Chapter 9: Ferocious Skills, an Unexpected Bonus!
The Yuxi River stretched out beneath a sky and water of matching blue, gentle waves rippling across its surface.
A painted pleasure boat drifted slowly downstream.
Fruits like gelatinous jujubes, chestnuts, tang pears, and phoenix-perch pears were arranged on a low table in the cabin.
Sandalwood incense curled through the air, and Gu Lin reclined with his head against Xiangjun’s lap, nibbling on pear slices while listening to Xian’er play music.
Every window of the boat stood open, the melody drifting out toward nearby Yuxi Mountain, echoing through the deep forest.
Xiangjun pursed her cherry-red lips and said in a coy, sweet voice:
“Gu-lang, wouldn’t it be wonderful if it could always be like this?”
Gu Lin didn’t respond.
Fifty-some taels for three days—what family could possibly sustain that kind of extravagance?
Since the money was already spent, he might as well get his money’s worth.
He sat up quickly and pulled Xiangjun’s soft, boneless waist toward him.
“Gu-lang, close the window…”
Xiangjun’s cheeks flushed red, her lips tender and moist.
Gu Lin refused:
“The scenery’s beautiful as a painting, Xian’er’s music sets the mood—wouldn’t it be a shame for the two of us not to take in the mountains and rivers together?”
***
Two days passed this way. The pleasure boat had already made three round trips along that stretch of mountainside, and aside from the occasional fisherman shooting envious glances their way, there wasn’t a trace of the wanted criminal anywhere.
They’d have to leave the boat tomorrow—it looked like nothing would bite the hook after all.
At the bow, Gu Lin held a woman in each arm. Xiangjun and Xian’er had removed their mandarin-duck shoes, their pale, delicate feet trailing through the water’s surface, droplets clinging like crystal beads to their curled toes.
Xian’er tilted up her palm-sized, egg-shaped face and pouted, half in jest and half in earnest:
“Gu-lang, won’t you buy out my contract? I’d serve you for the rest of my life.”
Xiangjun echoed the sentiment eagerly:
“Me too.”
Her voice carried even more conviction.
In less than three days together, she’d already fallen completely under this young master’s spell.
Not only was he handsome with an impressive physique, but he carried himself with such refined, tasteful charm, often making them dissolve into laughter. And crucially, he clearly came from a wealthy, prominent family.
Gu Lin smiled but said nothing.
These indulgent days had their charms, sure, but he couldn’t afford to lose himself in them—he had a far grander future ahead.
Seeing their young master dodge the subject, the two women let it drop.
Gu Lin gazed out at the night.
It looked like he’d have to enter the academy’s selection trials at only Energy Condensation, First Layer.
Disappointment was unavoidable, but he had to accept reality as it was.
Sure, that level of cultivation wouldn’t even crack the top eighty in the academy, but factoring in his real combat ability, he still had a shot at securing one of the ten spots—he’d just need to give it everything he had, with a bit of luck on his side.
As long as he passed the preliminary selection, there’d still be a full month before the Four Great Sacred Grounds selection trials—plenty of time to keep building his cultivation.
Rather than dwell on it and pile on more worry, he might as well enjoy the company of two beautiful women tonight.
Gu Lin pulled both women into the cabin.
He had no idea that, on the distant mountainside, a disheveled, grimy man crouched behind a massive boulder, staring down at the brilliantly lit pleasure boat below.
‘This fellow really knows how to live it up!!’
Though he hadn’t gotten a clear look at either woman’s face, their voluptuous, curvy figures had already left him thoroughly intoxicated—and in his mind, dark thoughts of what he’d do to them if given the chance.
The burly man’s eyes burned with hunger, and he slipped away swiftly.
Half an hour later, he arrived at a concealed inlet, where a fishing boat sat moored.
A fisherman was out casting his net, and the moment he spotted the newcomer, he glanced around nervously in every direction.
“Old Jing.”
The burly man plunged straight into the water and swam to the fishing boat.
Fisherman Jing extinguished his lantern, plunging everything into darkness.
Starving, the burly man didn’t bother with questions first, filling his stomach instead.
He’d managed to hide out on Yuxi Mountain for two months now, and of course he had outside help—he hunted wild game daily to survive, but occasionally he needed proper food to satisfy his cravings, and more importantly, he needed to know how aggressively Xiajiang County was pursuing him.
Once he’d eaten and drunk his fill, the burly man handed over two taels of silver.
“Here.”
Fisherman Jing accepted it with a grin, tucking it into his cloth pouch.
The burly man got straight to the point:
“I want to ask you about that pleasure boat. I’ve spotted it three times these past two days.”
