“Who is it?” Ye Qing opened his eyes and called out in response. He sounded a little puzzled.
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“It’s me, Boss Ye! It’s Zhou Gui!” Zhou Gui’s voice rang from outside the door.
“Zhou Gui? Why is he here at this time?” Ye Qing mumbled but rose to his feet. After heading downstairs and opening the door, he saw the owner of Coming Clouds beaming at him at his doorsteps.
“Good evening, Boss Zhou! Do you need anything?” Ye Qing asked smilingly while leaning against the door frame.
Zhou Gui lifted the package of food he was holding and said, “On the contrary, I’m the one who’s come to help a man in need! You haven’t left the bookstore the entire day, so I reckon that you must’ve been too busy with your cultivation to eat anything. That is why I brought you a jar of high quality Pear Blossom wine and squirrel fish for dinner!”
“That’s very thoughtful of you! Now that you mentioned it, I am feeling hungry!” Ye Qing’s eyes lit up as he waved Zhou Gui in. “Come in, Boss Zhou! Since you’re already here, you might as well join me for a drink!”
“Sure!” The restaurant owner replied smilingly and followed Ye Qing into Endless Horizons. It wasn’t long before the food and wine were placed on the table, and a delicious scent spread throughout the bookstore.
“Damn, that smells good!” Ye Qing sniffed the air and praised, “Your cooking skills are getting better and better, Boss Zhou!”
“Haha! I’m honored that my food is to your liking!” Zhou Gui chuckled and poured Ye Qing a cup of wine. “A toast to you, Boss Ye.”
“Thank you!” Ye Qing accepted the cup before asking, “Oh right, how is Hui’er doing now, Boss Zhou? Has he recovered from his cold already?”
“He’s much better. Thanks for your concern!” Boss Zhou replied smilingly.
“I’m glad to hear that,” Ye Qing said with a smile before twisting his wrist. The next second, the cup flew straight toward Zhou Gui’s head like an arrow!
A bewildered look flitted across Zhou Gui’s face, but he caught the wine cup with two fingers right before it would hit his forehead. He then set down the cup and asked curiously, “Interesting. How did you know that I’m not Zhou Gui?”
Ye Qing replied casually, “Since the moment you started talking, really. It’s true that Zhou Gui and I aren’t close, but I’ve never told him that I’m a martial arts practitioner. In fact, I told everyone that I’m a wandering scholar looking to broaden my horizons in Anyang, and I haven’t given them any reason to believe otherwise. If you really were Zhou Gui, why would you guess that I was cultivating?”
“But of course, it’s just a guess. Zhou Gui is a restaurant owner, so he might’ve heard something from a loose mouth or two. That’s why I decided to test you by asking how Zhou Gui’s son is doing. You don’t know this, but I visited Zhou Gui’s place just yesterday. Hui’er was sick, but not because he caught a cold, but because he was infected by an Everhungry Worm. In fact, I’m the one who saved his life.”
“In conclusion, you cannot be Zhou Gui. Who are you?”
“Haha! You’re smarter than I thought. I suppose I should’ve known better to pay you a visit before conducting a proper investigation.” The fake Zhou Gui’s smile slowly morphed into a sneer. “Since this is our first meeting, allow me to introduce myself: I am Faceless, and I have come to kill you!”
Faceless was telling the truth. He was faceless, but he could take on anyone’s face almost perfectly as long as he had seen it at least once. Earlier, he had taken on the face of a common bailiff and infiltrated the county hall. It was there he discovered that the person who discovered the General of Punishment and ruined their grand plan was a young man named Ye Qing and the current owner of Endless Horizons.
Enthralled by unspeakable hatred and anger, Faceless immediately traveled to Endless Horizons to kill Ye Qing. Unfortunately, Ye Qing spent the whole day in the bookstore doing god-knows-what and gave him no opportunities to knife him in a secluded back alley or something. He did not want to barge into Endless Horizons either because it would only escalate the situation unnecessarily and draw attention to himself.
Later, he was drinking his woes away at Coming Clouds when he accidentally overheard that the owner of the restaurant, Zhou Gui happened to be acquaintances with Ye Qing. After briefly interrogating the gossiper about their relationship—the gossiper himself had no idea that he was being interrogated, of course—he took on Zhou Gui’s face and visited Ye Qing on the pretext of delivering him dinner. The rest was history.
Faceless had been stewing in hatred and anger since yesterday. The only way he could rid himself of these loathsome emotions was to kill Ye Qing. However, the young man was far more alert than he expected and saw through him before he could do anything.
He only had himself to blame, to be honest. He had acted recklessly and visited Ye Qing before he found out exactly how the young man and Zhou Gui were related. Otherwise, this could’ve gone a lot better.
“Faceless?” Ye Qing repeated the name with a frown. “I’m positive I have never met you until now, so why do you want to kill me, stranger?”
“Hehe! It’s because you ruined our grand plan, of course!” Faceless let out a dark and violent laugh.
“Grand plan?” Ye Qing thought for a second before clapping his hands. “Oh, you’re talking about the General of Punishment? That’s right! I’m the one who dunnit!”
“Not even going to try to deny it, huh? Do you know that we were one step away from completing our plan? Do you know how many years of hard work were wasted because of your actions? You deserve to die, boy!” Faceless uttered through gritted teeth as his eyes turned bloodshot.
His group had infiltrated Anyang and secretly forged the General of Punishment within the Shing Wong statue. Once the false deity’s golden body was complete, he would take control of the people of Anyang through the power of wishes he stole and drive them into a frenzy, throwing the entire county into turmoil. When that happened, Anyang would fall completely under the Strangers’ control.
