Shen Yi picked up the ceremonial saber with its dark, oily gleam.
Compared to his previous blade, it was narrower and straighter, the edge thin as a cicada’s wing — yet several times heavier than what he’d been carrying. No ordinary weapon.
And yet even this blade hadn’t been able to cut through his skin.
The Golden Sun Eight Treasures Mysterious Body had exceeded his own expectations. According to Zhang Tuhu, this was something he’d cobbled together himself by extrapolating from the Jingang School’s Threshold-level foundation. If the sect’s complete Jade Liquid Realm art was stronger still, the implications were considerable.
Shen Yi shook his head and used the blade tip to extract Yuan Tongtian’s beast core. He walked to the younger ape demon, did the same, then slid the dark blade back into its scabbard.
A shame the saber didn’t have a name.
He considered briefly. The blade was dark, the scabbard the color of ink.
Erhei it was. Second Black.
He glanced up at the panel.
【Greater Demon slain — Ape Demon, Threshold Perfection. Total Lifespan: 774 years. Remaining: 197 years. Absorbed.】
【Greater Demon slain — Ape Demon, late Threshold Realm. Total Lifespan: 631 years. Remaining: 270 years. Absorbed.】
【Remaining Demon Lifespan: 651 years】
A rare weapon delivered by the demon itself. An exceptionally rich haul of lifespan.
He should have been in a good mood.
Shen Yi looked at the neat row of small skulls on the table and felt the satisfaction go somewhat flat.
He turned and walked back toward the group.
Chen Ji quietly rose and fell in behind him. The Niu brothers and Zhang Dahu scrambled to their feet as well — though the shock hadn’t left their faces.
The old Constable Shen had been far from gentle.
But compared to what they’d just watched, the old Shen Yi looked like a man of considerable mercy. Reducing a living demon to something unrecognizable with bare hands — the visual would stay with ordinary constables for weeks.
“What are you gawking at — go!“
Zhang Tuhu kicked the soldiers and constables still on the ground as Shen Yi walked away.
He exhaled inwardly.
These people were tools. Clerk Liu was the one who deserved what he’d gotten — these men had followed orders. They’d also held their fire when it counted.
He’d genuinely been worried Shen Yi would turn on them. Zhang Tuhu had a loose connection to Buddhist philosophy through the Jingang School — he didn’t believe in karma exactly, but unnecessary killing clouded the mind and, in severe cases, caused a practitioner to lose themselves to their own violence. There was no reason for it here.
Once the yamen’s rot was dealt with, the garrison would still need soldiers. A county still needed defenders. Killing them would just leave the walls empty.
“Thank you for sparing us, sir!”
The assembled men let out the breath they’d been holding and bent toward the retreating figure, heads going down in waves.
Zhang Tuhu thought of the fleeing Gaunt Monk, then looked at what the blade-force had left of Clerk Liu’s body. “And him—”
“The Clerk was killed by the demons. We all saw it.”
The garrison soldiers had sharp enough eyes for what actually mattered, even if they hadn’t had the stomach to act on anything else. Baiyun County was finished as it had been — that much was obvious. Shen Yi had cut down demons repeatedly and in plain sight. Three years of reports saying the county was peaceful, the people content, no demon activity — that fiction was over.
When it unraveled, the county magistrate’s head wouldn’t be enough to satisfy the accounting. He had perhaps ten.
The magistrate had clearly noticed something was wrong earlier than expected, which was why he’d arranged for the Gaunt Monk to come along.
Thinking about the Monk’s undignified flight—
Everyone present arrived at the same quiet understanding of who the sacrificial offering in this story actually was.
“Hmph.”
Zhang Tuhu shook out his sleeve and went after Shen Yi, somewhat irritated with himself.
The man had taken down two Greater Demons without a scratch. Zhang Tuhu hadn’t managed to put away one Gaunt Monk.
That earlier sparring match—
It hadn’t been holding back. It had been a complete performance. And Shen Yi had kept calling him senior with a straight face.
