The wind over the mass grave blew against Tang Wugui's cheek, making it ache.
But that wasn't the reason for his foul mood.
The reason was that this place was too clean.
In this century-old land of ill omen, rumored to be frighteningly haunted, the mountains of Corpse Water Silver were gone, and even the yin energy had been scraped clean. The ground only held a few deep, bottomless pits.
"An empty account?"
Tang Wugui stood by the pit, his eyes, previously bright with excitement, turning cold instantly.
He slowly turned his head to look at Old Man Liu, who was cowering and shivering to the side.
"Old man, creating false accounts with me is paid for with your life."
Tang Wugui's voice was soft, yet it made Old Man Liu kneel on the spot.
"No... no! Benefactor! I really saw it! That night, this place was full of red light... I wouldn't dare lie to you!"
Tang Wugui narrowed his eyes. Just as he was about to say something more, the red thread on his left wrist suddenly jerked violently without warning.
Not from excitement, but as a warning.
Thwip!
There was no sound, only an extremely fine glint of cold light appearing out of nowhere right before his brow.
Too fast.
Too fast for even thought to react.
But the red thread was faster.
The strands of red thread that had been wrapped around his wrist shot out instantly in the nick of time, tightly entangling the flying knife.
The blade tip stopped less than half a finger's distance from Tang Wugui's pupil.
"A competitor?"
Tang Wugui was just about to scoff, but in the next second, the hairs all over his body stood on end.
The attacker didn't stop because the ambush failed.
On the contrary, a thin black shadow seemed to grow out of the earth, using the cover of night to rush straight toward Tang Wugui's chest along the taut red thread!
"You're looking to die!"
Tang Wugui flipped his wrist. Dozens of red threads split and stabbed toward the black shadow with killing intent.
But this black shadow demonstrated astonishing resolve.
Completely disregarding the sharp pain as the red threads broke her skin, her body twisted bizarrely in mid-air, forcing her way through the gaps in the threads.
At the same time, a broken blade flipped in her hand, creating a flash of cold light.
Clang!
The sound of red threads tearing and a dagger breaking rang out simultaneously.
The two collided and immediately separated.
The black shadow tumbled three times on the ground, then landed on one hand, leaping several meters away.
Tang Wugui stood still and raised his hand to touch his cheek.
On his fingertip was a smudge of blood.
A thin wound lay horizontally across his left face. Though not deep, it had indeed hurt him.
"Interesting."
Tang Wugui looked at the blood on his finger. Instead of getting angry, he revealed a gaze of scrutiny, as if looking at a rare specimen.
"The red thread is the materialization of the law of causality. Ordinary physical attacks can't cut it at all. Unless..."
"The knife in your hand, or you yourself, carry an extremely heavy karmic debt of life."
He looked across unhurriedly.
Borrowing the moonlight, he finally saw the attacker clearly.
It was a girl who looked only sixteen or seventeen years old.
She was wrapped in tattered black robes likely stripped from a dead body. Her exposed arms and calves were covered in bandages.
Under a messy mop of short hair was a scarred face and a pair of frighteningly bright eyes.
Like a wolf, carrying a ruthless determination to perish together.
Behind her, she carried a wicker basket that seemed too heavy for her frail body.
The basket didn't look full. Inside, there was just a heavy, pitch-black metallic lump, pulsing slightly like a heart.
The thing looked only the size of a watermelon, but it seemed to weigh a thousand catties, forcing the girl's back to bend and making deep footprints in the mud with her bare feet.
A dangerous aura continuously radiated from that metallic lump.
"So it wasn't an empty account, but a case of asset compression, and... illegal transfer."
Tang Wugui leisurely wiped the blood from his face with his thumb and tasted it. His eyes instantly became professional and cold.
"You refined all thirteen thousand taels of Corpse Water Silver from this mass grave into this mother ore?"
He took a step forward. The red threads on his wrist slowly spread out, weaving and overlapping into a large net, sealing off all of the girl's avenues of retreat.
