A glint flashed in Fu Juemin’s eyes. He strode through the crowd, moving to rendezvous with Cao Tian.
"Young Master."
When Cao Tian stood before Fu Juemin again, he was gasping for breath. His entire body looked as if it had been soaked in sweat and blood, covered from head to toe in filthy, ragged wounds and bloodstains.
Heaven knows what kind of "welco" he had received from the mob of Civility Venerable Sect thugs outside the red wall.
Fu Juemin glanced at him, too preoccupied to ask about his injuries, and cut straight to the chase. "Did you see anyone run out?"
"I did."
Cao Tian nodded, his lone-wolf eyes fixed on a certain direction. "I saw him run that way!"
"He took two of my bullets. He shouldn’t have gotten far..."
Fu Juemin squinted in the direction Cao Tian was pointing, then turned to look at him. "Can you still manage?"
Cao Tian shook his head, casually wiping the blood from his face with his sleeve. His tone was flat. "Compared to the bloody brawls at the docks, this is nothing."
"Good."
Fu Juemin smiled and patted his shoulder without another word, striding directly toward the street intersection.
By now, the street had descended into chaos.
Soone had scattered handfuls of grain and copper coins on the street, inciting a mad scramble among the vagrant followers of the Civility Venerable Sect.
The Civility Venerable Sect mbers, part of the sa group as the man in colorful clothes, were mixed into the chaotic crowd and would launch surprise attacks on Fu Juemin and Cao Tian from ti to ti.
It was clear Cao Tian had already fully adapted to this chaotic battlefield. Fu Juemin barely had to lift a finger. With twin blades in hand, Cao Tian took the lead, unleashing the full power of a Blood Refining Realm Martial Artist. Any fool who got too close was instantly uprooted like an autumn wheat stalk and sent flying.
The two quickly approached the intersection.
Here, the student protest group, which had originally been clustered together, had also been scattered by the rioting Civility Venerable Sect followers.
Fu Juemin’s gaze swept across the scene. Everywhere he looked, students were entangled in brawls with the vagrants.
A group of male students stood shoulder to shoulder, forming a circle to protect the female students within. Even as they were beaten black and blue, they didn’t retreat a single step.
"AH—!"
Suddenly, several cries of alarm rang out from the crowd.
Fu Juemin followed the sound and saw that the human wall ford by the students had been breached in one spot. Seven or eight bloodshot-eyed vagrants had rushed into the circle, randomly grabbing a few female students and trying to drag them into the mob.
Among them, as it happened, was the short-haired girl Fu Juemin had spoken with earlier.
Her glasses had been knocked off, and she was being pulled and shoved around in the crowd like a rag doll. Her face was pale, but she still clung tightly to the donation box in her arms.
Clearly, the vagrant thugs were also after the box.
"Help them."
Fu Juemin didn’t hesitate, giving the order directly to Cao Tian.
Cao Tian grunted in acknowledgnt. A cold glint flashed in his eyes as he raised his hands and charged forward, imdiately tearing an opening in the crowd amidst several screams of pain.
But Fu Juemin thought this was too slow. After a mont’s thought, he simply pulled out his pistol and fired into the air.
"BANG!"
The trendous gunshot rang out, and the noisy, chaotic crowd instantly froze, as if soone had slamd a pause button.
In the area around Fu Juemin, everyone involuntarily dropped to the ground, covering their heads.
Fu Juemin strode through the frozen river of people to the short-haired girl. He glanced at her, then reloaded the revolver and shoved it into her hands.
"Rember..."
Fu Juemin took the short-haired girl’s hand, showing her finger by finger how to grip the gun. Then, pointing at the terrified, panicked faces around them, he said calmly, "If anyone dares to co closer, shoot them."
Without waiting to see if the short-haired girl had understood, he called to Cao Tian. A few steps later, they had passed through the crowd completely and entered an alley across the street.
The short-haired girl stood there in a daze until Fu Juemin’s back had completely disappeared from sight.
Suddenly, she snapped back to her senses and turned excitedly to a long-haired girl beside her, who was also wearing an Indanthrene blue qipao. "Yunzhi! It’s Fu Juemin! That was Fu Juemin!
He saved us? He actually saved us?"
"I saw."
The girl, who had been disheveled by the pushing and shoving, brushed aside the stray hair on her forehead, revealing a stunningly beautiful face.
She gazed in the direction Fu Juemin had left, her tone complex as she murmured, "...He gave you a gun."
....
Fu Juemin crouched down, his fingertips touching the still-wet, dark red bloodstain on the stone slab. A flicker of light passed through his eyes.
"He left this. That’s right."
His connection to the Demon Fiend, which had been broken, stirred faintly once his fingers touched the blood.
Without a doubt, this blood belonged to the man in colorful clothes.
"Looks like the grocery store owner was right."
Fu Juemin stood up, took out a silk handkerchief, and slowly wiped his fingers clean. Gazing in the direction the blood trail led, he said in a low voice, "The Civility Venerable Sect’s nest is in the East of Luan River County Town."
The East of Luan River County Town was the old city, a settlent for a large number of lower-class people. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call it Luan River’s "slums."
It made sense for the Civility Venerable Sect to set up its main base there.
Fu Juemin followed the blood trail a few more steps. Just as he was about to exit the alley, two figures suddenly appeared at the entrance, one on the left and one on the right.
One was tall, the other short; one was burly, the other thin.
Both wore dark brown short jackets, their faces covered in strange grease paint, making them look like two rat faces with evil grins.
Without a word, they advanced, their unconcealed, bone-chilling killing intent spreading rapidly down the old alley.
Fu Juemin stopped and squinted, sizing up the two n approaching him.
A familiar tremor rose in his heart, but it was undoubtedly much fainter than what he felt when facing the man in colorful clothes.
Before he could speak, Cao Tian, who was beside him, snorted coldly and shot toward the two n.
As a battle-hardened, top-ranking Red Stick of the Black Shark Gang, he had a preternaturally sharp sense for danger and could tell at a glance that the two n’s intentions were hostile.
The two rat-faced n initially walked at a leisurely pace, but their steps grew faster and faster until they broke into a run together.
The mont Cao Tian charged in front of them, all three struck almost simultaneously.
"SWOOSH—"
Cao Tian initiated with a slash aid straight at the throat of the rat-faced man on the left, but his full-powered strike was caught firmly in the man’s bare hand a second later.
A pair of eyes gleaming with cruel light stared at him, exuding a faint scent of blood. With a twist of his fingers and palm, the man forcefully wrenched the short blade from Cao Tian’s grasp.
Cao Tian was shocked. Before he could react, the other, shorter rat-faced man had already slamd a fist into his left side.
Cao Tian grunted in pain and staggered back two steps.
When he looked up again, his face was grave.
’I was put at a disadvantage in a single exchange. Both of these n are Blood Refining Realm Martial Artists whose strength is no less than my own!’
’When you’re cornered with no room for retreat, the only thing left is to see who’s more vicious.’
At this thought, Cao Tian took a deep breath and simply discarded the other short blade he was holding, intending to fight them with his most proficient Fist Technique.
The two rat-faced n toyed with the short blade they had just snatched from Cao Tian, watching him with playful eyes. They suddenly grinned cruelly and lunged at him in unison.
Cao Tian’s expression hardened, and he subconsciously assud the stance of the Five Elents Tongbei Fist.
But before he could strike, he suddenly felt a gale-force wind rise behind him.
Imdiately after, he caught a glimpse in his peripheral vision of a muscular, python-like arm shooting past his ear, tearing through the air with a whistle as it lunged forward...
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