“And thus, Song Ying Jie shall be freed,” Yin Na smiled as he observed the bandits marching on the tiny village.

From the moment Yin Na laid eyes on Song Ying Jie, he surmised that there was an unhappiness in the youth that was a common flaw in all restless men looking to prove themselves in the Jiang Hu.

This was essentially restlessness. Restlessness derived from the chains of obligation; the antithesis of freedom!

Even in the Immortal world, a family was a burden. The knowledge of a family’s location and therefore- vulnerability could be used as leverage for kidnappings; transactions and other unscrupulous actions in the world of Cultivation. There was a reason why people from the mortal Jiang Hu to the Immortal realm were annihilated not through just the total exposure and eradication of remnants of their soul(s), but through the slaughter of their family members down to the eighteenth generation.

Song Ying Jie was not aware that his sense of disquietude was a result of conflict between his obligation to his Grandma to be married to the Wang family and his martial ambition.

Once married, he will be obligated to spend the rest of his days in this no-name, tiny village, perhaps as a stepping stone for the Wang Family to gain prominence in the tiny Purple Robes martial arts sect. He will be resigned to taking care of his Grandmother and pleasing her with grandchildren, effectively closing off the window of opportunity for him to be making daring adventures and deadly enemies.

Yes, even though Song Ying Jie was not too smart, even the dumbest martial artists harbor world-shaking ambitions. Meeting Daoist Wayseeker Crow, whose persona was the exemplification of freedom made a deep impression on Song Ying Jie, who for all his life trained his martial arts without an enemy to fight, nor a solid goal to reach.

“Starting tonight, I shall provide the catalyst for Song Ying Jie’s new life,” Yin Na thought. “This chapter will begin with the tried-and-true trope of Martial artist-avenges-his-slaughtered-family…and-village!”

Wang Jian Jun, as well as his entire family- was under the impression that Wayseeker Daoist Crow was devoting his energy and time to gathering information and qi to studying the feng shui and karmic future of his family during the past five days.

Who were they to question a Daoist’s methods? They knew nothing about how difficult, convoluted or inefficient an alternate divination method would be, especially if it involved the accumulation of silver coins.

In the back of their heads, their catering to the Daoist Wayseeker Crow’s every whim or need was a guarantee of their secure and successful future. It was not wholly superstition, but also a superficial understanding of interrelational politics- if we scratch a Daoist’s back, perhaps he’d reward us weaker mortals many fold!

None of them expected Yin Na to repay their kindness with enmity.

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During the occasions Yin Na left the village, he was not only checking on the state of his horse and hidden taels or depositing the deliveries of new taels, but was also communicating with local bandits.

The realm of martial artists has no shortage of disgruntled soldiers, officials-turned-outlaws, or naturally-born degenerates or murderers. Such are the bandit folk among the local populace, who were located; then manipulated by Yin Na for his plan to kill off the Wang family.

Yin Na’s caution made him don different clothing stolen from a random, unfortunate mortal bandit that he ambushed and killed, lest his identity be connected to Wayseeker Crow’s. It was a simple ragged one-suit made of hemp fibers, which Yin Na wore to devastating effect.

Wearing this clothing, Yin Na introduced himself as a local demonic martial artist called “Rag Face” (he still wore the face mask) to groups of bandits scattered around the region. He almost traveled as far as Spring Wind Village itself, but seeing that he had unfinished business for the Wang family, he had to gather the bandits first.

Through simple lies and promises, Yin Na guided the paths of each bandit group like he did when he was a Soul Orb- orchestrating the slaughter of bandit parties against each other as well as their assimilation and combination afterwards.

By the fifth morning, the six local bandit groups he’d encountered were united into one.

Yin Na appeared to them for the final time, the day after he slept with Wang Jin Lian.

“Very good, Bandit Kang,” Yin Na praised, appearing above the sleeping bandits on top of a tree. Wearing different clothing, while still wearing his face mask, he was now “Rag Face.”

Rag Face’s balance and otherworldliness intimidated the bandits, who could sense Yin Na’s aura of no-nonsense, Demonic domineering mentality, even as they were pulled rudely from the fog of sleep.

“You have come out on top as the leader of the bandits within this region. Now is the time for you to be rewarded for your efforts: a quarter of a li from here to the West is a small village. There is considerable spoils to be gained in pillaging it.”

Yin Na did not mention the Wang family house. There was no need- it was simply the best house in the entire village, and would not emerge unscathed from a bandit party’s evaluation.

However, this bandit party had grown more into something resembling a bandit army- there were over sixty vicious, bloodthirsty bandits gathered under Bandit Kang with varying degrees of cunning and martial arts skill.

The population of Song Ying Jie’s tiny village was five families, totalling not even twenty people.

Goaded by Yin Na’s promise of loot, Bandit Kang led his bandits into the village under the cover of a windy night. Using the same tactic he employed to eliminate the other bandit heads, Bandit Kang mandated a stealthy approach to killing the villagers. The five houses within the village were surrounded by ten men each before they were broken into.

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Bandit Kang personally led the raid into the Wang family house. On his signal, as they broke down the doors, all the bandits rushed into each house.

Heavens! Ragface did not lie- even though it was a tiny village, the Wang family house was clearly superior not just on the outside but within: literally every centimeter of the house was covered in silver coins and silver taels!

These silver taels, were of course, an arrangement left by Yin Na. They were all from his personal collection, the accumulation of a few week’s extortion from the subscription he forced upon other denizens in the Jiang Hu were now just lying in a pile in the Wang Family house.

Bandit Kang had his priorities however. He knew the people asleep had to be killed.

Upon finding the daughters of the Wang family, who all slept in the same room, Bandit Kang laughed in delight and helped themselves to their bodies as his closest henchmen kept guard or even took turns.

