Hitman's Life

At that time, although Wang Xiaoer had taken off his ring, he still was not in good shape after falling from such a high place nearly ten times.

When he struggled to get up and went to help his Master who had also fallen down from high up, he suddenly discovered that his Master's body, both top and bottom, was covered in gashes, as if he had been hacked dozens of times with a blade. Some gashes were even deep enough to see the bone.

In addition, he was in a state of deep unconsciousness.

Undoubtedly, Zhang San was in an extremely dangerous situation at that time.

What made Wang Xiaoer feel relieved was that his Master still had breath and heartbeat, which showed that he was still alive.

In addition to feeling pleasantly surprised, Wang Xiaoer's mind was also very clear.

On his way here, he had already discovered that there were quite a few medicinal herbs growing in the mountains around them, many of which had hemostatic properties. He immediately collected them to stop the bleeding for his Master.

Later, when it was nighttime, on the beach where the retreated Zhennan Army had been, Zhang San had frightened those Earth Realm masters with the prestige of a Grandmaster who could fight three hundred people alone, so that they did not choose to stay or search around the mountains.

Those masters subconsciously believed that with the martial arts cultivation of a Grandmaster, even if he was seriously injured, the surrounding mountains were so vast that it would be difficult to find him if they did not spread out to search. However, if the search team was too dispersed, even if they found him, it would just be sending themselves to their deaths.

Therefore, Wang Xiaoer did not have much difficulty pushing away an oxcart and making some simple modifications before taking advantage of the night to take his Master along the small road.

Afterwards, Wang Xiaoer ate in the wild and slept in the open all the way.

But for Zhang San, Wang Xiaoer used his inner energy and silver needles to stimulate acupoints, crushing all kinds of fruits he found into juice, stewing wild rabbits and chickens into meat soup, and pouring it into his Master's stomach to ensure the functioning of his body.

In the meantime, Wang Xiaoer also took the opportunity when Tian Ruo City was in chaos to return to the secret room of the calligraphy and painting store in the city to retrieve many medicines personally refined by Zhang San. Only then was his Master's life truly preserved.

It can be said that in the two months when Zhang San was in a coma, it was entirely thanks to Wang Xiaoer's resourcefulness that not only did he retrieve a large amount of medicine and preserve Zhang San's life, he also avoided the major government search caused by Lu Gaosheng's death and the complete annihilation of the Jin Jia Forbidden Guard.

I heard that even the golden-clothed catchers from the county government and the famous catchers from the Imperial Patrol Bureau in the capital came for that search. However, after all, Tian Ruo Prefecture covers a large area. Wang Xiaoer was smart and also quite fortunate, so in the end they were not discovered.

It is hard to imagine that a ten-year-old child could accomplish so much.

But Wang Xiaoer did achieve it.

...

In the evening, after checking his injuries, Wang Xiaoer and Zhang San began reading.

Yes, reading.

Zhang San was reading the Song of the Great Dao, whose contents he was already extremely familiar with. But recently, he would still read it every night before going to bed, pondering over it, hoping he could find something different from before.

As for Wang Xiaoer, he was reading a book called The Chronicle of a Killer's Life.

Incidentally, the author of this book was Zhang San himself.

This was a book that 19-year-old Zhang San had written, recording various "indirect murder" methods he had used from childhood to the age of seventeen, or mechanisms, traps, poisons, etc. that he designed and invented in order to achieve "indirect murder“.

Indirect murder, before Zhang San invented the "hired killer" method, was what he perceived to be the most reliable highest realm. Zhang San had an extremely profound study on the subject of indirect murder.

The best example was the incident of poisoning the well to kill Hei Shanke.

As everyone knows, wells are usually connected to groundwater which flows greatly. Poisoning a well to poison a large number of people to death is usually just a story in martial arts novels, almost impossible to happen in reality, unless you pour hundreds of carts of poison into the well.

However, by observing when the yamen runners drew water and calculating the flow rate of the water, as well as processing the poison to make it dissolve more slowly, Zhang San was able to make Hei Shanke fall into his trap.

