Urban Martial Saint

Under the moonlit night grassland, Ye Qing walked alone, the surroundings appearing indescribably vast.

In such an environment, if anyone were patrolling nearby, Ye Qing would have no chance of escape and would definitely be discovered. The saying ’the grass bows low, revealing the cattle and sheep’ also depends on the season. In the winter grassland, where is there any talk of ’the grass bows low, revealing the cattle and sheep’? Except for some low grass and shrub patches, most of the grass had already withered yellow. Fortunately, there wasn’t much snow around Humeng City, so the grassland was only covered with a thin layer of snow. Therefore, Ye Qing didn’t leave many footprints as he walked on it.

After walking along the road for about twenty minutes with no unexpected incidents, Ye Qing felt slightly reassured. However, just as he climbed over a small hill, his ears suddenly caught a low beastly howl. Ye Qing couldn’t help but shiver at the memory of the taxi driver’s mention of grassland wolves, immediately heightening his vigilance.

Initially, Ye Qing didn’t pay much attention to what the taxi driver had said. After all, this place was so close to Humeng City’s urban area, even if wolves existed on the grassland, it was unlikely they would come here to forage. Wolves generally hunt far away from human habitation unless food becomes scarce, pushing them closer to human activity zones. How could a large city like Humeng have wolves nearby?

Yet, the beastly howl snapped Ye Qing back to reality. He immediately leaned against a giant rock, turning his head warily in the direction from where the howl had come.

This small hill was quite an exception in the grassland, surrounded by numerous boulders, making it a good place for hiding. The howl came from behind a giant rock to Ye Qing’s left, but even after waiting for a while, nothing appeared. Instead, another low beastly howl was heard.

Upon hearing the second howl, Ye Qing listened carefully and realized that the reason for the low sound wasn’t because the beast was hiding its presence but instead because it lacked the strength to produce a louder sound.

This situation reassured Ye Qing slightly. Since the beast lacked strength, it posed no real threat. He retrieved the Wu Hong Dagger from his body and cautiously made his way around the rock to see what was happening.

After passing by the rock, Ye Qing didn’t see the beast but caught a scent of blood. The smell surprised him; could it be that someone was injured?

Ye Qing quickened his pace, making his way around two more boulders until he finally found the animal making the sound.

It was a wolf, a wounded wolf lying on the ground, unable even to open its eyes. The bloody scent came from it because its abdomen had a foot-long gash, with fresh blood dying the soil around it red. The reason for its low howl wasn’t a lack of strength but because it was seriously injured, nearing death.

Seeing the wolf’s injured state, Ye Qing became less guarded but also had more questions in his mind.

On this grassland, wolves should be considered top predators. There weren’t any animals that could harm a wolf typically. This severely injured wolf clearly wasn’t attacked by other animals, meaning it must have been wounded by humans. In other words, someone had passed through here before Ye Qing and injured this wild wolf.

Someone capable of injuring a wolf must be a Martial Artist; there was no doubt about this. Given Humeng City’s current situation, if a Martial Artist was indeed traveling through here, that would make sense. The matter of the Sun Shooting Bow was enough to attract most of the world’s Martial Artists here.

However, what truly puzzled Ye Qing was the wolf’s condition. Ye Qing wasn’t very knowledgeable about animals, but having lived near the border for five years, he had encountered many jungle wolves. Therefore, he had some understanding of wolf species. Seeing this wolf, he could make some distinctions.

This wolf wasn’t a grassland wolf as mentioned by the taxi driver because it was slightly larger, whereas grassland wolves aren’t large. Furthermore, grassland wolves are rare, almost extinct, so there couldn’t be so many living around Humeng City. Judging from its size and fur color, this wolf likely came from someplace else, probably a jungle wolf.

If this wolf was indeed a jungle wolf, then the issue emerged. Jungle wolves’ habitat range doesn’t include the Mongolian Region Grassland. Additionally, wolf pack migrations only occur to environments similar and close to their previous habitats. For a jungle wolf to migrate to the Mongolian grassland, it couldn’t be a spontaneous act; it must involve human interference—someone introduced jungle wolves to the grassland.

Previously, Ye Qing wondered how a city like Humeng could have wolf packs nearby. Now, seeing this jungle wolf, he finally understood the reason: it was all due to human actions, with someone purposely releasing this jungle wolf around Humeng City. And being unafraid of humans, it’s unsurprising jungle wolves would live somewhat close to human settlements!

