Starting as dockworkers, they swept through Chongqing.

"What did you find out?"

Lund was silent for a moment, then suddenly smiled.

"It turns out my dad might not be a good-for-nothing."

The room fell silent.

The wind blew through the bare branches outside the window, the branches scraping against the glass and making a small, grating sound.

Lund reached for the bottle, shook it, found it was empty, cursed again, and tossed it aside.

"Twenty-three years ago, a group of people from the Compassionate Doctors Association died on the east coast. There were no guns, no explosives, no large-scale extraordinary fluctuations, only gunshot wounds."

He raised his right hand, indicating an extremely narrow distance.

"It's deep and fine, like starlight passing through a person's body."

Xilun did not speak.

Red star.

The answer lay between the two of them, yet neither of them immediately voiced it.

Lund looked at the long spear by the wall.

"When I was a child, I always thought he was a coward. When others collected more taxes, he would smile obsequiously. When thugs robbed him, he would bow his head. When neighbors pointed at him and cursed him, he would say it was alright. Later, when I started practicing shooting, he taught me how to hold a gun, but he always scolded me for shooting too hard."

He twitched the corner of his mouth.

"I didn't understand back then. I thought that if someone had ability but didn't dare to use it, they were weak. So I insisted on winning, insisted on letting everyone see it, and insisted on stabbing someone in the face with my gun."

Xilun looked at Lund's left arm.

That arm injury was left untreated for too long; even if it recovers somewhat, it will never be able to return to its peak condition.

"You won in the end."

"yes."

Lund's smile grew even colder.

"I won so much that underground boxing rings feared me, the shooting community hated me, nobles wanted to buy me, and the military wanted to use me. In the end, I also won so much that I almost lost this arm."

He looked down at the old blanket on his left arm.

"Now I realize it's not that he's afraid to act. He's acted before and knows what the consequences will be."

Xilun reached out and picked up the copper plate.

The copper sheet was cool to the touch, and the lines on the closed-eyed crow were shallow, yet seemed to be etched into a deeper place.

Why is the Black Death cult chasing him?

"Blood."

Lund uttered a single word.

"They have stable bloodline vitality and high tolerance to pollution. They can remain conscious even when exposed to the lingering remnants of evil gods. They are called benign bearers."

Xilun's fingertips paused slightly.

Old St. Mary's Bell Tower.

The doctor in the black robe.

Ailing father.

Mother nest.

Lesion, load-bearing, material.

Those words, like a string of cold, hard nails, rearranged into lines in my mind.

"They also included me in the evaluation."

Lund pulled another piece of paper from under the table and pushed it to Siron.

Xilun looked down.

The handwriting on the paper was messy, but clear enough.

The target is Xilun, suspected to be a bearer of the remnants of an evil god's consciousness, with abnormal life force and the ability to suppress corruption. Beside him is a third-tier spearman, with an old wound on his left arm, suspected to be a former member with weakened health.

After reading it, Xilun put the paper back on the table.

"Where did this come from?"

"Iron-Blooded Society".

Is it believable?

"They love money, but they don't like telling unnecessary lies."

Lund rubbed his temples.

"The Third Charity Hospital is more sophisticated than we thought. Noble donations, the Pharmacists' Association, and the Southern District Police Department all have their hands in there. It wasn't a coincidence that you heard the Sleeper's Spinal Fluid at the Tusol house last night."

"I know."

Xilun said, "So I plan to attack the outer strongholds first."

Lund looked up.

"Which one?"

"The investigation is still ongoing. The cooperative pharmacy, the body transport point, the old underground sewer maintenance station, and the South District pharmaceutical warehouse are all possibilities."

Lund stared at him.

"You are deficient in cerebrospinal fluid from a sleeper."

"Yes."

"You want evidence of their collusion with Tusol?"

"Yes."

Lund suddenly smiled.

"You're starting to sound more and more like those old aristocrats."

Xilun's expression remained unchanged.

That means I haven't learned enough.