Of course, it was impossible for Zhang San to have such meticulous calculations and methods out of nowhere, and then easily accomplish it.

Back when Zhang San was fifteen years old in Nan Commandery... A beautiful woman wanted to murder her husband, but was afraid that she would be discovered by her husband's brother who had the strength to fight tigers if she did it with her own hands. Therefore, she borrowed some money from the dacaitou in town who was good friends with the county magistrate, and issued an assassin order to the underground world.

The one who took the order at that time was Zhang San. Of course, in line with his steady style, he would never take action personally, even if the target was extraordinarily short and did not seem to know martial arts at all.

After studying a book called The Classic of Calculation, 15-year-old Zhang San finally developed this poisoned flowing water method that required precise calculations through many experiments.

Incidentally, for job safety reasons, Zhang San was actually a "Master of Calculation Techniques" after studying The Classic of Calculation.

Of course, Zhang San at that time could not have imagined that more than ten years later, this poisoned flowing water method would be used on an Earth Realm expert like Hei Shanke.

However, even the poisoned flowing water method was just the tip of the iceberg in this Chronicle of a Killer's Life.

This book contained:

All kinds of mechanisms, such as a flying needle mechanism that relied on wind direction;

Various traps, such as a pit-style trap that relied on gravity;

All sorts of weapons, such as a specially made flying dagger with precise grooves inside, which could be coated with both poison and knock-out drugs at the same time.

It was just that as Zhang San’s martial arts progressed to higher levels, his need for such external aids naturally diminished.

But this did not prevent Zhang San from passing this book to Wang Xiaoer, or occasionally taking it out to read, reminiscing about how steady he was back then, and how his current self needed to improve compared to his 17-year-old self!

So, incidentally again, for job safety reasons, Zhang San had always been a mechanism designer, trap designer, and weapon designer.

...

At night:

Having finished reading the Song of the Great Dao, Zhang San felt very anguished.

Because he didn't find anything particularly special.

But then again, it made sense that if there really was some profound mystery, he wouldn't still have been unable to find it after practicing for twenty years.

Having finished reading The Chronicle of a Killer's Life, Wang Xiaoer felt very puzzled.

Why did Master have to practice martial arts in the first place?

With his brains, did Master need martial arts to kill people?

He absolutely didn’t need it!

With Zhang San feeling anguished and Wang Xiaoer feeling puzzled, the two slowly fell asleep.

Until deep in the night, Wang Xiaoer was already fast asleep, but Zhang San kept tossing and turning, unable to sleep.

He got up.

The broken temple was not big, with only one hall. In the middle was the Buddha statue, on the left was a patch of weeds, sturdy wild plants still able to thrive vigorously between the bricks and stones, because even weeds had to struggle to survive.

On the right was the straw bedding that the master and disciple had cleared out for themselves, along with two candle holders and two large boxes.

The moonlight gradually entered. Zhang San first looked at Wang Xiaoer sleeping beside him.

"Disobedient brat, I told you to go with Li Xing first, if we were lucky, those Zhennan Army guys wouldn't have searched around the mountains. If we were unlucky, both of us would have died there..."

Zhang San grumbled discontentedly.

But soon, Zhang San added: “But then again, without you there, I probably really wouldn’t have made it this time.”

In fact, in the last moment before he lost consciousness, Zhang San had a premonition.

That torrential power that gave him a feeling of boundlessness, over which he had absolutely no control, had indeed wreaked havoc inside his body. If he let that power keep rampaging unchecked, the result would surely have been exploding to death.

As for the “cycle of death and rebirth” after he lost consciousness, as depicted by Wang Xiaoer, it had already exceeded the cognition of ordinary people.

Just as he was thinking, the night wind blew in, still a bit chilly even though it was summer.

Zhang San draped his outer garment over the fast asleep Wang Xiaoer.

Now that he thought about it, if he hadn’t taken in this unfortunate apprentice to begin with, such a series of disasters wouldn’t have befallen him.

However, if it were not for this disobedient disciple, he himself would not have escaped death six months ago.