The moment the topic came up, Fisherman Jing’s teeth clenched with envy:
“Rich families really do have it good. That young fellow’s really something—he could probably go a dozen rounds a day, easy. The fishermen nearby have all heard the noise.”
“If I had even one beauty like that, I’d wake up smiling in my sleep. And he’s got two in his arms.”
Blood rushed to the burly man’s head, and he couldn’t help but ask:
“What do these two women look like?”
Fisherman Jing:
“Not even twenty yet, skin so white it practically glows—pretty enough to make me drool.”
The burly man drew a deep breath, all manner of filthy thoughts flashing through his mind, then asked the most crucial question of all:
“What’s this fellow’s cultivation level?”
Fisherman Jing answered honestly:
“He’s probably some scholar from a wealthy family. Just yesterday morning, around the Hour of the Dragon, I saw him sitting cross-legged at the bow, meditating as the sun rose, Qi and blood surging visibly at the crown of his head. As for what layer of Meridian Opening he’s at, I couldn’t say.”
“Meridian Opening?”
The burly man’s guard relaxed immediately—even the very peak of Meridian Opening posed no concern to him.
“Alright.”
With that, the burly man turned to leave.
“Wait.”
Fisherman Jing knew the man’s tastes well enough, and a fawning smile crept across his face:
“Once you’ve had your fill of them, I’d like a taste myself.”
The burly man returned a knowing smile.
Even once he’d had his fill, he’d have to kill them anyway—otherwise there’d be a risk of his trail being exposed!
Another half hour passed before he made it back to the foot of the mountain. Without further hesitation, he plunged straight into the river, swimming toward the pleasure boat.
Moments later, the faint strains of seductive music reached the burly man’s ears, and his desire flaring, he quickened his underwater pace.
Inside the boat’s cabin, Gu Lin, right in the middle of things, suddenly went still.
How could he not notice, with senses this sharp?
There was a disturbance in the water below!!
‘He’s here.’
Gu Lin quietly calmed Xiangjun and Xian’er, signaling for silence.
Beneath the river’s surface, the burly man drew steadily closer to the pleasure boat.
Then, abruptly, the sound stopped, and unease crept over him.
‘Something’s wrong.’
He’d survived and evaded capture this long precisely because of his razor-sharp instincts—no matter how heavenly those two beauties might be, they still weren’t worth more than his own life.
The burly man glanced up at the boat once, then quickly turned to swim back the way he’d come.
But it was too late.
A figure stood at the bow, then abruptly plunged into the water.
Gu Lin had spotted the disturbance on the surface, pinpointed the man’s exact location, and with every acupoint thrown wide open, unleashed his internal Qi to accelerate his own underwater pursuit.
He could already make out the man’s silhouette.
‘Not Meridian Opening—Energy Condensation. But only First Layer!!’
Sensing the internal Qi radiating from Gu Lin, the burly man, despite being at Energy Condensation, Third Layer himself, didn’t turn to face his pursuer head-on—instead, he fled even faster.
He was being overly cautious, one single thought dominating his mind.
‘This fellow’s only at Energy Condensation, First Layer—what gives him the nerve to give chase?’
‘Is he simply overestimating himself?’
But would someone truly overestimating his own strength set up an elaborate trap like this?
The two of them tore through the water, one chasing, one fleeing.
Within moments, Gu Lin was closing in.
In that instant, he became certain that the depth of his own internal Qi now rivaled that of Energy Condensation, Fourth Layer!
Underwater, he couldn’t rely on the Wave-Treading Steps—only his internal Qi carried him forward.
The wanted criminal was at Energy Condensation, Third Layer.
He was catching up fast!
The burly man swam with everything he had, then suddenly whipped around, lunging straight at his pursuer.
He knew that continuing to flee would only get him caught eventually, exposing his back as a fatal weakness—better to face his enemy head-on and fight.
The burly man sank his Qi into his dantian, gathering his strength for a single decisive blow.
Gu Lin, far from fearing him, raised his own fist to meet the strike head-on, absorbing the ferocious force without flinching.
Over a dozen exchanges passed, and the wanted criminal’s strength began to falter. Gu Lin seized an opening, his right hand clamping around the man’s throat while his left fist pounded the man’s chest and abdomen, punch after punch.
After seven strikes, the wanted criminal’s eyes bulged wide, his entire body convulsing, blood streaming freely.
Gu Lin surfaced, gripping the criminal by the neck, dragging him along as he swam.
Sure enough, it was an exact match for the sketch on the bounty notice.
He was thoroughly satisfied with how this fight had gone.
Never mind the max-level Mysterious Netherworld Palm—he couldn’t use that at all here—but even the Nine Heavens Thunder-Runner Leg, he’d deliberately held back the entire time.
Which meant he’d captured an Energy Condensation, Third Layer opponent alive through sheer prolonged combat, without relying on any special martial art whatsoever!!
