Li Mian sighed. "I can't shake the feeling that there's something fishy about the epidemic outside the city."
Li Heng nodded worriedly. "Bo Feng has been asking around for news from the constables. Let's wait for him to get back before we talk more."
Ren Qing, however, wasn't concerned. He'd cross that bridge when he came to it. Besides, the forbidden zone couldn't move, so there was no way it could affect Sanxiang City.
Still, he planned to advance his Divine Sutra as soon as possible. After all, once the Fireworkers from Hexing Street returned, it would be difficult to make a breakthrough with so many prying eyes around.
As for choosing a direction for his mutation, besides the Elephant-footed which had obvious mutations, the Wolf-footed Man and Leopard-footed each had their own distinct advantages.
The Leopard-footed's agility could increase speed, but it also came with facial mutations.
The Wolf-footed Man's stamina probably wasn't just what it sounded like. It likely had the ability to enhance one's qi and blood, which would in turn boost strength and speed.
'Thinking it over, for the Deceit Dao, the Wolf-footed Man, which seems well-rounded but mediocre, probably carries the lowest risk of mutation.'
'A Wolf Walker... as I advance, I'll probably become better and better suited for fighting alone, right?'
Seeing night approach, Ren Qing started preparing dinner. Conveniently, there was an iron pot in the courtyard now, so he didn't have to make a special trip to the Kitchen Courtyard.
As the aroma of the food began to spread, everyone started getting their bowls and chopsticks ready.
Since there were no corpses being burned in the furnace, they simply placed the food on the stone table. It was actually quite pleasant in the cool spring breeze.
Just then, Bo Feng hurried over.
Li Mian quickly asked, "Brother Bo, what's the situation with the Fireworkers from Hexing Street?"
"I sounded out the constables. I'm afraid it has nothing to do with the plague, but since they're being kept at Si Bu Hall for observation, it probably isn't anything serious."
Xiaowu asked indistinctly, "They weren't injured, were they?"
"The three of them are physically unharmed, just mentally shaken."
Xiaowu and the others looked dazed for a few moments, but they quickly returned to normal.
Unconsciously, the number of Fireworkers being discussed had become three, as if two others had never existed.
"Wait..."
Ren Qing suddenly felt something was wrong. He vaguely remembered there being more than three, but when he tried to recall it carefully, the number was indeed correct.
"We discussed this before, right? Li Mian, how many people did you say there were at the time?"
Li Mian answered with certainty, "Three. But I just heard it from someone else."
Ren Qing closed his eyes and thought for a long time, a dull ache starting to throb in his head.
He used his finger to carve the character for "three" on the underside of the stone table, then forcibly suppressed the strange feeling in his heart.
After dinner, the others cleared away the bowls and chopsticks.
Ren Qing practiced his Saber Technique for a while. Driven by a strange sense of crisis, he returned to his room to prepare for his advancement in the Divine Sutra.
Ren Qing shut all the doors and windows, sat cross-legged, and practiced the No-Eyes Technique Visualization for two hours. Only when it was late at night did he summon the Information Flow.
[Choose the Wolf-footed Man branch? This will consume 1 year of Lifespan.]
He was already mentally prepared. With the experience from his last advancement, one year of his Lifespan immediately vanished.
Time ticked by, second by second.
But the excruciating pain he expected never came. Instead, it felt like the calm before a storm.
Ren Qing continued to wait for over half an hour. Other than his dinner being mostly digested, nothing else seemed out of the ordinary.
He subconsciously glanced at the pig eyes by his bed, and his mood suddenly grew agitated.
Ren Qing's right hand uncontrollably grabbed the pig eyes, wanting to stuff them into his mouth. The metallic taste of blood wildly stimulated his taste buds.
He felt like a lone wolf that had starved for days deep in the mountains, his mind consumed by the single instinct to fill his stomach.
The pig eyes were just a finger's breadth from being swallowed, but he managed to hold back through sheer force of will.
What little consciousness Ren Qing had left told him that if he ate the pig eyes, his sanity would likely be destroyed by his animalistic nature, and he would turn into a beast.