Zhang San suddenly felt that in addition to being strange, there were also many interesting things in this world.

He walked to the door of the dilapidated temple.

Turning to the Buddha statue in the main hall, Zhang San slowly sat down on the doorstep.

Moonlight shone in, and the Buddha statue looked very compassionate.

Between those eyebrows, it seemed to radiate endless care for the people of the world.

It was unknown whether the superb skills of the sculptor or the Buddha himself was so benevolent by nature.

Buddha.

Like immortals, for the common people of Dawu Country, this term seemed distant and unfamiliar.

Because at the founding of Dawu Country, it was ruled by Confucian rituals, and although the talks of ghosts and gods were not explicitly prohibited, according to the scholars' saying of "Respecting ghosts and gods while staying away from them," they were not particularly respected.

Similar immortals' temples and Buddhist temples mostly dated back to hundreds or even thousands of years ago.

I remember that the place where Xiu Wangchou and Hei Shanke fought fiercely was in front of an ancient temple outside Xiaoyun County.

However, since someone had built a temple to immortals or a Buddhist temple before, it stands to reason that Buddhism and Taoism should have existed on the mainland at some point.

Having been in the Martial World, Zhang San knew little about the history of the mainland, only knowing that such temples to immortals and Buddhist temples seemed to have prospered over a thousand years ago.

Legend has it that a thousand years ago, there was an extremely powerful country on this continent, even stronger than today’s Dawu Country, with a wider territory that covered almost the entire land except for the Fifteen Northern Countries.

The national religion of that country was Taoism at that time, and people believed that immortals were not false, but really existed in the world.

Many of the stories nowadays in Dawu Country about ordinary people seeking immortals originated from that time, but whether anyone really found immortals remains unknown.

However, after careful consideration, there should have been none, otherwise it would have been wildly publicized long ago if someone really succeeded in seeking immortals.

Later, Buddhism suddenly emerged in that country and became increasingly popular. Soon after, it and Taoism both became the two major religions at that time.

However, due to reasons that people nowadays cannot examine because it was too long ago, that country suddenly collapsed a thousand years ago, leading to a great turmoil in the world and separatist warlords.

After hundreds of years of turmoil, a country rose abruptly, defeated many powerful enemies, established the strongest country that lasted seven hundred years in the heartland, which is now the number one power in the world - Dawu Country.

Although the first emperor of Dawu Country claimed himself the Son of Heaven, he did not like talks about ghosts and gods and was extremely indifferent towards Buddhism and Taoism, encouraging the people to learn Confucianism, which was newly emerged due to the turmoil at that time.

Therefore, over the past few hundred years, many Taoist and Buddhist temples in Dawu Country have gradually fallen into disrepair, and even nowadays been almost neglected.

If Zhang San hadn’t seen the immortal descend to earth and beat the leader of the black society to death with a fishing rod when he was young, he probably wouldn’t believe the story about immortals either.

"I remember when I was with Master traveling in the Martial World, I heard someone talk about that country in a teahouse, which seemed to be called... something Dynasty in history books? Bai? White? Bo?"

After all, it was a memory from more than ten years ago when he occasionally heard it, so Zhang San couldn’t remember it clearly.

But that was just the past era and disappeared dynasty, Zhang San did not dwell on it too much. Instead, he took out the book from his pocket again.

Book Name: The Great Dao Celestial Song Formula

The family heirloom that Master left behind. According to Zhang San’s master, it had been passed down for at least ten generations.

That is to say, this book had at least seven, eight hundred or even a thousand years of time.

Although the book looked shabby, the words on it were still clearly visible. It was said to be a transcribed version because the original had been damaged long ago. However, for books, the essence lies in its content rather than whether it is new or old, as long as the copyist didn't make mistakes.

Looking at the book in his hand, ever since waking up four months ago, besides occasionally reading this "fake immortal art", sometimes he would also practice it, although there was still no result as before.

"Is this thing...real? Fake?" A doubtful voice murmured in the night at the doorstep of the Buddhist temple.