Chapter 19: Monopoly of Suffering
Within seven days, Yan Kesh's ramshackle hut in the Eastern Sector had completely changed its function.
It was no longer a morgue warehouse, but a bloodstained shrine of hope. Every night, lines of crippled people stretched outside its door. The faint stench of fresh blood lingered in the air—not from slaughter, but from "voluntary payments."
Gou San, now with nine fingers but a fully functional right arm, stood guard at the entrance. His face was ferocious, his eyes fanatical. He was ready to kill anyone who dared cut in line before his Master.
Inside the hut, Yan Kesh sat before his fiftieth "patient."
"Your knee was shattered by an incorrect kicking technique," Yan Kesh diagnosed coldly, glancing at the young man's swollen, purplish leg.
"That's right, Master Yan… can it be cured?"
"Yes. The price: pull out two of your molars right here, right now. And you will hand over thirty percent of your mission income for one year to Gou San."
Without the slightest hesitation, the youth picked up a stone.
Crack! Crack!
He spat blood and two white teeth into the bowl that had been prepared.
Yan Kesh placed his hand on the youth's knee.
The damage was transferred into the river stone beneath the table.
The youth's pain was absorbed as energetic profit.
The knee healed. Yan Kesh felt slightly refreshed.
Business was booming. The balance sheet showed a surplus.
However, in a world ruled by the law of the jungle, the success of a newcomer was an insult to the old tyrants.
BAM!
The door was kicked off its hinges.
The line outside scattered in chaos. Gou San was sent flying into the room, a massive footprint stamped across his chest. He vomited blood, trying to rise but failing.
Three burly men stepped inside. They wore bear-hide vests marked with the sigil of Black Sand.
Their leader was a two-meter-tall giant with dark skin and iron-capped teeth.
Meng Hu.
Leader of the Black Sand Gang—the unofficial ruler of the Eastern Sector, who extorted every outer disciple.
"So this is the new rat making noise," Meng Hu's voice boomed like thunder as he spat onto the freshly cleaned floor.
He Qiu, who had been brewing medicine in the corner, immediately drew his sword with trembling hands.
"Back off! This is the private territory of the sect examiner's honored guest!"
Meng Hu laughed. His massive hand swatted He Qiu's blade aside as if brushing off a fly.
Clang!
He Qiu's sword snapped in two. He himself was sent crashing into the wall.
"Honored guest?" Meng Hu sneered. "In the Eastern Sector, I am the examiner. I am the elder. I am the god."
He strode toward Yan Kesh's table. His shadow completely engulfed Yan Kesh's gaunt figure.
"Hey, Trash Healer," Meng Hu leaned in, his rotten breath washing over Yan Kesh's face. "You opened a clinic here without permission. You healed my cash cows, made them bold enough to refuse paying protection fees because they think they're cured."
"You've ruined my market."
Yan Kesh remained seated. He did not look at Meng Hu's face. He looked at the air around Meng Hu's head.
[TARGET: MENG HU]
[Cultivation: Body Tempering Stage 9 (Peak)]
[Physical Assets: Hardened Muscles, Skin Resistant to Ordinary Blades]
[Weakness: Blood-Oath Debt to a Sect Elder, Low Intelligence]
[Immediate Threat: High]
"So," Meng Hu continued, crushing Yan Kesh's shoulder with his massive hand. Yan Kesh's shoulder bones creaked. "Starting today, ninety percent of your profits are mine. And you'll lick the sand off my boot as a sign of respect."
Yan Kesh glanced at the giant hand on his shoulder. The pain was real.
But this time, he did not need to defer it. He had accumulated sufficient energy balance from the previous patients.
"Meng Hu," Yan Kesh said softly. "You misunderstand one thing."
"Huh?"
"You think the people outside belong to you?" Yan Kesh pointed toward the broken doorway, where dozens of patients were watching in terror.
"They don't belong to you. They are my investment assets."
Yan Kesh turned his gaze to the crowd. His voice was not loud, yet it carried a strange pressure that made scalps prickle.
"Listen to me, all of you! This man, Meng Hu, wants to shut this place down. He wants to destroy my hands."
"If my hands are destroyed… then your healing contracts are void."
Yan Kesh lied with a perfectly calm face.
