Chapter 79: The Thunder Pearl Judges Evil

Ling Chi felt a surge of delight in his heart. The path to strength was thorny, yet it was precisely this difficulty that made it so alluring. The even more abundant spiritual energy surging within him gave him greater confidence to face the coming battle.

Seated in the center of the martial arena, he sat in meditation, his mind clear and tranquil. The darkness gradually receded, and with the piercing crow of a rooster, daylight slowly broke.

In the reflection of his divine sense, a tiny figure wobbled toward him.

“Sixth Brother, mother says it’s time for breakfast!”

Little Rui threw herself into Ling Chi’s arms. In winter, the hardest thing was getting out of bed. The little girl had been dragged from her warm blankets by Yang Shu, who then sent her to call Ling Chi for breakfast.

Ling Chi cradled the girl in his arm, a brocade robe casually draped over his shoulder. Rui hugged his neck and whispered in his ear about the dreams she hadn’t finished having the night before.

“So early in the morning, and you’re not even properly dressed.” Yang Shu smacked Ling Chi’s arm, then rubbed her own wrist and took Rui to sit down and eat.

“If you don’t sleep all day, can your mind really take it?” Zhao Lei poked Ling Chi’s bulging arm muscles enviously.

After having their vital energy drained by Qu Zhang last time, Zhao Lei and Xiao Yu’s cultivation had slowed, and Zhao Qing had been searching everywhere for medicine to repair their foundations.

“Don’t worry, Fourth Brother. I know my limits. In fact, even if I go several days without sleep, I’m still full of energy.”

This was a benefit bestowed by refining qi into spirit—his soul and spirit were extraordinarily powerful.

He accepted a cake from Xiao Yu and took hearty bites.

No one knew where Zhao Qing had gone to seclude himself. For now, Ling Chi had to stay in Crane County to fill his master’s place.

After breakfast, Yang Shu went over the wedding supplies needed in the coming days.

Ling Chi rode out on his great black horse for a stroll. Thanks to his careful nurturing, the horse seemed to have undergone a second growth spurt.

Its body was powerful, muscles clearly defined, legs thick and strong, with a glossy black coat—every bit the equal of a warhorse on the battlefield.

He planned to circle the county to see if fate would lead him to someone who could provide him with thunder spiritual energy.

The horse’s sturdy hooves rang crisply on the flagstone streets of the southern city. Passersby greeted him frequently. After his battle with the Headless General, his fame was no less than Zhao Qing’s. The people only knew that the thunder that night had illuminated the entire county.

At dawn, word spread that some evil creature had invaded the city, only to be intercepted at the gates by the sixth son of the Jing’an Division. After a fierce battle, he subdued it and protected the people.

Though only a youth, he had accomplished such feats that the whole city held him in admiration.

As he walked the streets, people kept calling out to him, and vendors invited him to sit and eat. Ling Chi politely declined each time. He didn’t encounter any crooked merchants bullying the marketplace, which left him a little disappointed.

Just as he was about to head home, the Thunder Pearl suddenly stirred. It only quivered slightly, but he felt it distinctly.

Puzzled, he cast his divine sense over the pearl, trying to discover something.

The Thunder Pearl trembled again, moving slightly to the left front, as if pointing him in a direction.

His consciousness instantly swept out two hundred paces, and he found a suspicious figure a dozen paces to the left front.

It was a fair-skinned, tall, middle-aged man, possessing the third level of the Vein-Opening Realm.

The closer he got to the man, the more violently the Thunder Pearl shook.

He followed quietly for a while until he finally discerned something odd. With the wind, he caught a whiff of corpse rot on the man’s body.

He finally understood—the Thunder Pearl had evolved, able to detect from a distance those creatures carrying what it desired.

Ling Chi felt the pearl was growing ever more mysterious.

For now, he put aside what he could not fathom and turned his attention to the matter at hand.

