Martial Dao: Peace by Force

...

Wan Ze moved forward, hugging the dilapidated wall.

The gate of the old, condemned courtyard was ajar. A sliver of dim yellow light escaped through the crack, along with intermittent, muffled thuds.

He suppressed his presence and approached in complete silence.

A thin layer of moonlight did little to illuminate the scene, instead stretching the shadows long and heavy.

A man was kneeling on the ground.

His forehead was pressed against a broken brick, his back hunched as he curled into a ball. The bruises on his face were hard to see in the dark, but blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.

A woman stood beside him, her hair being pulled. She didn’t dare to struggle, merely clutching the hem of her clothes with both hands, trying her best not to cry out.

Seven or eight thugs were scattered around the courtyard and by the gate.

The man in charge sat in a broken wicker chair, one leg crossed over the other, twirling a cigar in his hand.

He glanced down at the puddle of filth on the ground, his voice lazy. "Thirty-two thousand."

The kneeling man’s body visibly trembled.

"That crappy shop of yours? You’d be lucky to get three thousand for it." Boss Zheng stuck the cigar in his mouth and squinted. "That leaves twenty-nine thousand... Boss Tao, how do you plan to cover it?"

The man didn’t dare to look up.

Boss Zheng was in no hurry. His gaze swept past the kneeling man and finally landed on the woman behind him.

The woman felt his eyes on her and stiffened.

"How about this..." Boss Zheng suddenly smiled. "Let’s make a deal, Boss Tao. Your wife isn’t bad-looking. Let me sleep with her for a night, and we’ll call it a thousand. A month of that, and we’ll be even."

The courtyard fell silent for a moment.

The man knelt on the ground, his Adam’s apple bobbing.

He turned his head and glanced at the woman.

She was also looking at him.

Tear tracks were still visible on her face.

But soon, her expression changed... from fear to disbelief.

She said nothing, only shaking her head slightly.

The man looked away.

He lowered his head, staring at the fingers pressed against the ground.

He spoke in a raspy voice, seemingly trying to sound casual. "...Actually, with the lights off... it’s all the same."

The woman was completely stunned.

She stared at him blankly, as if seeing him for the first time.

Boss Zheng was also taken aback for a second.

Then he laughed, a soft laugh filled with the satisfaction of admiring his prey.

He slowly stood up.

Suddenly, he kicked the man in the shoulder. "You fucking call yourself a man? All it took was a little test to see you’re not worth a damn!"

The man was kicked to the ground but immediately scrambled back up to kneel properly, his forehead pressed to the dirt. "Brother, I was wrong! Brother, I was really wrong..."

Boss Zheng didn’t stop, kicking him in the ribs again and again, the sound of muffled thuds unending.

After a dozen or so kicks, he finally stopped. Looking down at the man curled up in a ball, he got straight to the point. "I hear you have a relative who’s a famous painter?"

The man’s begging stopped short.

"Give me what he left behind, and we’ll call your debt square," Boss Zheng said, crouching down, his tone as casual as if he were making small talk.

The man pleaded, his voice hoarse, forcing an ingratiating smile. "That old bastard... he didn’t leave anything... If he had anything valuable, would I still have it now?"

Boss Zheng ignored him, tilting his chin toward the house. "Search it."

He looked back at the man, smiling. "If we find it, your debt is cleared. If we don’t... tonight, only one of you and your wife is leaving this courtyard."

The man’s pleas suddenly shot up in pitch, like a pig being slaughtered.

CRASH! BANG! The sounds came from inside the house.

Drawers were pulled out, cabinet doors kicked open, and porcelain shattered.

A moment later, someone poked their head out of the inner room, their face flush with excitement. "Boss, there’s a hidden door behind the wall!"

Boss Zheng didn’t move, just glanced down at the puddle of filth at his feet.

"Old Tao, oh Old Tao, still playing innocent with me at a time like this? You really deserve to die." He spoke slowly, crouching down to pat the man’s bruised face, his voice very soft.

Then he stood up, stepped over the man’s body, and strode inside.

The man froze for half a second.

The next instant, he scrambled forward and desperately clung to Boss Zheng’s leg. "Brother Zheng! You can’t touch the things inside! They’re not mine, and they weren’t left by that old man... Please, don’t touch them! I’m begging you! If you do, we’ll both die!"

Boss Zheng looked down at him and expressionlessly shook him off.

The man tried to lunge at him again like a madman.

A dark figure flashed by. One of Boss Zheng’s thugs stepped forward and kicked the man in the chest, sending him sliding three or four feet across the ground. He curled up in a corner, coughing violently and spitting up bloody foam.

"Brother Zheng, don’t... You have no idea what that stuff is!" the man pleaded, his face a mask of terror and anxiety.

Brother Zheng stopped, then suddenly turned back and walked over to him. He grinned, but his smile held a chilling coldness. "You think I don’t know who it belongs to? Listen up, I came here specifically for it... So pray. If the item is real, you and your wife might just get to live."

With that, he stood up, brushed off the nonexistent dust from his pants, and ignored the dumbfounded man as he strode into the secret room.

The secret room wasn’t large.

It was only about six square meters, with bare walls, save for a single painting hanging on the far wall. It depicted a steep, lonely mountain landscape shrouded in heavy mist.

Below the painting stood a metal safe. A yellowed slip of paper was taped to its lid, with elegant characters written on it: [Do not touch. You will die.]

Several of the thugs stood rooted at the entrance, staring at the note, not daring to take a single step inside.

