When Wang Kong stepped into Liujie Alley, it was unusually quiet.
He paused, his narrow eyes sweeping the alley.
No one was there.
The two men he had sent to stand guard were nowhere to be seen.
Wang Kong furrowed his brow, looking up and down the alley.
He reached down to stroke the piece of Hetian jade at his waist. His thumb rubbed back and forth across the warm, smooth surface—a small habit he fell into whenever he grew impatient.
The alley held no other traces.
It was as if the two men had vanished into thin air.
"Trash."
He cursed under his breath. His voice was low, but laced with irrepressible anger.He had always handled the tasks Chief Steward Zhao assigned to him flawlessly, never making a single mistake.
Yet today, two grown men had failed to keep an eye on one sickly official bondservant. He had investigated thoroughly and knew for a fact that the bondservant named Chen took this alley every time he reported to the government office.
Now, the bondservant was missing, and those two idiots were nowhere to be found.
"Did that bondservant take another route?"
He wondered to himself, but quickly dismissed the thought.
The bondservant was only allowed to leave the estate once every two months; he would definitely want to come see his former home.
Unless someone had tipped him off.
Wang Kong's frown deepened. He cursed those two incompetent fools fiercely in his mind, already trying to figure out how he would explain this to Chief Steward Zhao and how to track down the official bondservant.
He turned around, preparing to head back the way he came.
Right as he turned—
A wave of scorching air erupted from behind him.
Wang Kong's pupils contracted sharply. Without even taking the time to look back, he instinctively threw himself forward.
But the searing wave came too fast. Before his diving frame could fully extend, a fist slammed into his back.
"Thud!"
Bronze Slurry Qi exploded across the fist. The crimson energy, glowing like molten iron, pierced straight into Wang Kong's back the moment it struck.
Wang Kong let out a muffled groan. The punch sent him staggering three or four steps forward. A sweet taste rose in his throat, followed by the metallic tang of blood welling up in his mouth.
He spun around sharply, his right hand already gripping the hilt of the Short Blade at his waist.
In the alley, Chen Lingxi stood just a few paces away.
He was still wearing that same indigo tunic, the cuffs tied off with hemp rope and a leather belt fastened around his waist.
The morning light fell across his face. He was even paler than he had been a few days ago, but it was no longer a sickly pallor. It was a dense, jade-like whiteness.
He stood there, his breathing steady, the crimson glow on his fist slowly fading away.
"You—"
Before Wang Kong could finish, Chen Lingxi surged forward.
This time he didn't throw a punch. Instead, he leveled his fingers like a blade and thrust straight at Wang Kong's throat.
The Bronze Slurry Qi condensed at his fingertips into a streak of crimson energy. It hissed sharply, the sheer heat distorting the air in its path.
Wang Kong had no time to think. The qi and blood in his dantian erupted.
A layer of crimson light surfaced across his skin, shrouding him from head to toe.
This barrier was no thin membrane of qi. It was woven from countless fiery specks of light, fine as fish scales and layered so densely it looked like a shell of solid red copper.
[Bronze Fire Qi Armor!]
This was the hallmark of Bronze-Red Great Completion.
Chen Lingxi was internally shaken.
Wang Kong had attacked him previously in the marquis estate's garden.
At the time, Chen Lingxi had estimated that Wang Kong was barely at the early stages of the Bronze-Red Realm!
He never expected that Wang Kong could actually deploy the Bronze Fire Qi Armor so proficiently!
'Did Wang Kong hide his strength that day?'
Though doubt stirred in Chen Lingxi's mind, his movements did not pause for a fraction of a second!
His finger-blade stabbed into the qi armor with a heavy, muted thud.
Sparks flew the moment the crimson energy met the crimson barrier. A wave of scorching air blasted outward in both directions, sending broken roof tiles skittering across the ground.
The strike failed to pierce through. It left only a shallow dent in the armor, which was instantly filled in by the surrounding specks of light, restoring it completely.
Wang Kong used that split-second window to draw his Short Blade.
The weapon had a narrow, long body and an extremely thick spine. Faint crimson patterns rippled along its edge—a sharp blade clearly nourished by his qi and blood for many years.
He swept it in a horizontal slash, flooding the blade with Bronze Slurry Qi. A piercing shriek tore through the air as the edge cleaved forward.
Chen Lingxi retreated a half-step. The edge grazed past his chest, slicing away a chunk of his tunic's front lapel.
Having missed his first strike, Wang Kong instantly followed up with a second, chopping downward with brutal, heavy momentum as if meant to cleave Chen Lingxi in two.
Chen Lingxi twisted aside. The blade brushed past his shoulder and smashed into the ground, gouging a white scar into the bluestone paving and sending gravel flying.
"You damn slave—"
Barely a few words left Wang Kong's mouth before Chen Lingxi's fist arrived right in front of his face.
He was forced to shut up and raise his blade to block. Fist met steel. The sheer power of the Mountain-Collapsing Force traveled through the blade and into his arm, numbing the webbing of his hand and nearly knocking the weapon from his grip.
The two traded blows, exchanging over a dozen strikes in the blink of an eye.
The longer they fought, the more shocked Wang Kong became.
Just recently, this official bondservant had been a helpless weakling he could crush at will. When he had tested the boy in the rear garden that day, the bondservant had barely managed to dodge twice before having his forearm fractured by the shockwave of his punch.
But now, the density of this bondservant's qi and blood and the ferocity of his punches were no less than his own—and even seemed to be slightly overpowering him.
He was at Bronze-Red Great Completion!
What terrified him even more was the bondservant's boxing style.
