleeing to Emperor-Receiving Prefecture. Thankfully, Stinker was able to catch all of them.”

With that she looked at Xu Qing, her eyes shining with anticipation.

Xu Qing looked over the group of seven. It didn’t take any close examination for him to confirm that they were Night Dove operatives. He had killed so many people from Night Dove that he could tell who they were from the mere rancorous energy they exuded. Beyond that, the Violent Crimes Division had issued arrest warrants for all seven of these people. It was only their extreme caution that had enabled them to evade arrest in Seven Blood Eyes.

“Very good,” Xu Qing said, nodding at Yanyan.

That got her even more excited, to the point where she was panting slightly. Her nose flared, and her eyes glazed further as she softly said, “So, Big Bro Xu Qing, should we… get started?”

Xu Qing stepped off his dharmaship and onto the shore. Once again looking over the seven trembling figures, he eventually focused on the Gold Core cultivator.

This cultivator was a middle-aged man with a ghastly scar on his face and very intense rancorous energy. Xu Qing recognized him from the files back in Seven Blood Eyes. He was one of the top Night Dove leaders back in South Phoenix. He was a cruel and ruthless killer who was responsible for the deaths of many living treasures. And however many had died, he had trafficked countless more. This was the person with the lips sewn together, and when Xu Qing looked at him, the man made a muffled attempt to speak. His eyes pleaded for mercy. However, that plea for mercy was something this very man had seen countless times, yet had never once responded to.

Face completely expressionless, Xu Qing made a grasping gesture, and the water barrel around the man exploded.

Water burst out everywhere, and the man tumbled to the ground. His limbs had all been removed. As he struggled, he felt a powerful force wrap around him and drag him in front of Xu Qing.

As Yanyan watched excitedly, Xu Qing reached out toward the man. As he did, his hand turned illusory and passed into the man’s chest without inflicting any injury.

That said, the man could feel what was happening, and the terror within him soared higher than anything he had experienced at Yanyan’s hands back on Eastnether Isle. As he trembled, his expression became one of utter incredulity mixed with intense terror that bordered on madness. He felt the ice-cold hand entering his body, piercing into his sea of consciousness, and then groping around for his heavenly palace….

Next, that hand stabbed into the heavenly palace and wrapped around the gold core therein. Finally, the hand wrenched out the gold core!

Unimaginable pain pierced through the man, causing him to writhe in madness. Whimpering sounds made it past his sewn lips. Compared to this, the torture he had experienced on Eastnether Isle was mere child’s play. This was pain that could completely break a person. Finally, his sewn lips ripped apart, and a brutal scream erupted from his mouth. Around then, Xu Qing’s hand emerged from his chest, and gripped in it… was a gold core.

There were countless slender threads still attached to the core, but as Xu Qing pulled, they snapped.

The middle-aged cultivator spasmed violently and screamed as his heavenly palace collapsed, causing massive amounts of blood to spray out of his chest, nose, eyes, ears, and even his pores. But what caused this evil, depraved cultivator to feel even more hopeless was that, despite the blood filling his eyes, he could just barely make out Xu Qing holding his own gold core. And then the core vanished into Xu Qing.

Anyone who could see this would be absolutely terrified. That was especially true considering that Xu Qing’s facial expression hadn’t changed the entire time, not even when he became soaked in the spray of blood.

Yanyan’s eyes shone brightly as she stared at Xu Qing. Seeing his methods, she realized that they were far more stimulating and fun than what she had used. Panting even more dramatically, she couldn’t stop herself from putting her finger into her mouth, biting it, and sucking even more blood. That was apparently the only way that she could calm herself down.

Xu Qing glanced briefly at Yanyan, then waved his hand at the middle-aged cultivator. The rancorous energy that had surrounded the man erupted, transforming into countless illusory faces that pounced on the cultivator and started devouring him. Screams echoed out for several breaths of time before they faded away. He was thoroughly dead.

The cultivators in the other water barrels were all trembling, their faces masks of despair and terror. Before, they had thought Yanyan was a nightmare, but now they realized that there was a far, far worse fate to be had.

Given that they were in Foundation Establishment, they weren’t much use to Xu Qing, so he sent out some divine will, causing the black iron skewer to fly out. It flew toward the remaining six cultivators in a blur, stabbing into their foreheads and extracting their souls.

It didn’t spare the dead Gold Core cultivator either, as his body still contained a fading discarnate soul.

Yanyan smiled as she sucked her finger and looked at Xu Qing. It was as if the whole world around her was a blur except for Xu Qing. He was the only thing she could see clearly.

“Do you feel a bit better, Big Bro Xu Qing?”

Xu Qing looked at Yanyan and her fingers, all of which were covered with bite scars.

“Don’t hurt yourself like that anymore,” he said. “It’s unsightly.”

If anyone else said that to Yanyan, she would dig their eyes out or perhaps rip out their tongue. She wouldn’t even listen to what her grandmother told her. But in response to Xu Qing, she just nodded vigorously.

“Okay, Big Bro Xu Qing. From now on, I’ll only bite one finger. And I won’t bite it again until after it’s healed. That way there won’t be scars and it won’t look bad. Big Bro Xu Qing, can I… can I come onto your ship?”

“Next time,” he replied calmly. “I need to work on my cultivation right now.”

Turning, he walked into the cabin.

As the glow of evening covered the shore, Yanyan watched Xu Qing go back into the cabin and felt disappointed. When she had come earlier, she had felt both happy and sad. She had been happy to finally see Big Bro Xu Qing again, but sad because of what her grandmother had explained about what happened to Seven Blood Eyes. That was why she had begged her grandmother to give her enough dharma protectors to allow her to track down these seven Night Dove fugitives. Bringing them here and giving them to Big Bro Xu Qing had lifted her spirits a bit.

She just wasn’t sure what to do to make Xu Qing happy. All she knew was that if someone had given her a gift like this, she would be happy. And thus, she felt disappointed.

After Xu Qing disappeared, she sat alone on the shore, gnawing on her lip. Then, she couldn’t hold back anymore and lifted her hand to bite her finger.

In the end, though, she held back.

After all, Big Bro Xu Qing didn’t like that.

As the moments ticked by, she struggled, her hand trembling. Eventually, a perverse energy began to build up in her. That perverse energy had always been strong in her, but her unstable emotions were now making it even stronger.

That was when Xu Qing’s calm voice drifted out of the dharmaship.

“Sit down.”

Stunned, Yanyan obediently sat down and looked at the dharmaship. A moment later, flute music drifted slowly out of the ship. It was melodious and peaceful, and just listening to it would cause one’s thoughts to become tranquil.

Eventually, it was past dusk and the moon was out. The perverse energy in Yanyan slowly dissipated, and a smile appeared on her face.

Finally, the music stopped. She stood up.

“Thank you, Big Bro Xu Qing.” Then she skipped away, happily humming the tune she had just heard.

Days passed. One morning when Xu Qing was seated cross-legged in meditation, his eyes opened, and he looked at his transmission jade slip.

Picking it up, he heard Master Seventh’s stern voice speaking to him.

“I found some clues about Torchlight, and they led me to Master Shengyun. I confirmed it’s not a trap. The coalition has authorized full use of force, and has posted a kill mission. Xu Qing, are you willing to come along?”

Xu Qing looked up, his expression as cold as ice. Without hesitation, he replied, “I’m willing!”

1. Presumably, these water barrels would look something like traditional Chinese water barrels made from clay or a similar substance. Like this. 👈