On the collapsed ruins, only a few tilted and crisscrossed roof beams remained. Beneath the broken walls and scattered tiles, bricks and tiles were constantly heaving upwards, as if an immortal monster lay buried, about to burst forth from the ground.

Amidst the ringing in his ears, Chen Ji crouched low and approached, simultaneously drawing a short knife from his sleeve. He had made a total of three bamboo tube explosives: one for Golden Pig, and the remaining two for attacking Sicao. Now, with no extra explosives, he had no choice but to use his knife.

The next moment, with a resounding boom, bricks and stones scattered in all directions.

From the rubble and ruins, Manager Yuan, propping himself up with a heavy wooden beam, slowly rose to his feet. He was dishevelled, his hair askew, and his golden headdress had been blown off to an unknown location. Manager Yuan was covered in shards of metal, his face a bloody mess, with blood and dust mingled together. His once-grand red satin robe hung in tatters around him, making him look like a midnight ghoul.

He raised a hand to rub his eyes, which were so full of dust and grit from the explosion that he couldn’t open them properly. It was then that he suddenly realized his right hand seemed to be broken, completely unable to lift it.

“Firearms!”

“These are Ning Dynasty firearms!”

Like Golden Pig, Manager Yuan had seen crude firearms before, but neither had ever encountered explosives with such destructive power! Ning Dynasty firearms had only been used in warfare for just over a hundred years. Early muskets used thick bamboo tubes as barrels, loaded with gunpowder and pellets. At that time, the gunpowder wasn’t even powerful enough to split the bamboo tube, which would only be discarded after several shots. Only in recent decades had the Ning Dynasty switched to iron barrels to contain more powerful gunpowder, but even then, the gunpowder was still imperfect, lacking purification techniques and proper proportions. It was only used on the front lines to suppress the cavalry charges of the Jing Dynasty.

When Manager Yuan saw the bamboo tube, he knew he couldn’t dodge it, but he didn’t believe it could kill him. At most, it would just tear his skin, not harm his bones. But the power of Chen Ji’s bamboo tube explosive was far greater than he had imagined! It had even collapsed the house!

Manager Yuan forced his eyes open; his left eye was bloodshot and crimson, and only his right eye could barely see. He quickly scanned the area in front of him, only to find no one there. “Do the Ning Dynasty Secret Service experts need to hide and sneak around to kill just one person like me?”

From start to finish, Manager Yuan hadn’t even caught a glimpse of Chen Ji. Blown up by the explosives, he assumed it was Secret Service experts with firearms, never suspecting Chen Ji!

But no one in the courtyard answered him; only a short knife sliced through the air towards him. Manager Yuan tilted his body, easily dodging the knife thrust aimed at his neck. But Chen Ji didn’t stop, instead stabbing him three more times in quick succession – in his upper back, lower back (spleen area), and left leg – before retreating.

Except for the one to the thigh, Chen Ji suddenly realized, all the other thrusts had missed! No, they hadn’t missed! Instead, Manager Yuan possessed a martial art that made his skin and bones as tough as copper and iron. Ordinary daggers simply couldn’t pierce him. No wonder he could stand up after the explosion! However, he probably wasn’t invulnerable everywhere, otherwise he wouldn’t have needed to dodge the knife aimed at his neck.

At this moment, Manager Yuan, ignoring the blood gushing from his thigh, turned around with his one good eye, glaring fiercely at Chen Ji. “How could it be you?! You secretly hid the explosives given by Prince Jing’s Estate and the Liu family!”

Chen Ji didn’t answer, merely silently contemplating how to kill this bear-like Manager Yuan. He had no idea what cultivation path the man followed; he seemed impossible to kill.

In an instant, Manager Yuan charged forward like a battle chariot. Chen Ji immediately retreated, circling around the courtyard. But before Chen Ji had taken two steps, Manager Yuan kicked up a brick, which hurtled towards him. The shattered brick grazed Chen Ji’s ear, the whistling wind stirring his hair, before striking a nearby wall and crumbling into dust. That kick was terrifying. If Manager Yuan hadn’t lost an eye and his accuracy, Chen Ji would probably have died on the spot!

Infuriated by missing his target, Manager Yuan kicked brick after brick, sending them flying like musket balls, growing increasingly accurate and fierce! A brick slammed into Chen Ji’s back, sending him tumbling with just that one blow. Chen Ji felt as if his heart and lungs had been dislodged, but he dared not stop for a second, getting up to continue fleeing. Before he had run a few steps, Manager Yuan kicked up two more bricks in quick succession, hitting him in the lower back and right leg.

Chen Ji fell again, his short knife flying five or six meters away. He tried to force himself up, but couldn’t stand steadily. Manager Yuan strode swiftly to Chen Ji’s side. With his broken right hand hanging uselessly, he extended his left hand to twist Chen Ji’s neck.

However, at that very moment!

In the silent stillness, Chen Ji, who was lying prone on the ground, suddenly flipped over to face Manager Yuan! Manager Yuan gazed into Chen Ji’s eyes and suddenly felt there was no despair there, only calm.

“No, this isn’t right!”

