“You — you—”

The Gaunt Monk had spoken with the young man in black. He knew exactly what kind of backing stood behind him.

The fox clan of Beiya — even the Azure Scale Matriarch didn’t provoke them lightly, let alone a jianghu martial artist who’d come down from Qingzhou alone.

Bowing before them wasn’t a disgrace.

What he hadn’t accounted for was that someone might simply refuse to bow.

“Gh—”

Yin the Seventh’s features contorted. What he’d swallowed came back up — blood and flesh and saliva in one wretched surge.

He fought through the spasms and lurched upright, eyes blazing. The rasping from his throat was growing less human by the moment — closer to something that lived in the wilderness.

“HRAAUGH!“

He opened his mouth. The roar that came out rang like a struck bell.

For someone with Threshold Realm cultivation it was manageable, but Chen Ji — skilled as he was — stumbled back two steps regardless. The Lin family steward simply ceased to function, collapsing onto the ground, his silk jacket discovering new and unfortunate uses.

“We’re done for — the Lin family is finished—”

He was sniffling, eyes peeking forward through trembling fingers.

Shen Yi appeared not to have heard any of it. He moved at the same unhurried pace and drew three feet of blade.

There was no ceremony to it. No clenched jaw, no battle face. It was the same motion as reaching into your coat for an umbrella on a drizzly afternoon — simply the next appropriate thing.

The moment Yin the Seventh saw the draw, the roaring stopped.

Fear entered his eyes.

He turned and ran.

Inside the room, the instant the blow had landed, he’d read that surging qi clearly. This was no one who had just crossed the Threshold — this was at minimum Major Mastery. Possibly Perfection.

Yin the Seventh’s legs drove him six full zhang in a single bound, low and fast, no thought of looking back.

Even the Jingang Sect brothers showed a flicker of surprise at that.

Same cultivation realm. What had gotten into him?

“The court’s business is the court’s business. It would be inappropriate for us to interfere.”

The Gaunt Monk threw out the line with perfect timing and a particular edge to it — clearly implying that whatever Yin the Seventh feared wasn’t the constable, but the backup standing beside him.

Zhang Tuhu looked at his elder brother. Slowly exhaled.

But even so — inexplicably — Yin the Seventh showed no signs of slowing. If anything, he accelerated.

Then Shen Yi’s footwork opened up, and in two or three steps he had materialized behind the young man in black.

The blade swept down. The force and ferocity of it finally drove a chill up Yin the Seventh’s spine, and instinct made him spin and throw up a forearm to block.

Tear—

The blade — carrying that crimson-and-ash intertwined breath — ripped through flesh as though it were paper. The hard bone of the forearm cracked apart, and the blade energy punched through the arm and carved a gash across his face deep enough to show bone, extending to the right shoulder. A hissing corrosive sound rose as the surrounding flesh dissolved visibly into dark fluid.

Blood sprayed. From the wound, dark yellow fur pushed through. The smell that rolled outward was thick and animal.

Against the dark yellow pelt, black stripe markings announced what it actually was.

The human face it had been wearing failed. What opened its mouth beneath was the snarling head of a tiger.

Yin the Seventh — Yin the Tiger — fought through the pain, vision swimming red, and fled in whatever direction presented itself.

“You’re insane! She won’t forgive this!“

Those words landed somewhere in the Gaunt Monk’s chest. He stared at Shen Yi with the expression of a man watching someone dig their own grave.

Zhang Tuhu looked at the tiger demon charging toward him, clicked his tongue once, and reached behind his back to pull out an unremarkable slaughter knife. In his broad hand, the blade looked like a toy.

He considered briefly, then reversed it — spine instead of edge — and brought his thick arm down in a heavy arc.

The already-panicked tiger demon was launched back the way it had come.

It scrabbled, trying to find purchase on something, and in its blood-soaked vision a face appeared directly in front of it — clean and composed, looking at it sideways. The movement that followed was clear and decisive.

Thunk.

A silver flash.

The body separated and fell in pieces, hitting the ground and swelling rapidly to something enormous — the full mass of a large tiger’s frame.

Shen Yi sheathed the blade and crouched, pressing five fingers into the demon’s abdomen. A brief probe. He withdrew a small beast core.

【Tiger Demon slain — early Threshold Realm. Total Lifespan: 520 years. Remaining: 132 years. Absorbed.】

“Have you lost your mind?!”

The Gaunt Monk rounded on his junior brother, furious. “How many times have I told you — do not create problems for me!”

Zhang Tuhu put away the slaughter knife, pulled a fresh blade of grass from the ground, tucked it in his teeth, and immediately pulled it back out.

“Ptch. Do you have dogs? Something in the grass smells like — there’s a whole mouthful of it.”

“My thanks.”

Shen Yi pocketed the beast core.

“I just have an itchy hand. I see something, I hit it.”

Zhang Tuhu looked over and gave an easy shrug.

“Outrageous — absolutely outrageous—” The Gaunt Monk stood ignored, shaking with it.

Shen Yi looked away and noticed Chen Ji’s drawn blade, brow creasing slightly.

“Got a little tense. Using it for moral support.”

Chen Ji hid the blade behind his back and put on a strained smile. The look in his eyes had a thread of embarrassment in it.

How many demons did Shen Yi have to kill before it stopped being necessary to defend his name?

The fire he’d felt earlier — some part of it had come from his own doubt, if he was honest. Otherwise, why would other people’s talk get under his skin?

Though, while he was being honest—

The rate at which Shen Yi was improving was simply not natural. This was Chen Ji’s first time watching him kill a Greater Demon directly, and the tiger had — from beginning to end — not produced a single impulse to fight back. A creature at the Threshold Realm, and it had run.

The one comforting thought: Shen Yi hadn’t used the Demon-Subduing Bladework. Meaning he’d apparently been developing other techniques in private. A different lineage somewhere, most likely.

“Right — take the body back to the yamen.”

Shen Yi didn’t press for questions. Chen Ji didn’t offer answers.

“Yes, sir.” He moved with purpose.

Then that cold, measured voice came from beside them.

“Young friend Shen — your man doesn’t need moral support. His courage is considerable. Nearly took a blade to me. Asked me what I was, in fact.”

The Gaunt Monk approached with a thin smile.

Wearing a court uniform wasn’t a free pass to play at equals with jianghu practitioners. Even without resorting to private methods, one word from Shen Yi’s own superiors would put him firmly in his place.

Chen Ji went still mid-step. A twinge of regret moved through him.

Things were already complicated enough. Why add more trouble for a moment’s temper?

He was already turning over how to phrase the apology when Shen Yi’s calm voice cut across his thoughts.

“He actually said that to you?”

Chen Ji went rigid. “…Yes.”

The Gaunt Monk’s smile sharpened.

Shen Yi nodded once, turned, and walked toward him.

“Now, it isn’t a significant matter — old as I am, I have my share of magnanimity — only, Constable Shen, one does need to manage one’s subordinates—”

He stopped talking.

Shen Yi had come to a halt directly in front of him. One hand rested on the scabbard.

He looked at the older man with unhurried eyes. His lips barely moved.

“So then.”

“What are you, exactly?”

(End of Chapter)