Their plan had progressed smoothly until the final step. The General of Punishment needed to kill forty-nine humans to complete his golden body, and he must not be discovered until he was ready to enact the plan. That was why they had gone through great lengths to ensure that the General of Punishment only killed ordinary people. They also made sure to select targets who were completely unrelated to one another so that the administration division or the Pacification Bureau could not make the connection.
The group had believed that their cover-up was perfect, and that the final step of their plan would go just as smoothly as the rest. Instead, a nobody had led the magistrate straight to the Shing Wong temple and ruined everything. How could Faceless stay calm knowing this? He was so angry his face was contorted. He was so angry he wanted to rip a certain piece of shit into shreds!
“Wow! It’s that serious?” Ye Qing scratched his head and broke into a wide grin. “I’m so glad to hear that!”
“DIE!” Faceless roared as his facial features abruptly vanished one by one. When they were all gone, a cold, evil energy permeated the room and attempted to invade Ye Qing’s body. The young man could clearly sense some sort of evil power infiltrating his body and attempting to erase both his facial features and his mind completely.
“You’re that incense acolyte who killed the six bailiffs? A Malice-class Stranger?” Ye Qing immediately put two and two together.
“You’re really quick-witted. It’s too bad you figured out the truth too late!” Faceless laughed darkly. He thought he would savor the young man’s final expression before he died, but his laughter was abruptly cut short when a few seconds passed, and he realized that the young man wasn’t losing his facial features or his life. In fact, he was smirking at him like he was looking down on an idiot!
“You’re a Vessel Augmentor?!” Faceless exclaimed in shock and realization. His ability corrupted any warrior or Stranger who was below his power level, a.k.a the Malice class or the Vessel Augmentation stage. Their facial features would be erased, and their soul would disintegrate into nothing. Since Ye Qing was fine, it could only mean he was on the same level as him or higher, or he possessed some sort of Strange Artifact that shielded him from his ability!
“Why don’t you guess?” Ye Qing said smilingly and moved his fingers like he was playing a string instrument. The next moment, a few throwing knives shot toward Faceless like thunder.
“This is nothing!” Faceless sneered and grabbed the air. An invisible force twisted the air until it exploded and knocked all of the throwing knives away.
Suddenly, Faceless disappeared and reappeared next to Ye Qing. He then swung his boneless arms at the young man’s head like a whip.
The air cracked, and Ye Qing shattered into smithereens. However, Faceless wasn’t happy in the slightest. It was because the person he just “killed” was just an illusion.
The Stranger proceeded to show off an inhuman level of flexibility by twisting his upper body and only his upper one hundred and eighty degrees around and facing Ye Qing, who had somehow gotten behind his back without him noticing. He launched a palm strike at the young man’s torso, but the young man suddenly floated like a feather that was being pushed by the wind. He was able to dodge the deadly attack with just milimeters to spare.
“Argh! Die, die, die, die, die!”
Faceless tried to attack Ye Qing a couple more times but missed all of his attacks. Losing his cool, he let out a dark, twisted growl that sounded like a hundred ghosts screeching at the same time and unleashed a deadly claw technique. The growl possessed a mind-bending quality, and the claw-shaped hands moved so fast it seemed impossible that Ye Qing, standing right in front of Faceless, would not be cut into a million pieces.
And yet he wasn’t. No matter how rapid the attacks came, they could not harm even the fabric of his shirt. It was like Ye Qing was a gust of air that could make minute adjustments and avoid the storm of claws blowing his way by a hair’s breadth. He wasn’t a celestial, but he certainly looked like one right now.
“You’ve made me angry, human! You won’t like it when I’m angry!”
Faceless let out a full-throated roar as his smooth, marble face abruptly split open from the forehead all the way to his chin. Then, pitch black light shone out of the gap and enveloped everything within the bookstore.
It was as black as tar and as thick as ink. Whatever it touched immediately transformed into strange monsters as if they were corrupted by its power. The tables and chairs grew giant mouths with rows and rows of sharp teeth. They kept grinding their teeth together to make this screeching noise that was both shrill and uncomfortable. The wine glasses grew long, oddly-shaped arms that were covered in thorns, the books grew eyeballs that were overflowing with malice, madness and rage, and the pests grew impossibly huge noses that dripped smelly, poisonous liquid and more.
The next moment, everything that was corrupted by the black light charged toward Ye Qing at the same time.
“How unsightly!” Ye Qing shook his head in disgust and started charging the Toad Force. Five loud croaks later, when his strength, qi and spirit had joined into one, and his aura grew so powerful that it was almost tangible, he unleashed a punch that shattered every creature charging toward him and scattered the pitch black light in an instant.
Faceless let out a painful howl the second the unnatural light was dispersed. Blood started leaking through the gap on his face.
The Stranger did not hesitate. He immediately made a run for the exit.
“You think you can escape?”
Ye Qing squinted a little and made a grabbing motion in Faceless’ direction. The Blood Shadows that had been lurking throughout the bookstore all this time immediately slipped into Faceless’ body.
Faceless let out a louder scream as countless lines abruptly cut into his body. Each line ran so deep that his bones were exposed, and blood poured profusely on the ground. The lines had even cut off half of his face.
That wasn’t what stunned him the most, however. He could feel something devouring his blood at a terrifying pace. At this rate, he was going to turn into a withered husk in two or three breaths at most!
“Ye Qing… I won’t forget this!”
Faceless did not dare to treat the life-threatening danger lightly. He roared one last time before transforming into a beam of light, crashing out of a window, and vanishing from view.