But who exactly released these forest wolves around Humeng City? You know, if the wolf pack is too close to human living environments, it will inevitably affect human life. However, the people here in Humeng City didn’t drive these wolves away, so what is going on?

This was Ye Qing’s first visit to Humeng City, and also the first time seeing the situation around the city. To be honest, just seeing this forest wolf filled his heart with doubt; his intuition told him there was definitely something wrong with this.

After a careful analysis, someone capable of releasing so many wolves around Humeng City must have considerable wealth and power; otherwise, it couldn’t be done. Moreover, Humeng City is still the core location of the Seven Steering Committees of the Hong Alliance, and people who can release wolf packs here are very few. Ye Qing could basically conclude that these wolf packs were either released by the officials to protect the grasslands, or by the people of the Seven Rudders of Hong Alliance. Who else would dare to mess around on the land of the Seven Rudders of Hong Alliance?

However, if they were released by the officials to protect the grasslands, the wolf packs wouldn’t be placed so close to the urban area. After all, it also causes a great impact on human life. It can be seen that these wolf packs were most likely released by the people of the Seven Rudders of Hong Alliance. But why on earth did the people of the Seven Rudders do this? What is the deeper meaning behind releasing these wolf packs around the core force?

Could it be that the people of the Seven Rudders are planning to use these wolf packs to prevent outsiders from entering Humeng City? How is that possible? Ordinary people entering the city would at least drive a car. Those who don’t drive are at least Martial Artists. How could these wolves pose any threat to Martial Artists?

Ye Qing was full of doubts and couldn’t come up with a reasonable explanation even after thinking for a long time, so he simply stopped thinking about it. After all, he came here this time to find Huangfu Ziyu, not to probe into the secrets of the Seven Rudders of Hong Alliance.

Walking up to the forest wolf, Ye Qing bent down, wanting to see what kind of sharp weapon had injured the wolf. However, when he looked closely at the forest wolf’s wound, Ye Qing’s expression suddenly changed.

The forest wolf’s wound had five marks; they looked very much like scratches made by a beast’s sharp claws, definitely not from a sharp weapon!

This situation made Ye Qing even more puzzled. Could it be that this wolf was scratched by another beast, rather than being injured by a human? But how is that possible? There’s no other beast on the grassland, and wolves rarely fight among themselves, so what animal scratched this wolf? Could it be that the people of Seven Rudders of Hong Alliance also released other beasts on the grassland? That shouldn’t be the case, releasing other beasts would certainly impact the survival environment here, and Seven Rudders wouldn’t do such a thing, would they?

After carefully examining the condition of the forest wolf, just as Ye Qing suspected, there were other wounds on its body, all of which were claw marks from beasts.

Ye Qing stood by, pondering for a while, but still couldn’t understand what was going on. However, in the end, he also gave up thinking further. Even if there really were some other large beasts, they posed little threat to Ye Qing. Last time, when he entered Beimang Mountain, he even fought a tiger; what other beasts could be more formidable than a tiger?

The forest wolf was seriously injured. Before Ye Qing could clearly see all its wounds, its head drooped to the side, and it died. Ye Qing couldn’t save it; he just sighed lightly and stood up to continue walking toward Dragon Burial Mountain. However, this time Ye Qing was much more vigilant because he didn’t know if there were any more powerful beasts on this grassland, and encountering one would be troublesome.

After passing this small hill, he didn’t encounter any danger along the way. He did come across another wolf midway, but this wolf didn’t come close to Ye Qing at all; it ran away from afar.

Ye Qing saw clearly that this wolf, like the previous one, was also a forest wolf, not a grassland wolf. This was proof that his inference was correct, and the wolf pack around Humeng City was entirely artificially released, most likely by the Seven Rudders of Hong Alliance.

Since the wolf didn’t attack Ye Qing, he didn’t pay attention to it and continued heading in the direction of Dragon Burial Mountain. After walking about ten kilometers, Ye Qing arrived near a small mound. Here, there were stones or earth mounds everywhere, each about ten to twenty meters high. Looking ahead, there were almost a hundred of them, resembling a maze.

There aren’t many high mountains on this grassland, mostly these stone mounds. Moreover, these stone mounds often appear in clusters; Ye Qing had been walking for a while and had gotten used to it.

However, as soon as Ye Qing stepped into the range of these stone mounds, he caught a faint scent of blood in the air.