A deep, weary sigh of relief escaped from behind the black veil shrouding Ji Wuye's lowered face. The coarse fabric brushed against his lips as his breath parted the delicate strands.

However, instead of fury and rage burning in his gaze upon witnessing this gruesome scene, there were no traces of such roiling emotions. His expression remained stoic and indifferent, as if he were a dispassionate observer scrutinizing strangers.

While Ji Wuye stood motionless atop the precariously slanted roof tiles, surveying the lifeless corpses below, his keen eyes noticed a familiar figure in the distance.

Clad in white robes adorned with aqua stripes— another a 'fake' Outer Disciple of Kunlun—the person approached the bodies that were now being unceremoniously dragged into a shadowy alley by a group of men.

Muted words were exchanged that Ji Wuye could not discern from this vantage point. However, one thing was certain: among the group was an unmistakable, familiar figure—a young man with a rugged mane of jet-black hair framing blazing obsidian eyes, now fixed upon the corpses with a sneer of disdain curling his lips.

Flanking this young man were two others: one a portly youth with a mottled, and the other a gangly, underfed-looking specimen with hollowed eyes and prominent front teeth that protruded like a rabbit's.

'Qin Bai...' Ji Wuye muttered inwardly. It was none other than the wretched Qin Bai and his coterie of bullies—the very trio he had warned and thrown into the creek.

But this time, there was no surprise or disbelief flickering across Ji Wuye's impassive features as he observed Qin Bai, who appeared to be issuing orders to the men handling the corpses.

Qin Bai carried himself with the easy confidence of one accustomed to command, as if he had been intimately involved in such nefarious dealings for an unspeakably long time.

'I knew you were a traitorous snake, but...' Ji Wuye's thoughts trailed off as realization slowly sank its fangs into his mind. He had never fathomed that the worm Qin Bai could have been so deeply, fundamentally ensnared within the conspiracy behind the attack on Kunlun from the very start.

As the bodies were efficiently disposed of and the group slithered out of sight from the main road, Ji Wuye smoothly descended from the roof, melting into the ceaseless flow of the bustling crowd below like a wraith rejoining the river of life.

It was the same bustling scene he had encountered when he first came here to gamble - the familiar warm glow of bobbing lanterns hanging from nearly every building, their flickering halos spilling golden light onto the streets where crowds streamed in and out of the village's lively thoroughfares like a river of humanity.

The difference now was that the once-familiar cloying scents of jasmine and rose perfuming the air, thick and heady as scantily-clad courtesans swayed by in revealing hanfu robes with a practiced sway of their hips, were intermingled with the metallic tang of freshly spilled blood.

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Amidst the ever-moving current of the crowd, hushed whispers could be heard murmuring about the recent shocking incident like ripples across a still pond.

"Did you see that? Those were Kunlun Disciples! They were bold enough to kill a hero of Jianghu openly!" one of them hissed, throwing a furtive glance toward the spot where the lifeless corpses had been hastily dragged into the shadowed alley.

"Ssh! Lower your voice, look around," his friend urged in a harsh whisper, eyes darting about at the surrounding throngs of people - many of whom were unaffiliated martial artists trying and failing to appear nonchalant as they sneaked sideways glances at their conspiratorial conversation.

"What are we afraid of? Don't we have skills we got from the Tower?" the first man retorted with a scoffing laugh, though it carried an undercurrent of nervous bravado as he puffed out his chest.

His friend's eyes went wide with disbelief before he quickly clamped a calloused palm over the other's running mouth.

"Fool! Do you think those pitiful skills make us superior? They survived that terrifying Tower challenge too! What delusional arrogance makes you think you can fight against such hardened martial artists when you were just shoveling pig dung as common folk before?!" he hissed, dragging his loudmouthed companion away from the crowd.

As their muffled argument faded into the ambient noise, another pedestrian dressed in roughspun garb let out a raucous guffaw, slopping ale onto the dusty street from the wooden cup clutched in his hand.

"Good, good, good! Those cowardly righteous bastards are finally dead! And we killed them in their own sanctimonious base, hahaha!" His mocking laughter echoed hollowly among the surrounding pedestrians.

"Bastard! Casually killing innocent people, you're nothing but filthy unorthodox scum!" The furious rebuke came from another pedestrian, this one dressed in a long slate-gray hanfu with a jian sheathed at his waist.

"Me, filthy?" The man who had laughed so raucously earlier stopped in his tracks, ale sloshing precariously in his cup as he whirled to face the one dressed in the long slate-gray hanfu.

Narrowed eyes glared with drunken belligerence at this clearly orthorfdox martial artist . "HA! Look around you."

His mocking gesture encompassed the surrounding crowds with a sweeping arc of his arm, ale slopping over the rim.

It seemed an obvious provocation, as the other pedestrian martial artists watching this confrontational exchange giggled and chuckled, finding perverse entertainment in the brewing conflict.

Their mocking attitudes and disdain for the righteous, or him who defended Kunlun, made it clear they were also unorthodox martial artists as well.

"You...!" The words emerged as a furious growl as the orthodox martial artist's face flushed crimson with barely constrained rage.

Having only just arrived in Tianji village, he was utterly confused by the whole chaotic situation unfolding - the casual killings, the brazen murders of Kunlun Disciples, the open coercion of courtesans.

This debauched den of immorality and wanton violence was not at all the idyllic Tianji he had committed to nostalgic memory!

While the two postured and loudly traded barbs, the common folk who had witnessed the confrontational scene quickly distanced themselves, melting away into the crowd with averted eyes and hunched shoulders as if to avoid drawing any unfortunate attention their way.

Meanwhile, Ji Wuye stopped in his tracks, silent eyes keenly observing the rest of the seemingly disinterested commoners milling about.

'So, the Jade Blossom Traders haven't completely relinquished control,' Ji Wuye's mind coolly analyzed.

His penetrating gaze then shifted to the only three-story structure in sight - the familiar sprawling building with wooden balconies and decorative railings jutting out at each level like watchful sentries, perfect vantage points for surveying the rowdy street scenes unfolding below.

The Jade Blossom Traders were the influential merchant group that ostensibly managed and oversaw all operations within Tianji village.

Outwardly, they maintained a carefully cultivated neutral stance with Kunlun Sect, bound only by lucrative trade agreements that allowed both orthodox and unorthodox martial artists factions to visit their village under their management.

Yet for some inscrutable reason, they had seemingly failed to react in any substantive way to the recent killing of Kunlun disciples, nor had they reported the mass clandestine gathering in their village to the sect as protocol dictated.

Which mean...

'Finally arrived,' Meanwhile, Ji Wuye's thoughts returned to the present as his feet began moving of their own accord, guiding him inexorably toward the only noticeably shabby area in Tianji village, where beggars and street urchins crowded together like scavenging rats in a large reeking alley.