Chapter Nineteen: The Outlaw Cultivator Among Us

Whoosh!

At last, Zhou Changwang could fully relax. He gasped for air and turned his gaze toward the person who had intervened moments earlier.

“It’s you.”

He stared at the figure, surprise written all over his face. This was none other than his neighbor, Qian Xiaoyue, an apprentice alchemist working under one of the alchemists at the Six Directions Pavilion.

“Are you alright?” Qian Xiaoyue asked with concern, glancing at him.

“I’m fine. Thank you for what you did just now. If not for you, I would have been in real danger.” As Zhou Changwang recalled the events, lingering fear gripped him. He had managed to slay the swordsman with his Geng Metal Finger technique in time, but the other attacker had closed in, and his spirit hoe was already broken. Had Qian Xiaoyue not intervened with a spell that slowed the assailant, he might not have dodged the angry counterattack. He wouldn’t even have had the chance to pierce the opponent’s skull with a final Geng Metal Finger.

“I was just a little scared, and… I couldn’t bear it,” Qian Xiaoyue whispered, her gaze lingering on the two figures in black lying on the ground, her eyes reflecting a complex emotion.

“A little scared? Couldn't bear it?” Zhou Changwang was taken aback, then glanced at the corpses, quickly urging, “This isn’t a place to linger. Let’s go home and talk.”

Though he said so, he moved swiftly, searching the bodies for anything of value. He didn’t care what he found—everything went straight into his pouch, weapons included. Then, as if remembering something, he tore off their masks.

He looked closely: a man and a woman. The woman, around thirty, even in death retained a delicate beauty, a rare and lovely sight. The man, perhaps forty, had graying temples, thick brows, and a sullen expression.

“How… How could it be them?” Zhou Changwang was stunned. He recognized them—a martial arts couple.

They lived nearby, not far from his own residence, in fact, right next to Qian Xiaoyue’s place. In other words, they too were neighbors.

“How could they…” Zhou Changwang felt a chill in his heart, never imagining that bandit cultivators would be so close by.

Meanwhile, Qian Xiaoyue, her earlier complicated expression gone, came forward and sprinkled a powder over their wounds. In an instant, the bodies began to rot and dissolve into unrecognizable forms.

“This is corpse-decay powder,” Qian Xiaoyue explained, then said, “Let’s go.”

Zhou Changwang nodded hastily and followed her, heading quickly toward their homes. The place was close, and before long, they arrived.

As Qian Xiaoyue went straight into her room, Zhou Changwang hurried after her and asked, “Fellow Qian, what spell did you use earlier?”

“Slow,” she replied.

“I noticed… you seemed to know something,” Zhou Changwang said. He was no fool; he’d simply been too panicked to think before. Now, walking back, he realized something was off—especially Qian Xiaoyue’s demeanor and her earlier words. It all hinted that things were more complicated than they appeared.

“Come in and let’s talk,” Qian Xiaoyue said, giving him a slight gesture.

She entered her room. Zhou Changwang hesitated briefly, then followed. Before entering, he quickly pulled out a pill bottle, poured out a spirit pill, and swallowed it.

This was a Vitality Pill, a gift from Xu Zhong, originally five in total. He’d used four while restoring his spiritual power during pest control; only this one remained. He needed it to recover his depleted spiritual energy—not just because of the fierce battle, but because he harbored suspicion toward everyone, even Qian Xiaoyue, despite her timely help.

He did not want to escape the tiger’s den only to fall into the wolf’s lair.

As the Vitality Pill took effect, his spiritual energy began to circulate, rapidly absorbing the pill’s essence. Soon, he felt his depleted spiritual power restoring swiftly.

He relaxed a little, but it still didn’t feel safe enough. What if—what if she intended harm, to capture and torment him, or had other designs? So he tore off a piece of cloth from his garment and discreetly dropped it at Qian Xiaoyue’s door.

He needed to leave a clue. If anything happened, others could trace it to Qian Xiaoyue through the scrap of fabric.

Only then did he truly enter the room.

Fortunately, Qian Xiaoyue noticed nothing. She lit the oil lamp and gestured, “Sit wherever you like.”

Zhou Changwang nodded, casting his eyes about the room. It was much like his own: a table and chair, a bed and cabinet, though hers was tidier, with small decorations lending it freshness. What truly caught his eye was the pile of Golden Spike Spirit Leaves and Rooting Grass beside the cabinet. He knew these materials were the basics for making talisman paper.

Recalling yesterday’s scene at the loose cultivator market, he felt relieved. The talisman papers really were Qian Xiaoyue’s own handiwork.

“Fang Yu and Zhao Xifeng moved in next door a year ago,” Qian Xiaoyue began.

Zhou Changwang realized she meant the couple who had just attacked him.

“They claimed to come from Zhenlai Kingdom. At first, they were very friendly—especially Zhao Xifeng, who often brought me homemade pastries. We went from strangers to friends,” Qian Xiaoyue continued, her eyes once more reflecting complex emotions. “But by chance, I discovered they would leave at night dressed in black every so often. Sometimes they returned quickly, sometimes not until deep night. Each time, they brought back a few extra things… Then I suspected they might be the infamous bandit cultivators.”

Zhou Changwang nodded.

Bandit cultivators weren’t necessarily practitioners of Immortal arts. Some innate experts among mortals, with sufficient preparation, could ambush and kill even early-stage Qi cultivators.

For example, if Zhou Changwang hadn’t trained his Geng Metal Finger to mastery—allowing him to cast it during strenuous movement, with a casting time of only three breaths—he might not have survived the couple’s careful ambush.

On the outskirts of Phoenix Roost Market, cultivators like him without magical tools were common; some were even less capable than he was.