The rest of the bandits were loud and messy in their work, stabbing and mutilating the sleeping bodies of the villagers. They painted the drab, wooden walls of each house with the inhabitants’ blood!

Because Song Ying Jie and Grandma Peng Ling’s hut looked the least impressive, there were only five bandits assigned to their house. The bandits were not too enthusiastic about being delegated to raid the poorest-looking house, but they still managed to break in without preemptively alerting Song Ying Jie.

Under ordinary circumstances, Song Ying Jie’s martial arts training should have immediately prompted him to wake up the moment footsteps gathered outside his hut. But he was unwittingly poisoning himself for the past week thanks to Yin Na’s “medicine.”

Yin Na’s meticulous preparation through a “herbal” mixture of sleep-inducing, clarity-fogging ingredients caused Song Ying Jie to wake much later than he would have had his diet been untouched.

Yin Na created weaker versions of Cultivation-level pills suitable for a martial artist. Yin Na gifted Song Ying Jie poison pills each time he visited the Wang family house- pills which did contain temporary benefits, like the cooling of inflammation and improving immune health to a weak extent, but also contained hidden side effects that he was unable to detect. The two side effects were that of drowsiness as well as a weakness to suggestiveness.

Song Ying Jie was incredibly prone to suggestion the moment he consumed the pills, as they weakened his will power as well as mental alertness for the time it took an incense stick to burn.

“Thanks to the knowledge I gained from Deng Tai Fan from the brick, I remembered that the mixture of ground Emerald Orb spiders and Ether grass was an effective mind-altering drug for mortals.”

What did Yin Na suggest to Song Ying Jie every instance after he ate the pills?

Independence.

After each poison pill slid down Song Ying Jie’s gullet, Yin Na would quote a generic platitude praising the virtue of Independence. His quotes espoused the virtues of orphanage and that of being a lone wolf. How could one develop a Dao without independence?

Without becoming consciously aware of it, Song Ying Jie internalized the need for independence intensely with each consuming of Yin Na’s poison pills. His sleeping hours increased incrementally but steadily each subsequent night, as well. His unease with getting married was amplified by the emotional side-effects of the pill.

When Song Ying Jie awoke with a start, the bandits were already seconds from stabbing him and his grandmother in their beds.

Song Ying Jie immediately did his Bladed Palms and Elbows dance, breaking the limbs and skulls of the bandits, killing them on the spot.

“Oh, Ying Jie, what is happening?!” Grandma Peng Ling cried.

Song Ying Jie was thrust in a dangerous position upon awakening, he had never been through an ambush before. A million thoughts raced through his mind, which was dulled by Yin Na’s medicine treatment over the past few days, but not completely.

He ran out of the hut to see his neighbor’s houses gutted of their families and belongings.

“Who have we offended to bring this great evil upon our village?”

This was his last thought before he realized he had to immediately run to the Wang Family house.

“Grandma Peng Ling, it looks there are more bandits, but their attention is all focused on the Wang family house. Run into the woods, I’ll go save them!”

When he got there, it was too late.

“Song Ying Jie!” Yin Na yelled. “Quickly, I need your help!”

Yin Na had abandoned his disguise as Rag Face, wearing the same drab robes for his “Wayseeker Crow” identity.

He is seen killing the bandits swarming the Wang family house.

Yin Na was blending the techniques of the 6 Zodiac Animal forms with his fiery palms drawn from the power of his Golden Core, creating a devastating lightshow that more than effectively made up for the lack of flashiness in his first bare-fisted martial art forms.

Yin Na had learned the manual he borrowed from Song Ying Jie just in time. Even though it was the first actual gong fu he could be said to have learned, Song Ying Jie did not know this, as he always assumed Yin Na to be an actual Daoist with a profound wealth of knowledge and martial art techniques.

“Song Ying Jie, what are you standing around idly for? Help me kill these bandits and protect your in-Laws!”

Song Ying Jie slaughtered his way through bandit heads, while Yin Na followed him and covered his back.

Bandit Kang and two hunched over men were still in the process of raping the sisters, when Song Ying Jie kicked down the door in fury.

He killed the bandit leader instantly with one punch to the back of the skull, splattering blood and brain matter through his seven orifices. There was a brief scuffle where Yin Na followed in quickly after Song Ying Jie and helped him kill the other two bandits swiftly.

However, when Song Ying Jie flung the carcass of the bandit leader away from his wife like a ragdoll, he was too late.

The girls were dead!

From the elder, the middle, and the youngest- Wang Jin Lian, they were lifeless yet still warm! Their bodies were bruised and bleeding from the violence of the bandits’ rape, but it turns out, Bandit Kang had them killed and was even violating their corpses!

Song Ying Jie wanted to slice and crush the bandits’ bodies to pieces, but what good would it do now? His wife-to-be was dead, as well as almost the entire Wang Family. What would the two Wang older brothers think when they come back for a visit?

“Heavens…in a way, I’m responsible for their deaths!” Song Ying Jie’s voice crawled to a pitiful whimper.

Song Ying Jie was not introspective enough to attempt to fathom why his behavior during crisis performed against expectations, even though it was his first real lethal introduction to the Jiang Hu (he had initiated the spar with Wayseeker Crow, which Yin Na of course survived and de-escalated himself).

Still, as he looked at the bodies of his would-have-been-wife and his in-laws, he asked himself:

“Why did I get out of bed so…late?”

Why did his actions and decision-making felt like they were weighed down by the invisible burden of hesitation?

A gentle hand placed itself on one of his blood-soaked shoulders.

“Ying Jie,” Yin Na said, voice full of sympathy.