Chapter 21: Snake-Catching Eagle

Fu Nanhua snapped back to reality, scanning his surroundings, leaving no corner of the alleyway or rooftop unexamined. Detecting nothing amiss, he took a deep breath, pausing, neither advancing nor retreating. He instinctively reached for his ancestral jade pendant, only to find it missing. He quickly chanted a fragment of a Daoist incantation, not a spell or divine power, but a mantra to calm his mind and gather his Qi. If his mental state was a small boat on a lake, this incantation served as its anchor.

He turned sideways, leaning against a wall, and moved sideways to the crossroads of the two alleys. His muscles tensed, adopting a defensive posture, not daring to be careless, his gaze fixed on the alleyway. There, he saw the straw-sandal-clad boy standing beside Cai Jinjian's blood-soaked body, his body slightly hunched, maintaining a subtle attacking stance, also staring intently at Fu Nanhua. The two faced off like tigers and wolves, one seeking answers, the other seeking survival, each with different motives. The sudden appearance of the boy suggested his target was only Cai Jinjian; his posture towards Fu Nanhua seemed to imply a "live and let live" attitude.

Fu Nanhua asked a redundant question, "Did you kill her?"

The boy remained silent, his hand still gripping the murder weapon: a shard of broken porcelain, slightly smaller than his palm. The part of his fist that was exposed was dripping with blood, unsure if it was Cai Jinjian's or his own from the porcelain cutting his hand. The blood dripped onto the alley floor. After confirming no one else was around, Fu Nanhua felt a mix of absurdity and relief. Finally, his gaze fell on Cai Jinjian's delicate form. Even in this wretched scene, her natural beauty, graceful figure, and full chest remained undiminished. Crimson blood continued to pour from her neck and mouth, her life force about to be extinguished. However, her physique, tempered repeatedly by Qi, meant that the pain she endured would be heavier and more prolonged than that of an ordinary person.

A smile crept onto Fu Nanhua's face, a smile with a chilling coldness at its core. He asked, "Why did you kill her? You have no grievances with this elder sister. Was it just because she joked with you in Mud-Bottle Alley that you had to kill her? When did this town become so lawless? Don't you know that murder demands a life, and debts must be repaid, everywhere?"

The boy was like a mute, saying nothing. Fu Nanhua disregarded the boy's thoughts and began to advance slowly, his steps firm.

He knew Cai Jinjian was doomed. This was not the celestial abode of Cloud-Glow Mountain, but a cage of heavenly laws where magic was forbidden. Unless a land-based immortal with profound cultivation, or a golden-bodied arhat, was willing to sacrifice a large portion of their cultivation to save her life, it would be impossible to suppress her soul and resurrect her. Sadly, Cai Jinjian would never have such extraordinary fortune. The sage of the town, burdened with great responsibilities, overlooked the masses and would never favor one over another, only act in accordance with fate.

On the path of cultivation, inexplicable deaths on the main road or in the struggle for a single opportunity were not uncommon, although not overly frequent.

If achieving immortality meant proceeding gradually, step by step, free from disaster and reaping benefits without risk, then the carefree immortals in the eyes of ordinary people would seem worthless.

Therefore, Fu Nanhua had even prepared for the worst-case scenario of a life-or-death battle on this trip to the town. But to see a temporary ally, walking alongside him, being killed so swiftly under the watchful eye of a sage, was a first for the young city lord of Old Dragon City. There were no dazzling magical weapons clashing, no earth-shattering immortal techniques, just a lowly peasant killing her? Shocked, Fu Nanhua couldn't accept this absurd fact. If not for this town, a nobody like the straw-sandal-clad boy would never even have the remotest chance of seeing Cai Jinjian of Cloud-Glow Mountain.

Fu Nanhua's expression turned solemn. He said gravely, "Although I was unable to save Fairy Cai or avenge her by killing you, since I witnessed your crime, I must do something. If word gets out, the reputation of Old Dragon City will be tarnished. So, for both emotional and rational reasons, I must teach you a lesson. As for how Cloud-Glow Mountain handles this matter afterwards, and how to deliver justice to Fairy Cai, that is your problem."

These high-sounding words from the young lord of Old Dragon City were meant for the sage of this place, polite words to avoid appearing too greedy and incurring the sage's displeasure. There was also the possibility that these words were for the old masters of Cloud-Glow Mountain. Fu Nanhua simply wanted to show that he had done his best. Otherwise, Fu Nanhua, who already harbored thoughts of killing Cai Jinjian, truly wanted to reward the boy before him, whose reckless actions had saved him so much trouble. He was truly his lucky star.