Lund picked up a short wooden stick from the side of the table and smashed it down.

Xilun turned his head to avoid it.

The wooden stick flew past my ear, hit the door panel, and landed with a thud.

"Stop talking nonsense and go to the backyard."

Lund stood up and picked up his spear.

"If you want to fight the Black Death, let me see if you've trained yourself properly these past few months."

It's even colder in the backyard.

The thin layer of snow on the ground was trampled into mud, and the training posts were covered with dense gunshot marks.

The waterfall in the distance was half-frozen, and the water rushed down from the ice cracks with a muffled roar, like a giant beast breathing inside a rock.

Xiren took off his coat, leaving only a thin shirt, and stood at attention with his gun.

The chill penetrated the skin and was quickly drawn into the bone marrow by the Xuan Yin breathing technique.

A chilling aura circulated within his body, while the Great Thunderclap reverberated deep within his muscles, and his Water-Dividing Talent rippled slightly with the mist from the distant waterfall.

Lund squinted.

"Come."

No sooner had he finished speaking than Xilun stepped forward and thrust.

The spear tip cut through the wind, and the chill condensed into an extremely thin line.

Lund raised his spear.

clang!

The two guns collided.

Xilun's arm trembled slightly, then he exerted force from his waist and back, pressing down and then lifting the gun, the force flowing like a tide from his heels to his fingertips.

Lund took a half step back.

Just half a step.

His left arm barely exerted any force, but his right hand was terrifyingly steady. The spear seemed alive in his palm; with a slight turn, it slid in along the shaft of the Xilun spear, aiming straight for his throat.

Xilun shifted his body and swept the back of his gun.

boom!

The butt of the gun struck Lund half an inch in front of his shoulder, but he deflected it with a flick of his wrist.

"slow."

Lund snapped, "Your brain's too fast, your hands can't keep up. Don't try to do three things at once. When it comes to real life-or-death situations, survival isn't about being smart, it's about how ruthless you are!"

Xilun did not refute.

He took a deep breath, his feet breaking through the thin ice, and fired the second shot even faster.

A chilling breath pressed into the tip of the spear.

The great thunderous sound reverberated within him, trembling with each heartbeat.

A dark red light shone from the tip of the spear.

Red star.

Lund's eyes suddenly sharpened.

Instead of backing down, he stepped forward to meet him.

In the instant the two shots clashed, Xilun felt a tremendous force graz the gun barrel, and the dark red light he had conjured was forcibly deflected, piercing the iron stake beside him.

laugh!

A small, dark hole appeared in the center of the iron stake.

White smoke rose.

Xilun's chest heaved, and his arms felt a little numb.

Lund stared at the iron stake and remained silent for two breaths.

"Can kill a regular second-tier character."

He said.

"Not stable enough when encountering a second-tier extreme realm."

Xilun put away his gun.

"So you still need to practice."

"Good to know."

Lund slammed the gun on the ground and coughed softly.

He coughed a few times and wiped the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand.

There was no blood.

Xilun saw it all, but didn't say anything.

When the two returned to the house, it was already dark.

An oil lamp was lit in the room, its dim light illuminating the papers scattered on the table. Lund spread out a map of the South District and pointed to the southeast of the Third Charity Hospital with his filthy finger.

"This is the old noose street."

Xilun looked over.

It was an old street near the drainage station. Twenty years ago, there was an execution ground there, but it was later abandoned and turned into a cheap warehouse and a medicine storage point.

"Given by the Ironblood Society?"

"half."

Lund said, "The other half is what I found out myself: the Black Death cult distributes medicine in the South District and needs a lot of cheap auxiliary materials, corpses, patients, and clean containers. The hospital itself is too conspicuous; the real dirty stuff will come from the outside."

His fingertips landed at the end of the old noose street.

"There's a leather warehouse here that was destroyed by fire. For the past three months, horse-drawn carriages have been going in at night. The axles are heavy when they go in, and light when they come out. Once, what dripped from the carriage wasn't blood, but black water."

Xilun's gaze sharpened.

