Stranger Danger

A seductive, feminine voice spoke up next. The woman was over thirty years old and quite beautiful. She wore a nun’s robe and a hat and wielded a horsetail whisk.

Her voluptuous curves were peeking through her robe even though it was quite big and loose. In fact, she was obviously behaving in an erotic and seductive manner.

She wasn’t defending Ye Qing either. It sounded like she was trying to placate the monk, but in reality she was implying that Ye Qing was the boss’ pet; someone who could only cry to Gu Suitang whenever he encountered a problem.

Xu Banren immediately glared at the duo. “You dare disrespect Lord Ye, Ugly Monk, Amorous Nun?”

Ugly Monk? Amorous Nun? Ye Qing thought to himself. He had noticed the duo since the beginning, but he didn’t recognize them. It wasn’t until Xu Banren addressed them by their monikers that a memory came to mind.

Ugly Monk and Amorous Nun were two of the six Lieutenants serving under the Inspection Department. They were both middle-stage Astral Refiners, and the strongest warriors in the department.

According to the records, Ugly Monk was originally a disciple of a major sect in Northern Xinjiang, the Yamāntaka Temple. However, due to his hot-tempered nature and violent nature, he broke a commandment and was exiled from the temple. He eventually joined the Pacification Bureau of Luo Shui.

Amorous Monk was rumored to be a disciple of one of the thirty six unorthodox sects, the Temptation Nunnery. The Temptation Nunnery was an infamous sect well known for their art of harvesting cultivation through sex until one day, one of their elders made the mistake of harvesting a disciple of “Sword From The West” Song Xilai to the point where their cultivation and internal energies was utterly ruined.

Song Xilai hailed from a sect called the “Purity Sword”, one of the Five Profound Sects. Naturally, he was beyond furious when he learned of this tragedy. On the same day, he marched up to the nunnery and annihilated them all singlehandedly. Amorous Nun was the only one who managed to slip through his grasp thanks to a combination of luck and weakness [1]. Later, she joined the Pacification Bureau to hide herself from Purity Sword.

Obviously, the Pacification Bureau didn’t just accept anyone into their midst. Although Ugly Monk was a sinner to his sect, and Amorous Nun hailed from an immoral place, they were neither rotten to the core nor committed a sin that was utterly unforgivable from their Pacification Bureau’s point of view. That was why it had accepted them into its fold.

The reason the duo were insulting Ye Qing openly and subtly was probably because he was made the Patrolman of the Luo Shui Pacification Bureau. Both Ugly Monk and Amorous Nun were powerful, experienced warriors who had served the Luo Shui Pacification Bureau faithfully for a long time.

When Xiao Yang was the Patrolman, they couldn’t really complain because he was stronger than them, and he was backed by Sunset Hill and Wang Luori. After he was dead, they thought that one of them would be promoted to the position. Then, out of nowhere, Ye Qing popped up and claimed the position with no experience, no background, and more importantly, no strength[2]. So of course they had a problem with him.

“Hahaha! I don’t think we’ve been away for that long. When did the famous Halfman Xu become someone else’s dog?” Amorous Nun giggled.

Xu Banren’s pupils turned pale white in an instant. “Is that a death wish, Amorous Nun?” He asked before unleashing his Heavenly Yin Corpse Qi and throwing a punch straight at the woman. However, Ugly Monk huffed and got in his way first. He took one step forward and threw his arm like he was swinging an axe or a hammer.

On one side, Xu Banren’s punch looked like it could crush a mountain. On the other, Ugly Monk’s arm throw looked like it could cut a mountain in half. Their limbs hadn’t even met yet, and already their force was pushing everyone away from them.

Well, almost everyone. Ye Qing abruptly appeared between the two men, and he trapped Xu Banren’s fist with his sleeve, and blocked Ugly Monk’s arm with his own.

The clash of forces should have resulted in a loud bang, but strangely, it was like they were fighting inside a vacuum. Both Xu Banren and Ugly Monk froze in place and bugged out at the Patrolman.

Xu Banren felt like his fist force had sunk into a black hole of sorts. Not only was it completely gone, the sleeve had somehow stopped his energies dead in their tracks, preventing him from moving even a muscle.

Xu Banren was surprised by the display of power, but he had borne witness to Ye Qing’s strength time and again. It was nothing compared to Ugly Monk’s shock.

Ugly Monk felt like he was an ordinary human smashing his arm against a stick bar of steel. Not only did his bones hurt, his force was completely pushed back into his body. As a result, his energies were bouncing all over the place, and he was feeling very uncomfortable right now.

He was a monk in the Yamāntaka Temple, and the Yamāntaka Temple was famous for their Yamāntaka dharmakāya [3] and body-tempering arts. Although he was exiled before he was able to cultivate their strongest martial arts, he had still trained his physique since a young age. He possessed literally the second strongest physique in the Pacification Bureau besides Gu Suitang, and not even Gu Suitang’s disciple, Wei Yueshan was a match for him.

But now, not only was he pushed back, Ye Qing looked like he wasn’t fazed in the slightest. How could he not be shocked by this?

Ugly Monk immediately tried to pull back, but Ye Qing grabbed his wrist and pulled him forward before he could react. When he finally mustered his strength to resist, Ye Qing slapped him on the shoulder so hard that his knees buckled a little, his bones cracked audibly, and the force he was gathering abruptly dissipated into nothing. His muscles felt sore, and he was unable to muster his strength at all.

