46: madman

The night rain poured down, and the wild wind whipped the tattered tarpaulin, letting out a shrill, mournful wail.

The dark figure stiffened all over, startled by the low growl of the old dog guarding the stall, and his movements stalled for a fraction of a second.

It was this very instant that decided the difference between life and death.

"Roar!"

The old dog's golden eyes shone like two searchlights in the dark night. Instead of pouncing on the man, it shot forward like a bolt of golden lightning hugging the ground, heading straight for the Tianshi Mansion Courier Bag in the man's hand!

Zhang Xuanyi violently coughed up a mouthful of blood-streaked saliva. His half-kneeling body was teetering, but his voice was unusually calm: "Bite the bag, don't hurt him!"

The dark figure reacted extremely quickly. Seeing the golden light rushing toward him, he didn't retreat but instead advanced. With a flick of his wrist, a short blade coated in an eerie blue cold light silently slashed toward the old dog's throat.

This person was an expert, striking ruthlessly with every move being lethal!

However, he underestimated this old dog that had drunk the Purification Talisman Liquid.

The old dog's body twisted incredibly in mid-air, dodging the blade. Its wide-open mouth precisely bit onto a corner of the courier bag's canvas and yanked backward!

*Rip—*

The canvas tore as expected.

The dark figure clearly hadn't expected a common mutt to possess such Divine Power; his center of gravity became unstable, and he stumbled a step.

He...

To catch the bandits, first catch their leader!

"Watch out!" Su Qingzhu screamed, instinctively blocking with her umbrella.

Liu Qingyi stepped forward, several silver needles already gripped between her fingers, her face as cold as frost.

But they were both a step too slow.

Just as the short blade was about to touch Zhang Xuanyi, he smiled.

Using the last of his strength, he violently pried upward with the empty bottle he had buried in the ground!

*Bang!*

A slippery green flagstone, soaked by the rain, was pried into the air by his leverage. It flew true, striking the dark figure's charging ankle perfectly.

*Crack!*

The crisp sound of a bone snapping was exceptionally piercing in the rainy night.

The dark figure let out a muffled groan, his body swaying violently as his forward momentum came to a dead stop.

He looked down at his foot in disbelief, then looked up at the young man who was coughing blood incessantly and looked as if he might expire at any moment. For the first time, fear flickered in his eyes.

This wasn't a Cultivator's method; it was the street-smart wisdom of a thug, yet it was more lethal than any Talisman!

He didn't dare stay a moment longer. Enduring the intense pain, he kicked off the ground with his other foot, his body turning into a blurred afterimage. In a few leaps, he disappeared into the heavy night of the Mount Longhu gate.

The rain grew heavier.

"Woof!" The old dog placed the tattered corner of the courier bag by Zhang Xuanyi's feet and rubbed against his trouser leg as if seeking praise. However, the light in its golden eyes had dimmed significantly; clearly, that pounce had also cost it a great deal of energy.

*Spurt—* Zhang Xuanyi could no longer hold on. Another mouthful of fresh blood sprayed out, staining the mud in front of him red.

The backlash from the Purification Talisman was far more severe than he had imagined, nearly draining his Origin Qi.

"Don't move!" Liu Qingyi rushed forward, supporting his collapsing body. Several silver needles were thrust into major Acupoints on his back like lightning, temporarily sealing his surging blood and Qi.

She checked Zhang Xuanyi's pulse, and her face instantly turned pale. "Your qi sea... it's about to run dry! Are you crazy? For a dog, is it worth it?"

Zhang Xuanyi leaned against her shoulder, gasping for breath, yet a strange smile played on his face. "It's worth it... It's cleaner than those people."

Su Qingzhu picked up the tattered piece of the courier bag. By the faint light of her phone, she saw that inside the lining, besides the grayish-black residue of the Purification Talismans, there was an inconspicuous emblem—Tianshi Mansion, External Affairs Hall.

Her hands began to shake, not from the cold, but from fear and anger. "It really is them... Zhang Xuanyi, you guessed it long ago, didn't you?"

Zhang Xuanyi didn't answer. His gaze moved past Su Qingzhu and fell onto the new Anatomical Diagram Liu Qingyi had just handed him.

On the diagram, within the deceased's Meridians, those eerie black patterns were intertwined like plant roots, eventually converging at the Dantian to form a pattern resembling an ancient well.