But because he was straining his arm so hard, bloody fluid from the pig eyes dripped down.
His tongue subconsciously licked the trace of blood by the corner of his mouth. In an instant, his defenses crumbled, and he swallowed all the pig eyes whole.
Ren Qing's hunger was still not sated. He walked toward the door, step by step. Just as he was about to burst out, his Double Pupils swirled, and his reason returned.
The moment Ren Qing suppressed his bestial nature, the muscles in his legs swelled violently, and silvery-white fur began to sprout slowly.
His toenails grew sharper and sharper...
'It seems the Werewolf Transformation really is confined to my legs and won't spread to the rest of my body.'
The werewolf features vanished, and the dim room returned to quiet.
Ren Qing let out a breath. 'That was close, but I'm safe.'
'If I had known this would happen when advancing the Divine Sutra, I could have just chained myself up and everything would have been fine.'
'The main problem was eating those pig eyes. It made me instinctively less resistant to raw meat, giving my bestial nature an opening.'
This showed that even with a Cultivation at the Half-Corpse Realm, advancing in a Low Realm Magic Technique was not without risk.
He summoned the Information Flow to confirm that the mutation had been successfully completed.
[Skills: No-Eyes Technique (Repeater), Divine Sutra (Wolf-footed Man), Human Skin Book]
Ren Qing quickly examined his legs.
He found that aside from his muscles being more defined and his leg hair having a silvery-white sheen, the changes brought by the Wolf-footed Man path were almost negligible.
He tried activating the Divine Sutra. The muscles in his legs bulged, and thick wolf fur sprouted, but the Werewolf Transformation remained confined to his lower body.
Since Ren Qing had probably only just grasped the Wolf-footed Man path, it would likely take some time before he could fully transform into a half-man, half-beast.
As for the Cultivation Method for the Divine Sutra, he now understood it instinctively.
Ren Qing walked out of his room and sat cross-legged in an empty space in the courtyard.
The clouds in the sky were thin. The moon hung high, surrounded by twinkling stars.
With every breath, Ren Qing felt the gentle moonlight seep into his flesh and blood, and a warm current originating from his feet spread through his veins.
If he wanted to speed up his cultivation, he could drink Wolf Blood before training.
But Ren Qing had no intention of obtaining any Wolf Blood. The risks simply didn't outweigh the benefits.
The cultivation resources for the Divine Sutra were surely controlled by the Blood Dog Gang. If he deliberately went looking for them, he might expose himself.
Ren Qing closed his eyes and communicated with the newly grown Mutated Tree. The Ghost Envoy Realm advancement paths for the Divine Sutra appeared in his mind's eye.
[Soldier Calamity Wolf: Harboring Malicious Intent]
[Mountain-like Giant Elephant: Of Brute Force and Strange Gods]
[Five-Tailed Zheng Leopard: Life is as Worthless as Straw]
The Divine Sutra focused on strengthening the body, the complete opposite of the No-Eyes Technique, and could thus compensate for his weaknesses.
Ren Qing couldn't resist leaping onto the roof eaves to look around.
When he saw that the patrolling constables were not nearby, he tested his current speed by running back and forth.
It turned out that without even needing to use the Werewolf Transformation on his legs, his speed had increased by more than fifty percent.
He almost crashed into a wall because of it, but thankfully, his reflexes were quick enough.
He couldn't fully control it yet and would need a long time to adapt.
It was just a shame that once the Fireworkers from Hexing Street were released from their confinement in Si Bu Hall, he wouldn't be able to act so freely in the Firework Hall anymore.
He'd even have to be careful about eating pig eyes. Otherwise, how would he explain eating several pounds of them every day?
Ren Qing suddenly remembered something, and his expression darkened. 'By the way, just how many survivors were there among the Hexing Street Fireworkers?'
He bent down to look at the underside of the stone table and saw the character for "three" he had carved earlier.
'Was it three people?'
Filled with doubt, he returned to his room to sleep, planning to make a trip to Si Bu Hall the next day.