3: Chapter 3 Yang Shan

Two days ago, Xu Gang had secretly met with him.

He asked him to investigate evidence of Yang Shan colluding with the Venomous Snake Gang to traffic people.

The three major Gangs in Changshou Ward were led by the Fierce Tiger Gang.

The Fierce Tiger Gang mainly dealt in the smuggling of private salt and was the wealthiest among the three Gangs.

The members of the Fierce Tiger Gang were notoriously daring and murderous.

To prevent being annexed, the Venomous Snake Gang and the Wild Wolf Gang had long since secretly joined forces.

Almost every month, the Fierce Tiger Gang would have several conflicts and clashes with the Venomous Snake Gang and the Wild Wolf Gang.

Over the years, the Fierce Tiger Gang had long established a deadly feud with both the Venomous Snake Gang and the Wild Wolf Gang.

If the matter of Yang Shan colluding with the Wild Wolf Gang were confirmed.

Even if he were the son-in-law of a Vice Hall Master, he would undoubtedly die.

After receiving this mission, Chen Hu arranged for his subordinates, Da Niu and Sun Chao, to go and gather information separately.

"Damn it!"

Suddenly, Chen Hu thought of a possibility; previously, he had been suspicious of who Sun Chao was an undercover agent for.

Now he was 99% certain that Sun Chao was most likely an undercover agent sent by Yang Shan.

It must have been that he sent Sun Chao to inquire about news of Yang Shan colluding with the Venomous Snake Gang.

After Yang Shan learned the news from Sun Chao, he became alert.

In order to protect himself, he secretly killed Xu Gang.

"That's not right!"

Chen Hu thought of a possibility; he had sent people to investigate Yang Shan, so logically, Yang Shan should have killed him instead.

After a moment of contemplation, Chen Hu thought of another possibility: Yang Shan must have guessed that the person truly wanting to investigate him was not Chen Hu, but the mastermind behind the scenes, Xu Gang.

If he only killed Chen Hu.

Xu Gang could still continue to find people to investigate him.

But killing Xu Gang was different.

Without Xu Gang, he, Chen Hu, was just an ordinary small leader.

On the contrary, Yang Shan was a small leader with a Vice Hall Master as a backer.

Furthermore, Yang Shan was about to reach the Late Skin Refining Stage.

Whether in terms of strength or background, he far surpassed him.

If Chen Hu were a smart person, he would definitely not dare to continue investigating this matter.

Instead, he would have to play dumb, or even defect to Yang Shan, to save his life.

"Tsk tsk, how sinister!"

After figuring all this out, Chen Hu sneered inwardly.

"Brother Hu, come with me quickly, Hall Master Ma is waiting to see you." Seeing Chen Hu in a daze, Er Niu couldn't help but urge him.

"Lead the way!"

Chen Hu waved his hand.

Halfway there, Chen Hu realized the path was wrong, so he asked, "Er Niu, where is Hall Master Ma?"

Er Niu said, "At Boss Xu's house."

Speaking of this, Er Niu gritted his teeth and said, "The murderer is too ruthless; not only did they kill Boss Xu, but they also wiped out Boss Xu's entire family!"

Upon hearing this, a chill surged from the bottom of Chen Hu's heart. This Yang Shan was truly ruthless to have actually killed Boss Xu's entire family.

One had to know that Boss Xu's youngest son was only one year old.

At the same time, a murderous intent surged in his heart.

Boss Xu had always treated him well.

Especially after Yang Shan broke free from his control, he had spared no effort to win him over.

Two days ago, he had even gifted him a bottle of qi and blood pill worth 20 taels.

Although this solicitation was not entirely pure.

But his ability to become a small leader was indeed inseparable from Boss Xu's support.

Therefore, no matter which way one looked at it, he should avenge Boss Xu.

Very quickly.

Chen Hu and Er Niu arrived at Boss Xu's residence.

Outside the door, there were Fierce Tiger Gang members on guard.

But seeing it was Chen Hu, they let him pass directly.

Xu Gang had been a big leader for several years and had made quite a lot of money.

The residence was a three-courtyard compound.

Chen Hu walked all the way to the middle courtyard.

He saw the corpses laid out on door planks one by one.

It was precisely Boss Xu's family of seven.

Xu Gang had an old mother above him.

He had a wife and a concubine.

Below him, he had two sons and one daughter.

The eldest daughter was only fifteen years old.

The two sons, one was twelve, and the other was only one year old.

Chen Hu paused in front of Boss Xu's corpse for a while before walking towards the main hall.

