socalfunplaces Chapter 31 First Murder
Chapter 31 First Murder
The rumbling of the earthen carts gradually subsided.
Gravel and dirt fell from mid-air, landing on the freshly turned ground with a soft rustling sound.
After Gu Yan's last muffled groan was swallowed by the earth, the forest returned to the silence that night should have.
The only sounds were the distant sound of the stream flowing between the rocks and the faint whistling of the night wind as it passed through the pine needles.
Zhuge Yan stood in front of the newly erected mound, his right hand still in the Kun character mudra.
The blood on his knuckles had dried, turning into a dark red that was almost black under the moonlight.
He looked down at his hands and remained silent for a long while.
He killed someone.
It wasn't a mishap in a martial arts competition, nor was it a helpless act of self-defense; it was burying a person in the ground with utmost seriousness.
That person stole his wallet and used the bones of living people to perform evil magic; he was a sorcerer from the Quanxing sect.
Any reason is enough to kill!
But when Zhuge Yan actually pressed the earthen cart down, he realized that this was completely different from what he had thought on the mountain.
Thinking about killing someone on the mountain and actually killing someone at the foot of the mountain are two different things.
He didn't hesitate; keeping someone like Gu Yan around would only harm more people.
But he didn't feel much relief either. In the instant that life was swallowed by the mud, he felt something heavy, something he couldn't quite describe as either heaviness or a wake-up call.
It was as if a hand had knocked on a door in his heart that had never been opened before.
Zhuge Yan walked to the stream and squatted down to wash the blood off his knuckles.
The stream water was icy cold, probably melted snow from the nearby mountains.
He shook the water droplets off his hands and pulled a dry cloth from his bag to wipe them.
I looked up at the sky; the moon was already setting in the west, and there were less than two hours until dawn.
It seems we won't be able to travel tonight.
Zhuge Yan found a relatively flat rock by the stream, sat down, leaned against his luggage, and closed his eyes.
My mind is a mess, but my heartbeat has returned to its normal rhythm.
Gradually, as the depth of meditation deepened, all sensations began to disappear.
After daybreak, Zhuge Yan did not set off immediately.
He returned to the pine forest where the battle had taken place the previous night and stood for a while under the old pine tree where Gu Yan had been buried.
The broken ends of the pine needles were still oozing resin, and the churning marks left by the earthen river under the tree were still clearly visible, like a fresh wound that had not yet healed.
Zhuge Yan casually picked up a stone from the ground, conjured a golden blade using his Condensed Weapon technique, and carved four characters on the stone—
Quanxing, ancient tobacco.
"Benefactor, although you are from Quanxing, I am not the kind of person who kills but doesn't care about burying the dead."
I killed you first, and after I die I will dig a good grave for you and erect a good tombstone for you. Then we can be considered to have settled our karma.
In your next life, please don't do such heinous things again.
After all, what goes around comes around.
"See, your retribution has come to pass!"
After shaking his head at Gu Yan's grave to confirm that the other party was indeed completely dead, Zhuge Yan turned and left.
This was his first time killing someone, whether in his previous life or this one; it was his first time in the true sense of the word.
But perhaps because they used earthen carts to bury people alive without actually drawing blood, the feeling of killing wasn't as intense as the legends suggested.
The thought of killing a living person with my own hands makes me feel slightly uncomfortable, but that's all.
Not long after Zhuge Yan left, several more uninvited guests appeared in the woods.
Yuan Jingui was not present on the night Gu Yan was buried alive by Tuheche.
Three days ago, he, Gu Yan, and two other Quanxing accomplices traveled from western Sichuan to the southeast, intending to join in the fun in Zhejiang.
Ghost Hand Wang Yaozu took on a disciple a few years ago, and wow, he was incredibly unruly.
Having only been a disciple for a few years, he already looked down on them, the "senior uncles" of the Quanxing sect.
So the fat man next to him immediately made a bet with the other party, saying that the two would have a competition in three years.
If he loses, he'll turn around and call that kid "Master Uncle"!
The Quanxing people are a bunch of troublemakers who love to watch this kind of excitement, especially Yuan Jingui, the "Long-Calling Wild Dry".
Halfway there, Yuan Jingui suddenly received a message by carrier pigeon, saying that there was a business deal in the town ahead that he needed to go and negotiate in person.
So he took his two friends and made a detour, leaving Gu Yan to wait in a nearby town, agreeing to meet the next day.
But who knew that something bad would happen the very next day.
When Yuan Jingui returned after finishing his business, he searched all over Qixia Town but couldn't find any trace of Gu Yan.
Although Gu Yan is dishonest, he never breaks his promises.
Yuan Jingui immediately became suspicious and led his men to search along the official road outside the town. When they reached the pine forest ten miles outside the town, one of them suddenly pointed ahead and shouted.
In a clearing in the woods, under an old pine tree, stands a stone tablet.
The stone slab was clearly carved out with a sharp tool; the cut surface is flat and smooth with sharp edges, and several lines of text are engraved on it.
Yuan Jingui squatted down and, in the dim light, deciphered each character one by one.
"Quanxing, Guyan"
Yuan Jingui twirled the stone slab twice in his palm.
Gu Yan is dead.
The guy who was grinning and dividing the spoils with him the day before yesterday, patting his chest and saying, "Brother Yuan, you can go and do your job without worry, I'll be waiting here," was buried under a mound of earth not far away.
There wasn't even a coffin; there was only a stone slab used as a tombstone.
"Brother Gu, while it's not surprising that people like us could die a violent death on the street any day, yours is a bit too sudden."
As he spoke, Yuan Jingui also noticed the marks on the ground beside him.
Yuan Jingui was skilled in weapon crafting and had a much sharper eye than ordinary Quanxing demons.
To outsiders, all they saw was clumps of mud, but to him, it was an orderly destruction.
The soil was spiraled and rolled over, not by an explosive collapse, not by a deep pit created by a punch, and not by scattered stone fragments from a sword strike.
There are fine scratches in the soil, like countless snakes swimming along the ground at the same time, or like someone making the soil move on its own.
Warlock.
And he wasn't just any ordinary sorcerer.
To master this level of Bagua (Eight Trigrams) technique requires a high degree of control over the Kun (坤) method.
Even if an ordinary sorcerer could barely use the Earth Chariot, they could only lift up a wall of earth or a pillar of earth, but the ground in front of them looked as if it had been completely turned upside down.
This isn't just barely usable; it's masterful.
Yuan Jingui recognized this tactic.
People from the Wuhou faction.
Only the Wuhou School's Qimen magic could use the Kun character method so skillfully.
Just as he was about to stand up straight, he caught a glimpse of something even smaller out of the corner of his eye.
footprint.
The soil in the pine forest had dried overnight, its surface was brittle, but its edges still retained a clear outline.
Yuan Jingui squatted down and lightly traced a circle around the edge of the footprint with his fingertip.
It is not long, shallower than the average person, and its stride is so even it looks like it has been measured with a ruler.