A master of both medicine and martial arts, he picked up a beautiful CEO as his wife.

Number fourteen is located on the southeast coast, in a town called Shapu. In the sequence of numbers, this is the sixth place to move.

The first five places went smoothly: two were empty, three were still buried, and after the excavation and distribution, everything remained the same.

Shapu is different. They arrived at 11 p.m.

The well was buried beneath an old salt field. The salt field had been abandoned for over twenty years, and the ridges were overgrown with grass, leaving a hole with every step.

Shen Yu walked ahead, stopping after about ten steps.

"There's someone there."

In the middle of that salt field ahead, a light was on.

It wasn't a flashlight, but a circle of small lights—placed on the ground, arranged in a circle, their warm yellow light swaying in the sea breeze.

Seven or eight people stood in the circle of lights, surrounding a newly dug pit. Two people knelt beside the pit, each holding a bowl.

The water is moving.

It wasn't the kind of movement caused by the wind. The water swirled in the bowl on its own, round and round.

Ye Feng stopped. "What kind of approach is that?"

"I don't know him," Cheng Jiuyuan said.

"You don't even know Zhiwei Pavilion?"

"I've gone through every single book in the archives over the past six months," Cheng Jiuyuan said, his voice lowering. "I haven't seen this one even once."

Shen Yu's hand was already on the knife. "Brother Feng, that well—"

"They're moving it."

"Are they leaving?"

"have no idea."

Ye Feng took two steps forward. The people in the circle of lights also noticed them.

A woman stood up first. She turned around and saw a group of people walking out of the darkness—more than a dozen, carrying weapons, the one in front of them with his sleeves rolled up.

Her gaze fell on Ye Feng's left hand.

For the past two weeks, he'd been carrying that well on his back, and the black patch on his palm had grown all the way up to his wrist. It wasn't very clear at night, but the woman saw it.

She also saw something else.

When Ye Feng walks, his left hand will unconsciously twitch – it's a habit he's developed over the past six months; whenever he has a thought, that wisp of something will circle around his fingertip.

The woman's face changed. "The well-diggers!"

Later, both sides reviewed the events of that night.

What was seen from the Jade Balance Gate was: a person shrouded in deathly aura, leading a dozen or so men to a deep well in the dead of night. For two thousand years, only one type of person would do such a thing.

What Ye Feng saw was a group of people of unknown origin surrounding a well, pouring something into it.

The first to make a move wasn't either of their leaders. It was a young woman in her early twenties from the outermost circle of the Jade Balance Sect, and a new disciple from Nirvana Mountain.

The girl's hand trembled, and the bowl of water spilled out. The water didn't hit the ground.

It dispersed into a mist in mid-air, pressed down on the ground and walked to the new disciple, then suddenly rolled upwards.

The new disciple's sword struck the fog but didn't hit anything.

The fog enveloped his wrists and forearms, and it felt heavy as soon as it touched them—he later said it felt like someone was hanging two buckets of water on his arms.

The knife missed its mark, and the man stumbled forward. Shen Yu pulled him back.

"stop!"

"Stop it, all of you!"

Nobody can hear you.

That night, Ye Feng experienced frustration for the first time.

The essence of his skill lies in the word "guidance": avoid direct confrontation, redirect or deflect the opponent's force, and then use one hand to lock their joints.

This method didn't work tonight. As soon as he tried to guide it, the water dispersed.

It disperses into mist, into foam, into a layer of dampness that clings to the skin. It draws you in, not repels you, provided that the thing has some force.

Water has no power.

It just kept pressing down.

Ye Feng moved three steps to the side, trying to get behind the two people holding bowls. Wu followed him, and on the fourth step, his breathing became heavy.

"Brother Feng!" Shen Yu called out through the fog, "I can't see him!"

Ye Feng raised his left hand. The wisp of something emerged from under his palm and solidified into a thread.

The water in the fog receded an inch when it touched it. Only an inch.

Ye Feng pushed the wire forward to the thickest part of the fog, then split it to the sides—opening a crack in the fog.

He rushed out through the crack. The instant he did, he knew he was in debt.

He'd gotten used to that feeling over the past two weeks. Each time he used that thing, a piece of his body would feel empty; that piece wouldn't grow back on its own, it had to be replenished from elsewhere.

Where to make up for it? He didn't know. This expense weighed on him for seven days. During those seven days, he would fall asleep as soon as he lay down, but he would still feel exhausted when he woke up.

—During those seven days, Lin Yuqing in Dongyang was also exhausted. She was distracted in meetings for seven consecutive days and couldn't stay awake past eight o'clock in the evening. She attributed it to staying up late during that period and didn't think of anything else.

Neither of them had agreed to settle those two scores at the time. After breaking through the fog, there were three moves.

His first move was to grab the wrist of the girl who was splashing water, but he grabbed the joint, not her pulse point.

The second tactic is to dodge. If someone pokes at him from the side with a short stick, he sidesteps and twists the person's elbow inward.

His third move was to knock over the two bowls. As soon as the bowls were overturned, most of the fog dissipated.

It was in these three moves that he realized one thing: none of these people's moves were aimed at vital points.

The short stick pierced the ribs, not the heart. The mist enveloped the hands and feet, not the throat. The girl splashed water on the ground beneath her feet—she wanted to trip people, not hurt them.

At the same moment, people at Yuheng Gate also saw the same thing clearly.

This man, shrouded in an aura of death, struck three times, targeting only his joints. He didn't hit the head once, nor did he pierce the heart.

"stop."

It was a woman's voice, not loud, but everyone in the entire salt field stopped. A person stood up from the other side of the light circle.

She was in her forties, of medium height, wearing a coarse indigo cloth outfit, her hair pulled back. She wasn't carrying any weapons; her hands were empty.

She took a few steps forward and stopped where the fog had lifted. She stared at Ye Feng for a long time.

They were looking at his left hand. "Where did that thing on you come from?" an older woman next to her asked on her behalf.

"Luoxia County"

"Where is the sunset?"

"Southwest, a county."

"Where did you start?"

"right."

Why are you picking it up?

"There's a well buried down there," Ye Feng said. "Of the county's 30,000 people, more than 2,000 are sick."

"I'm up, they'll be alright."

The older woman was stunned.

She turned to look at the sect leader. The woman's face paled under the light, and she raised her hand, pointing to the newly dug pit.

"...Did you also come here for that bite?"

"I'm here to get up."

"What are you going to do after you get up?"

"Distribute it."

"Who should receive it?"

"It will be distributed to 107 people," Ye Feng said. "They already had it on them."

The salt flats were quiet for a long time. Only the sea breeze could be heard.

The woman in the indigo dress took two steps forward, stopping three feet away from Ye Feng.

She stretched out her hand, fingers spread, palm down, and stopped half an inch above Ye Feng's left hand.

They paused for three breaths.

Then she withdrew her hand, turned around, and took something from the person next to her—a small board, about the size of a palm, black, with a white pen.

She looked down and wrote five characters on the board. Then she held it up.

Ye Feng saw it. "Which company are you from?"

"Nirvana Mountain."

The board wobbled in her hand. She froze.

That stunned look wasn't feigned. She stood there frozen, her eyes wide open, and after a long while, she lowered her head and wrote the second line on the board.

She wrote very quickly, the strokes connected together. When she held it up, the five characters looked crooked and distorted under the light.

"Wasn't Nirvana Mountain extinct two thousand years ago?"