Decaying World

Chapter 107

Early the next morning, Lin Hui gathered all the Clear Wind Temple disciples at the drill grounds. He warned them about the Wanhua Sect situation, instructing everyone to remain vigilant against any suspicious individuals approaching the vicinity.

As for himself, he prepared to head out and search for traces of the Wanhua Sect expert.

While ostensibly a search, in reality, he was shifting from the light into the dark. Staying in one place meant too many people knew his location;

he was practically a sitting duck waiting to be ambushed. It was better to leave alone and vanish into the shadows. When the Wanhua Sect grew impatient, they would naturally mobilize to investigate, thereby exposing themselves.

This was Lin Hui’s counter-strategy.

After handing over the temple’s affairs to Wang Hongshi and Xue Meng, he strapped on his twin swords, donned his outer robe, and left the Clear Wind Temple.

Lin Hui did not linger. He exited Xinyu Town directly, circled around the outskirts, discarded his clothes for a newly bought set, changed his hairstyle, and donned the white fortune doll mask he had purchased earlier. Because the mask’s eye holes were too small, he had gouged them wider with his fingers. From a distance, it looked like the face of a blind white fortune doll with fine cracks spiderwebbing around the empty sockets—a truly terrifying sight.

Once prepared, Lin Hui quietly returned to the vicinity of the Lin Manor and found a seat at a wonton shop.

"Boss, give me a bowl of your large fresh-meat wontons."

"Coming right up! Clear soup or chicken stock?"

"Clear soup." Lin Hui fished out seven silver qian from his waist pouch and placed them on the table.He often ate wontons in this neighborhood during his morning returns. Sometimes his parents, Lin Shunhe and Yao Shan, would join him. He was a regular.

"Brother Hui, you're here quite early today," the boss said enthusiastically as he came over with a rag to wipe the table.

"..." Lin Hui’s expression stiffened behind the mask. He had disguised himself... he was even wearing a mask...

"Ah, got it, got it. Lots of folks like playing with masks these days. I won't blow your cover, don't worry." The boss understood instantly. Seeing the reaction, he realized he had misspoken. He gave an awkward laugh, collected the money, and turned to leave.

"Wait. Boss, is my disguise really that easy to see through?" Lin Hui called him back abruptly.

"Well, your physique hasn't changed. From a distance, clothes don't matter;

your build gives you away. Plus, there’s that upright posture from practicing martial arts and swordplay for a long time... It has an indescribable vibe, like facing a freshly sharpened vegetable knife. That can’t be faked," the boss explained, gesturing descriptively.

"...I see." Lin Hui was speechless. He had thought his disguise was excellent, but it turned out to be lacking.

Releasing the boss, he sat alone on the bench, his gaze fixed on the Lin Manor, pondering how to solve the issue of his distinctive physique. If this problem couldn't be solved, his disguise would likely never achieve the desired effect.

Soon, the big wontons arrived—a large, steaming bowl containing thirty pieces.

"Boss, you didn't put Myriad Blessings Meat in this, right?" a customer shouted from a nearby table.

"How could I? This is a mixed filling of chicken and mutton I chopped last night. I even added cinnamon, old ginger, and scallions..." the boss chatted away with the customer.

Lin Hui ate several at a time. In the blink of an eye, just a few minutes later, only a small portion remained in the large bowl.

Just then, a suspicious figure appeared.

Lin Hui unconsciously lowered his spoon. But immediately, he realized something was wrong.

The customers at the five tables around him—seventeen people in total—had all silently lowered their spoons.

It wasn't just them.

He glanced sideways;

in the four old shops to his right that had just opened, the workers and shopkeepers were all unfamiliar faces. At this moment, they too slowly set down their work, eyes drifting subtly toward the newcomer.

Lin Hui turned his head slightly to look at the other side.

Sure enough...

To his left, along the entire strip, the people began to show subtle changes. Everyone’s movements slowed, their gazes drifting inadvertently toward the approaching stranger.

"..."

The corner of Lin Hui’s mouth twitched.

This exaggerated? It must be the people the Old Man arranged. It seems Dad’s secret preparations are quite thorough. He felt a sense of relief;

his father's vigilance was far superior to his own.

He focused his attention on the suspicious person.

The stranger was one-armed—or rather, one arm was a metal prosthetic. Silver-black textured skin was clearly visible through gaps in their clothing. Moreover, this person was clearly very confident. On a face that made it hard to distinguish male from female, there was an expression of calm nonchalance that ignored everything around them.

Clearly, this guy didn't take the ambushers lying in wait seriously.

Lin Hui lifted the bowl and took a small sip of the clear soup. The broth, speckled with chopped green onions, flowed down his throat and into his stomach, feeling warm and comfortable.

He prepared to stand up and intercept the person. It wouldn't be good to let them actually enter the Lin Manor;

if they injured his sister Xiaoliu or his mother, that would be his failure.

Setting down the bowl, he pressed his hands against the table.

Creak.

Suddenly, the main gate of the Lin Manor cracked open.

Lin Hui paused and looked over, only to see a black-hatted old man with a black beard and a face full of wrinkles walk out slowly.

The old man held a saber in one hand and a stick in the other. Hanging from his neck was a palm-sized copper tablet etched with complex black patterns.

"You..." The suspicious, androgynous figure froze, staring at the old man with a mix of doubt and strangeness. "How can you be here??"

He asked this with a tone of wariness mixed with suspicion. His speech carried a thick, unidentifiable regional accent, flattening all the curled-tongue sounds.

