Seeking good fortune and avoiding misfortune: Starting with death row inmates

On the third day after the shop was taken away, my father still hadn't received the promised five thousand coins. He felt that waiting was not a solution, so he and my brother went to the Zhao family mansion to demand them.

They arrived at dawn, but around 1-3 PM, two servants from the Zhao household came to my house carrying and dragging two straw mats. Wrapped inside the straw mats were the corpses of my father and brother.

My father and brother were beaten to death by the Zhao family. They went to that old dog Zhao to collect a debt, but he refused to come out and made all sorts of excuses, just not wanting to pay.

In a fit of rage, my brother scaled the wall and forced his way into the Zhao residence, wanting to confront that old dog. On the way, he was hit on the head by the gatekeeper with a stick, fell off the wall, and lay motionless on the ground.

When my father saw that my brother was not moving, he was eager to fight them to the death. He was pushed by the people from the Zhao family, and the back of his head hit the bluestone steps. He died on the spot.

The county magistrate delivered his verdict at noon. My father and brother were at fault first, so the guard was fined two thousand coins, and my family had to pay for the funeral expenses ourselves. That bald magistrate was a real beast.

When the bodies were brought to my house, my mother was still making leather boots. When the straw mat was spread out, she fainted the moment she saw my father's and brother's bodies, and the leather boots in her hands fell to the ground.

The doctor next door came over, took her pulse, and shook his head, saying that she was beyond saving.

In one day, I was the only one left in my family of four.

I sat on the bench, staring blankly at the three corpses in my house, wondering whose fault this situation was.

I was wrong for being as stupid as a pig, but the corrupt county magistrate and that old dog Zhao were even more wrong.

I quickly realized that some people in this world are just beasts in human skin, and you can't treat these beasts as human beings.

I will expose those beasts to their true colors.

I went to the stove to sharpen the small knife my father used for peeling skins. After sharpening it, I put the knife in my pocket and headed straight for the Zhao residence.

The guards at the entrance of the Zhao residence were still chatting and laughing, turning what happened between my father and brother during the day into jokes, laughing out loud every now and then, saying that my father and brother were two idiots.

Under the cover of darkness, I swiftly and decisively plunged the knife into their arms, one stab each.

Honestly, that was my first time killing someone, but I felt incredibly satisfied. My hands were trembling with excitement, and I felt a surge of energy flowing through my body, from my stomach all the way to my bone marrow, a tingling, numbing sensation that felt wonderfully comfortable.

Heaven has eyes; when I needed power the most, it allowed me to break through the bottleneck and go straight from the Internal Organs Realm to the True Qi Realm.

The guards from the Zhao family spotted me and surrounded me, but none of them could withstand my blade. With one slash, their swords shattered into pieces like ceramic pieces on the ground.

I killed more than a dozen of the Zhao family's guards by myself. But killing them wasn't enough; I also skinned them to see if there were any beastly faces underneath. Unfortunately, the corpses were all covered in blood, so I couldn't see anything.

I fought my way through the crowd until I reached Miss Zhao's room. When she saw me covered in blood, her face turned as white as a corpse. She kept apologizing to me, saying it was all her father's idea, that she had always liked me, and that she genuinely wanted to elope with me that night.

I said, even if what you said is considered a lie, it's ridiculously false. You might as well take it as your last words.

Then I chopped her head off with one stroke and ripped off her face. Damn it, look closely, this woman is ugly as hell. How did I end up bewitched by her?

I found the lady of the Zhao family again. She was an old woman dressed in gold and silver. At first, she yelled at me, but then I threw her daughter's head at her face. She shrank back like a quail and even peed her pants in fright.

She begged me not to kill her. I asked her where her husband was, and she said he was drinking with the magistrate at a restaurant. I was delighted, as both of my enemies were now together. So I gave that old quail a quick death, without even skinning her alive. I ran straight to the restaurant, running faster and faster, like I was flying, and in no time I reached the bottom of the restaurant.

The restaurant guards tried to stop me, but by then I was in a bloodthirsty frenzy. Anyone who tried to stop me would die. I chopped off his head with one stroke, and blood sprayed onto the ceiling. Everyone on the first floor ran away in a panic.

I grabbed the old shopkeeper who was slumped on the ground and asked him which floor Zhao Yuanwai and the magistrate were on. He said they were in a private room on the third floor. I said, "Take me there. Every wrong has its perpetrator, and every debt has its debtor. If you lead the way obediently, I won't kill you."

The old shopkeeper took me there. On the way, we met some maids who were serving food and he kindly told them not to make any noise. Two of them didn't make any noise, but one of them was so scared when she saw me that she started screaming. I didn't think much of it at the time. She was going to ruin my plans, so I sent her to meet the King of Hell.

The old shopkeeper sighed as he led me into the private room of those two beasts.

The guy surnamed Zhao and that bald monk were drinking and eating when they saw me covered in blood, and they were so frightened that they dropped their chopsticks.

With a single stroke, I beheaded the two guards beside me. Seeing my swift swordsmanship, they immediately became obedient.

That bald-headed magistrate kept urging me to calm down, saying that I had entered the True Qi Realm at the age of seventeen, and that I would definitely win the county's martial arts exam this year and become the martial arts champion next year. He could recommend me for a government position.

The man surnamed Zhao also said he wanted to return the shop to my family, that it was all a misunderstanding, and that if I liked his daughter, she could marry me right away.

I said okay. My request is very simple: my father, my mother, and my brother all died today. If you can bring them back to life, I will let you go.

Upon hearing this, the two beasts just kept crying, saying they never expected things to turn out this way, that they had been blinded by greed, and begged me to let them go.

I'm baffled. You said you could talk about anything, but now that I want my family to come back, you're not happy about it. Aren't you two-faced animals?

I didn't kill them immediately. I first kicked the guy surnamed Zhao until he was crippled, then I picked up my dad's skinning knife and peeled off his skin piece by piece. The guy surnamed Zhao screamed in pain, and after a while, he stopped breathing.

The bald-headed magistrate next to me was terrified. I didn't miss him either. After killing so many people, my skinning skills have improved.

I stripped him naked, started cutting from his buttocks all the way to the top of his head, and then with a rip of my hands, I peeled off a smooth, bare human skin.

After that night, he gained a new nickname in the martial arts world: the Skinner.

Actually, I've lost all interest in living. I'd love to go down to the underworld to be with my parents and brother sooner. But one time when I went back to the county to pay respects to my relatives, I found that the people there were living much better lives. The county magistrate who came this time was an honest official.

The people all say that he dared not be corrupt because he heard that the former county magistrate had been skinned alive for embezzlement.

I felt that I might still be of some use in my life, so I changed my name to Qinpi, following the name "Peeling Knife".

"丕" may be a good character, but I am not worthy of it.