Beyond the Timescape

Chapter 72: The Terrifying Huang Yan

Huang Yan’s voice boomed through the shop, his eyes blazing with a fury that suggested the shopkeeper hadn’t just insulted Xu Qing, but had spat directly in his face.

After all, three of the items sitting on the counter were gifts he had personally given to Xu Qing.

The shopkeeper’s expression darkened. He snatched the thrown bone out of the air, his fingers clamping around it like a vice, and shot Huang Yan a glacial glare.

*You’ve rotted in the Piloting Department for eight years,* the shopkeeper sneered inwardly. *Chasing after some unknown Senior Sister, squandering your wealth on endless gifts until you became the laughingstock of the sect. A complete waste of space. If you want to dig your own grave, don’t blame me for handing you the shovel.*

He drawled, his tone dripping with corporate malice. “You’re right. These are stolen goods. It seems you’re an accomplice in the Vajra Sect theft. Someone, file a report with the Homicide Department. Tell them the prime suspects have walked right into our net.”

Taking his cue, a shop assistant pulled out a communication jade slip. With exaggerated, theatrical slowness, he transmitted the report, ensuring everyone saw the official seal of the complaint.

The disciples lingering in the shop watched with hawkish eyes. Anyone who survived the meat-grinder of Seven Blood Eyes possessed a razor-sharp intellect. They saw through the cheap extortion tactic instantly. The issue wasn’t the Vajra Sect’s missing inventory; this was a calculated shakedown orchestrated by someone on the Sixth Peak.

Whether the target was Xu Qing, Huang Yan, or both remained to be seen, though the smart money was on Xu Qing, who had brought the goods in. Yet, no one intervened. They merely watched the transaction unfold. Zhang San did the same, leaning back into the shadows.

Xu Qing ignored the spectators. His gaze remained fixed on the shopkeeper’s neck, calculating the exact angle required to sever the carotid artery. He was mildly surprised by Huang Yan’s explosive reaction—their relationship was strictly transactional, hardly deep enough to warrant such fierce defense.

More importantly, the theatrical threat of the Homicide Department didn’t align with a genuine assassination attempt. If the Sixth Peak wanted him dead, they would have simply struck. Involving the bureaucratic machinery of the Homicide Department only complicated the kill. For the upper echelon of the sect, erasing a lower-mountain disciple didn’t require such a convoluted audit.

This was a shakedown. A violent audit meant to force him into paying reparations to the Vajra Sect.

Furthermore, Xu Qing had swept the perimeter before entering. There were no high-level cultivators lying in ambush.

As the shopkeeper finalized the report, Huang Yan bared his teeth. “The Homicide Department? Xu Qing *is* in the Homicide Department!”

“Oh? A law enforcer breaking the law? That carries a premium penalty,” the shopkeeper replied, his lips curling into a smug sneer.

Huang Yan let out a bark of furious laughter and lunged forward. Xu Qing, his analytical mind dissecting the shifting variables, raised an arm to block the larger boy.

“Huang Yan, this transaction doesn’t involve you,” Xu Qing said softly. “Leave.”

He then turned his dead, unblinking stare back to the shopkeeper’s throat. “These are spoils of war harvested from wanted bounties. Drop the slander. If you have a price, state it.”

The shopkeeper stiffened. Xu Qing’s chillingly literal response confirmed the rumors—anyone who clawed their way up the Homicide Department’s ranks was a ruthless operator. The original directive from his superiors had been to confront Xu Qing directly and confiscate the goods. But the shopkeeper, looking to skim a profit off the top, had opted for extortion.

Now, his mark had seen right through the ledger.

As a Sixth Peak shopkeeper backed by powerful investors, he existed outside the sect’s brutal ‘Gu-raising’ survival mechanics. Lower-mountain disciples rarely dared to touch his kind. Yet, the phantom chill lingering against his neck urged him to recalculate his margins. He had applied enough pressure; it was time to negotiate the settlement.

He opened his mouth to state the terms, but Huang Yan roared, shattering the tense silence.

“Xu Qing, you don’t need to underwrite this debt for me! This has nothing to do with you. This is a targeted strike against *me*! I know exactly who authorized this—that bastard Zhao Zhongheng from the Dispatch Department! He hates my guts, knows I frequent this shop, and bought off this manager to liquidate my reputation!”

The shopkeeper stared at Huang Yan as if the boy had sprouted a second head. Xu Qing narrowed his eyes. He was trying to de-escalate the conflict, yet Huang Yan seemed determined to monopolize the aggro.