"Have you been there?"

Lund did not answer.

Xilun's voice deepened.

"teacher."

Lund looked up at him.

Those eyes were calm.

It was as calm as a frozen lake.

"Don't worry, I won't do anything foolish."

Xilun did not speak immediately.

The wind outside whistled through the cracks in the wall, causing the oil lamp flame to tilt slightly. The copper plate on the table dimmed under the lamplight, and the closed-eyed crow seemed as if it would never open its eyes.

Lund slowly leaned back in his chair.

"I know what you're worried about. The Black Death cult might be related to my father's death, they might have experimented on people with my bloodline, or they might already be targeting me. So you're afraid I'll storm into the hospital with a gun and end up killing myself."

He scoffed.

"Maybe I would when I was younger."

Xilun looked at him.

Lund whispered, "But not now."

This statement was made very casually.

Ke Xilun could hear the weariness in his voice.

There is also a kind of restraint that comes from the wear and tear of time.

"My father hid it his whole life, not so that I would give my life to those things. I hate them, but I'm not stupid enough to use hatred as a weapon."

Lund paused for a moment.

"But let me know when you're about to take action."

"teacher."

"If I have time, I might attend."

Lund placed the spear beside his knees, his tone hardening again.

"To avoid you dying a horrible death."

Xilun paused for a moment, then nodded.

"it is good."

The days that followed were quiet.

At least on the surface.

Under the Brotherhood's control, the North District continued to expand. Rhodes dismantled, screened, and reorganized the newly acquired gangs. Patrols began to wear uniform dark gray coats, and muskets were locked in three different warehouses, only to be distributed before operations.

Kusso trained his gunmen every day, scolding them from dawn till dusk.

Rena disappeared on the edge of the southern district.

She avoided the Third Charity Hospital, focusing instead on the pharmacy, the hearse, the coal trucks, the drainage workers, and the white-aproned apprentices coming and going at night.

The intelligence was cut into pieces and sent back to the mansion. Each piece was inconspicuous, but when piled on Xilun's table, they gradually pieced together a vague outline.

Old ropeway leather warehouse.

Every seven to ten days, a black-covered horse-drawn carriage would enter.

The coachmen changed three times.

The guards were not fixed, but their shoes were often covered with white disinfectant lime.

The number of homeless people near the warehouse has decreased.

Occasionally, a rotten, sweet smell emanates from the drainage ditch.

On two separate occasions, the pharmacy's dispensing point received extra black stamped slips of paper, the numbers at the end of which matched the warehouse entry and exit dates.

Xilun did not move.

He cultivated during the day and reviewed intelligence at night.

The chill of the Profound Yin Breathing Technique deepened, no longer just seeping into the bone marrow, but like fine ice crystals forming in the blood. The Great Thunder Sound Breathing Technique made his muscles stronger with each internal shock, and the resilience of his Bone Forging Iron Armor continued to improve.

His talent for water diversion gradually evolved from crude diversion to more delicate traction as he repeatedly manipulated water tanks, rainwater, mist, and underground channels.

The snow melted twice during the winter.

It failed again.

Months later, the fog in Victoria was damp with the scent of spring.

The autumn hunt is still far off, but it's already like a pre-loaded bullet, held close to everyone's heart.

Until one evening, Rena returned to the mansion herself.

She wore a tattered cloak and her face was smeared with ash, like any poor woman you'd see in the South District. But when she entered the study, her eyes were bright and showed no sign of fatigue.

"Young master, the old noose street has moved."

Xilun raised his head from in front of the basin.

The water in the basin split into seven, then silently closed up again.

"explain."

"Tonight, a black-covered carriage came out of the back gate of the Third Charity Hospital, but instead of taking the usual route, it went around to Old Ropeway."

Half an hour later, two more people entered the warehouse carrying boxes. One of them wore a short gray cloak, had an old injury on his left leg, and wore a bronze badge from the Apothecary Guild at his waist.

Rena placed a rough hand-drawn sketch on the table.

