Chapter 55
Chapter 55
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: [Unknown]
Chapter Title: Massacre of the Private School Students
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That young man was in his thirties, dressed in a blue round-collar shirt and wearing a Confucian hat. He carried the oppressive air of a long-time official. With a smile, he said,
"Xiu Chun, you still planning on eating people? With the demonic upheaval these days, no one's having it easy. Don't be so tense."
He turned to Chen Shi and Li Tianqing with a smile, his expression mild.
"You two, we're just here hunting prey like you. No ill intent."
He took the first step along the edge of the mountain path. The others followed the same careful route, and both groups passed without incident.
Once they were far off, Chen Shi and Li Tianqing finally relaxed a little. Li Tianqing said,
"This young master seems quite affable."
Chen Shi looked puzzled.
"That man... he seems like someone from the Provincial Capital Zhao Family. Strange—the Zhao Family has decent folk too?"
Li Tianqing laughed.
"You hold too much prejudice against great clans. There are righteous souls among them. They're not all as rotten as you imagine."
Chen Shi nodded, conceding his bias.
The young man led his cluster of maids along like they were out for a leisurely excursion through the hills. The girls chatted and giggled, trading jests in high spirits, occasionally mustering the nerve to tease the young man himself.
The young man's name was Zhao Ziyu, eldest son of the Xuan Ying Prefecture Lord. He had accompanied Prefecture Lord Zhao Yanlong to Qianyang Mountain this time, only to find themselves trapped amid the chaos.
He was renowned for his even temper and paid no mind to the maids' playful advances.
It was precisely this mild nature that Prefecture Lord Zhao Yanlong had always despised.
Voices drifted from ahead once more. The maids ushered Zhao Ziyu forward. In the valley below stood a group of half-grown lads dressed like scholars, around thirteen or fourteen years old. They were in the midst of butchering a massive异兽.
The beast was the size of an ox or horse, sporting a rhinoceros horn and covered in scales. Scorch marks ringed its body—it must have been formidable.
Most of the boys bore wounds; they'd clearly labored hard to bring the creature down.
Beside them loomed a man in his thirties, book箱 slung on his back—their private tutor, no doubt. He was directing them on how best to carve up the异兽.
"Young master, looks like private school pupils," one maid said with a laugh.
The maid called Xiu Chun stepped forward with a smile. The tutor tensed at once, signaling his charges to stay wary.
The students hurriedly summoned their Divine Shrines, eyeing her with caution.
Maid Xiu Chun laughed.
"Don't be nervous, everyone. Our young master and we are trapped here too. We came out hunting from sheer hunger, but luck's not with us—no prey in sight. Do a kindness and share a bit with this servant, won't you?"
The tutor stayed on guard.
"Miss, halt right there."
A few tender-hearted students spoke up.
"We're out hunting too, scared the villagers might starve. From this Fire Rhinoceros, we can spare you a dozen jin or so."
One girl among the students said,
"Teacher, why not let them have my portion? They look so pitiful."
Xiu Chun feigned shock and delight. She bowed low in thanks, beaming.
"That would be ever so kind of you!"
In that bowed instant, her Divine Shrine materialized behind her. A whoosh of invisible sword qi sliced through, lopping off the head of the girl student before her. The qi didn't stop there, sawing another boy clean in half at the waist!
At the same instant, three other maids—Divine Shrines and Embryos at the ready—stepped out from the pack. Each thrust a finger forth, channeling sword arts. Invisible sword qi lanced out, and in a blink, four or five more students lay headless!
The tutor's eyes went bloodshot. He bellowed, igniting every talisman on his person, and charged straight for Zhao Ziyu.
"Run—you lot, now!"
He was Divine Embryo Realm, but with profoundly deep cultivation—poised on the cusp of Golden Core Realm. His talismans ablaze, even the maids' sword qi couldn't breach his defenses.
Spotting Zhao Ziyu as the ringleader, he struck at what they must protect. The maids would swarm him in turn, buying his students precious time to flee.
Zhao Ziyu waved a languid hand, bidding the women part.
They got the cue, falling back. Rather than assail the tutor, they peeled off to hunt the fleeing students, leaving his path clear.
