Chapter 47: Blood Smoke Hands

In the face of Old Man Shen's questioning, Ye Meng blurted out a barely coherent explanation, then rushed away with her head lowered in embarrassment.

Only then did Old Man Shen come to realize that he had been fooled!

He grabbed onto Fang Che's ear and gave it a vicious twist, causing Fang Che to wince in pain as he frantically apologized and begged for mercy.

"If you ever lie to me again..."

"I won't! It won't happen again!"

Old Man Shen's fury abated just as quickly as it came, and he lowered his voice as he said in a suggestive manner, "On a serious note, she's really not bad at all! She has the looks, the cultivation base, and the aptitude to match! What are you waiting for? Hurry up and put a ring on her!"

Fang Che could only look back at him in a speechless manner.

"What are you gawking at me for? Both of you are at the right age for marriage, so hurry up and have a child! What if you get attacked again, and you're not as lucky as you were this time? You need to leave behind a child to pass on your bloodline!"

"Wouldn't I be screwing her over then?"

"Nonsense!" Old Man Shen dismissed with a wave of his hand, clearly very eager to play matchmaker.

He beckoned to Ye Meng as he called out, "Come here, young lady. Let's have a chat."

Ye Meng was busy with her chores outside, and Fang Che hurriedly yelled, "It's alright! Don't come inside! Elder Shen doesn't need to speak to you, after all!"

He then turned to Old Man Shen as he implored, "With all due respect, Elder Shen, please mind your own business! You're still single, are you not? Why not find a wife for yourself first?"

"I could easily have had a wife by now!" Old Man Shen snapped. "There were too many women pining for my favor when I was young, and I was too spoiled for choice, so I didn't choose any of them! That's the only reason why I'm still single!"

Fang Che was completely unconvinced. He took a glance at Old Man Shen's modest-at-best appearance, then pulled out a mirror to examine his own reflection.

Certain things didn't have to be said.

Old Man Shen immediately stormed back to the academy in a fit of rage, while Fang Che chortled with mirth at his enraged display.

***

After breakfast, Fang Che pulled out his communication jade to discover that Yin Shengong was still typing.

He was beginning to feel a little bad at this point.

"Maybe you should take a rest, Master. You don't have to send the entire thing in one go."

"I'll do whatever I want!"

That was Yin Shengong's heated response, followed by more passages of text.

Fang Che heaved a resigned sigh, then summoned the Golden Horn Flood Dragon.

"Did you manage to track them?"

"I did."

"Where are they?"

"They're in the northern area of the city, near a drum tower. I can track them down at any time."

"Good."

Fang Che was very relieved to hear this, and he was quickly formulating a plot in his head, coming up with a plan to take out the four Warlords.

The four of them were a massive underlying threat, and they could easily attack someone else just as they had attacked him.

Furthemore, there was also a chance that they could be receiving orders from higher up the command chain.

Fang Che's current strategy was to eliminate all of these people who were prone to aggression and quick to lash out. As for those who had gone into hiding to play the long game, they posed no immediate threat to the general public.

The people from the main church weren't like members of the subsidiary churches at all.

For the subsidiary churches, once a branch helm was successfully established, the plan would be to stick around for at least several decades. In fact, some branch helms even had their own commercial brands that slowly became time-honored, century-old establishments.

These people were all warriors with longer lifespans than the average merchant, and their shops were all under the protection of the subsidiary churches, both of which were advantages over their competing establishments.

These people would take some risks here and there, but generally speaking, they kept a low profile and prioritized self-preservation above all else while also carrying out tasks like collecting intelligence and accumulating wealth for their respective subsidiary churches.

However, the people from the main church had no such qualms and reservations.

Most of them were here to make a name for themselves, and they were all very young, brimming with arrogance, ambition, and a callous disregard for human life.

They had never been struck by the cruel hand of reality before, so they had no fear or restraint, thereby making them extremely dangerous.

For example, if a branch helm had been tasked with carrying out Fang Che's assassination, then they would've taken a much slower and more meticulous approach, coming up with multiple carefully refined plans and only striking when they were certain that they could get the job done.

Even if they were to fail, they would immediately flee and go into hiding, unlike the four Warlords that had attacked Fang Che, who blatantly surrounded him and began attacking him in broad daylight even after their initial sneak attack had failed.

