Chapter 535: 489 In and Out

As soon as she relaxed slightly, the girl screamed in agony.

Although she was just an ordinary girl, that kind of scream could make anyone standing within arm's reach feel their heart jump with fright.

The person closest to her was Chi Mingjing!

At the same time, almost in an instant, Chi Mingjing moved her fingers down and clamped them onto the girl's throat.

The sound stopped abruptly.

The next moment, Chi Mingjing herself was stunned and hurriedly relaxed her fingers; the girl had clearly lost her strength from being clamped and could no longer scream, her painful moans becoming weak and listless.

"What is this? Just a little girl, and you can't even handle this much?"

Over there, Jiangba finished dealing with the burly man who had attacked, and upon turning back to see the scene, he paused for a moment, then flicked his hand to release two strands of Qi, which struck two of the girl's acupoints.

One acupoint stopped the pain, and the other induced unconsciousness.

The girl fell silent in an instant and passed out right in Chi Mingjing's hands; although it was not as peaceful as sleep, she had at least escaped slightly from the endless pain.

Chi Mingjing breathed a sigh of relief and nodded to Jiangba, saying, "Thank you."

It was not that she could not handle a little girl, but just now she had acted on instinct; hearing the scream, she had immediately snuffed out the source of the sound, which was what she had always done before.

After all, most of the screams she heard were of her own making. She did not like hearing that kind of piercing sound, and a sound that was too loud could also bring hidden dangers, so naturally, she had to make the other party shut up completely.

Over these years, it had become an instinct.

She only knew those methods of cutting through the Gordian knot and did not know those gentle means; firstly, the things her teacher had taught her in the beginning were limited, and perhaps even the teacher herself did not know them, and secondly, she had not needed them before.

By comparison...

She took another look at Jiangba and found that his attention was drawn to the mountain of materials piled on the table, as if he were staring at a pile of treasures, but in her eyes, those materials were just a pile of junk; she pondered in her heart: these people, from the YoungMaster down to his few confidants, all possessed a special temperament, completely different from the people here. It was said that the YoungMaster also came out of Wangliang Mountain, but now one could not tell at all.

But she could not say exactly what that temperament was; a person cannot describe something they have never seen.

Although she did not know what there was to look at in that pile of pitch-black materials, Chi Mingjing realized that Jiangba was not paying attention to the two burly men who had been beaten down, so she walked over and said, "I'll take one over to question him."

Jiangba said indifferently, "As you wish. But this is our YoungMaster's territory; people and things alike all belong to our YoungMaster, so don't go too far."

Chi Mingjing agreed, dragged one of the burly men over like a dead dog, and pointed to the girl who had just fallen unconscious nearby, asking, "What did you do to her?"

The burly man, who had just been like a fierce tiger descending a mountain, was now as scared as a quail. Surviving in Wangliang Mountain, bullying the weak and fearing the strong was an instinct, so he hurriedly said, "We just infused a 'Mist Stone' into her earlier to have her clean it. She is a sword slave now. It's definitely uncomfortable when you first become a sword slave, and it's inevitable that they will shout and scream, so we always stuff them into cabinets, and then it's quiet."

Chi Mingjing swept a glance at the cabinets all over the floor; a rough count showed there must be dozens of them. Most were covered with lids, so she could not see inside, but listening carefully, she could hear faint sounds, as if mice were scratching against the walls. She dared not think about it too much and said, "So that's how it is. If you can't see it, it's as if it doesn't exist. Infused... how is that done?"

Her teacher had also mentioned to her the pain of becoming a sword slave, but she herself had never truly been one. Before coming to Wangliang Mountain, she had also collected quite a bit of information, but that certainly did not involve the specific operations; this was a unique secret of Wangliang Mountain, and outsiders could not possibly know the inside story.

The burly man said tremblingly, "Using a Double-Layer Shadow Box. That..."

He gestured with his eyes toward a box the size of a book on the table, which was about a foot high; the outer layer seemed to be made of wood like sandalwood, and there was a line in the middle of the outer layer dividing the box into upper and lower compartments.

As he said this, Jiangba also became curious and picked up the box to study it. His posture for studying it was very professional: using his eyes to look, tapping to hear the sound, smelling its scent, rubbing its texture, and examining it from the outside in; one look and it was clear he was an expert.

Chi Mingjing had no interest in the study of mere implements and shouted, "Go and take the material out of her body and release this sword slave."

The burly man hurriedly said, "Releasing a sword slave... it's not that this one doesn't want to obey, but I don't know how."

Chi Mingjing shouted, "Nonsense! These sword slaves are not those kinds of rare treasures; they can still live and be resold after the material is taken out, so the material can definitely be taken out. Do you dare to lie to me?"

The burly man said tremblingly, "It's not Alie; taking it out requires a special method, and that requires specialized learning. Only the Grand Steward in our manor knows how; no one else does."

Chi Mingjing said, "According to you, the previous sword slaves were all released by the Grand Steward? Does he come regularly to release these sword slaves?"

The burly man said, "That's not it. The old man is so busy, where would he have so much time? Infusing and washing materials consumes Inspiration; once their Inspiration is exhausted and they can no longer hold the material, the material precipitates out on its own."

Only then did Chi Mingjing understand, and she immediately followed up, "That's not right—if the material is washed clean and the Inspiration isn't exhausted yet, wouldn't it just be stuck?"

