Chapter 37: I'll Scatter Your Ashes for You
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The night was dark, the wind was high—a perfect night for murder.
Dressed entirely in black and wearing a bamboo hat, Zhou Chen was like an elf of the night. Without making a sound, he headed straight for Shi Baoyu’s residence.
As the only son of Shi Lei, the leader of the Qinghe branch of the Salt Gang, Shi Baoyu owned a residence of his own, right beside the branch headquarters.
As a constable of Qinghe City, Zhou Chen had long been familiar with the circumstances of such important figures.
Shi Baoyu usually had a Body Tempering Second Realm bodyguard at his side, and his residence was guarded by numerous Salt Gang warriors. An ordinary person would have found it no easy task to kill him.
“Young Master, slow down!”
“I’m not drunk! There’s a peerless beauty waiting at home for me to enjoy tonight. Heh heh…”
A lecherous voice drifted over. Zhou Chen raised an eyebrow. He had not expected that Shi Baoyu would still be out carousing in the middle of the night.
“Looks like you won’t be enjoying that peerless beauty tonight.”
Zhou Chen sneered inwardly. He had already spotted Shi Baoyu and his companions.
Reeking of alcohol, Shi Baoyu was being supported by two servants. Beside him walked a burly, broad-shouldered old man and two guards.
The old man was a Body Tempering Second Realm martial artist. It was said that he was already close to the Third Realm and possessed a strength of eight or nine thousand jin.
But in Zhou Chen’s eyes, one slash would be enough.
“The weather is dry and the night is dark. Take care with your lamps and candles!”
Just as Zhou Chen was about to charge forward and launch a sudden killing blow, the night watchman came by carrying a lantern. Zhou Chen halted in his steps.
By the time the night watchman had left, Shi Baoyu and the others had already turned the corner and arrived at the entrance to their home.
“In that case, I’ll let you be buried in your own house. Consider it the greatest kindness I can offer you.”
Zhou Chen paid it no mind.
Whether on the road outside or within Shi Baoyu’s residence, it made no difference to him.
His strength completely overwhelmed Shi Baoyu and every guard and bodyguard at his command.
“Fengxia, help me become invisible,” Zhou Chen ordered.
Ji Fengxia’s cultivation had advanced rapidly within the Wind and Moon Mirror. With Zhou Chen constantly and vigorously supporting her from behind, her progress had been even more astonishing.
She had now reached the fifth layer of Qi Refining.
Although Ji Fengxia would certainly lose to him in a true battle, she far surpassed him when it came to support and assistance.
Back when Ji Fengxia had only been at the third layer of Qi Refining, she had already been able to silently bewitch Zhou Chen, who had just advanced to the Second Realm of Body Tempering, and lure him into the woods for an ambush.
“Yes, Master!”
Ji Fengxia unleashed her strange art. Zhou Chen followed openly behind Shi Baoyu and entered the residence. Neither Shi Baoyu nor any of the guards noticed the slightest thing.
Creak.
The gate closed, and two guards remained stationed outside.
“Heh heh, my little beauty, your young master has come!”
Once home, Shi Baoyu seemed to have sobered up considerably. His face flushed with excitement as he rushed toward the room.
Seeing how excited Shi Baoyu was, Zhou Chen swayed leisurely along behind him. Before long, they arrived outside a bedroom.
“Young Master, you’re here!”
The two servants standing guard at the door hurriedly bowed, nodding and scraping with obsequious smiles.
“Is my beauty ready?”
“Rest assured, Young Master. Everything has been prepared for a long time. We were only waiting for you to savor her at your leisure.”
“Good!”
Shi Baoyu nodded in satisfaction. As the two servants opened the door, he rubbed his fingers together and strode into the room.
Zhou Chen followed him inside as openly as could be.
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The two servants closed the door.
Ji Fengxia’s strange art sealed the room. Nothing that happened inside would be noticed by anyone outside, and the two servants had already fallen under the spell as well.
“My beauty, I’ve kept you waiting!”
Shi Baoyu had no idea that danger had already descended upon him. He strode excitedly toward the large bed, where a woman lay beneath the covers.
Although he could see only her face, her exquisite, otherworldly beauty was enough to stir any man’s desire to possess her.
Shi Baoyu reached the bedside and was just about to lift the quilt when someone suddenly tapped him on the shoulder.
“Who?”
Shi Baoyu reacted quickly, swinging a fist backward.
Crack!
Zhou Chen seized his fist and twisted.
That single twist carried a force of seventy thousand jin.
Shi Baoyu let out a shriek. His arm twisted into a grotesque spiral, while beads of sweat the size of beans poured down his forehead. He roared savagely:
“Help! Save me…”
“Go ahead and shout. Even if you scream until your throat breaks, no one will come to save you!”
Zhou Chen had originally intended to kill Shi Baoyu with a single stroke, but the moment he entered the room, a surge of anger had erupted within him. He could not allow Shi Baoyu to die too easily.