"Here to do a job. Hmm, haven't moved in a long time;

my bones are getting a bit rusty..." The old man sighed.

"Job... what job?" the suspicious, androgynous man asked.

"Ah... the job is..." The old man paused for a moment. "It requires confidentiality. Let's chat somewhere else."

He looked left and right, his tone somewhat mysterious.

The androgynous man hesitated. He had planned to grab someone quickly and leave, but he hadn't expected to run into an acquaintance. Since that was the case, a slight delay wouldn't matter.

Immediately, both figures blurred, darting toward the distant outskirts of town.

Their speed was extremely fast. To ordinary people, it would seem as if their vision blurred and the people simply vanished.

Only someone with high speed, like Lin Hui, could judge their velocity tier.

Lin Hui’s face turned grave as he narrowed his eyes, staring in the direction they had left.

He hadn't expected their speed to be so fast. This is troublesome...

If they have that speed... achieving my goal might be a bit difficult.

The movement techniques of those two were roughly seventy percent of his own top speed. This was a terrifying number. Only a super-speed expert like him understood what that implied.

Pushing the bowl away, Lin Hui stood up and walked to a corner. In the next moment, his figure vanished as he pursued them.

He had barely taken a few steps when he suddenly heard a loud noise from ahead.

A deafening explosion rang out from the outskirts.

His heart stirred. He leaped up rapidly, landing like lightning on the roof of a single-story house to his right.

Looking from the roof, he saw a column of thick smoke billowing up from the farmland several hundred meters away, shooting straight into the sky.

Before he could decide whether to get closer, a black silhouette strode out of the distant smoke, leisurely walking away.

He saw clearly that it was the black-bearded old man who had just left the house. The old man looked relaxed, chewing on something with an expression of enjoyment.

Lin Hui watched him leave, then returned his gaze to the source of the smoke. The smoke had dissipated, leaving behind a massive crater more than ten meters in diameter.

The crater was littered with messy metal fragments;

the material seemed similar to the prosthetic limb of that suspicious androgynous man.

Lin Hui was left speechless. He continued to approach the area.

But before he reached the spot, he heard a series of dull, heavy thuds—like heavy objects repeatedly smashing into the ground—coming from the distance to his left, roughly at his ten o'clock position.

Bang!

Bang!

Bang!!

He paused, turned, and started to head toward that sound.

But after only a few steps, he stopped abruptly.

Wait, what if this is a 'lure the tiger from the mountain' strategy? What if that person was just bait to draw my attention away? No, I still have to go back and guard the Lin Manor.

Lin Hui’s heart went cold. He immediately suppressed his curiosity, turned around, and sped back to the perimeter of the Lin Manor to lie in wait for the enemy.

…

Outskirts, Broken Temple.

Squads of white-clothed Called Ones, holding cylindrical weapons inlaid with blue gems, had surrounded the broken temple so tightly that not even water could trickle through.

Liu Wujun and Liu Xiao sat atop two massive, one-horned black horses that stood over three meters tall. Their gazes stared coldly at the missing section of the broken temple's wooden door.

"Zhou Fan, long time no see. You seem to be doing well for yourself. You even dare to sneak into my territory to scavenge for food? It seems the gift I gave you back then wasn't heavy enough." Liu Wujun's voice was calm, yet it projected steadily into the temple as if amplified by a loudspeaker.

"Liu Wujun, I didn't provoke you, did I?! I was just passing by your territory, and you still have to cause trouble for me? And you even deployed the Divine Mechanism Squad to surround and kill me?! Aren't you afraid of retaliation from my Sect's higher-ups??!"

Zhou Fan hid behind the wooden idol in the broken temple, one hand clutching his abdomen, his face covered in sweat. He was in so much pain that he had bitten his lower lip until it bled.

Just now, while fighting that black-bearded old man, he had lost by a single move. Helpless, he could only agree to leave Xinyu Town. But he hadn't gone far before he was remotely surrounded by a Divine Mechanism Squad.

If he were in peak condition, he naturally wouldn't fear a Divine Mechanism Squad composed of these Called Ones. But after the great battle with the old man, having expended massive energy and lacking sufficient mental vigilance, he was immediately critically wounded in the abdomen.

Immediately after, just as he was about to run, he was found by the Liu Wujun siblings.

Liu Wujun was notoriously difficult to deal with in the surrounding urban districts. Ever since breaking through to become a High Divine Officer three years ago, this guy had gone around picking fights everywhere, beating many experts to death or injury. He fought for a full year, seemingly familiarizing himself with and perfecting his High Divine Officer abilities through slaughter, before finally quieting down.

Zhou Fan’s clash with Liu Wujun had happened during that time.

Back then, he had merely passed by Liu Wujun while the latter was eating noodles, only to be beaten up because Liu Wujun was delighted to see a worthy prey.

After being beaten into a critical state, his life was only saved because his father, a High Divine Officer of the Wanhua Sect, arrived in time. But even when his father fought Liu Wujun, he only held the upper hand slightly. This made Zhou Fan realize that this guy was a monster he absolutely could not provoke.

This time, he thought the relationship between the Lin and Liu families was merely average, and that Liu Wujun was busy with Inner City affairs all day and unlikely to be watching this place constantly.

He hadn't expected this.

Of course, deep in Zhou Fan's heart, there was also a bit of hatred—hatred for Liu Wujun crippling one of his arms back then. So, he hadn't been entirely without the intention of causing some destruction and running, taking the opportunity to exact some revenge on the other party.

He just hadn't expected Liu Wujun's reaction to be so fast.

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