The girl tightened her grip on the broken blade in her hand, lowered her body slightly, and let out a low growl of a threat from her throat:
"Scram...
"That is mine!"
"Yours?"
Tang Wugui acted as if he had heard a joke.
He didn't move to snatch it. Instead, he stood at a safe distance, tucked his hands into his sleeves, and assumed a negotiating posture.
"Little girl, do you know what you're carrying?"
Tang Wugui glanced at the heavy basket behind her.
"Wrapped inside that silver are the resentment and corpse poison of thousands of dead people buried here over the past century."
"According to the Great Shen Laws' definition of dangerous assets, your current behavior is called illegal possession of high-risk waste."
Tang Wugui's gaze swept over the girl's trembling legs.
"You think that's money? Don't you feel that with every step you take carrying it, the corpse poison is seeping into your marrow along your spine?"
"If I'm not mistaken, you experience excruciating pain all over your body every night now, and can only barely suppress it by drinking strong spirits, right?"
The girl's pupils shrunk sharply.
He was right.
"You're a good fighter, and your constitution is special, being able to withstand so much corpse poison without dying."
Tang Wugui's tone was flat, but every word was condemnatory:
"But you won't last more than a few days. At the latest, in three days, you will die from the backlash, your whole body festering, becoming new fertilizer in this mass grave."
"When that happens, this money will still be an ownerless item."
The girl gritted her teeth, staring fiercely at Tang Wugui. Although her look remained ferocious, that aura of being ready to die had wavered.
"Who... exactly are you?"
Tang Wugui smiled.
He bowed slightly, performing a standard courtesy, even though it seemed out of place in this eerie mass grave.
"Just a passing... bad debt liquidator."
He extended a pale hand, palm facing up, issuing an invitation to the girl:
"I won't rob your money. On the contrary, I'm here to save your life, and by the way, help you launder this dead money."
"What you have to do is simple."
Tang Wugui pointed to the basket behind her, then to the hungry red threads on his own wrist.
"Pay me that pile of corpse poison and resentment you can't handle as a processing fee."
"I'll help you purify the Blood Silver and leave you with clean, spendable money."
"This is my duty."
The smile on the corner of Tang Wugui's mouth widened. He flicked the red threads on his wrist that had just been slightly cut, speaking with an irresistible magic:
"You cut off a few years of my lifespan, and I, disregarding past grievances, am even helping you strip away bad assets, realizing a win-win situation for both parties."
He narrowed his eyes: "This deal is already maximizing benefits for you."
The girl didn't move.
Her eyes remained fixed on Tang Wugui, and the broken blade in her hand was not lowered; instead, her grip tightened until her knuckles turned white.
"Anyone can talk pretty words," she said in a tone full of distrust.
"Cautious. I like that."
Tang Wugui shrugged and scanned the surroundings.
He casually kicked a piece of rotten wood half-buried in the mud at his feet and picked up a coffin nail from underneath it, corroded almost beyond recognition.
This nail had been buried in the pile of dead bodies for an unknown number of years, covered in dark red rust.
"Watch closely."
Tang Wugui pinched the rotten nail with two fingers. A wisp of red thread popped out from his wrist and gently wrapped around the nail.
Hum.
The red thread glowed slightly.
The girl's pupils instantly dilated.
She watched as the thick, dark red rust on that originally decaying iron nail was forcibly stripped away and swallowed by the red thread.
In just a blink of an eye.
As the last wisp of black energy was absorbed by the red thread, the nail pinched between his fingertips had become as good as new.
"What is called bad debt is essentially negative karma attached to assets."
Tang Wugui casually flicked the brand-new iron nail to the girl.
Cling.
The nail landed on a stone at the girl's feet with a crisp metallic sound.
"As long as the debt is stripped away, garbage can become a quality asset again."
Tang Wugui spread his hands, his smile gentle:
"Now, do you believe me?"