Huang Yan slammed his meaty palm onto the counter, the wood groaning under the impact. He opened his mouth to bellow again, but the heavy thud of boots echoed from the street.

“Who’s throwing their weight around in here?” a cold, sibilant voice drifted into the shop.

Several figures crossed the threshold. Xu Qing glanced over his shoulder, his muscles coiling like a struck spring.

The newcomers wore the gray Daoist robes of the Homicide Department, their metallic badges gleaming with predatory authority. Leading the pack was the captain of the Earth Division’s Third Team—the merman youth Xu Qing had stalked through the alleys for half a month.

Four enforcers flanked him. The merman youth swept his pale, indifferent eyes over the room before locking onto Xu Qing.

“So, it’s you.”

Xu Qing said nothing, but his internal threat assessment spiked to maximum. The Homicide Department’s response time was impossibly fast, and the arrival of a captain he had a violent history with defied statistical probability.

The variables were multiplying. Thread one: the shopkeeper’s extortion attempt, which was standard sect business. Thread two: Huang Yan aggressively pulling the aggro onto himself for reasons unknown. Thread three: the merman youth’s highly irregular arrival.

Until he mapped the entire board, Xu Qing refused to strike.

Meanwhile, the merman youth surveyed the shop with undisguised contempt. Joining Seven Blood Eyes had never been his choice. Though the merman tribe was small, his aristocratic bloodline demanded respect, breeding a deep-seated arrogance. He viewed humans as little more than livestock.

When the dispatch came in, it should have fallen to the Mysterious Division. But due to a conflict of interest involving one of their own, the contract was outsourced to the Earth Division. Seeing Xu Qing’s name on the docket, the merman youth had personally claimed the bounty, eager to settle the score for the stolen kill.

He pointed a webbed finger at Xu Qing and Huang Yan. “Since we have the prime suspects of the Vajra Sect theft, the stolen assets, and a corrupt enforcer all in one place, bag them. We’ll extract their confessions in the interrogation cells.”

Seeing the Homicide Department blatantly ignore protocol, Huang Yan’s fury boiled over. He shoved himself between Xu Qing and the merman youth, his face flushed red.

“Are you blind?!” Huang Yan bellowed. “You think my property is stolen goods?!”

He ripped a Storage Bag from his belt and upended it. A cascade of monster parts spilled out, clattering against the floorboards until they formed a small mountain of nearly several hundred items. The materials—bones, sinew, and scales—all shared the same elemental signature as the bone and feathers on the counter. They had clearly been harvested from a single, massive exotic beast.

The onlookers sucked in sharp breaths, their eyes gleaming with predatory greed. Anyone with half a brain could appraise the pile at several thousand Spirit Stones. The fact that Huang Yan possessed a Storage Bag alone marked him as a high-value target.

“You call this stolen?! Is all of this stolen too?! Could the bankrupt Vajra Sect even afford this?! This is an entire Windrunner Beast! I gave the most valuable piece—the skull—to my Senior Sister! And you dare audit my assets as stolen goods?!”

The little fatty’s outburst sent ripples through the crowd. Even Xu Qing stared at the hoard, his breath catching slightly. He knew Huang Yan was wealthy, but the sheer volume of capital spilling from the Storage Bag was staggering.

The merman youth shot a cold glance at the shopkeeper.

The shopkeeper’s head throbbed. The Homicide Department’s premature arrival had completely derailed his shakedown. He hesitated, but the gears were already in motion; he had to double down. “The Vajra Sect’s official loss report specifically listed a Windrunner Beast!”

Watching the situation spiral into absurdity, Xu Qing remained silent, his eyes tracking every micro-expression in the room.

“So the skull is also stolen property, fenced to your Senior Sister?” The merman youth sneered. “That makes her an accessory to the crime. Apprehend them. We’ll bleed the location of this female accomplice out of them in the cells.”

At his command, the four enforcers fanned out. One moved to secure Huang Yan, while the other three converged on Xu Qing.

“You’re the accessory! Your whole bloodline is an accessory!” Huang Yan shrieked, rolling up his sleeves and charging forward like a maddened bull.

Xu Qing watched the three enforcers approach with dead eyes. He hadn’t wanted to initiate combat before calculating the odds, but the enemy was forcing his hand. He raised his right hand and snapped his fingers.

Instantly, the ambient moisture in the air condensed. Every single water droplet erupted with crushing Pressure, forming a localized gravity well. The three enforcers slammed to a halt, their faces draining of color. Terror flooded their eyes as their bodies trembled violently under the oppressive weight, completely paralyzed.