"All the illnesses I have cured—Gou San's leg, the Hunchback's arm, the Blind Man's eyes—are bound to my existence. If I am injured, those illnesses will return to you twice as severe within seconds."
The crowd gasped. Faces drained of color.
Gou San, who had only just tasted life with a normal arm, stared in horror.
The patient who had just recovered from paralysis clutched his legs in hysteria.
They had just glimpsed heaven. The thought of being dragged back into the hell of disability—worse than before—was more terrifying than death itself.
"No…" someone whispered.
"D-don't…"
Meng Hu frowned. "What nonsense is this? Don't listen to this fraud!"
He raised his fist to smash Yan Kesh's head.
"PROTECT YOUR ASSETS," Yan Kesh shouted coldly.
That was the trigger.
The fear of losing hope turned humans into beasts.
"DON'T TOUCH HEALER YAN!" Gou San roared as he lunged at Meng Hu's leg and sank his teeth into his calf.
"AAAA!" Meng Hu staggered in shock. "Let go, you mad dog!"
He kicked Gou San away, but in the next second, three other patients pounced onto his back.
Then five.
Then ten.
"Kill Meng Hu! Or we'll become crippled again!"
"Protect Master Yan!"
The once-cowardly crowd transformed into a hysterical tide of zombies. They had no martial arts, but they had despair. They clawed at eyes, bit ears, stabbed with sharpened stones, and tore hair.
Meng Hu's two subordinates vanished beneath the mob in an instant. Their screams were drowned out by the howls of the crippled masses.
Even Meng Hu, for all his strength, was overwhelmed by fifty people who did not fear death.
"Get away! Get away!" Meng Hu swung his fists, shattering ribs of his attackers. But for every person he knocked aside, two more clamped onto his arms with their teeth.
Yan Kesh sat calmly in his chair, watching the chaos unfold.
He saw Gou San, bloodied, still clinging to Meng Hu's leg to prevent his escape.
He saw an old man stabbing his walking stick into Meng Hu's nostril.
Yan Kesh opened The Audit in his mind.
[MASS ENERGY HARVEST]
[Source: Collective Conflict]
[Emotions: Fear, Rage, Fanaticism]
[Vitality Balance: Rapidly Increasing]
Yan Kesh was not merely surviving.
He was feasting.
The negative energy radiating from this collective slaughter was being absorbed by The Balance as surplus profit.
Ten minutes later, the riot subsided.
Meng Hu, the once-invincible giant, lay sprawled on the hut floor. His clothes were torn to shreds, his body covered in countless bite marks and claw wounds. He was still alive, but barely breathing. The arrogance in his eyes had been replaced by pure terror as he looked at Yan Kesh.
The mob stepped back, creating a path. Their breaths were ragged, their hands stained with the blood of their oppressor.
Yan Kesh stood up and walked toward the dying Meng Hu.
He crouched, then whispered into Meng Hu's ear.
"You monopolized their money. That's the old way."
Yan Kesh placed his hand on Meng Hu's forehead.
"I monopolize their fear. And fear… is a far more stable currency."
[FINAL TRANSACTION]
[Target: Meng Hu]
[Action: Asset Liquidation]
Yan Kesh absorbed the last remnants of vitality from Meng Hu's powerful body (Body Tempering Stage 9).
Meng Hu's body convulsed, then withered like a deflated skinbag. His skin shriveled, his muscles shrank. He died as a dried corpse.
Yan Kesh straightened up, his body now brimming with power. Meng Hu's vitality had recharged his life battery for the next month.
He looked at the blood-soaked disciples of the Eastern Sector. They returned his gaze with a mixture of fear and worship.
They had killed for Yan Kesh. Their hands were now stained. They were bound to him not only by healing, but by shared sin—complicity.
"Clean this place up," Yan Kesh ordered calmly. "And Gou San… starting tomorrow, raise the treatment fees by ten percent. We need a new door."
"Y-Yes, Master!" the crowd responded in unison.
In the corner, He Qiu stared at Yan Kesh with a new understanding. His master was no longer merely a cunning man.
He was the founder of a heretical sect that had just been born.
And the most terrifying part…
Yan Kesh had not lifted a single finger to kill.