The Bloodvine Forest was famous for its dangers. Cultivators who went there to train had a low probability of coming out alive. But the outskirts? The outskirts weren't dangerous because of beasts or monsters.
The outskirts were dangerous because of the evil in humans.
Being a no-man's-land, the Bloodvine Forest had attracted every kind of scum: bandits, mercenaries, assassins, human traffickers—all carrying out their hidden activities where the law dared not tread.
Even so, on this evening, the usual atmosphere of bloodshed and human evil was... shattered.
The setting sun cast an orange hue upon four figures. One stood upright. The other three had been engaged to the environment in creative ways they had not agreed to.
The upright one was, of course, Lu Chen.
Hei San had been driven head-first into the ground with such precision that only his legs remained above the soil, twitching slowly in the air like a dying cricket. He'd charged first, swung hardest, and arrived at his current address fastest.
Fitting.
Liu Mang's torso was intimate with a tree. His arms wrapped around it in what could generously be described as an embrace. His head and legs were free, which suggested he'd almost made it somewhere.
Almost.
His face wore an expression of joy. The joy of a man who had, for one glorious moment, believed he was escaping.
But his legs told a different story. Between them, a certain moisture had developed that no one present would be discussing.
A forensic scientist would have been genuinely torn, was it the horror of being caught, or the brief joy of thinking he'd escaped? The scene offered no clear answer and frankly raised more questions than it resolved.
Then there was Gu Biao. Half-submerged, face up, legs married to the soil, arms splayed like a man who had decided to make peace with the earth. He was the only one still conscious — the sole perk of wearing an oversized stolen robe that had, in its final act of usefulness, cushioned the impact.
"Why did I have to provoke this monster?" Gu Biao thought despairingly.
He recalled the formation. It had worked multiple times before. Hei San in front as the hammer, him in the middle as the anvil, Liu Mang hanging back with three escape routes already mapped. It was clean and reliable.
But Liu Mang had other plans in mind. He had bailed before the last second.
Not that it mattered.
All Gu Biao had seen was a blur. Then Hei San — head-first, gifted to the ground. Then himself. Then a distant crash that was presumably Liu Mang meeting his bride-tree.
It had taken less time than it took to blink.
Lu Chen stood over him, expression calm, hands clasped behind his back. Like a man who had briefly paused his evening walk to deal with a mild inconvenience.
To Gu Biao, that expression wasn't calm. It was the face of a predator who had not yet decided if he was full.
"Stay back!" Gu Biao's voice cracked. "I'll give you everything I have! My coins! My pouch! Hei San and Liu Mang!"
Lu Chen tilted his head. "You really give your teammates away like they're cabbages?"
"They—" Gu Biao stopped and reconsidered. "They're very fresh cabbages. Good quality. Barely used.
"Lu Chen looked at him for a long moment wondering whether his brain decided to ditch him for a honeymoon with logic.
Well no one cared what Gu Biao had to say. Not even his brain nor his logic.
Then he bitch-slapped the consciousness right out of him.
THWACK.
Gu Biao's eyes rolled back. His body went limp. His head met the dirt with a sound like a sigh.
[Battle Summary]
[Defeated: 3 cultivators — one at BT8, two at BT7]
[EXP Gained: +38]
[Reason for Low EXP: They were too weak. This supreme system is embarrassed to have recorded this.]
[Breakthrough Progress: 400 / 2560 → 438 / 2560 towards Body Forging]
[Basic Sword Lvl. 1: 50% → 50.5%]
Lu Chen stared at the notification.
"Just thirty-eight?"
<...>
"They were going to rob me."
Lu Chen's eye twitched. "Who the fudge is the bigger ant?"
Lu Chen looked around at the three bodies. Hei San's legs had finally stopped twitching. Liu Mang's situation remained unresolved and probably would for some time. Gu Biao was unconscious, likely dreaming of career alternatives.
That was when he noticed the birds.Three of them were perched on a branch at a distance. Watching.
"Hmm? Angry birds?"
It was not an unwarranted observation. They did look like the three leading birds from that movie — except black. And upon closer inspection, one of them looked familiar. Specifically, it looked like the bird from earlier. The one that had decided it had heard enough and left.
Apparently it had gone to find its friends and told them what it had witnessed.
Apparently they hadn't believed it.
Apparently they had come to see for themselves.
The three birds sat in a row, looking down at the scene below at Lu Chen, and the three cultivators in their various states of disgrace, at Liu Mang's situation specifically — with the quiet, solemn judgment of creatures that had seen things today they had not been prepared for.
At least being judged by birds is better than being looked down by them.
Lu Chen, for his part, was mentally calculating roasted bird legs.
Then he noticed their expressions.
It was the same expression. All three of them. The look you gave something when you saw something nasty on the ground and didn't want it on your shoe.
"The fudge? What's with that condescending look?"
The birds held his gaze for one more moment.Then they left unhurriedly and unbothered. Knowing perfectly Lu Chen is powerless against them.
"I did not get looked down upon."
"System."
"Shut down for me."
Lu Chen stood very still for a moment, absorbing the fact that he had just lost an argument to both a group of birds and an intangible system that existed exclusively inside his own consciousness.
Then he started looting. It was better than thinking about it.
---**Loot Acquired:**
-150 bronze coins total — 80 from Gu Biao, 65 from Liu Mang, and 5 from Hei San.-
From the distribution alone, it was clear Hei San had been getting robbed by his own crew for some time.
'Poor Hei San.'
Lu Chen took the coins and left the rest. Junk was junk regardless of who it had previously belonged to.
"Today's harvest was bad," he said to no one. "Better find some deep pockets next time.
"He was about to resume his journey when something caught his senses at the bottom of Gu Biao's spatial pouch.
It was a token.
He turned it over in his fingers. Simple and unassuming. But the insignia pressed into its surface was not.
Lu Chen knew that insignia.
"Xu Rang?"
He looked at Gu Biao's unconscious face. Then back at the token.
"How did a small-time bandit in the outskirts of the Bloodvine Forest end up with this?"
He didn't have an answer. He pocketed the token and filed the question away somewhere quiet. Whether it was coincidence or something else entirely — he would find out eventually.
He always did.
He resumed walking.That was when he heard a commotion in the distance. The particular kin
d of noise that meant someone was either in serious trouble or causing it.
Lu Chen slowed and listened.
Then he stepped off the path and moved toward it.
[TO BE CONTINUED...]