101: Chapter 101 The So-Called Righteous Army

Thud.

Thud.

Thud.

The old man struck his forehead against the hard mud ground over and over, producing heavy, muffled sounds.

Behind him, the refugees—men and women, young and old—followed suit, numbly repeating the action.

There were no cries, no pleas for mercy.

There was only a deathly silent despair and the sickening sound of heads hitting the earth.

Chen Fan stood there, motionless.

A shudder from the depths of his twenty-first-century Soul, mixed with intense physical revulsion, churned in his stomach.

He had read history books and knew the phrase 'swapping children to eat.'

But when those words manifested as the charred corpse of a child, as the cold infant in the arms of that couple, and as this scene of people numbly kowtowing, the impact was enough to shatter any moral framework built by a civilized society.

Kill them all?

In what name? To avenge the dead child?

But those who did the deed would become the ones being eaten in the next moment. Every one of them was both a murderer and a victim.

For the first time, the scales in his heart lost their balance.

This world was rotten to the core.

Slowly, he reached for the pack at his waist.

With a rustle,

he poured out all the dry rations and jerky he had in front of the old man.

Having done this, he didn't say another word. He turned and strode toward the official road.

"Great Hero!"

The old man's hoarse cry came from behind him, trembling with a hint of disbelief.

Chen Fan's pace did not falter.

This was all he could give.

These few scraps of food might let them live for two more days, or they might incite new fighting and slaughter.

He didn't know, and he didn't want to know anymore.

A deep sense of powerlessness, like a tide, submerged his entire heart.

Hong Shao and Qing Luo followed with pale faces, silently leading the horses by their reins, asking nothing.

The three of them set out again.

The atmosphere was oppressive to the extreme.

Heading east, the sights along the way were the most literal interpretation of the term 'Hell on Earth.'

'Starved corpses littering the fields' was no longer enough to describe it.

On both sides of the official road, skeletons picked clean of flesh could be seen everywhere; it was impossible to tell if they were human or beast.

The air was thick with the stench of rot mixed with despair.

The entire Shu Province seemed to have become a massive, living graveyard.

Chen Fan rode in silence, his chest feeling as if it were blocked by a giant boulder.

That sense of powerlessness was slowly fermenting, transforming into a suppressed, extreme rage.

Not toward the cannibalistic refugees, but toward the root cause of it all.

The fatuous imperial court, the greedy officials, and...

Just then, a chorus of shrill screams and arrogant laughter drifted from a village not far ahead.

Thick smoke billowed at the village entrance.

Dozens of mutinous soldiers with yellow turbans wrapped around their heads and weapons in hand were burning, killing, and looting the village.

A white-haired old man was run through the chest by a Yellow Turban soldier's blade, falling slowly with a look of disbelief on his face.

The Yellow Turban soldier laughed loudly as if he had merely stepped on an ant.

Not far away, a young woman was dragged out of a house by two soldiers, her clothes being torn as she let out desperate cries.

More Yellow Turban soldiers were searching house to house for the little food that remained, cutting down any villagers who dared to resist.

On their banner, four large characters were crookedly written.

Enforce Justice for Heaven.

Chen Fan reined in his horse.

He looked at that banner and at the so-called 'Rebel Army' beneath it—men more brutal than mountain bandits and more hideous than demons.

The boulder in his chest exploded.

This was the Yellow Robe Army that claimed to save the people from misery?

This was the path to survival that the so-called General Tiangong promised the commoners?

A searing, pure killing intent surged from the deepest part of his heart to the top of his head.

He dismounted.

"Master Luo!"

Qing Luo cried out in alarm, reaching out to stop him.

But her hand only touched an afterimage.

Chen Fan's figure was already like a ghost, rushing toward the village entrance.

He didn't even draw his sword.

The laughing Yellow Turban soldier's voice stopped abruptly.

He only felt a blur before his eyes as a black shadow flashed by, followed by a massive force slamming into his chest.

Crack!

The sound of his sternum shattering was clearly audible.

His body flew back dozens of feet like a tattered sack, crashing into a mud wall and collapsing it, dying instantly.

Chen Fan's form didn't pause for a second as he charged between the two soldiers committing the assault.

Using both hands like iron pincers, he seized each of them by the throat.

The lewd smiles on their faces froze instantly, turning into extreme terror.

They struggled desperately, only to find that the hands holding them were immovable.

Expressionless, Chen Fan applied a slight pressure with his hands.

There were two more crisp snaps of breaking bone.

He tossed the two corpses aside.

This sudden slaughter stunned the Yellow Turban soldiers throughout the village.

"Who is it!"

"Kill him!"

After the brief shock came even more ferocious roars.

Seven or eight Yellow Turban soldiers brandished their blades and spears, closing in on Chen Fan from all directions.

Chen Fan stood his ground, not even looking at them.

He simply raised his right hand slowly.

He curled his finger and flicked.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Several bursts of Qi, barely visible to the naked eye, erupted from his fingertips.

The leading Yellow Turban soldiers all had small bloody holes appear on their foreheads at once; their forward momentum halted, and they fell straight down.

The remaining soldiers were completely terrified.

What kind of technique was this?

Injuring people from a distance?

In their eyes, this masked man was no longer human, but a Soul-reaping envoy crawled out from Hell.

Fear overcame their savagery.

"Run! It's a Martial Artist!"

Someone shouted, and the remaining Yellow Turban soldiers scattered like startled birds, crying for their parents as they fled the village.

Chen Fan did not give chase.

His gaze landed on a burly man among them who was on horseback and looked like a leader.

The burly man was also staring at him in horror.

In the next instant, Chen Fan's figure vanished from the spot.

The burly man felt a chill surge from his soles to the top of his head. Without thinking, he slapped his horse's back, trying to escape.

But it was too late.

A hand pressed lightly onto his shoulder.

The burly man's blood seemed to freeze at that moment.

He turned his head stiffly and met that pale mask with its eerie smile.

"You... you dare kill us? We are General Tiangong's men!"

The burly man roared with false bravado, trying to use the Yellow Robe Army's name to scare the other off.

"This whole Shu Province is our territory! If you dare touch a single hair on my head today, I guarantee you won't leave Shu Province alive!"

Chen Fan didn't speak.

He just looked at the man calmly.

The burly man felt unnerved by his gaze and wanted to shout more threats.

A flash of sword light passed by.

A fine head soared into the sky, tumbled twice in the air, and landed heavily on the ground.

Blood geysered from the headless neck, staining the 'Enforce Justice for Heaven' banner red.

The entire village fell into a deathly silence.

Hong Shao and Qing Luo urged their horses forward. Seeing the scene like an asura's battlefield and the blood-soaked figure standing amidst the mountain of corpses, their faces turned pale.

"Master Luo..."

Hong Shao's voice carried a hint of a tremble.

"Let's leave quickly. This Yellow Robe Army is powerful; we can't afford to provoke them."

Qing Luo also nodded repeatedly, full of worry.

"Yes, this kind of thing is for the imperial court to handle. We... we are just people of the Jianghu."

Chen Fan slowly turned around.

He wiped the blood from his sword and sheathed it.

Then, he looked up at the gray sky in the distance and exhaled a breath of turbid air.

"In all my actions throughout my life,"

His voice wasn't loud, but it reached the sisters' ears clearly.

"I only seek to have a clear conscience."