That night.
Returning to the small courtyard he rented, Shen Hao looked as exhausted as ever.
Yet another stretch of days without decent sleep, two fights in between, and his mind constantly calculating without pause—that was what drained him most.
"Hoo..."
He slumped into a chair, took off his burdens, and grabbed a jug of wine from the shelf at hand, uncorked it, and started gulping it down.
The cleanup was already being handled by Wang Jian. This time they cracked a major case, but the casualties were hefty: seventy-six dead, and over twenty wounded.
This showed just how disadvantaged the grassroots Xuanqing Guard were against Evil Cultivators and Evils.
Not all of the casualties were from Team A of C Battalion; most were actually transferred for reinforcement from the General Flag, under the command of Chen Tianwen. But Shen Hao treated them all equally. When it came to smuggled funds or extra compensation, he was never stingy. Anyway, the existence of private funds in each flag and team was no secret—it was tacitly understood among all.
However, it would likely take a few days to receive the official commendation. The major case report meeting was in three days, when Chen Tianwen would formally announce this case at the gathering—the optimal moment. It also left time for the interrogation experts to pry Xiao Zhongliu's mouth open. If it was confirmed he was part of "that group," this accomplishment would truly skyrocket.
Finishing the jug, drowsiness quietly crept in. Shen Hao didn't resist and simply nodded off in his chair.
...
When he woke again, it was already midday. He ate something hastily outside before returning to his room—now, it was time to untangle the strange happenings he'd experienced.
First, Shen Hao sat cross-legged on the puduan and activated his Great Five Elements True Qi Talisman, went through a circulation, then gathered his qi and finished the practice.
"This..."
Previously, a single Evil Core made Shen Hao's true qi tripled after each circulation, but now, the surge was back—and not just three times, but at least ten times!
More precisely, fifteen times the normal state!
With this speed of cultivation, after just a month he'd accumulate as much as a year and a half of previous hard practice?!
Shen Hao was startled. Cultivation wasn't always about speed—the faster, the better. Especially when it came to these bizarre occurrences.
He took off his shirt and looked at the Black Beast Tattoo on his chest in the copper mirror, touched it with his hand but found nothing unusual. As the previous scenes flashed through his mind, he could only think: What are you, really?
Ever since swallowing that Evil Core, Shen Hao had been unnerved; he felt the tattoo on his body was alive.
Luckily, Shen Hao was used to untangling confusion from messy situations, so he naturally started theorizing about the strange changes happening to him—so far, his explanation seemed plausible.
"The Evil Core is the core of an Evil, Yin Tofu is a consumable elixir, but ultimately, they're both highly concentrated energy. After I swallowed them, the energy didn't transform immediately inside me—it was stored in the Black Beast Tattoo. That's why I didn't die from ingesting them.
So now, the sudden surge in true qi when I cultivate is actually the tattoo slowly feeding back the refined, absorbable energy it transformed from the Evil Core and Yin Tofu essence. That reasoning makes sense, right? And if all this is accurate, then the surge isn't limitless. Once the tattoo exhausts the energy from the Evil Core and Yin Tofu, things should return to the previous state.
But the problem is, what exactly is this tattoo?"
After cultivating nervously for two days, Shen Hao found he hadn't suffered any instability in his Dao Foundation due to excessive true qi growth, so some of his worries eased. For now, the changes brought by the tattoo weren't causing harm to his body.
In just three days, apart from eating, Shen Hao spent all his time in the room meditating and cultivating. The feeling of his true qi constantly surging upwards was so exhilarating he couldn't stop.
The gains from these three days exceeded what he'd previously get from a month of hard cultivation. The instability he had stepping into Qi Refining Sixth Layer was now fully gone—solid Qi Refining Sixth Realm Initial Stage, firm as a rock.
"Dong dong dong..."
The knocking forced Shen Hao to gather his qi and finish, and opening the door, he saw Wang Jian's face, darker but shimmering with excitement.
"Xiaoqi, the Guard Station got an order for you—you're to immediately attend the Council Hall for the major case report meeting!"
"Me? Attend?" Shen Hao was a bit dazed. Normally, major case report meetings only involved Guard Station upper management—seldom would a Small Banner Officer be invited.
No doubt, it must be related to the previous Qi Family extermination case in Five Rams City.
"Alright, wait a moment while I change and I'll be right out."
Once he was neatly dressed, Shen Hao hurriedly made his way to the Guard Station, got cleared by the messenger, and entered the Council Hall.
The Council Hall wasn't large—just seven or eight meters square, with a big rectangular table inside surrounded by nine chairs. According to hierarchy, the seat at the head was for the Hundred Households Officer of the Guard, followed by two Trial Hundred Households, then six General Flags in order of seniority.
Shen Hao was assigned to the lower left corner, sitting on a small stool, not daring to look around, straightening his back and waiting for the others.
After about the length of a meal, the hall door opened, and three people entered. When they glanced at Shen Hao in the corner, they were briefly surprised, but didn't ask and took their seats.
Shen Hao recognized the three—they were the General Flag Officers of the "Yi", "Ding", and "Ji" flags; he rarely interacted with them, hardly even saw them.
Next came the General Flag Officers of Jia Flag and Wu Flag; both looked at Shen Hao, but with clear disdain in their eyes.
Shen Hao noticed it all and maintained a poised smile. The General Flags of Jia and Wu, along with his superior Chen Tianwen, had always been at odds—rumor had it they once even fought physically, a longstanding feud. Of course, the others would give him no pleasant looks.
But Shen Hao hadn't expected Chen Tianwen to enter together with the two Trial Hundred Households, and all three looked quite jovial, as though they'd just had a pleasant conversation.
When Shen Hao stood up, Chen Tianwen smiled at him and gestured for him to sit, but said nothing further to him.
After another short while, the hall door opened again, and a tall, square-faced middle-aged man strode in and sat in the top chair.
"Subordinates pay respects to Lord Hundred Households!"
"Mm, sit."
According to the rules of the Jingjiu Dynasty, only officials of Senior Sixth Grade or above were addressed as "Lord"; others were all called by their actual post. So in the Li City Guard Station, all references to "Lord" referred to the one at the head.
Tang Qingyuan, Hundred Households Officer of Xuanqing Guard, stationed at Li City Guard Station for eleven years, reputedly at Gathering Spirit Realm Eighth Layer, the top expert in Li City Guard Station.