61: Chapter 61 The Lin Family Dinner: A Missed Chance Encounter

Jiangnan City, top floor banquet hall of the Starlight Hotel.

Luxurious giant crystal chandeliers cast brilliant light, but the melodic classical music could not mask the hubbub in the hall. Tonight, the power-holders of the top twenty conglomerates in Jiangnan City, high-ranking military officials, and the Prodigies of the major martial arts academies were almost all in attendance.

Nominally, this was a welcome banquet hosted by the Kyoto Lin Family to celebrate the eldest daughter, Lin Qinghan, returning safely from the Mist Forest.

As for the team encountering a mutant Great Demon and the tragic sight of Lei Yu having his legs bitten off, it had already been completely sealed off by a top-secret agreement jointly enforced by the Lin and Lei families.

In the center of the banquet hall, glasses were clinking.

But the absolute protagonist of the evening, Lin Qinghan, had avoided everyone's toasts.

She wore a pure white evening gown without any extra embellishments and stood alone in front of the floor-to-ceiling window at the very edge of the banquet hall. Her face still carried the pallor of someone who had just recovered from a major illness. Her right fingertips unconsciously rubbed the rim of her champagne glass, and her gaze, passing over the city's neon lights, stared fixedly at the pitch-black wilderness outside the city.

"Qinghan, your injuries haven't healed yet; you don't need to force yourself to stand here."

A young man wearing a high-end custom suit with an S-Rank Thunder badge on his chest walked over. He was Lei Yu's cousin, the next-generation heir cultivated by the Lei Family with all their resources, Lei Ting.

Lei Ting held a wine glass, a hint of unconcealable greed flashing in his eyes: "That trash Lei Yu was less skilled than others; he deserved to die in the wilderness. In three days, at the provincial actual combat ranking competition, I will use my newly mastered Earth Rank Martial Skill to take the top spot in Jiangnan Province. By then, the Lin and Lei families..."

"Lei Ting."

Lin Qinghan did not turn her head, cutting him off directly.

Her voice was extremely cold, without a trace of fluctuation: "What do you think is true Martial Arts?"

Lei Ting was stunned, then laughed confidently: "Naturally, it is Qi and blood like a dragon, and spiritual energy forming armor. Using high-level Martial Skills to invoke the Laws of heaven and earth, destroying heaven and earth..."

"No."

Lin Qinghan turned around, and a kind of fanaticism that Lei Ting found unfamiliar suddenly surged into her cold eyes.

"No spiritual energy, no flashy combat techniques."

In Lin Qinghan's mind, that black back, standing in the swamp and shattering the heart of a half-step Martial Master Great Demon with a single finger, appeared once again.

"Polishing the body to the extreme, pushing speed to the limit. One punch, one finger, ignoring all defensive armor, directly decomposing the enemy's vitality from within. That is... true Martial Arts."

Lei Ting frowned, as if he were listening to a fantasy: "Qinghan, what kind of joke are you making? Not relying on spiritual energy? That is the 'turtle fist' that bottom-tier commoners with F-grade trash talents practice! In the face of true elemental Laws, a pure physical body is just a living target!"

"Summer insects cannot speak of ice. You should go; I want to be quiet alone."

Lin Qinghan turned her head, completely ignoring the livid Lei Ting.

"Young Miss."

After Lei Ting flicked his sleeves and left, the old butler, Uncle Fu, appeared silently behind Lin Qinghan and lowered his voice.

Lin Qinghan turned around abruptly and gripped her wine glass tightly: "Is there any word from the Dark Web?"

Uncle Fu shook his head with a bitter smile.

"A fifty million star coin bounty, plus a promise from the Lin family. The entire underground intelligence network of Jiangnan City has been turned upside down; those desperate outlaws have even searched the sewers of the black market."

Uncle Fu sighed: "However, no one has ever seen the person wearing the Shura mask. He is like he evaporated into thin air. Young Miss, if I may speak bluntly, that level of hidden expert—if he doesn't want to show himself, it is impossible for us to find him."

"Find him! Send more people, keep looking!"

Lin Qinghan bit her pale lower lip hard, her cold eyes showing a sickly paranoia.

"As long as he is still in Jiangnan City, even if I have to dig the ground up, I will see him!"

Below the Starlight Hotel, across the street.

In stark contrast to the luxury inside the hotel, this was a roadside stall in an urban village filled with cooking fumes.

A few greasy plastic tables and chairs were placed casually on the sidewalk.

Su Chen was sitting on a red plastic stool. He had just come out from guiding Jiang Feng in the hospital's underground training room, wearing that Third High School uniform with somewhat whitened sleeves and frayed cuffs.

In front of him, fifteen large soup bowls were already stacked high.