"After they went inside, four more guards appeared outside the warehouse. They weren't ordinary believers; their steps were steady, indicating they were at least at the first rank."

There was still one person inside who hadn't shown themselves, but I heard a metallic scraping sound coming from the back wall of the warehouse, like a very heavy box being dragged out.

Rod immediately asked, "Are they out yet?"

"not yet."

Rena said, "But the horses have been changed and the axles have been oiled, so we should set off in the latter half of the night."

Xilun looked down at the picture.

Old Gallows Street, leather warehouse, drainage ditch, abandoned execution ground, coal shed, three paths leading to the depths of the South District.

"direction?"

"It's not immediately obvious. But they're clearing the snow from the east gate, and the horses' heads are facing east."

East.

It is not the Third Charity Hospital.

Instead, it leads to the outer perimeter of the old armory controlled by the Tussor family.

The study was quiet for a moment.

Rhodes's expression slowly changed.

"Young master, this might be a key item for transferring your fortune."

"It could also be bait."

Siren picked up a pencil and drew three ambush points on the east side of Old Gallows Street.

"But anything that can suddenly change their fortunes after months of stagnation is worth taking a look at."

He put down his pencil and stood up.

"Notify Kusso to select people."

Rena nodded.

"Should we inform Mr. Lund?"

Xilun remained silent for half a breath.

Then he said, "Deliver the message."

"Write what?"

Xiren picked up the black coat hanging on the wall.

"Tonight, Old Gallows Street."

At 11 p.m., there were no lights on Old Ropeway.

Too many people were hanged here in the past, and the cracks in the stone slabs seem to still seep with the stench of old blood. The wooden frame of the abandoned execution ground has long been dismantled, leaving only two black broken pillars standing in the weeds, like charred bones.

The warehouses on both sides of the street were low and dilapidated, with wooden planks nailed to the windows and ice water hanging from the eaves. When the wind blew, water droplets fell to the ground with a sparse sound.

Siren lay in the shadows behind the coal shed.

He wore a dark short coat, gloves covering his knuckles, and a large golden spear wrapped in cloth and slung over his back.

A short gun was on his left side, the Soul-Suppressing Nail was hidden in his sleeve, and a thin blade was pressed against his calf inside his boot.

Kusso was to his right rear, with eight gunmen spread out on both sides.

No one spoke.

The muzzle was covered with black cloth to prevent glare. The purifying powder was packed into a small paper packet and hung on the waist.

Everyone had a cloth soaked in medicine tied around their neck, and they were breathing very quietly.

Further away, Reina and her men guarded the retreat route.

Xilun closed his eyes.

The sound of underground water flowing gradually became clearer.

Old Ropeway was low-lying, with a network of drains and abandoned culverts, where sewage flowed slowly beneath the stone slabs. Rotting leather, coal ash, medicinal residue, and blood mingled together, creating a nauseating stench.

But among these murky sounds, there was an unusual ticking sound.

Viscous.

heavy.

It looked like black liquid slowly dripping from the edge of the container.

"They're here."

Xilun opened his eyes.

A moment later, the east door of the leather warehouse opened from the inside.

The first to emerge were two lantern bearers.

They wore long gray coats, white face masks, and boots with thick layers of lime powder on the soles.

When the light shone on the ground, the snowmelt reflected a dark yellow hue.

The two looked around and, finding nothing amiss, gestured behind them.

The black-covered carriage slowly drove out.

The horseshoes were wrapped in cloth, and the axles were oiled, making a very quiet sound. The carriage was narrower and heavier than a regular freight car, and the wheels left deep wet tracks as they rolled over the stone slabs.

Four guards followed beside the car.

Their steps were synchronized, and their hands were hidden under their cloaks.

Finally, a man in a short gray cloak emerged.

He did indeed have an old injury in his left leg, and his center of gravity shifted slightly when he walked.

The bronze plaque at his waist was mostly hidden by the hem of his robe, with only the small emblem of the Pharmacist Association occasionally peeking out.