As Fu Nanhua walked forward, he said, "Judging by the way you killed her, the explosive power of your body is greater than that of ordinary young men. This is quite rare. If not for today's incident, if you had the opportunity to join the military, dared to kill and fight, and had some luck, gaining the favor of some military magnate or martial general from a battlefield family, and they gave you a military body-tempering formula, slowly strengthening your body, in twenty or thirty years, this young man might have a new world ahead of him."

As Fu Nanhua walked forward, the boy began to retreat slowly, facing the high-crowned, wide-sleeved young lord of Old Dragon City.

The slender Fu Nanhua walked in the alleyway, elegant and graceful, with a natural air of wealth and nobility.

Fu Nanhua extended a hand, palm down, hanging at his waist, and smiled, "Too bad. Your fate is not good. Otherwise, according to my words, you would have had the opportunity to achieve such great things... which is impossible."

Fu Nanhua was amused by his own joke, his smile deepening. As he took a step forward, his foot suddenly hovered half a foot above the ground, "Sorry, it should be this high."

Fu Nanhua couldn't help but feel happy.

After entering the town, first, the transaction with the boy Song Jixin in Mud-Bottle Alley brought profits far beyond expectations.

Then, Cai Jinjian, who was highly likely to be an obstacle to his Great Dao, died suddenly before his eyes. He could not only keep his hands clean, but also get her two bags of Golden Essence Copper Coins for free, and maybe even find one or two secret treasures of Cloud-Glow Mountain. Even if not a treasure of the mountain, it would certainly not be much worse. He didn't believe that Cai Jinjian had no protective charms on her. For example, Fu Nanhua, in addition to that Old Dragon Rain-Making Pendant that was just a trick, also carried two small items of excellent quality and high rank, almost the bottom-of-the-box treasures of Old Dragon City.

Therefore, among the heretical cultivators, there was a popular saying: "Reaping corpses for others will surely bring good rewards."

Fu Nanhua passed by Cai Jinjian's body without even looking at her.

On the contrary, the faint smell of blood put him in a state of inexplicable excitement.

One advancing, one retreating, the two were always about ten steps apart.

Fu Nanhua only needed to make sure that the boy couldn't escape the alleyway. If he wanted to catch a boy who grew up in this land then it would be like finding a needle in a haystack. Moreover, the still-warm body of the beauty behind him was a lesson. Once the boy was given enough breathing room, "surprise" might fall on his head.

Fu Nanhua seemed to be playing cat and mouse, but in reality, he was adjusting his body rhythm. After all, since he officially stepped into cultivation at the age of nine, he had never had the opportunity to rely purely on close combat to determine victory or defeat.

Of course, he didn't need to fight the boy to the death. That would make him lose more than he gained, including Cai Jinjian. Those were two opportunities within reach. But it was necessary to make this unexpected boy lie obediently in bed in the near future, without giving the boy any possibility of causing trouble.

Fu Nanhua suddenly asked with a smile, "By the way, what's your name again?"

The boy, whose hands were constantly dripping with blood, gave an irrelevant answer. His dark face was full of the tenacity of wild grass, "You and she may not know, but my eyesight is very good. So, when she was chatting with me in Mud-Bottle Alley, the way you looked at her was exactly the same as you look at me now."

Fu Nanhua was stunned, and this time he really looked at the boy in a new light. He clicked his tongue and laughed, "Interesting, really interesting."

Fu Nanhua's words and deeds seemed light and breezy, but he had always been paying attention to the boy's left hand, which was still dripping blood.

This showed that the boy's strength had never slackened, and ordinary people would probably have been unable to bear the biting pain long ago.

At this moment, Fu Nanhua felt that his previous casual comment of "too bad" was indeed accurate.

Fu Nanhua felt that the time was about right and asked the last question he was interested in, "You killed her so decisively, someone must have tipped you off. I'm not curious about his identity, but I can't figure out how a child who grew up here could cross that mental barrier so quickly and kill so... calmly. Do you understand what I mean? You know, even after I killed someone for the first time, after the excitement faded, I started to tremble, and it took me a long time to recite the calming mantra to feel better. You, on the other hand, are so calm, like eating and drinking. It's unreasonable..."

The boy, who had been expressionless all along, suddenly showed a shocked look and a panicked face, his eyes staring straight at the direction behind Fu Nanhua, as if the tall woman who had died had come back to life.

The cautious Fu Nanhua subconsciously turned his head, but when his neck was halfway turned, his heart shook violently.

When he turned back, because of the height difference, the boy was gone from Fu Nanhua's vision, which had been directly in front and slightly lower!

In the nick of time.

It turned out.

After making that look and expression, in an instant, the straw-sandal-clad boy unhesitatingly began to sprint. After three steps, his left foot suddenly exerted force, and he jumped high. Finally, his right foot stepped on the wall on one side of the alley, and after a rapid rebound and turn, the boy raised his left hand high towards the high-crowned man.

The boy was like a snake-catching eagle.