Chapter 26: Counting the Harvest

This moment was the first time Li Yu had utilized the sequence supernatural ability "Cinnabar Fire" since promoting to Cinnabar Apprentice.

He had no time to sense his internal condition after spitting the fire; he only stared fixedly at Yi Ya, who was wrapped and burning in the flames, while behind him, Hongdou stood ready with her chainsaw sword, waiting for a single command from her master to continue the dismemberment.

Fortunately, this supernatural ability was exactly as described.

Targeted at evil spirits!

Power doubled!

Having first been nearly whittled into a human stick, then having performed a self-detonation type secret technique, Yi Ya was already near the end of his rope.

Once touched by the Cinnabar Fire, he could not even struggle; in the blink of an eye, it spread over his entire body like dry wood meeting a raging fire, and accompanied by an extremely intense aroma of roasted meat, he was burned clean to nothing in no time at all with a crackling sound.

Even so, Li Yu still reached out to rub the pile of corpse ash to confirm that Yi Ya was dead beyond any doubt, only then did he show a look of relief and collapse in peace.

He let Hongdou come forward to remove the rotten flesh and bandage his wounds.

Although on the surface it looked very reasonable for Li Yu and his servant—a sequence eight cultivator plus a Linglong puppet—to kill an enemy who was also a sequence eight.

But he himself knew how lucky this was.

The reason he succeeded was that Yi Ya had been arrogant and gave Li Yu the chance to feed him that "Nine-Turn Immortal-Ascension Soup," otherwise the true ending would have been Li Yu being eaten and Hongdou being crippled.

That soup, containing the semi-finished secret medicine for Cinnabar Apprentices, ruined Yi Ya's man-eater body, making him unable to fight in the manner of a man-eater, which was how he fell into Li Yu's trap.

"According to the descriptions from Jiao Qing and Sun Sanniang, those veteran man-eaters, once they make a move, will have man-eater songs drill into the opponent's brain to disturb their heart and soul, and their entire bodies are full of forbidden toxins; if you are bitten once, you will be contaminated on the spot."

"Plus, this guy also had a knife technique like 'Cook Ding Dissecting a Cow'; in a head-on fight, I would have had no chance of winning."

"Of course, once he drank the soup I made, it was out of his hands."

Li Yu summarized his first fight in his heart, feeling lucky that he was not a reckless brute and had a bit of potential to be a schemer.

However, he could not lie down for long; there was no other reason than the smell in the courtyard being truly unbearable.

Before Yi Ya fled for his life!

He had unleashed a "sky full of flowers scattering gold" upon Li Yu.

When he forced himself to stand up and saw the scene throughout the courtyard clearly, his face immediately turned pale.

Aside from pus and blood, there were only chunks of corpses and broken bones.

Some were hanging on the human-face peach tree, some were stuck to the beauty willow, and others were mixed into the bloody mud.

Looking closely, they were all "acquaintances."

Although some only had half a face of skin left, or were simply identifiable chunks of meat, it did not prevent Li Yu from identifying them one by one.

"Chen Canglu, Geng Jing, Sikong Nian, Hong Sanquan, Tan Buyi... are they all dead?"

"Were they all eaten by Yi Ya last night?"

Perhaps because the lingering effects of the forbidden egg were still present, when Li Yu realized a certain terrifying fact.

In his mind, he even simulated the scene of Yi Ya, this terrifying man-eater, sneaking from house to house to feed last night.

He could almost see the chunks of the neighbors' corpses soaking, colliding, and being digested within the corrosive, toxic stomach acid beneath that thin layer of skin.

Even though Li Yu was already a proper sequence eight [Cinnabar Apprentice], he could not help but shiver all over at this moment, a sense of horror emerging.

One must know that last night, they had still been loudly praising Li Yu's spiritual food, and during their transactions, they had allowed Li Yu to peek at many benefits.

Now, they had become human fragments in his courtyard, likely impossible to piece back together.

"Although not a single one was a good person, and all were evil cultivators who committed every evil."

"But this way of dying...?"

"The Forbidden God Sect, they are all disgusting, shitty lunatics."

Li Yu suppressed the discomfort in his heart, and after cursing, he had to start cleaning up the mess.

Hongdou burned the corpses!

He went to loot the bodies!

When Yi Ya detonated, the things on his body flew everywhere; it was not easy to dig them out from the minced meat and pus.

About an incense stick's time later, Li Yu returned to the main room with a look of disappointment and began to count his gains.

He had indeed rummaged out quite a few strange objects, all legacies of the various evil cultivator neighbors that had been plundered by Yi Ya.

But unfortunately, nearly ninety percent were destroyed by the explosion or had been contaminated.

Only ten percent remained usable.

Among them, those belonging to the evil cultivator diners were only two items.

A blue fish round bone and a blood bone whistle.

They belonged to Sikong Nian and Hong Sanquan respectively, because Li Yu had seen the two wearing them and had even discussed them.

"Blue Jade Bone: holding it allows one to gain the power to breathe freely underwater; the side effect is that it will attract some underwater vengeful spirits to gather. If one is not a cultivator of a related path, it is very easy to die suddenly because of this."

"Blood Bone Whistle: after blowing it, one can make their own blood and Qi boil to gain a boost, entering a kind of 'Berserker' state; the side effect is that one will be weak for a long time afterward, and may even die on the spot."

Two strange objects with very obvious pros and cons.

And the remaining four items in total all belonged to that Yi Ya.

