Chapter 1 New Year's Eve, Noon

It was New Year's Eve, noon.

The streets of Linlu Town were deserted.

Even the common folk of the town knew that today was not a day to be out and about.

They all wisely kept their doors tightly shut, watched their children closely, secured the livestock in the yard, and prayed that the year would pass peacefully and quickly.

And those merchants who usually frequented the town were nowhere to be seen today; after all… this was New Year's Eve, and for the Chinese, if you only had one day off a year, this was it.

Of course, not everyone had found a place to hide.

Besides the various martial artists, the town's drunkards, hooligans, and ruffians had also gathered in the dark alleys and street corners, fueled by curiosity and a bit of alcohol.

After all, it was a rare opportunity… they wanted to see what kind of show these "martial heroes" would put on.

"Gang Leader, we've scouted ahead and behind. Only the Beggars' Sect has more manpower than us. The other sects have no more than ten or so people at most, but…" The man hesitated, mid-sentence.

"But what?" Tu Ji asked coldly.

"But… although they are few in number, more than half of them are tough opponents…" This Wild Tiger Gang scout's martial arts were average, with only his qinggong (light body skill) being somewhat decent. However, he had the ability to discern who were truly the masters, and this ability… had caused considerable unease in his heart.

"What is it?" Tu Ji instantly saw through his thoughts and cast a chilling gaze upon him. "Are you afraid?"

That one look made the scout tremble and his heart skip a beat.

At that moment, only the two of them stood in this small courtyard facing the street. The other members of the Wild Tiger Gang were all lying in ambush in the surrounding area.

That is, if Tu Ji was in a bad mood and "executed" this scout on the spot, no one would care.

"This subordinate… deserves to die…" The scout knew that none of his thoughts could escape Tu Ji's eyes, so instead of arguing, he directly admitted his mistake.

"Hmph…" Tu Ji smiled. "Compared to them, are you more afraid of them, or more afraid of me?"

This question was difficult to answer; it seemed that either answer would be wrong.

So, the scout didn't dare to answer; he just stood there… breaking out in a cold sweat.

"Actually, the answer to this question… is not important." After a moment, Tu Ji looked at his subordinate with a satisfied expression. "Actually, I'm just like you. I'm also afraid." He paused, and said calmly, "I'm afraid of death, afraid of losing, and afraid of not getting the Sword Dance Grass Manuscript tonight."

Hearing this, the fear on the scout's face faded a little, replaced by a hint of confusion.

"It's right to be afraid; fear can keep you away from danger." Tu Ji continued, "But you can't lose your composure, lose your sense of proportion, or even lose your position just because you're afraid…" He emphasized the last two words. "Remember… the more afraid you are, the more clearly you need to know what you should do, and do it well."

"This subordinate understands!" Beads of sweat rolled down the scout's face, and he looked at Tu Ji with an almost grateful gaze, cupping his fist and bowing, "Thank you for your teaching, Gang Leader!"

"Mm… go ahead." Tu Ji said, then turned his back, waved his hand, and signaled the man to go out and scout again.

The scout took his leave and immediately used his qinggong, leaving the courtyard in the blink of an eye.

Tu Ji, on the other hand, remained standing, deep in thought.

From the outside, the Wild Tiger Gang's leader seemed like a boorish man, but in reality, this person could be described as cunning as a fox, cruel as a wolf, venomous as a snake, and fierce as a tiger…

His attire, his speech, even the name of his gang and the name of his unique martial art… were all deliberate disguises.

He just wanted others to think of him as a boorish man, a martial artist, so that they would be contemptuous and lower their guard.

Objectively speaking, he had been very successful… Duan Keyi's death was a good example.

In fact, it wasn't just Duan Keyi.

Last night, there were as many as ten experts ambushed by the Wild Tiger Gang, and none of them survived. As for how many disciples and followers of those experts died, no one would bother to count.

This kind of success rate was no coincidence, because Tu Ji only chose targets that he was "sure of."

Before making a move, he not only investigated these people's martial arts, age, physical condition… but even their habits, hobbies, special quirks, and so on, were all thoroughly investigated.

As for those he couldn't investigate thoroughly, such as Wang Qiong (who was even more thorough than Tu Ji), Leng Yuqiu, and Cotton Daoist (who had no sect and acted alone), he would not act rashly.

This was Tu Ji's principle – first ensure invincibility, and then await the enemy's vulnerability.

However, this strategy would not work today.

At least… with the Wild Tiger Gang's strength, it was impossible to create an "unbeatable" situation here.

Therefore, as Tu Ji himself said… he was very afraid.

But today's situation was worth his worrying about, and it was worth entrusting the part of his plan that he couldn't control to so-called "fate" and "luck"… to take a gamble.

Creak—

The sound of a door turning on its hinges interrupted Tu Ji's thoughts.

With some surprise and suspicion, he turned around and looked at the wooden door a few meters away from him.

It was the door of a private house.

Although Tu Ji had taken the liberty of using someone else's courtyard as his base, he hadn't asked the owner's permission; of course… he didn't think the owner of this house would have the guts to come out and reason with him.

But now, the door of the house had been opened, and the two people who came out of it didn't look like ordinary people at all.

