Chapter 2: The Seven Ghosts of Meishan

When he shouted, Yongjie had not even managed to react before Li Miao’s gaze had already drifted lazily over.

This murderous brute, who treated human lives as nothing, was calling a Shaolin monk of the Yong generation “big brother”?

That was worth seeing.

Li Miao looked toward Yongjie, and Yongjie sensed his gaze as well.

With a slight twist of the lips, he said flatly to Li Miao, “Sir Li... please wait while I settle this.”

“Go ahead, Master. I won’t say a word.”

With that, Li Miao picked up a jug of wine and a plate of raw peanuts, then went to a table off to the side.

As he cracked peanuts one by one, he watched Yongjie and the group with keen interest.

The man paid Li Miao no mind. He hurried up to Yongjie, his face alight with joy.

“Big brother... you’re still alive!”

“Why didn’t you come looking for us? When we lost all news of you back then, we searched for you for so long. We thought you were dead!”

“Alas...”

Yongjie let out a long sigh, folded his hands, and bowed to the man.

“Benefactor, this monk is already a man of the cloth. The dust of mortal ties has been severed, and the sea of desire has run dry. I have laid down all that came before.”

“I only pray, Benefactor, that you will no longer create wanton bloodshed, and will instead accumulate merit for the sake of your descendants.”

“Become a monk?” The man stared at him in disbelief.

“Big brother, surely you didn’t fall for some temple’s incense money? We are brothers. Why put on such an act? If you say the word, whatever it is, we’ll do it together!”

Yongjie shook his head. “This monk truly has left the world. I speak no jest. The karma owed from the past, this monk is now repaying. I beg you not to mention it again.”

Seeing that Yongjie seemed serious, the man studied him from head to toe, then let out a derisive laugh.

“Big brother, you really became a monk?”

“Which temple would dare take you in?”

“Shaolin,” Yongjie said.

The man’s face suddenly flushed red, and bloodshot veins seemed to spring up in his eyes.

“Shaolin?”

“Big brother, you must be joking!”

“How many of our brothers died at the hands of that old bald monk Xingchi back then! It would have been one thing if you couldn’t even kill him, but you actually went to Shaolin to become a monk?”

Yongjie shook his head. “This monk is not joking.”

“Abbot Master Xingchi is precisely my teacher.”

“What?”

The four or five men all cried out in astonishment at once.

The one with the knife heard this, gripped the hilt several times over, and fixed Yongjie with a hard stare.

“Big brother... you’re serious?”

Yongjie kept his eyes closed. “Yes.”

“You really took that old thing as your master?”

“Yes.”

“You really joined Shaolin?”

“Yes.”

“And you really won’t seek vengeance for your brothers?”

“...Yes.”

“Fine!”

The man slashed at Yongjie’s neck. The blade cut through the skin, and a thin line of blood traced down the steel.

Then he stopped.

“Big brother, you’ve gone mad.”

Yongjie showed no intention of dodging at all. He merely shook his head to himself, forcing the man to pull the blade back a little.

“This monk has merely seen clearly.”

“The sins committed in the past, this monk will repay them, even unto death.”

“I only hope that Benefactor may also turn back while there is still time.”

After hearing Yongjie’s words, the man flew into a rage.

“Repay? Repay my ass! How many lives do you have to pay with?”

“Once you step into the martial world, life and death become the boundary!”

“You were the one who taught me that. All day long, people in the jianghu think about owing this one and repaying that one. Are they even supposed to live?”

“You weren’t tortured mad by that old bald donkey, were you?”

He cursed for a long while before finally gasping and stopping.

“Fine, fine, fine.”

“You don’t care about brotherhood, and I won’t care about you either! You think chanting sutras and eating vegetarian meals can wash the blood off your hands? Too late!”

“Let’s go!”

With that, he no longer looked at Yongjie and turned to leave.

His hand had barely touched the door when—

“Ah!”

Blood splashed everywhere.

The long blade fell to the floor with a clang. The man clutched his right hand, blood gushing between his fingers.

“Who was that? Sneak attacks don’t make a hero!”

He shouted, sweeping his gaze across everyone in the room.

Soon enough, his eyes locked onto Li Miao, who was leaning against the table and idly tossing peanuts into his mouth.

“You? Why did you strike me?”

He shouted, and the few men behind him understood at once, drawing their weapons and slowly surrounding him.

At that moment, Li Miao said calmly, “Master, if I kill these few acquaintances of yours, that won’t be a problem, will it?”

Yongjie looked at Li Miao and gave a long sigh, but said nothing.

The man heard this and sneered. “What a grand tone!”

“Have you never heard of our name, the Mount Mei Seven Ghosts? You hurt me from the shadows and think you can beat us together?”

Li Miao raised an eyebrow.

“The Mount Mei Seven Ghosts... oh, so it’s you?”

“No wonder I didn’t make the connection at first. You only have five people here.”

Li Miao had spent twenty years in Shuntian Prefecture. Most of the time he dealt with paperwork, and only when Zhu Cai assigned him a task would he bother to get up and move.

Of course, by “dealing with paperwork,” what that really meant was sitting beside Wang Hai with his legs propped on the desk, a pastry in hand, supervising Wang Hai’s work while casually flipping through all manner of Brocade Guard dossiers as though they were storybooks.

With that kind of careless browsing, he naturally had no systematic recollection of things; whether he had seen something or not was left entirely to luck.

As it happened, he had indeed seen the Mount Mei Seven Ghosts.

Seven or eight years ago, they had wiped out an entire martial arts family. Later, they were wanted by the Brocade Guard, and along the way they had committed many other crimes.

Their martial skills were not especially high. The reason they had survived to this day was entirely because of an exceptionally refined combined formation they had somehow obtained. When the seven of them formed up, even two or three ordinary first-rate experts could not bring them down.

First-rate experts were in short supply in every sect, and even the Brocade Guard lacked them. In a place like the Huashan Sword Sect, there were only three or four such experts.

These men had a nose for danger and never touched forces they could not afford to provoke. Naturally, no great power was willing to expend several pillar-like experts to hunt them down merely for the sake of a reputation for chivalry.

And so, over time, these men had become quite renowned throughout the martial world.

That was why they could trample human lives so wantonly and behave with such arrogance. Because there truly were not many people or factions capable of coming after them.

When the man heard Li Miao say this, his expression turned extremely ugly.

The Mount Mei Seven Ghosts were indeed seven men. The reason there were only five present now was that a few days earlier they had run into the Brocade Guard and lost two lives.

If it had been ordinary Brocade Guards, they really might not have been able to take down the seven of them. It was only their bad luck that they had encountered Bu Lei, the commissioner of the Northern Bureau of the Brocade Guard, who happened to be away on official business.

After finally escaping with one life intact, they were then stabbed in the wound by Li Miao. He had already been burning with fury over Yongjie’s matter, and now he could no longer contain himself.

“Take your life!”

With a furious shout, he drew his blade and charged at Li Miao.

Bang!

A sharp crack rang out, and flesh and blood scattered.

“Sin, sin...” Yongjie murmured, his hands pressed together.

Li Miao brought two fingers together and moved them toward the next head.

Bang!

The End.