Chapter 91: Chapter 91: 14 Years of Silence, Meeting Without Recognition

Song Qidong fled frantically, but the killing intent at his back only grew more piercing. Despair flooded his heart.

Suddenly, he saw a young woman in a red leather jacket standing under a tree ahead. She was trimming her nails with a jet-black short blade. Another identical short blade, this one vermilion, hung at her waist.

Song Qidong’s face lit up with the joy of someone snatched from the jaws of death. A certain Apostle’s peculiar tastes flashed through his mind, and in an instant, his feet faltered, and he dropped into a sliding kneel.

"Greetings, Rose Apostle..."

The immense momentum from a Martial Artist’s sprint, even with both knees braking, still carved a trail over twenty meters long on the rugged ground.

Song Qidong slammed his forehead into the ground, smashing a bowl-sized crater into the hard-packed earth. He was truly overjoyed; he kowtowed with all his heart.

’I’m alive!’ His mind relaxed, and an indescribable smile spread across his face as a single, murky tear rolled down his cheek.

The young woman’s gaze remained fixed on her nails. Without looking up, she said, "Get lost."

"Yes!"

Song Qidong rose humbly, passing the young woman’s position with his head bowed. He then broke into a stumbling run, fleeing into the distance. A short while later, laughter, wild and mixed with sobs, echoed from the woods.

During his relentless pursuit, Tao Lang seemed to sense a hint of unease. After a moment’s thought, he stopped, pulled out a pink thermos with a peach-heart pattern, and chugged the remaining half of the Yangqiu Rejuvenating Spirit Liquid. He then shook the flask toward his mouth, making sure the very last drop of the medicine fell into it.

A massive amount of the medicinal liquid was converted into Inner Qi, which squeezed into his Dantian and surged violently toward his meridians and acupoints.

"Ugh..."

Tao Lang’s face flushed crimson. He let out a muffled grunt and bent over in pain, only straightening up after a moment.

He hatefully wiped the blood trickling from the corner of his mouth and gnashed his teeth. ’You damn bastard, if I don’t give you a little surprise, I’ll smash your head into your own asshole.’

He then switched to a different Body Technique, moving with greater stealth and always holding back thirty percent of his strength.

This made him slightly slower, but he was still faster than Song Qidong, no matter what.

Tao Lang had great faith in his intuition. It was what had allowed him to survive the massacre in his youth and was the source of his confidence through several near-death experiences over the years.

Further ahead lay a great lake. The surrounding area was crisscrossed with waterways, and the forest grew ever more lush.

As Tao Lang ran, his heart suddenly clenched. He immediately saw a black blade aura slash up from below. Before it even touched him, he could sense the dark, corrosive energy it emanated. If it hit him, he would likely be immobilized.

Fortunately, he had sensed the danger in advance and had been holding back some of his strength. At the last possible moment, he leaped and twisted his body, narrowly dodging the blade aura.

Before he could even catch his breath, a massive red blade aura abruptly appeared before him. It started slow, then accelerated like a gale, its power like a wildfire, carrying with it an intent of pure Sharpness.

A chill went through Tao Lang’s heart. He was inexplicably reminded of his childhood, of that person cracking a blood-soaked whip—so terrifyingly similar to the blade aura before him now.

Only this time, his older sister wasn’t there to protect him.

"Sister..."

His sister’s face suddenly appeared in his mind’s eye, seeming to ask him why he wasn’t dodging, why he wasn’t running.

Suddenly, a surge of power welled up inside Tao Lang. Immense Inner Qi flooded into the Cloud Dragon Staff in his hands, and he smashed it toward the oncoming blade aura.

BOOM!

Tao Lang’s pink figure was sent flying over a hundred meters, snapping three bowl-thick trees in his path and spraying a straight line of blood across the ground.

Stabilizing himself, Tao Lang gritted his teeth, grabbed his Cloud Dragon Staff, and spun around to flee. He pushed his master-level [Floating Flower Flying Feather Skill] to its absolute limit, completely disregarding the even more severe damage it might cause to his meridians.