The humiliation was profound.
Deep in the night. The county magistrate’s residence.
In the main hall, an old man sat in his underrobe against a redwood chair back, feet soaking in a wooden basin, trouser legs rolled up. His eyes were closed. His fingers tapped the armrest in a rapid, agitated rhythm.
The water had gone cold without him noticing. His mind was elsewhere.
The night watchman’s wooden clapper had struck three rounds already.
At this hour, things should have been concluded.
Song Changfeng and Liu the Clerk — those two had decent eyes for talent, he’d give them that. One had spotted him, one had cultivated him, and between them they’d raised an inconvenience that was becoming a genuine problem.
He’d been told the little constable kept the demon factions perfectly content, not a complaint to be heard.
They were in a mortuary now. What were they going to complain with?
If the man truly had exceptional ability — enough to clear the surrounding demons entirely — fine. The silver and other amenities would have been forthcoming. But this halfway state, causing trouble without being useful enough to justify it—
Deserved everything coming to him.
“What took you so long?”
The magistrate opened his eyes and looked at the figure that crashed through the door.
“Money — pack up everything that’s mine, I’m going back to Qingzhou, right now, immediately—”
The Gaunt Monk crossed the room in three strides, still gasping, and grabbed the magistrate’s collar under his startled stare.
“What is the meaning of — my master sent you here to protect me, you can’t simply leave after a few months—”
“Protect your grandmother! The idiot demons Liu tangled with provoked something I want absolutely no part of — if I don’t leave now he’ll be breaking down my door to take my head—”
The Gaunt Monk’s eyes were completely bloodshot. He’d come to Baiyun County to earn some comfortable spending money. He had not signed up to leave his life here.
How in the world had this backwater produced someone like that.
“Let go of me — what’s the rush — he’s a constable, he serves the court, he isn’t one of your jianghu people—”
The magistrate tried to pry the fingers off his collar.
Surprisingly, they came free.
He blinked — and watched the Gaunt Monk go still, a single hair-thin needle protruding from his throat.
In the next moment, a slight young man with a candy-figure pole on his shoulder sauntered in from the darkness, grinning and tucking away a blowpipe. Behind him came others — some dressed as coachmen, some as merchants, one as a beggar — a dozen or more filing into the hall and finding seats as if they owned it.
What they all shared was an expression that bore no relation to their clothes.
Calm contempt, directed downward.
The object of that downward gaze was the magistrate, who was shakily pushing a dead man off his lap.
“You — who are you people, how dare you enter the county magistrate’s—”
No one answered. They all looked toward the door.
Footsteps, and a figure stepped across the threshold.
The man was tall, dressed in ink-black brocade with a white jade belt. Embroidered at his shoulder in gold thread was a wolf mid-lunge, jaws open. Three bands of cloud-pattern circled each cuff.
He crossed the hall unhurriedly and swept the room with a brief, cool glance.
“Demon collusion. Check his identity.”
“On it.”
The man dressed as a beggar crossed to the Gaunt Monk’s body, dirty fingers moving efficiently across it. He looked up after a moment, smiling. “Body-refinement school, specialized in finger technique — Eagle Claw. Jingang School. Not bad work, Old Liu. Managed to get a needle through the neck of a body-refinement practitioner.”
The young man with the candy pole grinned. “Any tougher and it wouldn’t have worked.”
The tall man settled into the main seat and gave a small nod. “Send a letter to the Jingang School. Tell them to collect their own punishment from the Demon Suppression Division.”
From the moment he’d registered the clothing, the magistrate’s face had gone the color of uncooked dough.
That was a Demon Suppression Division Commander’s dress. Three bands on the cuffs meant seniority even among Commanders.
“May I ask your — your honored name?” He mustered what courage remained, though what he really wanted to ask was why the man had arrived ahead of schedule.
“County magistrate is too kind. Li Xinhan.” The man looked sideways, and something like amusement crossed his face. “Would you be so good as to bind yourself? We have matters to discuss.”
(End of Chapter)