As Li Huang led his battered remnants and vanished into the vast sea of trees, the shadow of death that had loomed over everyone finally lifted.
But what followed was not the jubilant cheers of survivors. Instead, an eerie silence descended.
In this canyon, the only sound seemed to be Lin Feng's ragged, disordered gasping—like a broken bellows being dragged back and forth.
By contrast, Lin Mu stood a few paces away in the shadows. His breathing was somewhat rapid too, yet it carried a deliberately suppressed steadiness.
He gripped a broken blade still dripping blood, slowly wiping the edge with the corner of his sleeve.
His movements were unhurried, but his gaze drifted through the tangled hair over his forehead, sweeping coldly across the scene.
It was a tableau of exquisite temptation:
Lin Feng, their strongest fighter, knelt on the ground in utter exhaustion, completely defenseless.
Lin Wan'er, their only healer, was deathly pale, her Primeval Essence depleted. The sole remaining house-slave clutched his bleeding abdomen, groaning in agony.
The only person in the entire canyon who still possessed full combat capability—and held a weapon—was Lin Mu alone.
In that instant, a cold killing intent slithered up from the depths of his heart like a venomous snake.
Strike now. One slash each. Silent. Untraceable. Afterward, stage the scene to look like Li Huang's work—a perfect crime with no witnesses.
Then everything on these direct-line disciples—Gu worms, Primeval Stones, even Lin Feng's valuable bright-silver armor—all of it becomes spoils of war.
Lin Mu's fingers caressed the hilt lightly. His gaze drifted, almost carelessly, across the exposed nape of Lin Feng's neck.
A fatal temptation.
But in the next heartbeat, absolute rationality strangled that killing intent.
"Returns too low. Risk too high."
Lin Mu's mind raced through calculations. Rank 1 Gu worms were valuable, yes, but most bore the clan's will-imprints—nearly impossible to fence. Attempting it might expose him instead.
More critically: Lin Feng was a prized direct-line disciple, groomed by the clan. Could he truly have no hidden cards left? Something like a self-detonation failsafe, or a death-triggered counterattack?
And if the kill failed—or if the clan's Punishment Hall later deployed investigative methods, like those Rank 2 Time Path Gu capable of replaying images—what awaited him would be eternal damnation.
"It's not that I can't kill them. It's that the returns are too meager. These people aren't worth betraying the clan for."
The moment this clarity crystallized, the frost in Lin Mu's eyes melted away. In its place emerged an expression mingling concern with lingering shock.
Click.
He sheathed the blade, strode forward, and caught the swaying Lin Feng by the arm. His voice was urgent, sincere:
"Young Master, are you alright?"
Lin Feng's body stiffened violently at the touch.
Exhausted as he was, that nerve called suspicion remained taut as a bowstring.
Just now—for the briefest instant—he had sensed something from Lin Mu that made every hair on his body stand on end. Like being watched by a lurking, starving wolf, its eyes fixed on his throat.
Leaning on Lin Mu's support, Lin Feng forced himself upright. His bloodshot eyes locked onto Lin Mu, as though trying to pierce through to the boy's very soul.
"Lin Mu..."
Lin Feng's voice was hoarse, tinged with scrutiny and probing. "You hide yourself well. That slash just now—it was fast. So fast even I couldn't react."
The air froze solid.
Lin Mu's heart tightened, but his face broke into a foolish, shaken grin. He scratched his head, looking almost embarrassed:
"Young Master flatters me. It wasn't fast at all—when that thick-necked brute charged at me, I nearly pissed myself."
"My mind went completely blank. I just closed my eyes and swung blindly. Who knew that guy was so fragile he'd throw his own neck onto my blade? Pure luck, really. Just luck."
It was a clumsy excuse.
But at this moment, it was the perfect way to step down gracefully.
Lin Feng studied him for a long moment. The wariness in his eyes didn't fully fade, but it softened by a measure.
He was a clever man. He knew some veils should never be torn.
Whether Lin Mu was truly simple or merely playing the fool—as long as he still called him "Young Master," as long as he still offered a steadying arm—he was one of us.
"Luck... is also a form of strength."
Lin Feng's tone was mild. He didn't press further. The two of them, through unspoken understanding, maintained that thin veneer of master and servant.
"Clear the battlefield."
"Yes."
Lin Mu released Lin Feng and turned toward the corpses.
He might have abandoned the notion of murder and plunder, but the spoils rightfully his—those he would claim to the last scrap.
Most of the White Bone disciples' Primeval Stones had been consumed in combat; he found only a few dozen fragments.
But on the thick-necked man he had killed first, his searching fingers touched something hard.
A beetle, earth-yellow, shaped like a river stone.
Rank 1 Savage Stone Gu.