“This isn’t the look of a dying man!”

In the space of a breath, the sword essence that Chen Ji had been cultivating for several days coursed like a swimming dragon through his meridians to his fingertips!

Nurturing a sword with stars, breaking all things and all methods!

It happened so suddenly, and at such close range, Manager Yuan had nowhere to dodge. An invisible sword qi shot past Manager Yuan’s carotid artery, and a jet of blood immediately gushed forth, ceaselessly!

The sword essence that Old Man Yao had once scoffed at as “She Dengke’s fart” was merely the power Chen Ji had cultivated for an hour. But these past few days, Chen Ji had been nurturing his sword essence while learning the blade from Feng Huai, patiently waiting for this invisible sword qi to become his final trump card.

Chen Ji pried Manager Yuan’s fingers apart with both hands, slowly forcing open the large, meaty hand, then collapsed to the ground, coughing violently. Manager Yuan clutched his neck in disbelief, stepping back bit by bit. Blood gushed through his fingers, rapidly draining all his strength.

“When did you become a cultivator? This is the sword essence path! How do you know the Martial Temple’s sword-nurturing technique?! Did your mother teach you? But how could she master the sword-nurturing technique…?”

“The sword essence path…”

“It’s actually the sword essence path!”

Manager Yuan crashed to the ground.

Chen Ji slumped to the ground. He raised his palm, and suddenly sporadic snowflakes drifted down from the sky, melting instantly upon touching his palm. For a moment, he felt disoriented. He had finally killed Manager Yuan. That night, he had first rescued the Prince and Baili, then, wounded, came to assassinate Manager Yuan. It wasn’t even dawn, yet it felt as if he had endured a long season, from autumn into winter.

Before he could fully recover, hoofbeats echoed from the distant street. The Secret Service was arriving! Chen Ji struggled to get up, wanting to escape the scene quickly, but just as he stood, he fell heavily again. The last brick Manager Yuan had kicked had landed on his leg, reopening his wound.

Just at this critical moment.

Footsteps approached from nearby, and a voice spoke solemnly: “So you’re here. We’ve been looking for you all night!”

Chen Ji was stunned; the voice was exceptionally familiar…

At the end of Tongji Street, dozens of warhorses galloped forward. Golden Pig rode atop one, his expression calm. He had just been in Hongyi Lane, several li away, preparing to lead his subordinates in a retreat, when he heard the familiar sound of an explosion once again. Golden Pig never imagined that this Jing Dynasty bandit, who possessed firearms, hadn’t fled but instead had roamed to other parts of Luocheng to commit another major crime. However, the sound of the explosion was somewhat strange; it seemed to come from where merchants gathered. Golden Pig pondered for a long time but couldn’t fathom what a Jing Dynasty bandit could be doing there. But a debt of an explosion must be repaid.

Golden Pig rode at the forefront, galloping into Tongji Street. He saw the rising dust from afar. “Men, seal off the entire area around Tongji Street! Starting tonight, no one is allowed out, only in! Turn over every inch of this place; don’t let even a single worm escape!”

However, no sooner had he spoken than a crow suddenly descended in the darkness. The crow’s movements were like a black whirlwind; no one could even clearly discern its form, it was incredibly swift. The crow didn’t engage in direct combat; it simply pecked at the warhorses’ eyes repeatedly, causing them to rear up in fright, kicking their hooves, trying to shake off the crow, and consequently throwing the secret agents to the ground.

Golden Pig, however, sprang from his horse, planted a foot on the saddle, and launched himself towards the crow in mid-air. The warhorse knelt under the recoil, and his burly figure crossed paths with the crow… but he missed! Golden Pig was startled. This crow seemed even faster than him. “What is that thing? How can there be such a formidable crow… a cultivator!”

“Use crossbows! Shoot it down!”

The secret agents pulled out hand crossbows from their waists and shot into the night sky, but the crow twisted and turned, cawing, easily dodging the crossbow bolts while mocking them. Golden Pig was certain this was some kind of cultivation path, yet he racked his brain, recalling all the cultivation paths he knew, but found no information about this one. It was as if it had never appeared in history. How could this be? The Directorate of Ceremonial was in charge of intelligence within the royal court. Any cultivator who had ever appeared in the world would definitely be recorded, even those only mentioned in folk legends. What kind of cultivation path could be hidden so deeply that there wasn’t a single word about it in the Directorate of Ceremonial’s archives?

“Abandon horses!”

Golden Pig let out a low cry and led the charge, rushing towards Manager Yuan’s residence where dust was still rising. The crow grew anxious. It desperately swooped down to peck at the secret agents, but more and more agents arrived, and crossbow bolts almost formed a net in the air. If it flew even slightly lower, it could be pierced by multiple arrows! The crow was forced to fly up into the night sky.

In just over ten breaths, Golden Pig had reached the entrance of Manager Yuan’s residence. He leaped over the high gate and landed in the courtyard, but inside Manager Yuan’s compound, only a collapsed house remained, and a stripped corpse. He looked up again, but the crow had flown off to who knew where.

“Pursue! The killer can’t have gone far!”