After some experimentation, he concluded that thirty paces was the current maximum range of the Thunder Pearl’s response.

Watching the pale middle-aged man enter a small courtyard, Ling Chi hesitated no longer. Gripping his blade, Slayer of Evil, he kicked the door open.

Neighbors, not knowing the truth, crowded together to watch the commotion.

“Isn’t this Manager Zhou’s home from the cloth shop? Why would the Sixth Young Master barge into his place?”

“Must be that Manager Zhou has done something wrong. Otherwise, why would the Sixth Young Master kick down his door for no reason?”

“That must be it. The Sixth Young Master is a good man.”

Ling Chi ignored the onlookers and strode straight into the courtyard.

“Sixth Young Master? What an honor to have you here. What can I do for you?” Manager Zhou greeted him.

Ling Chi said nothing, his divine sense sweeping every inch of the courtyard.

Seeing Ling Chi ignore him, Manager Zhou, feeling guilty, quietly edged toward the exit.

At last, Ling Chi discovered something in a covered cellar.

The cellar was barely two fathoms deep and only two feet across, yet inside were stacked more than forty corpses—all mangled limbs mixed with greenish corpse fluid, most beyond recognition.

A mad killer hiding among the people.

Manager Zhou thought his furtive movements would escape Ling Chi’s notice, but Ling Chi’s attention never wavered from him. How could he possibly let him escape?

Ling Chi flashed forward, suddenly appearing before Manager Zhou, and smashed his sheathed blade into the man’s face.

Caught off guard, Manager Zhou was knocked to the ground, blood and teeth spilling from his mouth.

“Auntie, could you go fetch the street patrol or someone from the Jing’an Division? Tell them I’ve caught a criminal,” Ling Chi called out to the crowd outside the gate.

“Alright, Sixth Young Master, just wait here. Auntie will go right away.” The round-bellied woman bustled off in excitement.

Watching a spectacle and participating in one were two different things. This was a story she could share with every relative for half a month, maybe even forge a connection with the Sixth Young Master. No wonder she was thrilled.

“You hid yourself well. If I hadn’t smelled the stink of corpse rot on you, you might have gotten away,” Ling Chi said, prodding Manager Zhou’s head with his sheathed blade.

“Mmm... I’m innocent... innocent!” Manager Zhou stammered, blood bubbling from his broken mouth.

“Save your breath. Tell me about your accomplices,” Ling Chi demanded, seizing his collar, his tongue unleashing a thunderous sound.

The surge of thunderous sound focused into a line, instantly shattering Manager Zhou’s will.

“There’s a servant in my shop, and his wife—they helped me lure people here,” Manager Zhou confessed in a daze.

Ling Chi released him, then punched him in the chest. The man’s breastbone caved in, tendons and vessels ruptured, a deep imprint of a fist marking his chest. Manager Zhou spat out several pints of blood and was left near death.

He kept him alive only to drag him into the street for a public execution.

Ling Chi asked no further questions. Before long, officers from the Jing’an Division and county constables arrived together.

They immediately began digging up the cellar, pulling out the corpses and laying them in the street for families to identify—though whether they could was no longer his concern.

Some men were sent to the cloth shop to seize the accomplices. These minor criminals were beneath Ling Chi’s attention—they’d die by his hand and that was enough.

He stopped the curious auntie from going inside and withdrew from the courtyard, watching the others busy themselves.

“Hey, cover your mouths and noses—the smell inside is bound to be awful,” Ling Chi kindly advised.

“Don’t worry, Sixth Young Master. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen something like this. It’s nothing,” one constable said carelessly.

The Jing’an Division officers, however, followed Ling Chi’s advice without hesitation, using spiritual energy to cover their mouths and noses.

The constables thought them overly cautious, but sage advice goes unheeded by those doomed to die. Ling Chi led the auntie and neighbors even farther back.

The townsfolk, heeding his warning, retreated with Ling Chi to the edge of the street.