An Earth Path defensive Gu worm. When activated, it hardened the skin like rock and briefly enhanced physical strength. One of White Bone Stockade's signature Gu, with a stable market price between one hundred fifty and two hundred Primeval Stones.
"Excellent. Perfect for filling the gap in Red Mud Gu's defensive coverage—or I could sell it for a windfall."
Lin Mu pocketed the Savage Stone Gu without a flicker of expression, his movements as practiced as if he'd rehearsed them a thousand times.
Then he approached the fallen house-slave and Zhao Yuze.
For these two "teammates," Lin Mu showed none of the roughness he'd used on enemies.
He arranged their features with care, removed the Gu pouches from their waists, and gathered their identity tokens. Cradling these items in both hands, he presented them to Lin Feng.
"Young Master, these are their belongings. Please return them to the clan for the Punishment Hall. It will give their families something to remember them by."
Lin Feng looked at the blood-stained relics, a flash of surprise crossing his eyes.
In the world of Gu Masters, profiting from the dead was standard practice. Plenty of people wouldn't spare even their teammates' corpses.
Lin Mu's disciplined, ungreedy conduct finally lowered the wariness in Lin Feng's gaze by another notch.
"You... have a good heart."
Lin Feng sighed, accepting the effects. "Let's go. Back to the stockade."
The return journey was anything but easy.
Night had fallen. Shadows flickered through the Blood Forest as if killers lurked everywhere.
The atmosphere was suffocatingly tense.
Lin Mu volunteered to take point, clearing the path and erasing their tracks. Lin Wan'er supported Lin Feng in the middle. The grievously wounded house-slave brought up the rear, keeping watch.
Lin Mu could feel it clearly—a gaze stuck to his back like a leech.
It was Lin Feng.
The young master's hand never left the spare dagger at his waist. His eyes flicked repeatedly toward Lin Mu's spine.
He was afraid. Afraid Lin Mu might turn on them in this wilderness. Afraid this "deep-hiding" branch disciple might suddenly plant a blade between his shoulders.
This was distrust, bone-deep.
Lin Mu's response was simple: he pretended not to notice.
He even deliberately left his back fully exposed to Lin Feng, walking with steady, unhurried steps, never once glancing behind.
This almost "guileless" posture gradually eroded Lin Feng's anxiety in the silence.
Finally, when the familiar torchlight of Black Blood Stockade appeared on the horizon, Lin Mu heard a barely perceptible exhale of relief from behind him.
Inside the Council Hall, lamps blazed bright.
Lin Feng looked battered, but his spine was ramrod straight as he reported the battle to the duty Elders.
"...That Li Huang is cunning and treacherous. He set an ambush. But I saw through his scheme early and turned his trap against him. We clashed for three hundred rounds..."
Lin Feng's rhetoric was masterful.
He glossed over his initial panic and the grim details of Zhao Yuze's death, instead emphasizing his own composure under fire and decisive command. A pyrrhic victory was reframed as a successful counterattack against the enemy's young lord.
As for Lin Mu, he didn't erase his contributions either. At the crucial juncture, he offered a passing mention:
"In this battle, the branch disciple Lin Mu performed adequately. Loyal and brave in protecting his master, he managed through fortune to kill one enemy Gu Master at a critical moment, which stabilized our flank."
Loyal. Fortunate.
Two words, exquisitely chosen.
They elevated himself, mollified Lin Mu, and simultaneously deflected the Elders' attention from probing Lin Mu's true abilities too deeply.
"Excellent! Excellent! Excellent!"
Elder Kuangxu seated at the head of the hall couldn't restrain himself from slapping the table in approval.
"Repelling the young lord of White Bone Stockade, slaying three enemy combatants—this is the greatest victory we've had in days! Even losing two men was worth it!"
In this moment of flagging morale, the clan desperately needed a victory to rally spirits.
"Third Squad is to be commended!"
The clan elders exchanged glances and swiftly reached a consensus. They would hold up Third Squad as a "model of resistance," using their example to inspire those timid branch family members who'd grown reluctant to fight.
"In addition to the standard compensation and Primeval Stone rewards..."
Elder Kuangxu swept his hand through the air, his gaze landing on Lin Feng and Lin Mu standing below the hall.
His voice rang out: "The surviving Rank 1 Gu Masters of Third Squad are hereby granted special permission to enter the clan's 'Gu Repository' early tomorrow morning."
"Each may select one Rank 1 Gu as recognition of their merit!"
The moment the words "Gu Repository" left his lips, Lin Mu's eyelid twitched—the first crack in his otherwise expressionless facade.
That was the treasury where Black Blood Stockade stored the Gu worms left behind by ancestors across generations.
Inside were not only rare Gu that couldn't be found anywhere in the outside world, but possibly... clues to undiscovered inheritances.