"Heh…" Looking at Sword Demon and Bupa walking towards him, Tu Ji gave a self-deprecating smile. "I was negligent…" He muttered to himself, "Even if I couldn't sense their inner force, I should have gone inside to take a look…"

When Tu Ji came here this morning, he had considered breaking into the house and killing the residents inside; but in the end, he was afraid of complications, so he just used his inner force to investigate outside the house. After confirming that there were only two people inside and that there was no reaction of inner force, he concluded that "the people inside were just two ordinary people."

"If I remember correctly…" As he spoke, Tu Ji had already prepared himself to fight, but on the surface he remained calm, looking at Sword Demon and saying, "This one should be Young Hero Huangfu…" Then, he looked at Bupa, "And this one… is Heroine Chai."

Tu Ji had already bribed the shopkeeper of the Kelai Inn, so he knew everything about the inn; with Tu Ji's intelligence, it was not difficult to remember the name of every guest.

"Gang Leader Tu is well-informed…" Bupa replied, "Even though we're meeting for the first time, you seem to know us very well."

She reacted quickly, almost immediately figuring out how the other party knew her and Sword Demon's names, and then probed with her words.

"Hmph… I'm just 'well-informed'…" Tu Ji replied with a cold smile, "But you… are 'highly skilled'." He paused for a second, and continued, "Not to mention that the two of you were able to retreat unscathed from Leng Yuqiu yesterday, and not to mention that you can conceal your inner force; I'm most curious about… how exactly did you ambush yourselves in this house?"

This question did make Tu Ji very puzzled, because he had only decided to choose this house as a stronghold this morning. To have set up an ambush in advance would require foresight.

"There's no ambush or anything." Sword Demon replied in a relaxed tone, "It's just that we expected that last night wouldn't be very peaceful, so we decided to leave the inn and find another place to settle down, to avoid being caught up in any unnecessary trouble. So… we just randomly found this house to hide in." He shrugged. "The family took some silver (the money they extorted from Leng Yuqiu was enough for the family to live on for a year), and happily left the town, planning to go to the hostess's mother's house for ten days or half a month before coming back."

What he said was half true and half false.

"Avoiding being caught up in trouble" was only one of the reasons they came here. In fact, their main purpose in coming here was to ambush Sashimi and Meng Jingchan.

These two in jianghu were not easy targets either. They naturally discovered the duo and those "Sound Shells" when they entered the town.

However… Sword Demon and Bupa couldn't use advanced skills like Xu Huai Shang's "invisible" trick in the Sound Shells, which required using one's own abilities. Therefore, the strategy they came up with was to wait for the enemy to tire out – the two of them pretended not to know they were being monitored, eating, drinking, and resting, chatting and interacting with various npCs in the town to collect information, as if they were playing a single-player rpg game. At night, they even found a house to hide in, as if that would solve everything.

All of this was to create the illusion for the monitors that "we don't know we're being monitored." But in reality, they were always on guard against the enemy's movements, ready to counterattack when the enemy attacked.

Who knew that at night, Sashimi would be killed by Xu Huai Shang; the Sound Shells, as a special item generated by Sashimi's skills, disappeared with his death.

And Sword Demon and Bupa, who discovered this, didn't dare to act rashly…

If the two of them were outside the town, there would be nothing to worry about. After noticing that the Sound Shells had disappeared, they could enter the town without any restraint. But they had entered the town during the day… which meant that at the moment before the Sound Shells disappeared, their location was still in the enemy's grasp.

Therefore, they had to consider the possibility that the enemy deliberately let the Sound Shells fail, creating the illusion that "the monitoring has disappeared" in order to expose their flaws.

Thinking this way, they couldn't move easily and could only continue to wait.

This wait lasted until the morning. They didn't wait for Sashimi and Meng Jingchan, but they waited for the Wild Tiger Gang who came to scout.

Who would have thought… Tu Ji happened to choose the courtyard of this house as his hiding place and meeting point, and his gang members were all waiting here as the center.

Since things had come to this, Sword Demon and Bupa simply didn't come out. With their hearing, they could hear every word Tu Ji said in the courtyard from inside the house; they could just use Tu Ji's communication with the various scouts to grasp the situation in the town and observe the development of the situation.

"Oh?" Tu Ji didn't really buy Sword Demon's explanation. "Then according to you, your appearance in this house… is just a coincidence?"

"Whether it's a coincidence or not is no longer important." Bupa replied.

"Then what is important?" Tu Ji asked bluntly, cutting straight to the point.

"We came out, that's important." Sword Demon said.

Tu Ji pondered slightly, thinking that what the other party said made sense. He couldn't help but wonder in his heart: Why did they take the initiative to come out? If they wanted to eavesdrop, they should have stayed in the house; if they wanted to ambush, they wouldn't have opened the door and revealed themselves so openly.

"So it seems…" Tu Ji's mind was also very quick, "There's something that made you have to come out?"

"Exactly." Sword Demon said.

"Could you tell Tu what that reason is…?" Tu Ji asked.

"Of course." Sword Demon didn't mind telling the other party why they came out of the house, because even if he didn't say it, the other party would know soon enough.

"Someone has entered the town." Sword Demon first exchanged a look with Bupa, and then replied.

"What kind of person?" Tu Ji asked.

"I don't know his name." Sword Demon replied.

"Then you should know something else." Tu Ji said.

"Ah…" Sword Demon's expression froze, and he said solemnly, "What I know is… his martial arts are very high, so high that you can't even imagine it." He paused, and added, "Also… he's carrying the Sword Dance Grass Manuscript."