Chapter 100: Borrowing Something (The Book Is Plump Enough to Harvest)

"Impressive!"

Outside Kaitan City, at the foot of a wind-sheltered loess rise, a bald middle-aged man stood by the surveillance truck watching the screen where Tang Mubai was slaughtering everything before him. He could not help but give a thumbs-up.

"This kid is formidable. He kills those bloodsucking tongue-worms as easily as plucking chickens—far too effortlessly."

"Heh heh. That’s his mastery of light-footed movement," said the young man with glasses, grinning wide. "His qi-light step is truly at the level of divine inspiration."

"Exactly," the slender youth agreed. "He’s not even twenty yet, and he has already perfected this art. Amazing for someone so young."

"Even if he has reached perfection, all he’s really doing is helping us clear the way."

The bespectacled youth sneered, then suddenly became excited. "Look. He’s gathering evil qi too. Captain, we needn’t enter the ruins... damn, he’s spotted us!" He muttered a curse and worked the controls as the monitor suddenly went dark.

"No need to fuss," the bald man said calmly. "Once he noticed the drone, there’s no point in keeping it. We can keep watching him anyway. In truth, our objective is also accomplished. He has entered the ruin, and he is gathering evil qi. We need not go inside either—just wait outside for him."

"Send the word. Mobilize everyone. Let’s get to work."
"Understood!"

The slender youth lifted the walkie-talkie and relayed the bald man’s command.

...

Inside Kaitan City, Tang Mubai held his war bow and glanced at the drone lying not far away, still alive with an arrow-hole through its frame. He gave a cold snort.

He had noticed that drone from the start. It was insignificant, and with its periodic concealments and the interference from the tongue-worms, he simply ignored it.

Now that he had found the nest of dark evil, he intended to collect it by means of the Taiji Heart Sutra. He had no intention of letting it continue to monitor him.

One arrow was all it took—cleanly done.

There are several ways to gather evil qi, but all of them consume qi-blood. That is precisely why few people collect fire-evil under Red Lake. Otherwise one could simply descend by submersible and take as much as one wished.

Tang Mubai’s method was more efficient. He activated the Taiji Heart Sutra, creating a Tai Chi field that drew in the dark qi and slowly pulled it into the metal cylinder.
The small mass of dark evil coiled in a cave on the northern edge of the city was fully absorbed in under five minutes.
The reading showed the cylinder was filled by roughly one-third.
Compared with fire-evil, this was only two-thirds less.

Less was still better than nothing.

Now with both dark and fire evil in hand, Tang Mubai could not wait to get out of the city and condense his “Yin-Yang Sword Qi” in the vehicle.

Though he had spent less than an hour in the ruins, he had gathered abundant gains.
One-third dark evil, to begin with, and over six hundred tongue-worms killed. Each yielded about twenty life-force on average; converted into lifespan, that amounted to roughly one thousand two hundred years.

Why the bloodsucking tongue-worms were active in the ruins did not interest him.
Whatever the reason, he had profited greatly.

He flew out of the city, returned to the car, and took out the fire-evil container he had brought, setting it beside the dark-evil one and opening the vents on both lids.
He quickly activated the Taiji Heart Sutra again, generating a Tai Chi field and blending the drifting fire-evil and dark-evil from the containers into one, condensing it as Yin-Yang Sword Qi.

His hair, half black and half white and still lengthening, shifted with each breath, and one translucent layer of black-and-white sword qi after another quickly came into being.
With sheer will, Tang gathered those black-and-white sword-qi streams into his dantian. For ordinary people the dantian remains sealed; since he obtained the Taiji Heart Sutra, Tang had already opened it by circulating qi-blood.
Storing the Yin-Yang Sword Qi was effortless.

Unfortunately, the dark-evil quantity was too low. It yielded only five streams of Yin-Yang Sword Qi, and then everything was spent.
Tang had to stop and set aside the remaining fire-evil.

Five streams of Yin-Yang Sword Qi were hardly many, but at least it was a means of survival. This was his ace, his trump card—he had confidence to face even a grandmaster in a full engagement.

"Hah—"

He exhaled, relaxed his mind, and started the car, driving out briskly toward Kaixiong City.

He flew along the same route back, and when he crossed a patch of wasteland, his heart lurched so hard he nearly stomped the brake.
Danger.

There was danger on the ground directly ahead.

"Thunk-thump!"

He flung open the door, took his bow, and stepped out. Without a word, he immediately shot an arrow into the ground ahead.
"Boom!"

A burst cracked, throwing up soil and stone in a violent spray. Where the arrow struck, the earth had exploded into a two-meter pit.

"A high-explosive landmine?" Tang’s expression darkened. As he smelled the gunpowder in the air, anger surged in him.

Had he rolled over it a moment earlier, the whole car would have been ruined.
Sitting inside, he might not die, but he would still be badly injured—skin torn, body shaken, organs rattled.
In someone else’s case, even survival might still mean crippling.

Whoever planted this mine deserved no mercy.

"Come out!"

Tang growled, scanning both hillsides.
"Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!"

In the instant he spoke, thirty-odd figures burst from the woods on both sides, rushing out to envelop him. Each held a firearm, its dark muzzle aimed at him.

Body-guarding Qi could block bullets, true, but each block spent qi-blood.
With only a couple of hundred points of qi-blood, endless shooting would drain it in under a minute and the field would collapse.
With thirty-some guns firing together, Tang would last less than a minute at that count.

"Hahaha, no need to be nervous, kid. My brothers here have no ill will. We just want to borrow something from you."

The bald middle-aged man stepped out of the crowd and stood about five paces away, laughing aloud.
"Borrow something?"

"Yes."

The bald man raised his brows and gave Tang a measured, faintly surprised look. "You should have collected quite a bit of dark qi in the ruins, right? What we want to borrow is—"

"The drone that watched me from above, that was yours?"
He did not wait. Tang asked.

"…Yes. We—"

"The mine in that pit, was that yours too?"
"Yes, that was us too."

"If all of this is your doing, then you may all go die."

An unseen, immense pressure erupted above him, descending like a hammer of thunder.

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