Such brazen and bullheaded behavior would've been completely inexplicable in the eyes of the branch helms, particularly on the territory of the Hall of Protectionists!

Fang Che knew that he would definitely require backup to eradicate the four Warlords, but if he were to call upon someone like Fan Tiantiao, how could he explain to them how he had learned the whereabouts of their targets?

Furthermore, would there be any repercussions from killing the four Warlords? With so many people sent down from the main church at once, there had to have been some supervising warriors sent down alongside them. How would those people react?

After the recent close call with the divine power essence, Fang Che had realized that he needed to be much more meticulous and careful, rather than acting on whims and impulses all the time.

If it weren't for the fact that he had completely won over Yin Shengong with his performance at the Parasite Ascension Project, his recent reckless actions would've already gotten him killed.

Even after extensive contemplation, Fang Che still wasn't able to come up with a sound plan, so he decided to report to Yin Shengong.

He had a day off work to recover from his injuries anyway, so he began snacking on some sunflower seeds as he continued to receive more and more passages of text on his communication jade.

𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

By the time Yin Shengong was finally, it was already close to noon.

Fang Che hurriedly thanked Yin Shengong for his tireless efforts, then asked him about how he should take out the four Warlords.

However, he received no response.

He couldn't help but be concerned by the possibility that Yin Shengong may have died from exhaustion...

Meanwhile, at the One Heart Church headquarters.

Yin Shengong's head was throbbing with pain, and his Five Spirit Parasite was only just barely clinging onto life by a thread.

He tossed his communication jade aside without reading Fang Che's message, then laid down onto his bed and almost immediately fell asleep.

***

Fang Che began to read through the cultivation art from Yin Shengong.

Blood Smoke Hands.

Just the introduction alone was enough to tell Fang Che why it was such an unpopular cultivation art.

Even setting aside the steep barriers to entry, it was a very unrewarding cultivation art to pursue. Only after reaching the third level would one begin to reap some slight benefits from the cultivation art, and even at the fifth level, the benefits provided by the cultivation art were still a complete mismatch with the amount of time and effort that had to be invested.

However, upon reaching the seventh and final level, the cultivation art would allow one to easily defeat opponents of a higher cultivation base than themselves, and it was particularly effective when fighting against multiple foes at once.

As was the case with the Loatheful Heavens Saber Techniques, the power of the Blood Smoke Hands was enhanced by baleful qi and killing intent.

Upon reaching full mastery of the cultivation art, one would resemble a devilish deity on the battlefield, surrounded by a vast cloud of blood mist wherever they went.

The problem was that the cultivation art would only begin to display its true power at the sixth and seventh levels, but the reward at the end was just as tantalizing as the journey was wearisome.

All the way up to the fifth level, the cultivation art was outshone by many others, but once that bottleneck was overcome, the delayed gratification would be immense.

However, the vast majority of people simply didn't have that much time to invest, so they chose not to pursue the cultivation art at all.

After reading through the cultivation art, Fang Che immediately decided that he had to pursue it.

The synergy between the cultivation art and the baleful qi in his body was too good to pass up, and he had plenty of other potent battle techniques to tide him over until he fully mastered the Blood Smoke Hands.

Once he fully mastered the cultivation art, the vast cloud of blood mist that followed him everywhere he went would serve as a beacon for all demonic church members!

If he couldn't weed out the demonic church members in an area, he could simply conjure up his signature cloud of blood mist, then yell out: "All members of the Church of the Self-Righteous, come to me!"

Everyone would instantly come rushing to him like moths to a flame!

With that mental image in mind, Fang Che began to carefully study the cultivation art.

By that afternoon, he had already memorized the entire thing, but he still read through it several more times to ensure that he hadn't missed any details before tentatively commencing his cultivation.

Given that this was a cultivation art from the demonic churches, Fang Che knew that he had to proceed with caution.

After circulating his spirit qi for a full cycle in accordance with the route laid out in the cultivation art, he didn't detect anything amiss. Hence, he did it again.

The second time was much smoother than the first, and he could sense that his baleful qi was also beginning to slowly flow along the same route with his spirit qi.

There were very few cultivation arts capable of drawing upon anything outside of the user's spirit qi, but the Blood Smoke Hands was clearly a special cultivation art that could influence both spirit qi and baleful qi.

If I can master this cultivation art, even the baleful qi in the environment around me would be at my disposal!