The burly man’s breath grew faint, his body wracked with tearing agony. He knew he’d been beaten, resentment and fury surging through him like the tide of the river itself.
“Li… Li Township, Wutong Village, the private school there… there’s five hundred taels of silver hidden there. Consider it my atonement for my sins.”
He was certain this man was a bounty hunter.
Bounty hunters were already willing to take on risk, and for a sum that enormous, he’d surely head straight for the private school.
Gu Lin’s expression remained blank as he gave a sharp, decisive twist of his wrist, snapping the criminal’s neck—dead beyond any doubt.
In that instant, tiny points of golden starlight converged before his eyes into the three large characters: “Book of Merit.”
【Slew a “Bing-rank, Eight Star” evildoer. Gained 854 Merit Points. Reward: Max-Level Three Yang Bloodline-Severing Mark】
【Martial Dao Merit: 930/4000】
【Confucian Dao Merit: 0/1000】
【Arcane Dao Merit: 0/1000】
【Witchcraft Dao Merit: 0/1000】
Instantly, the internal Qi within Gu Lin’s dantian surged once more, his aura growing thick and sustained, two resonant sounds echoing from deep within his body like metal and stone clashing together, or like great bronze bells tolling in unison.
Energy Condensation, Third Layer!!
Gu Lin’s smile spread wide—each breakthrough now required four hundred merit points, genuinely far more demanding than Meridian Opening had been!
This man’s Bing-rank, Eight Star wickedness ranked one grade lower than the evil woman who’d taken his first time, yet had yielded 354 more merit points than she had.
That made perfect sense, of course—this time, he’d killed the man entirely with his own two hands, start to finish.
The technique for the Three Yang Bloodline-Severing Mark surfaced in Gu Lin’s mind, and his smile deepened further.
This move was terrifying—every bit the equal of the Mysterious Netherworld Palm.
No—even more powerful than the Mysterious Netherworld Palm.
Whoever it struck would find every inch of their skin cracking and splitting apart in an instant, utterly horrifying to behold.
The crucial thing was, there was no telltale flow of internal Qi preceding it at all.
Gu Lin called this the “wind-up.”
Whether it was the Mysterious Netherworld Palm or the Nine Heavens Thunder-Runner Leg, both inevitably carried some wind-up before the strike landed—he’d browsed through the academy’s martial arts archive, and every technique worked this way.
But this max-level claw mark technique had no wind-up whatsoever.
Which meant a person could be standing there with hands clasped behind his back, mid-conversation with an enemy—
And in the very next instant, the claw mark would already be pressed against the enemy’s forehead, with ninety-nine percent of martial artists utterly unable to defend against it in time!
How could it possibly not be powerful?
Settling his emotions, Gu Lin returned to the pleasure boat.
As for the corpse, he left it behind.
Not because he looked down on the bounty money, but to avoid unnecessary trouble—having to go through the county office again risked exposing more of his true strength than he wanted.
Xiangjun and Xian’er huddled together on the soft couch, their eyes filled with fear as they looked at Gu Lin.
Since the fight had taken place so close to the boat, they’d witnessed the bloody scene firsthand!
Their gentle, refined, tasteful young master—capable of such brutality?
Gu Lin pulled out the bounty notice and handed it to them:
“A wanted criminal from the imperial court. I was simply ridding the people of a menace.”
Seeing the official seal of the Xiajiang County office stamped on the bounty notice, they let out a long breath of relief, the fear gradually fading from their faces, replaced by an even deeper fascination as they looked at Gu Lin.
Their young master, this ferocious?
And so, they hurried to change him out of his soaked, blood-stained robes, attending to him as he bathed.
Gu Lin savored the comfort, his mood growing even lighter, the wanted criminal’s dying words echoing through his mind.
There was no doubt about it—this was almost certainly a trap.
There had to be accomplices there, their strength unknown, but surely stronger than the criminal himself had been.
‘Should I risk it?’
Gu Lin weighed the question inwardly.
In truth, he was a cautious person by nature—if the selection trials hadn’t been bearing down on him with such urgency, forcing him to build up strength quickly, he probably wouldn’t have even dared ambush Shen Chi personally.
But now that his strength had grown considerably—should he take the risk anyway?
‘Do it.’
Everything was for the sake of joining the Four Great Sacred Grounds.
Once he became a member of one of those overwhelmingly powerful institutions, eliminating evil would finally come with real backing.
The academy’s top student, Young Master Qilin, Zhao Yao, was an extraordinary talent, already at the very peak of Energy Condensation, Eighth Layer—and even he had no guarantee of standing out at the Four Great Sacred Grounds selection trials.
Only a month left now—he needed to press forward and keep building his strength without delay!
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