He recognized the Seven Forms of Halting War. It was an ignored, incomplete manual in the Martial Arts Hall—crude, disorganized, hard to learn, and harder to master.
Yet in this bondservant's hands, that crude fist style was actually being executed with a sense of fluid perfection.
Every punch was placed perfectly—not an ounce of force too much, not a shred of power too little. It was as if the man wasn't throwing the punches, but the punches were guiding the man.
And then there was that Mountain-Collapsing Force.
That was the signature technique of Jiang Yuan, the guest minister of the West Courtyard. Only a figure at Silver Bone Consummation could train the Mountain-Collapsing Force to the point of absolute mastery.
How many days had this bondservant been following Jiang Yuan? How could he have already integrated the Mountain-Collapsing Force into his strikes, retracting and releasing it so freely?
After trading another seven or eight moves, Wang Kong finally shook off his initial horror and steadied his footing.
He was a figure at Bronze-Red Great Completion after all, protected by his Bronze Fire Qi Armor. When Chen Lingxi's fists landed on him, the armor dispersed sixty or seventy percent of the full force, and the remaining impact wasn't enough to injure his bones or muscles.
Meanwhile, his blade techniques followed a path of brutal aggression, each slash heavier than the last. Even though Chen Lingxi evaded them one by one, he was forced into a constant retreat.
"Is that all you've got?" Wang Kong mocked, though his hands never slowed, his slashes growing faster and faster. "Did you think you could turn your life around just by trailing after Jiang Yuan for a few days? An official bondservant will always be an official bondservant. You're nothing but useless trash."
Chen Lingxi didn't answer. He simply met the attacks with calm composure.
He knew perfectly well that his small-success Bronze-Red qi and blood and his Mountain-Collapsing Force alone truly couldn't break through Wang Kong's Bronze Fire Qi Armor.
The barrier was as solid as genuine copper armor. Whenever his fists hammered into it, the recoil left his own joints aching without harming his opponent in the slightest.
But he wasn't in a hurry.
He was waiting.
Waiting for the right moment.
Seeing Chen Lingxi's assault gradually slow down, Wang Kong assumed his strength was fading. His confidence surged, and his blade work grew even more savage.
He missed with a downward chop, then used the momentum to spin around, sweeping the blade upward straight toward Chen Lingxi's abdomen.
This time, Chen Lingxi didn't retreat.
He stepped straight into the path of the blade and abruptly launched a right punch.
This punch was different from the rest.
Not only was the crimson flame of Bronze Slurry Qi cloaking his fist, but an incredibly fine streak of azure light—nearly impossible to track with the naked eye—extended silently from his fingertips.
The azure gleam was far too thin, like a single thread of silk. Blended within the crimson aura, it was utterly indistinguishable.
Wang Kong's blade slashed in.
At that exact moment, Chen Lingxi dropped into a sudden crouch, narrowly dodging the steel, and smashed his fist directly into the Bronze Fire Qi Armor on Wang Kong's chest.
The crimson aura slammed into the crimson barrier, exploding into a blinding burst of sparks.
And then, that azure streak moved.
Like a needle, it pierced into the Bronze Fire Qi Armor without a sound.
That solid layer of qi, which had deflected Chen Lingxi's fists for over a dozen exchanges, was instantly punctured by the thin azure thread as if it were nothing but thin paper.
The azure gleam punched through the armor and sank into Wang Kong's chest.
Wang Kong stiffened all over.
He looked down. There was a pinprick-sized hole in the qi armor over his chest, and wisps of crimson mist were leaking out from it.
The tiny hole widened rapidly. The surrounding motes of fiery light peeled away piece by piece, and the Bronze Fire Qi Armor disintegrated at a speed visible to the naked eye.
"You—"
He lifted his head and stared at Chen Lingxi.
Chen Lingxi threw his right fist again.
This time there was no Bronze Slurry Qi, nor any azure gleam. It was just a clean, ruthless blast of Mountain-Collapsing Force, slamming squarely into the shoulder joint of Wang Kong's sword-wielding right arm.
"Crack."
The sound of shattering bone was exceptionally crisp!
Wang Kong's right arm fell limp. The Short Blade slipped from his grasp and hit the ground, bouncing twice with a sharp clang.
Before he even had time to scream, Chen Lingxi's left fist arrived, driving another burst of Mountain-Collapsing Force into his right elbow.
All three joints were entirely shattered, leaving only skin and flesh connecting them. His arm hung at his side like a torn cloth sack.
Wang Kong finally screamed in agony.
He stumbled backward, clutching his broken right arm with his left hand. Blood gushed thickly through his fingers, staining his slate-blue silk robe a deep, dark purple.
Every trace of color drained from his face, leaving his narrow eyes brimming with terror and disbelief.
"You..." His voice trembled. "How could you... You're nothing but an official bondservant... What gives you the right..."
Chen Lingxi didn't answer.
He only walked toward him.
Wang Kong retreated until his back hit the earthen wall of the alley. There was nowhere left to run.
He watched Chen Lingxi step closer and closer. In those dark, heavy eyes, there was no killing intent, nor even anger. There was only a calm, almost indifferent scrutiny.
"The drug Zhao Yong tested on us." Chen Lingxi finally spoke. His voice was quiet, but every word was perfectly clear. "What was it?"
Wang Kong's lips quivered, but he didn't answer.
Chen Lingxi extended his right hand. The Bronze Slurry Qi flared back to life, casting a reddish glow across Wang Kong's face.
Wang Kong's teeth chattered. "Dragon-Drawing Powder... The drug is called Dragon-Drawing Powder... It's in my belt."
"Dragon-Drawing Powder." Chen Lingxi repeated the name. "What is it used for?"