"Boss..." one of them gulped.

Boss Zheng glanced at the note and sneered.

He reached out and tore it off. "What fucking era are we living in? You still believe this shit?"

The safe wasn’t locked.

The moment he lifted the lid, he glanced back at the hesitant faces behind him, his tone scornful. "If ghosts and gods were real, I would’ve become a fucking immortal long ago."

Before the words had even left his mouth.

"PFFT!"

A muffled sound.

It was a pistol fitted with a silencer.

The sound was as soft as a wine bottle being uncorked.

The thugs hadn’t even had time to react. Brother Zheng, who had just opened the safe, was struck by a bullet that pierced his skull. Brain matter sprayed from the back of his head, splattering across half the wall as his body fell forward, stiff as a board.

Then, before the thugs could even turn to see what had happened...

"PFFT!"

"PFFT!"

"PFFT!"

A few precise shots.

All the thugs were silenced.

At the same time, Wan Ze, having dealt with the men outside, quickly approached and stepped into the secret room.

The smell of gunpowder still hung in the small space.

He glanced at the blood spatter on the wall, then at the bodies strewn across the floor, before his eyes finally settled on the person holding the gun.

The woman stood by the safe, her gun hand steady, her breathing even. Without turning around, she said calmly, "...Even if I hadn’t killed them, they would have killed us for what’s in here."

Wan Ze walked forward, passed by her side, and glanced at the contents of the safe.

"That’s not what I’m concerned about," he said calmly. "I thought you would leave one alive, at least to find out where they came from."

The woman’s movements faltered.

She turned her head away and didn’t reply. With her back to Wan Ze, she ignored him, seemingly annoyed and somewhat exasperated.

After a couple of seconds, the woman tucked the pistol into her waistband and, still with her back to him, began to rummage through the contents of the safe.

Her movements were a bit rough; the corner of the safe knocked against the wall with a sharp sound.

Wan Ze didn’t press her.

He just watched her back, the corner of his mouth twitching into a slight smile.

’She’s got quite a temper,’ he thought.

Wan Ze withdrew his gaze and looked at the painting on the wall.

A lonely peak under the moon, wreathed in clouds and mist.

On a whim, as if guided by some unseen force, he reached out and gently touched the center of the painting with his fingertip.

In that instant, it felt as if something had passed through the canvas, through life and death, through countless years, and gently... bumped into him.

It wasn’t Power.

It was Perception.

An unprecedented, indescribable "awakening."

He lowered his gaze and quickly glanced at the data frame.

...

[Stealing Celestial Secret: Magic Sense (100%)]

(Greatly enhances Perception of magic)

...

Wan Ze didn’t move.

He stared at the line of text as if looking at a door that had just cracked open.

’So "magic" can be perceived,’ he thought.

He instinctively thought of the Qi Refining Technique.

And he was beginning to believe...

To believe that Qi Refiners existed in this world, that the woman named Tao Zhixi had once pushed open that door, and that what his fingertip was touching right now wasn’t some old painting left behind, but a remnant of a future path.

But...

The door was there.

’Where is the key?’

"This should be it... This is her handwriting... It really was a self-fulfilling prophecy... Actually, I’m not sure what she really wanted to leave behind."

The woman’s voice came from behind, interrupting his reverie.

Wan Ze looked up.

The woman was squatting in front of the safe, carefully lifting out three items from the bottom.

Three sticks of incense... Their bodies were dark red, as thin as chopsticks, sealed in a translucent box.

A round iron plate... It was palm-sized with rusted edges, and an intricate pattern was engraved in the center. On closer inspection, it looked like a human figure, or perhaps a Mountain Ghost.

And a thin, thread-bound booklet with yellowed pages and frayed edges.

"Are you sure this is her legacy?" Wan Ze walked over and casually reached out, taking the iron plate.

"I’m sure," the woman said, flipping through the booklet, her eyes scanning the lines, a tremor in her voice. "These are the incantations she never finished teaching me..."

As she spoke, she stared intently at the contents, her eyes flying across ten lines at a glance. A look of relief, like a ship finally reaching shore, appeared on her face. "I remember this incense. She burned it the day she led me through that door."

The woman kept talking, completely oblivious to the shock Wan Ze was experiencing as he held the round iron plate.

Wan Ze was in no state to reply.

His entire focus was on the small iron plate in his palm.

The sensation was bizarre.

It wasn’t "holding."

It was "being filled."

An immeasurably vast Power was pouring into him from the fingertips holding the plate—frantic and decisive, like a torrential downpour.

It didn’t feel like an acquisition.

It felt like a return.

As if something that had always belonged to him had finally crossed a thousand mountains and rivers to find its way home.

Three seconds.

Only three seconds.

After three breaths, the storm subsided.

Wan Ze lowered his eyes.

Below his retina, a new, never-before-seen entry appeared in the data frame.

[Stealing Celestial Secret: Spiritual Form (999%)]

(Effect: Ignores rules, forms its own Spiritual Form)

He was silent for a long time.

He didn’t understand it.

But he knew it was something incredible.

"...What is this?" He held the iron plate in his palm, presenting it to her.

The woman glanced at it and stated its name precisely. "The Mountain Ghost Order."

She was about to say more.

Outside the door, there was an extremely faint, unusual sound.

Someone was here. Their skills were impressive, and their killing intent was palpable from the moment they appeared.

In almost the same instant, the woman drew her gun, spun around, and pulled the trigger.

"BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG!"

A series of sparks erupted from the muzzle flashes at the entrance of the secret room.