"Boss, three more catties of braised beef, and two bowls of big row noodles. Add extra garlic."

Su Chen stacked the sixteenth empty bowl on top, pulled out a piece of low-quality napkin to wipe his mouth, his voice steady.

"Okay... okay! Young man, your stomach is a bottomless pit!" The boss wearing a dirty apron brought the meat over, clicking his tongue at the exaggerated amount of food, "Looking at your uniform, you're a senior at Third High School, right? The college entrance exam actual combat is coming up soon; eating more meat to replenish Qi and blood is a good thing, but don't hurt yourself with this way of eating!"

"Thanks, I digest quickly."

Su Chen took the beef and continued to swallow it in large mouthfuls.

No one knew that he had just completed the extreme leap from a First-Rank Martial Apprentice to a Second-Rank Martial Artist in the abandoned subway station, and had forcibly circulated Life Return from the Rokushiki for over a dozen major cycles.

His body now was like a parched abyss, frantically absorbing every calorie that could be converted into Qi and blood, using it to stabilize his newly widened Meridians and strengthened bones.

"Screech—"

Just then, a long line of black armored vehicles slowly stopped in front of the Starlight Hotel across the street.

The banquet had ended early.

The hotel's revolving glass doors were pushed open, and a dozen Lin family bodyguards in black suits quickly dispersed, setting up a cordon.

Lin Qinghan, surrounded by several high-ranking military officials and conglomerate power-holders, walked slowly down the steps.

At the roadside stall, Su Chen swallowed the last mouthful of noodle soup.

He raised his head slightly, and through the traffic on the road, his gaze swept casually over Lin Qinghan, who was surrounded by the crowd.

"Hard life." Su Chen gave a three-word evaluation in his heart.

Subsequently, he withdrew his gaze, preparing to take money out of his pocket to pay the bill.

However, at the very moment Su Chen relaxed his mind and his Martial Artist Qi and blood completed the major cycle, naturally settling into his Dantian.

A trace of an extremely weak magnetic field, carrying a substantive, overbearing pressure, uncontrollably overflowed from his pores.

Across the street.

Lin Qinghan was preparing to bend down and get into the armored luxury car.

Suddenly!

Her heart, which had awakened an SSS-grade Frost talent and was extremely sensitive to the surrounding aura, contracted violently without any warning!

"Hum!"

An extremely familiar, extremely overbearing sense of oppression that instinctively caused her Soul to tremble like a weak electric current, swept across her nerve endings.

This feeling was exactly the same as the aura emitted by the man standing on top of the giant beast in the Mist Forest that day!

Lin Qinghan's movements froze abruptly.

"Young Miss?" Uncle Fu beside her asked with confusion.

Lin Qinghan ignored him; she turned her head abruptly, her gaze like two sharp ice swords, piercing directly through the busy, noisy traffic, locking onto the row of roadside stalls across the street.

"That is..."

Her gaze scanned frantically through the food stall, which was full of cooking fumes and diners.

However.

Under that dilapidated red plastic shed, in the dim glow of the street lamp.

She only saw a thin back wearing a Third High School civilian uniform, carrying an old schoolbag, settling the change with the boss.

There was no earth-shattering Qi and blood.

No suffocating physical pressure.

It was just an ordinary high school student who had just come out of evening self-study to have a late-night snack.

Lin Qinghan stared at that back for a full five seconds.

Finally, she shook her head self-deprecatingly, a bitter smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

"I am truly sick with longing, going crazy."

Lin Qinghan cursed herself for being stupid in her heart.

That peerless killing god "Shura," who looked down on the world, shattered a half-step Martial Master Great Demon with a finger, and could even step on the void to fly. How could he possibly be a high school student wearing a school uniform, sitting at a roadside stall, arguing with the boss over a few dollars for noodles?

It was simply preposterous!

"Young Miss? The wind is strong outside, get in the car." Uncle Fu urged again.

"Hmm. Let's go."

Lin Qinghan withdrew her gaze, never looking at the opposite side again, and bent down to get into the car. The door closed, and the black motorcade drove slowly away from the hotel, disappearing into the night.

Until the motorcade left.

Su Chen casually put the change he got back into his pocket.

"As expected of an SSS-grade, the perception is indeed sharp." Su Chen put on his schoolbag and patted the dust off his clothes.

If Lin Qinghan had really walked over to question him just now, he had a hundred ways to dispel the other party's doubts. But facts proved that the arrogance and class solidification in the bones of the great families were the best camouflage.

In their cognition, a divine dragon could never lie dormant in a quagmire.

Su Chen turned around, preparing to disappear into the dark shanty town.

Just then.