Ye Qing slapped Ugly Monk’s shoulder slowly as he said in an icy voice, “We’re all brothers here. It’s perfectly fine to bicker and even beat each other up when we’re behind closed doors, but I have official business to carry out today, and I’m not in a good mood. You guys best obey me like good little subordinates, understand?”

“Seriously, I don’t care how frustrated or angry you’re feeling, you best hold it all inside until this is all over. Don’t you dare ruin my business and test my patience, understand?”

“As you command, Lord Ye!” Xu Banren saluted Ye Qing as soon as he let go. Ugly Monk grunted, but it was clear that he had gotten the message.

“Good. Now wait for my signal!” Ye Qing turned around and left after that.

Amorous Nun teased Ugly Monk after Ye Qing was gone, “I wasn’t expecting you to be so meek, Ugly Monk. I thought you were a baby for a second there!”

“Hmph! Look at my feet, fool!” Ugly Monk motioned at his legs. When Amorous Nun and the others looked down, they were shocked to find that his feet had completely sunk into the ground. Not only that, the patch of ground ten meters from him had sunk at least a full meter into the earth!

“What the…” Amorous Nun was both stunned and in disbelief. How did she not notice that the ground had turned like this until now?

When Amorous Nun’s eyes met with Ugly Monk’s, the same thought crossed both their minds: It looks like our newly appointed Patrolman is scarier than we thought!

……

“Gold Toad sure knows how to choose a hideout!” Ye Qing let out a soft chuckle as he followed the blue smoke created by the Incense of Fortune into a residence.

“To think she would hide herself in the residence of a bookkeeper of Luo Shui… Cautious she may be, she is anything but cowardly!”

Bookkeeping was anything but glamorous, but it was still an official post, meaning that the bookkeeper was protected by the Will of the Dragon. Most Strangers and evils would naturally avoid it like the plague. Instead, Gold Toad had done the opposite and turned the guy’s place into her hideout. She was both bold and intelligent.

“Now that I think about it, I offended a bookkeeper during the zombie outbreak incident… this can’t possibly be his residence, right?” Ye Qing mused to himself while sneaking into the residence. He followed the Incense of Fortune to a tower-like structure.

“The inner chambers? What’s this, a harem raid?” Ye Qing chuckled at his own silly joke. It made sense though. According to Paper Taoist, Gold Toad was a female Stranger. It made perfect sense that she would hide herself in the inner chambers where the women rarely left the place.

Ye Qing pulsed his spirit and examined the interior of the building closely.

“One, two, three… there are five people inside the building; three humans and two Strangers to be exact.”

There was one mistress and four servants in the room, and they were all women. Judging from their conversation, the mistress—or more accurately, the concubine—was in charge of this building, and her name was Lady Zuo. Lady Zuo herself and the old woman feeding her dinner now were Strangers, while the rest of the servants were humans.

Ye Qing was looking for an opportunity to ambush the two Strangers when suddenly, the old woman suddenly raised her head and looked at the entrance.

“Huh? Her senses are pretty sharp,” Ye Qing exclaimed in surprise before he realized something. His lips curled into a diabolical smirk. “So you’re the real one. You almost fooled me.”

Both Strangers were hatred-class Strangers, and at first he thought that Lady Zuo was Gold Toad. However, the old woman was the one who sensed his spiritual gaze, not Lady Zuo. This meant that the old woman was the stronger between the two.

Strangers usually worshiped the law of the jungle. Under most circumstances, they would never obey someone who was weaker than them. Sure, there were always exceptions, but it was far more likely that Lady Zuo was just a puppet and a smokescreen, and the old woman was the real Gold Toad.

Ye Qing slammed his elbow into the wooden door. Since Gold Toad had already noticed him, there was no need to conceal himself any longer. He preferred getting his revenge the straightforward way anyway.

Boom!

The entire tower shook as the wooden door shattered into bits. The wooden fragments shot toward Lady Zuo and the old woman at incredible speed, but missed the three female attendants completely.

Ye Qing had given neither Stranger any time to react, so they had no choice but to reveal themselves. Lady Zuo abruptly turned into liquid and took no damage from the wooden fragments even though they were powerful enough to pierce through her body and smash the screens behind her.

The old woman simply opened her mouth and sucked all the wooden fragments flying toward her into her stomach.

While the two Strangers were busy defending themselves, Ye Qing had already rushed into the building and swept the three human attendants into his sleeves. Then, he sent them away firmly but harmlessly.

After the three human attendants were gone, Ye Qing walked like a river and reached his peak form in just a few steps. Moving faster than he appeared to be, he slammed into Lady Zuo before she could react and scattered her into a million water droplets. Then, he closed the distance between himself and the old woman and unleashed a devastating punch.

The old woman was caught completely off guard, and Ye Qing’s attack was even swifter and more thunderous than expected. Unable to dodge out of the way in time, she had no choice but to cross her arms in front of her.

Thunk!

Fist met arm, but the noise it generated was that of metal. It was because a sheen of golden light was covering her arms and turning them as hard as metal.

1. Weakness because she was too weak to catch the dude’s attention. ☜

2. Remember that these Lieutenants were away when the stuff happened, so as far as they know an early-stage Astral Refiner had usurped them just because Gu Suitang said so. ☜

3. The dharmakāya is one of the three bodies of a buddha in Mahāyāna Buddhism. ☜