Several hundred meters away, Chen Ji was being carried on someone’s shoulder, with another person following behind. As he was jostled, he looked at the person following behind him and asked with difficulty, “Brother Biao, didn’t you already leave?!”

Wu Hongbiao grinned and said, “I was originally going to leave, but Sicao thought you might want to do something on your own if you didn’t leave, so he kept me here. Earlier, when we heard the commotion in Hongyi Lane, we secretly snuck over, but we didn’t dare get too close. Later, when you escaped from the rooftop, we followed you from a distance. At the time, we didn’t recognize you; we thought you were some kind of outlaw.”

The next moment, the driver, who was carrying Chen Ji and was also a Sicao, said coldly, “Don’t rush to chat now. Be careful, or your movements might get messy and they’ll catch up.” With that, he carried Chen Ji, taking turn after turn for a full half hour, until they arrived at a dark alley where an ox-cart was tethered. Sicao tossed Chen Ji onto the cart bed, then sat in front, cracking the whip and driving the ox-cart south.

Chen Ji sat up. “Where are we going?”

The driver Sicao calmly said, “First, we’ll go south to Yangzhou to lay low. Once the Secret Service lifts the lockdown, we’ll head north back to Jing Dynasty. There’s no place for us in Ning Dynasty anymore. We need to go back and find your uncle.”

Chen Ji was stunned. He looked back at the receding buildings and bluestone road. Was he really going to leave the Ning Dynasty after all? He asked softly, “Is there no other way?”

“No other way. Tonight you wounded Golden Pig and killed Liang Heyong. From now on, neither the Military Intelligence Bureau nor the Secret Service will tolerate you.”

“‘Liang Heyong’?”

“That’s Manager Yuan, whom you just killed.” Sicao Gui said coldly, “He was once also your uncle’s man, but he betrayed your uncle to present his ‘pledge of allegiance’ to Lu Guanwu. A treacherous scoundrel like him deserves to be killed by anyone. Even if you hadn’t killed him today, I would have found a way to kill him before leaving.”

Chen Ji leaned against the cart bed, silent for a long time. “Why are you so loyal to my uncle?”

Sicao Gui tightened his grip on the reins. “That’s none of your business.”

Chen Ji recalled his struggle with Manager Yuan, asking in confusion, “What cultivation path did he practice? Why was he so tough, like copper and iron, that even a knife couldn’t pierce him?”

“Before coming to Ning Dynasty, your uncle arranged for him to infiltrate Kujue Temple in Shengjing City, our Jing Dynasty capital. He practiced the Golden Bell style. There are no shortcuts with this path. One must strike the temple bell before Buddha every day for ten years without fail, and the path will naturally grant you skin and bones as tough as copper and iron. However, he only struck the bell for ten years, so naturally he still had many weaknesses. There was an old monk at Kujue Temple who struck it for sixty years and became completely invulnerable, with no weaknesses.”

Chen Ji leaned back in the cart bed, tiredly. “That’s an eye-opener. So striking a bell can be a form of cultivation.” He recalled that the young monk by the Prince’s side also seemed to cultivate simply by reciting the Sutra of the Original Vows of Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva over and over again. If that’s the case, don’t Buddhism and Taoism possess a great many cultivation paths? No wonder Fomen Tongbao dared to take over the money-changing business… During his time in Ning Dynasty, Chen Ji hadn’t seen a single money changer on the streets, so Fomen Tongbao must have had a monopoly.

Chen Ji then asked, “How many Sicaos does our Military Intelligence Bureau actually have?”

The driver Sicao was silent for a moment, as if deciding they were allies, and stopped hiding information: “Previously there were three; now there are ten, using Jia, Yi, Bing, Ding, Wu, Ji, Geng, Xin, Ren, and Gui as codenames.”

“What are you?”

“I am ‘Gui’. Manager Yuan was ‘Xin’.”

Chen Ji asked, “Why is there no place for us in Ning Dynasty anymore?”

Sicao Gui calmly replied, “Originally, everyone in the Military Intelligence Bureau was promoted by your uncle. Now that Lu Guanwu has been promoted to Military Strategist and controls all military intelligence for our Jing Dynasty, he has brought in his old subordinates and plans to slowly purge your uncle’s former associates. The original Director was also your uncle’s former subordinate, but I haven’t been able to contact him for half a month. He has likely met with foul play. Once a new Director takes office, there will certainly be another purge.”

Chen Ji suddenly asked, “Wait, if all of my uncle’s people have been eliminated, then besides you, Manager Yuan, and Brother Biao, who else in the Military Intelligence Bureau knows my identity as a Jing Dynasty spy?”

Sicao Gui pondered for a moment before replying, “The Director also knew.”

Chen Ji took a deep breath. “But the Director was also eliminated by Lu Guanwu. Does that mean that, apart from you and Brother Biao, no one else in the Military Intelligence Bureau knows my identity?”

Sicao Gui considered carefully. “Yes.”

Chen Ji sat up and grabbed the reins from Sicao Gui, stopping the ox-cart. He stated firmly and resolutely, “You go to Yangzhou. I’m going back to Taiping Medical Clinic.”