They had participated in the raid against the Night Dove, but they had never actually seen Xu Qing fight. Experiencing his raw, suffocating power firsthand sent shockwaves of dread through their minds.

“Resisting enforcement.” The merman youth grinned, revealing rows of razor-sharp, serrated teeth. He stepped forward, his acceleration so violent it triggered a sonic boom within the confined shop. In a blur of motion, he materialized right in front of Xu Qing, his clawed hand slashing toward Xu Qing’s throat.

His nails gleamed with a venomous chill. Any ordinary cultivator would have been decapitated before they could blink. But the moment the claws closed in, a black iron spike thrust upward, intercepting the strike.

The merman was fast, but Xu Qing was faster. As he deflected the blow with the spike, Xu Qing drove his knee upward in a brutal, bone-shattering strike aimed at the youth’s abdomen.

*Boom!*

The merman youth aborted his slash, dropping his own knee to block the strike. Bone collided with bone in a deafening crack. Xu Qing’s torso swayed slightly from the kinetic feedback. The merman youth, however, was thrown back five paces. When he looked up, his eyes burned with a bloodthirsty, euphoric light.

“Now this is a profitable exchange.” A deep rumble echoed from within the merman’s chest. The oppressive aura of the ninth level of Qi Condensation exploded outward. Behind him, the air distorted, manifesting a towering, nightmarish phantom of a merman wielding a black trident.

This wasn’t a standard Qi-blood manifestation; this was the raw, genetic supremacy of his bloodline talent. Empowered by the phantom, he launched himself at Xu Qing again. The two collided in a flurry of hyper-violent strikes.

In the span of a single breath, they exchanged seven blows. Each impact sent shockwaves rippling through the shop, rattling the reinforced Formation that kept the building from collapsing into rubble.

The spectators, pressed against the walls, watched with wide, greedy eyes.

“Such high-yield combat power!”

“That Third Team captain is leveraging his racial bloodline. His output rivals a Grand Perfection Qi Condensation disciple from a major sect! But this Xu Qing… his baseline stats are just as monstrous!”

“The rumors said a non-captain from the Mysterious Division assassinated a Night Dove chieftain. It has to be him!”

Hearing the whispers, Huang Yan blinked from his hiding spot behind a pillar. A fleeting, amused smirk crossed his face before he instantly morphed back into a picture of apoplectic rage.

“Kill him, Xu Qing! Gut that overgrown fish! Make him pay for auditing us! We’re having seafood for dinner!”

Amidst the concussive blasts, the merman youth was forced back once more. A thin line of blood trickled from his lips, but the scent of his own blood only spiked his adrenaline. He hadn’t even deployed his trump card yet. Grinning maniacally, he raised his hands, fingers weaving through a complex series of hand seals.

But he failed to notice the shadow pooling at his feet—Xu Qing’s shadow.

Xu Qing’s expression remained placid as a frozen lake. A flicker of killing intent flashed in his eyes. He was about to strike when several powerful auras suddenly erupted outside the shop, locking onto the scene.

“Just watch,” the merman youth snarled, his grin widening. The external auras settled, but in the next instant, an even more terrifying presence descended upon the shop.

With a deafening roar, this new aura crushed the previous ones like dry twigs, suppressing them completely.

The merman youth froze, his head whipping toward the entrance, his face paling instantly. Xu Qing also looked up, his pupils contracting sharply as he sensed the overwhelming pressure from outside.

At that moment, a figure strode into the shop, and a voice as cold as glacial ice sliced through the air.

“Who just said my things are stolen goods?”

The voice was like a blizzard, instantly freezing everyone in the shop. Both the merman youth and the Sixth Peak shopkeeper trembled uncontrollably, their eyes drawn to the newcomer.

It was a woman, towering and powerfully built. Her bronze skin radiated raw strength, and her wild, flowing hair added to her untamed aura. She wore a deep purple Daoist robe and dragged a massive black greatsword behind her, its tip scraping sparks across the floor, gouging deep furrows through the tiles and over the threshold.

The sight made everyone gasp. One by one, the disciples bowed deeply, clasping their fists in reverence.

“Greetings, Second Highness!”

“Greetings, Second Highness!”

“Greetings, Second Highness!”

The newcomer was none other than the Seventh Peak’s equivalent of a princess—a figure with the authority to execute lower-mountain disciples and even strip core disciples of their status. She was the peak lord’s second direct disciple!

“Senior Sister, you finally came!” Huang Yan exclaimed excitedly, scrambling out from his hiding spot and scurrying over to her with a fawning grin.