"Gui Xu Well..." Zhang Xuanyi's voice was as raspy as a worn-out bellows. "Liu Qingyi, you were right. This isn't an ordinary toxin; it's a Sacrificial Brand."

"What do you mean?" Su Qingzhu and Liu Qingyi asked in unison.

Zhang Xuanyi's eyes became incredibly deep, as if piercing through layers of rain to see the secrets in the deepest part of the Tianshi Mansion Forbidden Ground.

"Tongxuan Hall, or rather the Tianshi Mansion External Affairs Hall, they aren't selling fake medicine, and they aren't laundering money." He spoke word by word, as if each one was squeezed from between his teeth. "They are using counterfeit Qi Source Liquid to screen for 'Vessels.' Those who drink the counterfeit liquid and don't suffer a Qi Explosion will have this 'Gui Xu Brand' planted in them. Lin Qi was one of them."

"Reverse Three Caverns Talisman..." Zhang Xuanyi turned his gaze to the Talisman residue. "I understand now. The side effect of my Talisman allows the user to see their true qi sea ahead of time, which creates immense desire and resentment. But at the same time, my purification power happens to trigger the latent 'Gui Xu Brand' within them, causing it to manifest early... So, my Talisman isn't a side effect; it's a key—a key that can prematurely open their Pandora's box!"

Su Qingzhu sucked in a breath of cold air. "Vessels? Brands? Sacrifices? What on earth are they trying to do? This is insane!"

"A Yuan..." Zhang Xuanyi softly muttered the name,

Struggling, he pushed away Liu Qingyi's support and knelt back down in the mud, digging into the muck directly beneath the stall.

That was where he had buried the empty bottle just now.

The rain mixed with the mud, quickly turning him into a mud-man.

"What are you doing!" Liu Qingyi said anxiously. "Your injuries..."

Zhang Xuanyi ignored her, stubbornly digging until he had unearthed a small pit about half a foot wide.

He stared into the bottom of the pit as if his entire world were buried there.

"The report was published, but instead of Tongxuan Hall collapsing, even more people went to sign up." Su Qingzhu's voice carried a hint of defeat and self-reproach. "They say you're a liar, a shameless person jealous of Tongxuan Hall. They took your act of smashing the stall as a heroic deed. Now, all the low-level Cultivators in Tiandu view you as an enemy."

"Very well," Zhang Xuanyi said in a low voice, his tone frighteningly calm.

He carefully placed the fragment of the courier bag with the External Affairs Hall brand, which he had snatched from the man in black, into the bottom of the pit.

Then, he folded the Anatomical Diagram showing the "Gui Xu Well" brand and placed it inside as well.

Finally, he looked at his empty hands.

He had once thought he set up this stall to investigate an old case and repay a favor.

But now he realized that from the very beginning, he had been deeply mired in an even larger vortex.

His stall, his Talismans, the people he saved, everything he did had become a pawn on someone else's chessboard.

Used, plotted against, and pushed to the opposite side of everyone.

The rain gradually slowed, and a sliver of fish-belly white appeared on the eastern horizon.

The faint light of dawn pierced through the clouds, illuminating the mess.

Zhang Xuanyi slowly stood up. Muddy water dripped from his trouser legs, forming a murky puddle on the ground.

He looked around at the smashed tables and chairs, the shredded tarpaulin, and the ground trampled out of shape.

This place had once been his livelihood, but now it looked like an abandoned graveyard.

Liu Qingyi and Su Qingzhu both watched him in silence. They could feel that something within this young man had completely died during that rainy night.

At the same time, something even more terrifying was regrowing from his blood and bones.

He didn't look toward the mountain gate, nor did he mention Tianshi Mansion again.

His gaze fell back onto his stall, which had been destroyed to nothing.

"They thought that by smashing my stall, I would lose," Zhang Xuanyi suddenly spoke. His voice wasn't loud, yet it possessed a penetrating power that even silenced the sound of the rain.

He bent over and picked up three empty bottles from the ruins that hadn't been completely crushed in last night's chaos; they were the bottles he had used to hold the Purification Liquid.

He carefully wiped the mud from the bottles with his sleeve, his movements gentle as if he were cleaning a rare treasure.

"Since they like playing with fire and turning patients into believers..."

The corners of his mouth slowly curled into a cold and crazed arc.

"Then I'll play along with them on an even larger scale."