Holy body, start with the Five Animal Exercises

5: ApproachingPfft—!

Blood spurted, splattering onto Qin Jiang’s body.

Qin Jiang moved the sickle in his hand with some surprise, the rough blade of the sickle rubbing against bone with a sharp sound.

It went through in one go?

Brute force wins, I’m quite impressive.

Liu Dahang stared blankly, his eyes turning to the handle of the sickle protruding from beneath his chin, looking at Qin Jiang with confusion.

Moonlight streamed in through the window, illuminating the lower half of the other man’s face, a slight smile playing on his lips, the few drops of blood splattered on his face chilling Liu Dahang to the bone.

Confusion faded, his pupils shrinking to pinpricks, replaced by deep terror.

He clutched his neck with both hands, seemingly trying to stem the gushing blood, but a wave of weakness washed over his body.

“You! Gurgle ~ gurgle ~ ~ You! Hiss ~ ~”

The blood in his throat was squeezed out by the air from his chest, making a hissing sound like a leaky pipe.

He stretched out a hand, wanting to grab Qin Jiang’s clothes and ask him why he did this.

But his arm only lifted slightly before falling limply, his body collapsing unwillingly, hitting the ground with a heavy thud, his eyes wide, staring fixedly at Qin Jiang.

Qin Jiang calmly met Liu Dahang’s gaze, casually wiped the splattered blood from his face, pulled out the sickle, and then plunged it forcefully into Liu Dahang’s temple.

Liu Dahang’s body twitched, instantly stiffening, but his eyes remained fixed on Qin Jiang.

He pulled out the sickle again, confirmed Liu Dahang was dead, and then casually picked up a rag to wipe the red and white bloodstains from the blade.

Squatting down, he extended his index finger, dabbed some of Liu Dahang’s neck blood, and gently stroked Liu Dahang’s lips with his fingertip, leaving a crimson smear.

“Drinking too much cold water isn’t good for your health; this is warm.”

After speaking, he gently closed Liu Dahang’s eyes.

“Bang bang bang!”

A knock on the door suddenly sounded, Qin Jiang raised an eyebrow, and directly pulled down the quilt to cover Liu Dahang’s corpse.

“Who is it?”

“Little Jiang, it’s me, open the door.”

An auntie’s voice drifted into the room, and before Qin Jiang could get up, a middle-aged auntie poked her head through the window.

“Hmm? What happened here?” the auntie asked, puzzled, looking at the quilt scattered on the floor.

“Oh, Auntie Zhang, I was sleeping just now, rolled over and fell off,” Qin Jiang quickly got up, walked to the door, and opened it.

Auntie Zhang withdrew from the window, holding a bowl in her hand, from which wafted a rich aroma of meat.

“Be careful when you sleep. Here, this is the meat porridge Master Li gave out during the ritual. It’s very fragrant.”

As she spoke, she sniffed, her brows furrowing slightly, “What’s that smell?”

She leaned her head into the room, only able to see some blurry furniture in the darkness.

Qin Jiang subtly blocked her view, “Oh, my sister is coming back these days, so I killed a pigeon to prepare, so it’ll be convenient to eat then.”

He looked at the bloodstains on himself, “I’m not very skilled, got it all over myself. I’ll have to wash up later.”

Auntie Wang nodded understandingly, “Little Hong is coming back, huh? Alright then, you get busy.”

Saying that, she pushed the meat porridge in her hand into Qin Jiang’s hands, “After you finish the porridge, just give me the bowl tomorrow.”

“Hey, thank you, Auntie Zhang.”

“Oh, don’t be polite. I treat you and Little Hong like my own children. Hurry and eat, don’t let it get cold.”

After Auntie Zhang left, Qin Jiang looked towards the alley; several households had already returned.

He placed the meat porridge on the table, walked to the bed, and looked at the bloodstains on the floor.

After a moment of hesitation, he brought a hoe from the courtyard, temporarily abandoning the idea of disposing of the body.

He lifted the quilt, fumbled for a while, and found a few coins of silver and some copper coins on Liu Dahang’s body.

After thinking for a moment, he took a copper coin from his own money pouch and placed it in Liu Dahang’s palm.

‘I said it was for you.’

He looked around the room, found an empty spot, dug a small pit about a foot deep, then dragged Liu Dahang’s corpse over, tossing his head next to the pit, blood flowing from his jaw into the small pit.

Afterward, he went to the watercylinder in the courtyard to fetch water; he had to clean up the bloodstains first, otherwise it would be difficult to deal with once it became sticky.

About half an hour later, after finishing all this, he continued digging along the location of the small pit until he had dug a deep pit more than a person’s length.