Sitting in the main seat of the main hall was their Hall Master, Ma Zhiyuan, whose cultivation was at the Meat Refining Stage.

Sitting on his left and right were the two Vice Hall Masters, Lian Qiao and Zhou Jianming, both of whom possessed cultivation at the Refining Flesh Mid-Stage.

And that Yang Shan was standing respectfully behind Lian Qiao.

"Subordinate Chen Hu greets Hall Master Ma, Vice Hall Master Lian, and Vice Hall Master Zhou!"

After entering the main hall, Chen Hu cupped his hands and saluted.

Seeing Chen Hu arrive, the look in Yang Shan's eyes as he stood behind Lian Qiao held a hint of playfulness.

"Chen Hu, your boss's entire family has been murdered. As his confidant, do you know who he has offended recently?"

Ma Zhiyuan stared at Chen Hu and asked directly.

Chen Hu pretended to be blank and shook his head. After thinking for a moment, he replied, "Reporting to Hall Master, Boss Xu has not offended anyone recently."

Seeing Chen Hu was so sensible, a trace of disdain and contempt flashed in Yang Shan's eyes.

He also looked down on Chen Hu a bit more.

"Since that is the case, let the Punishment Hall investigate this matter!" Ma Zhiyuan said, waving his hand.

The Fierce Tiger Gang had six major halls.

They were the Internal Affairs Hall, External Affairs Hall, Punishment Hall, and the three Battle Halls.

Ma Zhiyuan was the Hall Master of the Third Battle Hall.

Before long.

Chen Hu saw the three Hall Masters off, and he remained at Xu Gang's house, waiting for people from the Punishment Hall to come and examine the cause of Xu Gang's death.

However, he knew that the Punishment Hall probably wouldn't be able to find anything either.

He had examined Xu Gang's injuries; the fatal wound was a stab to the heart.

There were simply too many Martial Skills regarding blade techniques.

It was simply impossible to identify the murderer through the wound.

Just as he expected.

After the people from the Punishment Hall arrived, they merely perfunctorily inspected and recorded it before leaving directly.

Chen Hu called over other subordinates, bought coffins, and carried Xu Gang's family of eight outside the city to be buried.

By the time he finished all this and returned to the city, it was already evening.

The subordinates dispersed.

Chen Hu returned to his own small courtyard.

He dared not be certain whether Yang Shan would make a move on him in the near future.

At the moment, improving his strength was the most important thing.

The first step was to switch to cultivating the Longevity Technique.

Just like the Martial Skill, after the Fusion of the Longevity Technique, he automatically comprehended the first level of the technique.

Chen Hu activated the technique, mobilizing his Qi energy, and advanced along different cultivation routes.

One hour later.

After the Qi energy returned to the Dantian.

It had already undergone earth-shaking changes.

The Qi energy cultivated through the Longevity Technique was several times more condensed than the Qi energy cultivated through the Fierce Tiger Force.

However, the quantity of Qi energy was only one-third of what it was before.

But he could be certain that his current strength was more than twice as strong as before.

Taking out a qi and blood pill and swallowing it, he continued to Cultivate the Longevity Technique.

In the blink of an eye, half an hour passed.

Chen Hu completed another cycle of cultivation.

The Qi energy in his Dantian directly doubled in size.

This made him quite happy.

The Longevity Technique was indeed a Profound-grade technique; the efficiency of refining Medicinal Pills was far higher than the Fierce Tiger Force.

One cycle of cultivation could absorb the medicinal power of one qi and blood pill.

Unlike the Fierce Tiger Force, which required five or six cycles of cultivation to absorb the medicinal power of one pill.

He continued to take another qi and blood pill and cultivated again.

After one cycle of cultivation, the medicinal power of the second qi and blood pill also turned into Qi energy in his Dantian.

In terms of the quantity of Qi energy alone, it had already reached the Peak of the Early Skin Refining Stage.

Therefore, Chen Hu mobilized the Qi energy to temper his skin according to the skin-tempering method of the Longevity Technique.

The Qi energy traveled throughout his body.

Chen Hu was pleasantly surprised to find that under the tempering of the Longevity Qi energy, his skin membrane had actually been strengthened once again.

When he had consumed most of his Qi energy, his skin membrane had strengthened by at least 30%.

One had to know that the effect of tempering his skin with the Qi energy cultivated from the second level of the Fierce Tiger Force was extremely minimal.

Now, just by tempering his skin once with the Longevity Qi energy, his skin strength directly increased by 30%.

It had to be said that this Longevity Qi energy was truly overbearing.