Zhao Ziyu kept smiling. His own Divine Shrine emerged behind him, Divine Embryo enthroned within. It parted its lips—and out flew a mote of radiant golden light, perfectly spherical. Boundless yet giving the sense of ultimate wholeness.
This was known as a Golden Core.
The Golden Core's emergence crushed the tutor like a mountain. He crashed to his knees with a thud, palms shoving at the earth in a desperate bid to rise. But the pearl's glow pinned him prostrate. His talismans fizzled, useless.
"Crackcrackcrack!"
A barrage of snaps echoed from the tutor's frame as every bone shattered. Flesh pulped into mire under the weight, bones ground to dust—save the skull, too sturdy to pulverize.
One realm's gulf: vast as the gulf 'twixt heaven and earth.
Close as he was to Golden Core, without his own, he couldn't endure even its pressure.
Zhao Ziyu smiled faintly, drawing the core back into the Embryo's maw. Leisurely, he said,
"Xiu Chun, there's our meal now. What use killing those two brats earlier? We don't eat human. With this Fire Rhinoceros in hand, at least we'll have something to report back with."
Maid Xiu Chun swayed with graceful poise, her features sharp and lovely. She giggled coyly.
"Young master has the right of it. These rural beggars, scrapping with us for scraps—they had it coming."
Zhao Ziyu shook his head, schooling her.
"They did our hunting for us, spared us endless toil. We owe them thanks."
"Yes, yes!"
Xiu Chun tittered.
"Yes—our heartfelt thanks."
The other maids returned amid chatter and mirth, carving up the rhino meat. Fastidious about cleanliness, they blotted blood from the flesh with fine silks.
Offal and such they deemed too foul to take, leaving a good hundred jin behind.
Packed and ready, the women hefted the rhino cuts and swept away with Zhao Ziyu.
Chen Shi and Li Tianqing at last claimed a prize: a Mysterious Light Turtle. Not large, but a异兽 all the same—one that dwelled in soil, vanishing underground with a flash of mystic glow.
Blackie Pot sniffed it out. Li Tianqing loosed his Six Yin Jade Wheel from afar, but the turtle sensed it, burrowed swift—only for Chen Shi's twin fists to hammer the earth, stunning it senseless.
They dug it free: a modest gain.
Circling the mountains in search of more spirit beasts, Blackie Pot caught a scent and barked twice ahead.
"Blackie Pot's found something!" Li Tianqing perked up.
Chen Shi shook his head.
"Blackie Pot's saying blood ahead. Careful—we'll scout it."
Li Tianqing couldn't fathom how he parsed the barks—same yaps as ever, no difference. How meanings varied?
They soon reached the forward valley. Blood reek thickened. Each summoned their Divine Shrine. Something异兽 in the woods had nosed the scent their way, but spotted them and slunk off—no bait could tempt it.
No pursuit. Ahead: a dozen-odd corpses, limbs strewn, deaths horrific.
Gagging down nausea, Li Tianqing flipped a torso sprawled face-down. A boy of thirteen or fourteen—year or two their senior—face locked in terror, eyes bulging.
Drained dry of blood, his skin gleamed deathly pale.
Other bodies matched their age.
Li Tianqing furrowed his brow.
"They are..."
Chen Shi supplied,
"Students from Bridge Bay Town's private school."
He approached a smear of minced gore, fell silent a beat.
"He's Bridge Bay Town's private tutor, Ye Hongqiu. I called him Mr. Ye. Last I saw him, he asked if I'd sit this year's county exam—said he'd bribe the examiners for an entry slot."
Whenever Chen Shi visited town with Grandpa, he'd sneak a loop past the private school.
It cradled his dreams.
His horizons weren't vast. Like any villager, he figured a country lad's sole path upward lay in books, exams, scholar's gown, juren rank.
He revered Ye Hongqiu—no mere man, but a font of knowledge to remake one's fate.
Folk dubbed such "teacher," "master." His gaze swept the mangled dead: country lads like him, all chasing rewritten fates through study.
No more.
Li Tianqing hunkered down, testing a corpse—still warm. The rhino guts too: faintly so.
"Killers can't be far. Mountain trails twist hard—they've covered two li at most."
He pored over spell scars, naming each.