The burly man said, "The material isn't afraid of being washed; the more it's washed, the cleaner it gets, and sooner or later the Inspiration will be exhausted. The sword slaves here aren't rare treasures, they only have that little bit of Inspiration, how long can they hold out? Although it's a bit wasteful, on the mountain, it's usually taken out in time to wash the next one. But haven't we received a lot of sword slaves now? There are many people, so to save trouble, wasting a little bit is fine."

Chi Mingjing only felt a surge of anger rising, and then she heard Jiangba say, "How low the efficiency of this piece of junk is."

Chi Mingjing turned her head and saw that Jiangba had already opened the Double-Layer Shadow Box, shaking his head while fiddling with it.

The burly man, who had just been scared into absolute obedience by Chi Mingjing, was shocked and blurted out, "How did you open it? You can't open it! Inside... if they come out, we're all finished!"

Jiangba raised his head and said easily, "Don't worry, they won't be released. The Rune Formula hasn't been destroyed; there are constraints inside, so how could they come out? Even if they did, they could be caught back."

The way he spoke was just like a cannon fodder character courting death in a horror story, as if in the next moment something would go wrong, and countless ghosts would crawl out of the box in his hand, slapping his face hard while reaping his little life.

But the fact was that it did not happen; he said they wouldn't be released, and they weren't. He was not cannon fodder; he said that because he had the confidence.

Closing the box and putting it aside, Jiangba stepped forward, took the girl from Chi Mingjing's hands, and pulled her hand over to look at it carefully.

Chi Mingjing watched along, discovering that the veins on the back of the girl's hand were bulging; it did not look like the delicate skin of a young girl, but thinking of the torture the girl had suffered, it was not strange for veins to appear. She tilted her head to look at that young servant again, only feeling that the way he looked at things was different from ordinary people, as if he could see flowers blooming on a stone.

Jiangba watched for a while and said, "It's nothing more than relying on an inexhaustible supply of high-end materials; such a crude and primitive way of using the Rune Formula cannot even be called learning. It's ruining people, and it's ruining things."

As he spoke, he moved his hand to the girl's lower abdomen, which was the dantian position, pressed his five fingers against her abdomen, and moved them slightly.

Chi Mingjing clearly saw Jiangba's five fingers pass right into the girl's abdomen.

But when she looked closely, his hand was clearly still in its original place; yet, she was convinced that what she had just seen was not an illusion—a hand had indeed passed inside, as if Jiangba possessed two hands stacked together.

The next moment, Jiangba had already withdrawn his hand; the instant he pulled it back, his fingers made a pinching motion.

Then, he actually pulled out a fist-sized piece of black jade from thin air; the jade on it was quite dull, as if covered by a thin layer of dust.

The moment the material left her body, the girl's body relaxed all at once; even though she was not conscious, her body's instinctive reaction was as if it had suddenly unloaded a thousand-pound burden.

The material was taken out!

Taken out by hand.

The burly man was greatly shocked and blurted out, "How is this possible? Without the help of the Shadow Box, even the Grand Steward—"

Before he could finish his sentence, a hand poked into his throat, the blood was cut off, and the burly man let out two "he-he" sounds before collapsing to the ground, losing his breath in the blink of an eye.

Just now, Jiangba's hand poking in was an illusion, but this time it was Chi Mingjing who struck, and it was real and true, a lethal move.

Jiangba was stunned for a moment and said, "What are you doing?"

Chi Mingjing said coldly, "This technique of yours must be a secret skill, right? The fewer people who know about this kind of thing, the better. For the sake of secrecy, since these people have seen it, they naturally must all be killed." Having said that, she made another move, stabbing toward the throat of the other burly man.

Jiangba said, "That's not—"

Before he could finish, the burly man had already been neatly and efficiently finished off by Chi Mingjing.

In the small courtyard, only Jiangba and Chi Mingjing remained. And that servant who had been acting as a guide, who had long since been scared silly.

Jiangba waved his hand and said, "It doesn't count as a secret technique. It's just a very ordinary method; you haven't seen it, but it's actually nothing rare. Don't forget who we are. I am the YoungMaster's confidant, and the YoungMaster is the master of the manor; everything here belongs to the YoungMaster. If he has capable people and strange talents under his command, and possesses powerful methods, that is because he has won people's hearts, and it is the manor's good fortune that we have ability. Why be secretive and hide from others? If anyone feels anxious or afraid because of our methods, that just means they harbor ulterior motives, and we can just kill them."

He glanced at the two big men lying on the ground and said, "Forget about these two; they were courting death anyway. As for the others..." He pointed at the dumbstruck servants, "If you want to kill, I won't stop you. But don't say you did it for me. We have no need for that."

Chi Mingjing pondered for a moment and said, "I understand. You have the means to extract the materials; can you release all these sword slaves? After the YoungMaster takes over the manor, does he intend to make any changes?"

Jiangba said, "The order I received is to take over this whole sword slave business and bring it under the YoungMaster's management. If I can handle it, I will; if I can't, I will naturally seek help from the Sword Guest until it is done. In short, the YoungMaster's orders will definitely be carried out, and no one can stop them! As for the sword slaves... releasing them is fine, they are just idling anyway. These sword slaves have no real purpose; not to mention the Sword Washing Seed, their efficiency in Sword Washing materials is very low, and our YoungMaster doesn't think much of it. Once I report this to the YoungMaster, he will naturally grant permission, and they can be released one by one."

"As for what will be done in the future, that is not for you or me to worry about. If you are willing to watch, then just wait and see; once the YoungMaster has tidied up the manor, he will naturally pass down his orders."