As he fled, the image and voice of his sister flashed through his mind once more.

’Sister, you’ve saved me again...’

Meanwhile, Qiangwei watched Tao Lang escape without any intention of pursuing him. She simply picked up her black short blade and went back to trimming her nails.

From the treetops, a gloomy, raspy voice spoke up.

"Qiangwei, why not give chase?"

Qiangwei’s face was expressionless, a stark contrast to her usual pure and ethereal image. Indifferently, she said, "I’m on my period. It’s inconvenient to chase him. You old dog, why didn’t you make a move?"

The old man was hunched on a tree branch, his face gaunt and his gaze sinister. He looked like a giant crow.

"JIE JIE JIE... My life is far more valuable than that little pup’s...

"If I were to act, it’d be hard not to leave a trace. And there are plenty of old dogs looking for me..."

The wind in the woods suddenly picked up. At some point, the old man had vanished.

Qiangwei put away her black short blade and stared in the direction Tao Lang had fled. She walked along the path of destruction, tracing the wreckage, and collected the scattered blood from the ground. She dabbed a drop on her finger and tasted it.

’Lang... is that you?’

Qiangwei stood frozen in place for a long time, until the sun set and the moon rose, and the vast river of stars glittered across the sky.

When she came to her senses, she felt a sense of urgency and unease. As the night wind howled, Qiangwei took off in pursuit, following the direction of Tao Lang’s escape.

...

In Tianning County, Han Qiubai became nocturnal. Relying on the superior mobility and perception of a Martial Artist with Inner Qi, she scoured every dark corner of the area in a short time.

All signs indicated that several of the larger casinos and red-light clubs had connections to members of the Illuminati. But when she followed the trail, she found the places were already empty, the culprits long gone.

She tracked them to Anju District, apartment 504, and to Miss Lanhua’s massage parlor, but found nothing. Everything was wiped clean, as blank as a sheet of white paper.

It was as if the rats had smelled danger and fled overnight.

Han Qiubai went to the Martial Arts Administration Bureau to contact Wang Jie and delegate some tasks.

A goose’s cry lingers after it flies by; a person leaves traces when they go.

The members of the Illuminati had been in Tianning for half a year. They must have left behind a trove of life’s traces. Even if they’ve fled, an investigation could still turn up useful information.

But this kind of granular investigation would require a joint effort from the Martial Arts Administration Bureau and the Public Security Bureau. According to Han Qiubai’s intelligence, most of the people involved in these gray-area industries were ordinary citizens who could not be brutally interrogated or killed at will.

Therefore, they needed a proper pretext to avoid causing public panic.

Han Qiubai judged that most of these people were unaware of the true identities of the Illuminati members. They were involved either for money or because they had been coerced or lured in, so their crimes were not punishable by death.

It was an ironclad law of the Yu Kingdom: the Security Bureau could only take action against Martial Artists. They had a license to kill when encountering cult members, but ordinary people had to be handed over for joint processing by the Martial Arts Administration Bureau and the Public Security Bureau.

This inviolable law, tested over hundreds of years, ensured the rights of ordinary people and prevented the wanton abuse of power by Martial Artists.

"Officer Han, through our investigation during Zhang Lei’s medical treatment, we’ve confirmed he was a downstream recruit developed by the now-deceased cultist, ’Steel Saber.’ Thirteen other socially idle individuals were also recruited. We have no other information at this time."

Zhang Lei was the severely injured man nicknamed "Monkey." After being treated, he confessed everything in painstaking detail. But there was almost no valuable intelligence.

Wang Jie delivered his report seriously, showing no contempt for Han Qiubai despite her youth.

Their own investigation had been stalled for nearly half a year with no results. In contrast, she had just arrived in Tianning County and had already killed two Third-Realm cultists.

In terms of strength, position, or background, no one in his Martial Arts Administration Bureau could compare to the young investigator before him. It was only natural to be respectful in her presence.

In an age where great power belongs to the individual, seniority is the most laughable excuse.

No matter how much wisdom you possess, it cannot stand against the myriad Divine Powers and wondrous techniques.