"Only one New Life..." Fu Entao took the blow like a fist to the chest. He'd had his Second New Life for years. Years of accumulation, refinement, and growth — broken by a boy who'd barely begun.
He gripped his blade with one hand and tore the iron spear from his thigh with the other. Blood followed in a rush. His legs buckled, then steadied.
Shao Chengfeng was worse. One arm gone, a spear through his gut pinning him to the dirt. He reached for the shaft with his remaining hand, saw Qin Ming's head turn, and let go.
"The whole patrol," he whispered. "Wiped out by one man." He knew there would be no mercy.
"He's only had one New Life. How is he this strong?" Feng Yi'an spat blood and laughed — the broken sound of a man who understood he'd bet everything and lost.
Qin Ming spoke. "Tell me something interesting."
"Dream on." Fu Entao's voice was hard. He knew no plea would save him.
The other two said nothing. Wolves in life, they'd beg if it worked — but it wouldn't, and they knew it.
"Tell me about the Blood Bamboo Grove." Qin Ming walked toward Shao Chengfeng.
The man stared at the sky. Empty eyes. He was already replaying his life — because this one was ending.
"No answer?" Qin Ming didn't waste breath. The chopping knife fell. Head from body.
Shao Chengfeng's eyes stayed wide. He hadn't expected it so fast — so clinical.
Qin Ming had come here to solve a problem, not to torture. If they wouldn't talk, they'd die. He watched the other two for cracks.
Fu Entao's face twitched. But his eyes went harder, not softer. He gripped his blade and shifted his feet. He was going to attack again.
A Second New Lifer who'd ruled this territory for years didn't fear death. He'd been forged in mountain blood.
Feng Yi'an lay pinned, unable to rise. He trembled once, then went still.
The blizzard surged. Fu Entao charged — a beast in human skin, every ounce of strength behind his last, sharpest strike.
Steel sang. They clashed. Fu Entao came away gasping, arms shaking, emptied of everything. And the boy still stood like nothing had happened.
Another exchange. The chopping knife took Fu Entao's right arm. The long blade clattered to the snow.
Pale, staggering, the captain fell to one knee. His curly hair hung wet against his face. Blood had soaked half his body and painted the snow below.
"Anything to say?" Qin Ming asked.
"Use my own blade. Make it quick."
Qin Ming lifted the chopping knife. "Why would I grant you that?"
"You want to humiliate me?" Fu Entao tried to rise.
"You don't rate it." Qin Ming stepped past. The blade drew a line across Fu Entao's neck. The head rolled. The body folded.
Feng Yi'an lay pale on the frozen ground, still trying to pull himself off the spear. He couldn't. Qin Ming was already standing over him, one foot on his head.
"Anything to say?"
Feng Yi'an's fist clenched. Then opened. "You're looking for spiritual creatures? I won't tell you anything."
Qin Ming pressed. The skull cracked — a hairline fracture that sent agony through every nerve. Feng Yi'an's face twisted.
The knife fell. Feng Yi'an's head joined the others.
As for the Blood Bamboo Grove — Old Liu would know. In his youth, the old man had roamed the deep mountains with the old patrol captain. He'd know where every fire spring sat.
---
The mountain fell silent. Wind and nothing else.
Qin Ming stood still. "I've killed this many people. And my hands didn't shake."
He thought about it. He hadn't hesitated because he didn't see them as people. He saw them as mountain pests — dangers to the village. Vermin.
He started cleaning up.
The bodies went down the mountain. The forest would handle the rest. Predators, scavengers — nothing would remain. Not even bone.
Old habits drove him. He searched the dead. In the fire spring's glow, his fingers found coins — Night Silver. Round, with a hole in the center. The missing sun. These traded far better than copper at the town market.
Then something better. Day Gold.
Golden, whole, unholed — shaped like the sun that had vanished. People carried it as a wish. The patrol had eleven pieces between them. A fortune for common folk.
Qin Ming had found Day Gold before. Before his sickness, he'd discovered corpses near a fissure in the earth. Day Gold — and a crystal vial of mineral essence, small and precious.
He'd never spent the gold. Too conspicuous in Silver Elm Town. He'd never used the essence, either. His body had healed on its own, New Life arriving without catalyst. And he didn't know enough about mineral essence to waste it blindly.
More pressing: the storm about to break. Best to stay quiet. A single New Lifer couldn't fight a patrol — that was his story. Let it settle. Then, if he had his Second New Life, no one would question it.
He kept searching.
"Fine armor. Tempered blades. All good." He turned the equipment over in his hands. He'd bury it in pieces across the forest — dig it up when he needed it for the Blood Bamboo Grove.
He was thorough. Stripped every body. Even searched the Golden Mastiff. Lifted it, considered cutting a haunch for a copper-pot stew.
He'd been in the mountains since midnight. Ambush, battle, cleanup — his body was running on fumes. Hunger gnawed.
He sighed and dropped the hound. Can't linger. Clean the field and go.
In one cabin he found comfort: thick beast-skin rugs, silver tableware, a fine carving knife. Jars of wine that smelled better than anything in Xu Yueping's depleted cellar.
Little of real value — until he searched the collapsed cabin. There, beneath rubble, a blade manual. Old. Leather pages, worn and curled at the edges.
Heavily annotated. Multiple hands. Dense notes in faded ink. The pages carried the weight of years.
He recognized Fu Entao's techniques inside. But the manual went further — into Heaven Light, and deeper still.
He shut it. Pocketed it. This was worth more than all the Day Gold combined.
He finished his sweep. Golden ripples pulsed across his skin. His fists and feet shattered the remaining cabins. Wind caught the debris, mixing it with falling snow, scattering it down the slope. The scene would look like storm damage.
"Pity about the chopping knife." He examined the edge — chipped in a dozen places. Good iron, but not patrol-grade.
He found a whetstone and went to work. Ground the chips flat, re-honed the edge. The blade came out narrower than before, but sharp.
He carried the bodies down and dumped them in the deep timber. Watched shapes move in the dark — predators dragging the corpses away. When he checked the four men he'd killed on the trail, not even bone fragments remained.
He pried open his cache, stripped off the bloody rags and armor, and dressed in clean clothes. What could burn, he burned. What couldn't, he buried — including the Day Gold and the blade manual, sealed in the mountainside.
Then he vanished into the trees.
---
He returned to the village dragging a wild ass. Nobody looked twice. The mild-mannered boy who brought home game was the same boy who'd butchered seven men hours before.
He boiled water — a rare luxury — and scrubbed himself clean. Steam rose off his lean frame. He washed carefully, erasing every trace of blood and iron.
That evening, he appeared at Lu Ze's door.
"Uncle, what meat is this?" Wen Rui pressed close, eyes wide.
Qin Ming held up the cut. "Good eating. They say dragon meat in the sky, donkey meat on the ground. Your uncle bagged a wild ass today."
He'd been thinking about copper-pot dog since the mastiff. The ass would have to do.
Laughter and warmth filled the small house.
"Uncle, donkey is delicious!"
At the steaming copper pot, Lu Ze — still nursing wounds — spoke up. "Little Qin, you've built a Golden Foundation. You should be thinking about your Second New Life."
Qin Ming nodded. "Don't worry, Brother Lu. I know what I'm doing."
After the meal, he went home and turned the problem over. How to ask Old Liu about the Blood Bamboo Grove without raising suspicion.
If he could advance to Second New Life early, he wouldn't wait. He wanted to walk into that grove as soon as possible.