Apart from the enormous bed, the room was filled with all kinds of implements and instruments of torture displayed on the shelves nearby.
The ordinary implements were nothing special. Zhou Chen had played with such things at the Snow Moon Brothel and at Zhang Long’s home, and had even enjoyed them together with Ji Fengxia inside the Wind and Moon Mirror.
But those objects that resembled instruments of torture were another matter entirely.
Take, for example, the rope stretched between the two pillars nearby.
It resembled the rope the Little Dragon Girl used as a bed, but Zhou Chen knew that Shi Baoyu certainly had not used it for sleeping.
Zhou Chen was reminded of the rope torture inflicted by the enemy upon Gu Xiaomeng, played by Zhou Xun, after she was captured in The Message.
No wonder Zhou Chen had heard that Shi Baoyu had tortured countless maids and respectable women to death.
Who could endure such things?
Crack, crack, crack!
Zhou Chen’s fury continued to rise as he slowly twisted Shi Baoyu’s other arm into a spiral.
“Ahhh! No… please, I beg you, let me go…”
Tears and mucus streamed down Shi Baoyu’s face as he begged frantically for mercy.
“You seem to enjoy playing with these things. I’ll play with you slowly.”
Zhou Chen grinned and reached up to take a metal clamp from the shelf.
“Where do you think this would be best placed?”
He squeezed the clamp. It was quite powerful. His eyes grew even colder as he looked Shi Baoyu up and down.
“No… don’t…”
Shi Baoyu shuddered violently. When such a thing was used on someone else, he found it thrilling. But imagining it being used on himself made his flesh crawl and filled him with dread.
“Please, let me go! My father is the leader of the Salt Gang. Whatever you want, I’ll give it to you!”
Shi Baoyu’s eyes were filled with entreaty. Since no one had come to save him, Zhou Chen had clearly used some special method. All he could do was beg for mercy.
Once he escaped, he would repay Zhou Chen a hundredfold, a thousandfold. He would subject Zhou Chen to every torture in existence, making him wish he were dead and yet unable to die.
“Right, there’s also an unparalleled beauty here whom I haven’t touched yet. She’s still untouched. I’ll give her to you. You can do whatever you want with her…”
Shi Baoyu gestured toward the beauty on the bed, hoping to divert Zhou Chen’s attention.
Zhou Chen was a man.
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Would playing with a beauty not be more interesting than playing with him?
“How could someone like you ever change? Hmm?”
Zhou Chen suddenly exerted force with his arm.
Rip!
Shi Baoyu’s arm was torn cleanly from his body.
“Ah!”
Shi Baoyu screamed, his body trembling like a sieve. Yet for the sake of staying alive, he continued to endure the pain and plead desperately:
“Hero, spare me! I was wrong! I’ll change, I swear! From now on, I’ll be a good person. I’ll build bridges and roads every day, open the granaries to aid the poor, and never do evil again. Please, Hero, give me one more chance and let me atone for my crimes…”
“So it seems you’re not only capable of tormenting women…”
A strange glimmer appeared in Zhou Chen’s eyes, and he regarded Shi Baoyu with a trace of newfound respect.
If this fellow did not die, he would certainly be capable of inheriting his father’s enterprise.
You could call him evil, but you could not call him useless.
Men like him deserved to die even more.
“Someone like you will never change!”
“There is only death for you!”
Zhou Chen exerted force with his fingers and snapped Shi Baoyu’s neck.
“Guh!”
Shi Baoyu’s body convulsed. His tongue lolled out, and he breathed his last.
Zhou Chen reached into his clothes and felt around, pulling out a stack of banknotes.
“As expected of a landlord’s son—he’s loaded!”
He glanced over them briefly. There had to be more than a thousand silver taels.
What a fortune!
“Fengxia, come out and clean up!”
Zhou Chen called out in his mind.
A mass of dark flames appeared, burning Shi Baoyu to ashes and leaving nothing behind.
Ji Fengxia, however, did not appear.
“Master, there are two chests of gold and silver and several manuals in the cabinet beside us!”
Ji Fengxia spoke to Zhou Chen from within the Wind and Moon Mirror.
“Excellent!”
The corners of Zhou Chen’s mouth lifted slightly. He went over, opened the cabinet, and stored all the manuals, gold, and silver inside the Wind and Moon Mirror.
With Ji Fengxia’s assistance, Zhou Chen even located the treasures hidden within a secret chamber.
After stripping the place bare, Zhou Chen returned to the bed and looked at the beauty Shi Baoyu had abducted.
The beauty’s enormous, luminous eyes seemed to sparkle with light.
Her skin was fair, her features delicate and lovely, and she possessed a natural purity and otherworldly grace.
No wonder Shi Baoyu had hurried back in the middle of the night to toy with her after drinking at a brothel.
She truly was a peerless beauty capable of overwhelming an entire city.
“What is your name?”
“My name is Ruyi.”
…
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