"Twelve hands at work: Submeridian Evil-Slaying Sword and Flying Dragon Demon-Slaying Art. Any literate soul knows the first. The second's Xinxiang Zhao Family's prized foundation art—'exclusive,' they claim, though it's leaked abroad. Even my Li clan collected a copy. Less raw might than the sword art, but nimbler shifts."
He rattled on with deductions. Chen Shi drifted to the rhino's hacked skeleton, stooped for a short sword amid the dirt.
Likely reforged from a snapped longsword: broader than a dagger, slimmer, nigh one point two inches across, nine-inch edge, six-inch hilt. Iron-bound, etched with coiling cloud motifs full circuit 'round for grip.
Guard: thick iron slab. Mouthpiece: brass fitted to the blade.
Chen Shi swabbed the blood, gripped and swung—not ideal. Reverse grip: far smoother.
Scrap of hemp rag from the ground; he tore strips, bound the iron hilt in tight loops.
"Blackie Pot—which way'd they go?"
Blackie Pot nosed the rhino gore's tang, set off on the trail.
Li Tianqing, by Mr. Ye's remains, measured the cratered soil nearby.
"Move-Mountain Talisman, Five Peaks, Mount Tai—none dent ground like this. Talisman force hits the body alone, yet here the earth all 'round compressed. Divine Embryo Realm lacks such might! Golden Core!"
Spotting Chen Shi trail the dog, he called,
"Little Ten, hold! Twelve foes total—one a Golden Core master!"
Chen Shi pressed on. Li Tianqing jogged after.
"Calm yourself first. Embryo-to-Core gap dwarfs Shrine-to-Embryo! A chasm no man crosses! Long game—we plan!"
No halt from Chen Shi; Blackie Pot bolted heedless.
"Others formidable too—eleven peak Embryo Realm aces!"
Li Tianqing snapped irate, seizing Chen Shi's arm.
"No tantrums! You know Flying Dragon forms? How many run Heavenly Heart Righteous Qi Art, how many Flying Dragon? Blind as you are! Halt—let's parley!"
Chen Shi paused, gauged the lay.
"They don't know the shortcuts, took the long haul. We cut ahead. Tianqing, easy—talk slow. Ears open."
Relief washed Li Tianqing; he tailed the flank.
"Good you're steady. Corpse cuts told me their arts: seven on Submeridian Evil-Slaying Sword. Four tight with the Zhao lad: Flying Dragon Demon-Slaying Art. Those women pack higher cultivation—watch their strikes sharp."
Chen Shi gained a hilltop vantage, peered down.
Zhao Ziyu and his eleven maids came into view—still a hundred-odd zhang off. Treacherous path; it'd take time.
Li Tianqing scoped the dozen from afar, dissecting still.
"Pin down which maids run Submeridian, which Flying Dragon. Faces, builds, stations—commit 'em. I'll clock 'em; details are my forte."
He dropped to a crouch, tracking Zhao Ziyu and maids' placements.
"Walk gait, Shrine tells, sort their arts. Shift changes soon—prime to mark."
Chen Shi said,
"They're closing."
Li Tianqing persisted.
"Hold. Scout only this run. I'll scheme tight after. Food-raiders, these—murder-for-meat, not their debut. Once begets twice; they'll sortie again. Ambush primed with our kills as lure. That Zhao Core lad's the snag..."
Anxiety gripped Chen Shi.
"Passing us by. Can't—I strike!"
Li Tianqing bristled.
"Said hold! Hear me! Golden Core's no trifle—caution layered! Today, no!"
Chen Shi scowled, sizing central Zhao Ziyu. No Shrine, no Embryo summoned—utmost ease, lax as vacation, zero wariness.
The maid-ring had lulled him.
They'd cleared the slope base now, girls shouldering cuts carefree.
Scout-maids too: banter and laughs.
Campsite must be nigh—hence the slack.
Chance like this: once-in-a-lifetime!
"Tianqing—you ever killed?"
Li Tianqing shook his head.
"Never. But schemes are my blade—underdog triumphs my craft."
"Save breath. You, Blackie Pot—hold here!"
Chen Shi exploded forward, arrow-loosed, hurtling down upon the throng!