At the entrance of the Starlight Hotel, a crisp "bang" sound came, accompanied by extremely arrogant cursing.

"What are you looking at! Haven't you seen a young master of a great family drinking! Get lost!"

Zhao Kuang, who also attended the banquet, was walking down the steps with seven or eight followers, reeking of alcohol.

Zhao Kuang was in a terrible mood tonight. He had prepared a whole night's worth of pickup lines, wanting to befriend Lin Qinghan at the banquet, but the other party hadn't even looked at him properly from beginning to end.

A parking attendant couldn't dodge in time and bumped into Zhao Kuang's shoulder.

"Young Master Zhao, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to!" The parking attendant was so scared his face turned pale, bowing repeatedly.

"You blinded dog!"

A flash of viciousness crossed Zhao Kuang's eyes; he suddenly extended his right hand and grabbed the parking attendant by the collar.

"Boom!"

An extremely hot, dark golden fire burst directly from Zhao Kuang's palm.

That was no longer the sporadic sparks from the Martial Apprentice period, but the embodiment of true Qi and blood release and spiritual energy materialization!

The parking attendant's sleeve was instantly ignited, and he rolled on the ground frantically, letting out miserable screams.

"Martial Artist! Young Master Zhao has broken through to the Martial Artist Realm!" The surrounding followers were stunned at first, then burst into fanatical flattery.

Zhao Kuang ignored the waiter rolling on the ground. He spread his arms, letting the dark gold Radiant Gold Flame roll over his body, his face full of unparalleled arrogance.

"To cope with the actual combat ranking competition in three days, my father spent three high-level Qi and blood potions and five bottles of King-level exotic beast essence blood! Finally, I was forcibly pushed past the barrier of the Martial Artist!"

Zhao Kuang breathed heavily, the alcohol surging up, causing him to completely lose his reason.

"First-stage Martial Artist Realm! Among all the senior high school students in the entire Jiangnan City, I am now the absolute number one in combat power!"

He turned his head, his triangular eyes flashing with extremely vengeful and cruel light, looking straight at the direction of the Third High School. The voice was so loud that even the roadside stall across the street could hear it clearly.

"Three days!"

"At the provincial actual combat ranking competition in three days, as long as you get on the ring and sign the life-and-death agreement. That is the death date of that little bastard surnamed Su!"

Zhao Kuang kicked over a trash can nearby, and the dark golden flame instantly melted the plastic.

"That F-grade trash named Su Chen from Third High School, dares to provoke me in public? And let me live for another month?"

Zhao Kuang laughed wantonly: "I have already bribed all the chief judges! Once on the actual combat ring, I, Zhao Kuang, swear!"

"I want to be in front of the provincial supervisors!"

"Use my S-grade Radiant Gold Flame to burn that trash's limbs into ashes bit by bit! Burn that hardened dead skin he is so proud of until there's not even residue left!"

"I want to make him kneel on the ground and beg me like a dog! I want everyone in Jiangnan City to know that this is the end of offending me, Zhao Kuang!"

The followers immediately erupted into a series of sycophantic cheers.

"Young Master Zhao is mighty! Burn that trash who pretends to be cool to death!"

"Let that poor guy know the horror of a great family!"

Across the street.

The night wind stirred up a few fallen leaves on the ground. Under the dim street lamp, the red plastic shed rattled in the wind.

Su Chen stood quietly in the shadow of the street lamp, listening to Zhao Kuang's barking in the wind.

Looking at the clown who was covered in flames, thinking he was invincible, and sentencing himself to death to the whole world.

Su Chen didn't speak.

Nor did he make any angry movements. He just turned his head quietly and looked in the direction of Zhao Kuang.

In the shadows.

In those eyes that were originally as calm as water, a touch of extremely deep blood-red dyed out without warning.

Two black tomoe like Shinigami scythes, at the bottom of the blood-red pupils, silently and slowly rotated.

A chilling murderous intent that froze the Soul was tightly suppressed within this thin shell of a body.

"First-stage Martial Artist Realm?"

Su Chen's face was half-hidden in the shadows.

He looked at his right hand that had just gripped the schoolbag strap.

On the edge of that fair, distinct-knuckled palm, a layer of extremely weak, yet so deep that even light could be swallowed, mysterious blackness flashed and disappeared.

The corners of Su Chen's mouth slowly hooked into an extremely cruel sneer.

He turned around and walked with steady steps, disappearing into the dark alley of the urban village.

Leaving behind the corner of the red plastic table he had just touched.

In the night wind.

With a "crack," it turned into a small pile of extremely fine powder.

A very light, yet filled with absolute arrogance whisper, slowly dissipated on the curb:

"Then let's see."

"Three days later, who will burn whom into ashes."