A coroner's blade, a leather booklet, a business card holder, and a gold card.

The most precious item was that coroner's knife, which looked like a scalpel; he originally did not know what was special about this knife.

But subsequently, he found a leather recipe booklet. On it were all the spiritual food dishes Yi Ya had mastered, many of which were self-created, made into palm-sized leather cards and strung into a booklet for easy browsing and selection at any time.

Among them were many dishes that mentioned his favorite kitchen knife, allowing Li Yu to barely piece together its name, utility, and origin:

"Compassionate Heart Knife!"

"Originally owned by a coroner in the Gan Kingdom for many years; at the same time, this coroner was also a sequence seven [Corpse Stitcher] of the Earth Mother Sect's Undying Corpse God path. After the coroner died, quite a bit of spiritual essence condensed onto the Compassionate Heart Knife."

"The knife is indestructible, peerlessly sharp, and holding this knife will enter a state of absolute calm, with doubled insight, and automatically gain extraordinary knife techniques, as well as a heart of compassion."

"Later, this knife fell into Yi Ya's hands and was continuously contaminated by him, gradually stripping away the attached heart of compassion and losing the absolute calm; the remaining characteristics were preserved, and murderous intent, an obsession with dissection, etc., were added."

"What a waste of a heavenly treasure!"

Li Yu sighed, then temporarily kept the Compassionate Heart Knife, and threw the cannibal recipe booklet out for Hongdou to burn.

He then went to look at the gold card; the shape and the embossed characters on it indicated that this thing was indeed a savings card.

"Wanfu Bank, two-star client, savings reached thirty thousand taels, the minimum qualification for opening an account."

"Universal throughout the city, withdrawals and deposits require the person to go in person."

The second line of text made Li Yu's heart ache incomparably.

=9+Book_Bar

Obviously, he could not use it.

And he could not use it; taking it out would expose the fact that he had slaughtered Yi Ya.

Resisting the heartache, he also threw it out for Hongdou to burn.

Afterward, he went to open the business card holder; inside were indeed cards of people, also self-made by Yi Ya, and every one of them looked like someone with status in Wanfu City.

Of course, Li Yu did not recognize almost any of them, except for the third one, which he recognized.

"Manager of the Nishang Rouge Shop, Aunt Hong."

"One of the high-level members of the Rouge Society, suspected to be some sequence seven, born with charming bones, soaked in various fragrances, suitable for cooking into spiritual foods like [Fragrant Meat Stew] and [Beauty Jelly]."

"……What a Yi Ya, his ambition is truly big enough."

"So this isn't a business card holder at all; it's his reserve list of ingredients."

"Or rather, the delicacies he dreamed of eating?"

"You have to know that the owner of every one of these business cards has a cultivation sequence stronger than his."

At this moment, Li Yu's understanding of Yi Ya, this veteran man-eater, became increasingly profound.

He was simply a lawless lunatic!

One might ask, even among evil cultivators, who would list people they met and couldn't temporarily beat as ingredients for no reason?

Yi Ya did exactly that.

Li Yu suddenly remembered the [Benevolent Doctor Hu Buku] mentioned by Zhu Mei, who liked to turn patients into zombies; even he could not compare to this person in terms of perversion.

The most critical thing was that, as someone who had once peeked at and analyzed Yi Ya, he suddenly felt that if Yi Ya had not died here, he might really have been able to capture these ingredients step by step.

After all, as long as Yi Ya was willing, he could have gone to promote to a sequence seven Blood Slave.

Alas, he was too careless.

However, if one were to calculate it seriously, it could not be blamed on Yi Ya.

"Overnight, interrogating and eating them one neighbor at a time, he likely already formed a habitual way of thinking regarding the strength of the people on this old street."

"Naturally, he wouldn't take me, the weakest one, seriously."

"How could he have expected? I suddenly turned around and promoted to Cinnabar Apprentice, and I peeked at his weakness, specially customizing a pot of Nine-Turn Immortal-Ascension Soup for him; his death was not unjust at all."

While reviewing the situation, Li Yu also used Yi Ya to warn himself.

In the future, no matter who he meets, he must not be arrogant or careless.

Li Yu suddenly remembered something else, his face showing astonishment.

Since his rebirth!

In Li Yu's heart, there had always been a disaster hanging over his head, suspended but not falling.

It was precisely the trouble brought by the forbidden egg in his belly and his identity; he had always had to worry about being retrieved and captured by the [Forbidden God Sect].

Now, this big rock had finally landed and been solved by him.

That Yi Ya also said that the Jiao family meat shop had once been marked by the Forbidden God Sect and was one of the egg-planting grounds.

But it had been canceled in previous years, meaning that at least within the Forbidden God Sect, he and this meat shop courtyard were not registered.

And the surrounding evil cultivator neighbors who were in the know had all been killed by Yi Ya, which in a way was Yi Ya silencing them for Li Yu.

"Hmm?"

"So, the greatest beneficiary of this 'Old Street Tragedy' turns out to be me."

"For a long time to come, I should not need to worry about being hunted down, right?"

"No, I must go and scout a bit more; how many people who know the truth are still left?"

With this thought, Li Yu stood up immediately.

He instructed Hongdou to continue cleaning and watching the house, while he himself quickly exited the courtyard gate.

PS: The previous chapter has been revised; the pacing is smoother and two thousand words have been added. Everyone can take another look.

(End of chapter)