Xu Qing remained silent, walked to the corner of the wall alone, and picked up a wood-chopping axe, weighing it in his hand.
Before the blacksmith could ask again, Xu Qing tossed out a piece of broken silver, which fell right in front of the blacksmith on the iron anvil.
Upon leaving the blacksmith shop, Xu Qing reached out and erased the craftsman's mark engraved on the axe blade.
He then used his fingernail to write and draw on the axe blade, with sparks flickering in and out. Once the letters were carved, Xu Qing nodded in satisfaction.
Carrying the axe, Xu Qing entered the alleyway diagonally across the broker shop, where he took out a group of waxed and waterproofed papermen carrying a black and red coffin, heading straight to the broker shop's entrance.
Papermoney was scattered, lightning flashed and thunder roared, and rain fell on the coffin with a hollow sound.
An old saying goes, rain on a coffin brings ten years of hardship; rain on a grave brings forth nobility.
Carrying a coffin in the rain is taboo and brings no good to those inside the coffin.
However, here came a group of papermen carrying a coffin to the broker shop entrance amidst a downpour.
The gatekeeper, thinking it was a spirit entity from the netherworld coming to claim his life, turned around and scrambled inside the broker shop, not bothering to close the door or bolt it.
The accountant heard the commotion about ghosts from the gatekeeper but didn't believe it. He turned his head, opened the upstairs window, and stuck his head out to look below.
That was fine, until he looked.
Lo and behold, he saw a Straw Spirit Paperman, nearly a foot high, wearing a veil, passing by the window.
One of the Straw Spirits turned its head, the veil lightly swayed, facing the accountant, revealing a half-pale face!
On that face, a Vermillion Brush had dotted a blood-red eye.
"..."
The accountant's eyes rolled back, and he fainted on the spot.
The paperman procession continued to explore inward, and upon reaching the open center of the well tower, a group of Nursing Home fighters wielding guns and clubs appeared on the opposite corridor.
Leading them was a gaggle contingent eunuch dressed in an embroidered brocade robe, face pale and beardless.
When the eunuch spoke, it was in that familiar falsetto from a lantern show.
"Playing tricks, do you think a few underworld tricks would provoke our house?"
The nearby broker's fighters breathed a sigh of relief upon hearing this. By the look of things, these papermen might just be visually intimidating.
But, before the men could muster their morale, up sprang a Fierce General with the head of a demon and the hooves of a bull, right in the middle of the well tower ground.
Then a second, and a third...
When the well tower was packed with all fifteen Fierce Generals, another attempted to emerge, but upon seeing the full house, it sank back into the ground.
These fully revealed Fierce Generals were all demon-headed with bull hooves, skeletal bodies, and, towering even over the Straw Spirits, stood taller than a foot high.
"Who in the world are you? My humble name is Lou Xiaowu, a close retainer of the Internal Affairs Department. Offending me is one thing, but to offend the Internal Affairs Department..."
Before Lou Xiaowu could finish, one of the Fierce Generals pulled out a rib from its chest, turning it into a bony scythe, and threw it at Lou Xiaowu!
Ten or more bone blades, engulfed in black aura, sliced through the rain, reaching Lou Xiaowu in the blink of an eye.
"Bold!"
The robe puffed out, Lou Xiaowu's entire body shrouded in Gang Qi, with a flick of his sleeve, scattering all those bone blades used as hidden weapons.
"Huh?" Eunuch Lou exclaimed in surprise, then raised his orchid fingers, laughing: "I thought some hero had come, only to find a flashy but useless paper tiger."
Each Fierce General equaled a Condensing Gang Realm Martial Master, and Lou Xiaowu from the Internal Affairs clearly teetered on the brink of a Martial Arts Grandmaster.
However, Lou Xiaowu's optimism didn't last long, as he discovered the Fierce Generals were impossible to kill.
No matter how many times you smashed their heads and torsos, they would reform the moment they hit the ground.
Though they weakened slightly each time they reformed, the sheer rotational force of fifteen Fierce Generals proved too exhausting, even for Lou Xiaowu with abundant True Qi.
Worse yet, from the depths of the ground, there were stand-by Fierce Generals lining up impatiently to emerge.
A subtle unease crept into Lou Xiaowu's heart, suspecting his opponent hadn't yet exerted full force, while he was nearing his energy limits.
He leapt up to a higher floor, seeing that several Martial Masters from the broker had already fallen, he shouted loudly: "Delay these ghosts, I've discerned the puppeteer's location. Give me a moment, and I'll have this rat in chains!"
Having declared, Lou Xiaowu turned and shattered the window lattice, leaping over the third-floor eaves out to the street, escaping toward the Capital City without looking back.
"..."
Xu Qing fell into complete silence.
He almost believed Lou Eunuch had found his position, yet didn't expect the spineless eunuch would abandon his companions and flee for his life.
Xu Qing exited the alleyway, drawing the axe from his waist.
After testing with the Fierce Generals, he gauged the eunuch's level of mastery.
Leaping onto the high building, Xu Qing wielded the short axe, activating the Yin Pupil to track Lou Xiaowu, while continuously stacking the Thirty-Six Celestial Techniques. By the twelfth layer, the ordinary iron axe was pushed to its limit.
"Take this!"
Xu Qing swung his arm down, the iron axe cloaked in dense dark energy, transforming into a black light, cleaving straight toward the small black dot fifteen miles away.
When water is too clear, there are no fish; when a person is too exact, they have no followers.
Embrace ignorance when ignorance is bliss.