He was about to throw Liu Dahang’s body in immediately; anyway, it would only be there for a few days at most, it wouldn’t stink.

However, when his hand grabbed the corpse’s clothes, he suddenly stopped, then looked at his own tattered hemp clothes, paused for a few seconds, and then silently stripped off the black cloth clothes from Liu Dahang’s body.

It could be altered to wear, but it needed to be washed first.

Soon, Qin Jiang buried the naked corpse and firmly flattened the soil.

He took some lime powder from outside and sprinkled it, then haphazardly swept it a few times with a broom, and almost no traces were visible.

Clapping his hands, he nodded, “This will do for now. I’ll dispose of it when I get a chance.”

After all this, he picked up the meat porridge from the table, took a small taste, and his eyes lit up.

Cured meat? It has flavor!

Having inherited the original owner’s memories, his body was also unconsciously affected. He had been eating dry rice for half a month, almost to the point of throwing up, and his mouth was bland as a bird’s nest.

However, when he carefully savored the cured meat, he suddenly spat it out.

“Pfft!”

His eyes became somewhat cold and sharp, “Good, good, what a Master Li, he’s really something!”

“I knew it, why would anyone dare to hold such a damn ritual in this day and age? So this is the kind of trash it is!”

“That ritual, it seems, isn’t a good thing either!”

He walked out of the room, casually pouring the meat porridge into the sewer, then glanced at the pigeon with its broken wing.

After a moment of thought, he took the pigeon and went back inside.

“What kind of wretched place is this? Why are so many people dying? Doesn’t the government care? Or have they all died off? They don’t even know to burn them. What if a plague breaks out?”

Outside Black Mountain City, two figures, one tall and one short, looked at the mountain of corpses piled outside Black Mountain City, with several dirty figures rummaging through the pile.

“It’s not bad, I guess. Yuan Province is close to Huai Country, and there’s constant warfare, so this is probably normal,” the tall, thin figure said hesitantly.

“Tsk, well, that makes it less troublesome to find him,” the short, stout figure scraped his chin with a dagger.

“Hey ~ do you still remember what that guy looked like?” the tall, thin figure asked.

The short, stout figure disdainfully licked the dagger, then remembered he had just scraped his face with it, and quickly spat several times.

“Pfft pfft pfft, we might not be good at fighting, but what’s so hard about finding someone? That kid was sallow and emaciated, definitely not a rich person. Let’s start looking in the slums.”

The tall, thin figure looked up slightly, feigning sudden realization, “Oh ~ you’re so smart!”

“Hmph, of course! My skills are an eight-generation family heirloom!”

The next morning, Qin Jiang sat in front of his door, gnawing on a roasted pigeon, wearing the black cloth clothes that had been altered to fit him.

The fresh morning air gave him a hearty appetite, and in a few bites, he ate the entire roasted pigeon, meat and bones included.

He slung the medicine basket over his back and locked the door securely.

If possible, he should gather more herbs today, and once he had enough money, he would go to apprentice and learn Iron Arm Fist.

With his current strength, he could venture a little deeper into the Inner City, and should be able to find some valuable herbs.

He left the house, walked out of the alley, and after a moment’s thought, headed towards the south of the city; the ritual seemed to be held for half a month.

He had to go and see; from that bowl of meat porridge, he knew Master Li was no good, and if anything unexpected happened, he would be prepared.

After walking for more than ten minutes, passing through a dozen rows of buildings, he arrived at a somewhat wide main street.

As soon as he stepped onto the main street, he felt a suppressive Qi presence.

Looking around, his street corner was in the center of the main street, with large crowds packed on both sides, all prostrating towards his right.

Seeing their tattered clothes, he knew they were all people who couldn’t even eat their fill, likely recently arrived refugees.

They would occasionally raise their arms and bring them down heavily, their expressions filled with an indescribable, almost frenzied, fanaticism.

Qin Jiang looked to his right; on the small buildings lining the main street stood some people in yellow cloth clothes, old and young, constantly scattering yellow paper slips, looking down at the crowd with disdain and greed.

From a window sill high up, a person wearing a four-cornered hat and black brocade robes, with a body like a meatball, was visible.

This fellow was Master Li of the south city, Li Songzheng.

It was said that he also owned many properties in the Inner City, but for some unknown reason, he had always lived in the south city.

At this moment, he was comfortably seated in a rocking chair, his eyes slightly narrowed, sipping tea.

Withdrawing his gaze, his sight passed over the prostrating crowd to a huge ritual platform, being carried forward by over a dozen burly men in yellow and red vests, with the prostrating crowd also slowly retreating and moving back.