Chapter 29

The bright and righteous path is one paved for geniuses, exhausting to tread;

The useless must find another way, taking some crooked and heretical path.

This isn't cowardice; it's opening a new track, the strategic wisdom of a unicorn.

Thus,

Feng Mu tossed the 【Crane Claw Technique】 manual onto the bed, plopped onto a chair, gripped an Iron Bead in his left hand, and the pad of his right index finger split open as a Bone Finger poked out.

If the finger couldn't hook the Iron Bead, he'd use a Finger Bone to hook it instead.

Fingers are smooth and can't bear force; there's no helping it, human fingers are just such inconvenient things.

Finger Bones are different; they can be shaped at will. Anyway, the Finger Bone that Feng Mu pushed out through his flesh could be molded.

The finger can't hook the Iron Bead?

Simple, carve a groove into the knuckle!

The groove can't hold it, and it slips out easily?

Simple, carve irregular raised lines on the bone surface, like anti-slip tires; if that fails, grow barbs around the groove.

Normally, getting started in 【Crane Claw Technique】 requires Bone Quality and comprehension, repeated grueling practice, summarizing experience, forming muscle memory, until the five fingers are forged into Iron Hooks, finally imitating a trace of the crane claw's essence.

Feng Mu doesn't need that; with 【Molding Embryo】, he doesn't need to imitate—he can just shape it into a crane claw, or an eagle claw, a cat claw, any strange claw he likes.

He only needs to perfectly bypass all the Martial Dao requirements of 【Crane Claw Technique】.

All he needs is a bit of physics knowledge, a bit of imagination, and a bit of fine patience for handiwork.

"Switching to another martial art to get started, I'd probably have to rack my brains, but 【Crane Claw Technique】, heh heh, I can devour you completely, believe it or not?"

Feng Mu muttered to himself, the corners of his mouth arched wildly, looking exactly like an evil villain.

【Crane Claw Technique】: "......" The Ancestral Masters' coffin lids can barely hold them down.

Gripping the Iron Bead, pressing it against the bone, using his will to carve a groove, engrave anti-slip marks, grow barbs, then—click—the Iron Bead was embedded.

"Let's try it." Feng Mu walked back to the iron basin and hooked with all his might.

The finger hook bit tightly into an Iron Bead, fitting so snugly it couldn't possibly fall out.

Feng Mu examined it for a while, tried a few more times, like a craftsman making fine adjustments to the shape of his Finger Bones.

Ten fingers, each with a different angle of force, so each one had to be tested and adjusted at the same time.

Although he didn't need hammers or files—he could do it just by willing it—adjusting still required mental effort.

Most importantly, the bones didn't seem quite so obedient; carving a groove was easy, but if he wanted fine patterns to rise on the groove walls, the difficulty suddenly increased tenfold or more.

Feng Mu could understand; after all, 【Molding Embryo】 was still white at this stage and had huge growth potential.

And it was more than enough to deal with 【Crane Claw Technique】.

Four hours later, Feng Mu finished carving all ten Finger Bones in turn.

He stood before the iron basin again, brimming with confidence: "Hooking it is no problem; the hardest step is solved. All that's left is not to hook the wrong one, and to control the force so as not to affect the surrounding Iron Beads."

He swung his arm, waved his hand, the finger hook passing by like a dragonfly skimming water.

The basin surface didn't stir; Feng Mu flipped his finger, and an Iron Bead sat quietly embedded in the hook.

Feng Mu pried out the Iron Bead, lightly flicked it back onto the basin surface, and counted: "Success 1 time."

Originally, hooking accurately and controlling force were also extremely difficult, but since the hook bit tight without Feng Mu needing to divide his attention, the difficulty of the remaining two tasks suddenly plummeted.

It's like shooting at a target: originally you'd have to bear the recoil, but now an apparatus bears it for you; you only need to focus on aiming and pulling the trigger.

Could you still miss the target?

You'd become a gun god in no time, okay~

1 time, success.

2 times, success.

3 times, success.

4 times, success.

5 times, failure!

Well, there's still some distance to being a gun god who never misses.

The 5th failure; according to 【Crane Claw Technique】's requirements, you have to reset to zero and recount—damn ridiculous.

Too bad, counting is a hurdle cheating can't bypass.

Feng Mu looked down at his phone time: 3.2701:17.

Before he knew it, it was 1 AM, and there were three unread text messages on his phone.

—Boss, today I told Bin Ge I wanted to follow him, and Bin Ge agreed.

—Bin Ge had people continue investigating the people on the list; through confessions they further narrowed the scope, and Bin Ge circled some key people within it. I counted them; there are probably about 50 left to focus on tracking and investigating.

—This afternoon, a constable came to the gang saying he wanted to search the Bar; Bin Ge let him search. Then Zheng Laoda came, very angry, and reprimanded Bin Ge.

After reading the messages, Feng Mu mused: "Ma Wei moves fast, no wait, it should be said Ma Bin couldn't wait for him to come over; after all, placing the person who seals mouths right under your own eyelids is the safest."

"Narrowed down to 50 people? Since they aren't drawing circles based on suspicion, the confession investigation is just for show. Am I inside this circle?"

Feng Mu naturally wouldn't think Ma Bin would target him; Ma Bin didn't even know him.

But Ma Bin, under the pretense of chasing the killer, put on such a complete act that he would inevitably circle in some extra innocent people to hide his true target.

A bit like a certain type of serial killer: you think the few people he killed were random, but actually, he expanded the kill count randomly to hide that one specific target, hiding the real motive for murder.

What Feng Mu worried about was his own bad luck, becoming one of those random targets in the circle.

He was indeed the real killer, that's true, but if he were retaliated against by the Green Wolf Gang in this way, it would be a real injustice.

Feng Mu stared at the third text message for a long time, then sent two texts back to Ma Wei.

—Send me the list.

—Are Ma Bin and Zheng Si on good terms? Ma Bin is hunting the killer; what has Zheng Si been doing lately?

Putting down his phone, Feng Mu walked back to the iron basin.

The hook claw sliced through the air again and again, grazing the basin's surface, succeeding once, twice, again and again, then interrupted by failure, starting over.

Time passed minute by minute.

Soon, it was 4 AM.

Feng Mu could clearly feel that the entry difficulty of 【Crane Claw Technique】 had been beaten to the Floor by him, success was within reach.

"Maximum consecutive successes: 81."

Feng Mu exhaled deeply, feeling the malice of "hundred percent accuracy," this strict repetition demanding zero mistakes really made one's mindset Explode easily.

Unlike the mindset Explosion of poor Bone Quality seeing not a glimmer of light, this was a mindset Explosion of basking in light yet always having a shadow's ghost refusing to disperse.

The former was a pot of rat droppings with no soup to be found, the latter was one rat dropping ruining a pot of soup.

Not one pot, Feng Mu had started from zero 119 times already, averaging one and a half minutes each, once more, he wanted to hit 120.

The 120th time, failure, interrupted at the 67th round when his little finger touched the basin surface.

Feng Mu exerted force with his fingers, crushing the Iron Bead until it squeaked and deformed, then stuffed it into his mouth, chewing like he was devouring an enemy's flesh and blood, swallowing it into his Stomach.

"Sleep your ass, if Liver doesn't die then Liver it to death."

Tomorrow was Sunday, Feng Mu decided not to sleep, he would fight 【Crane Claw Technique】 to the bitter end, battling until dawn....

Please keep reading, please vote for Tickets, water it a bit, the old tree is about to die of thirst!

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Chapter End