Apotheosis Begins with Tai Chi

Liu San and Wu Dong didn’t go straight to Kuhuai Village. Instead, they ducked into a small, passably clean restaurant halfway there to fill their stomachs first.

Chen Cheng had tailed them the entire time. From the bits and pieces of their whispered conversation, he had already pieced together their shady plan—one that had to be carried out after nightfall.

Chen Cheng decided not to wait. He took a shorter, more secluded alley, intending to lie in ambush.

Night had completely fallen.

The slums lost their last spark of life. All that remained was the howling of the early winter wind, which whipped the desperate stench through the air, letting it surge and spread until it blotted out the sky.

From the only adobe-walled courtyard at the north end of Kuhuai Village, the hysterical screams of a young woman echoed ceaselessly.

The dead silence all around only made the sound more ghostly and shrill, enough to make one’s skin crawl.

Liu San and Wu Dong ambled up to the courtyard gate. They exchanged a glance, then knocked heavily.

An instant later, a furious, distorted bellow erupted from within.

”Goddammit! What kind of shit-for-brains bastard is out there?! Coming to ruin my fun at a time like this?! I’ll fuck your...”

”Scar Bear! Get out here!”

Wu Dong’s expression turned cold as he growled in a low voice.

The cursing from inside the courtyard cut off abruptly, followed by the sound of flustered rustling and hurried footsteps.

The gate was pulled open from the inside.

Scar Bear poked his head out. When he recognized their faces in the pale moonlight, he immediately began to bow and scrape, sweat beading on his brow. His voice trembled.

”T-two Lord Officials, it’s so late... W-what brings you to my humble little dump?”

”There’s something we need you to help with.”

Wu Dong crooked his finger.

Scar Bear quickly leaned in, offering his ear.

Wu Dong lowered his voice and quickly explained their plan.

”...Th-that’s not a good idea.”

After hearing him out, Scar Bear’s eyes darted about nervously, his mind frantically weighing the pros and cons.

On one side was a newly minted Martial Artist from the Dragon Mountain Middle Courtyard. On the other were officers from the Patrol Office—the government’s enforcers, who held his life, and that of the entire Black Wolf Gang, in the palms of their hands.

The calculation was enough to make his legs tremble.

”Well?”

Wu Dong pressed, his voice cold.

”Is that little punk Chen your old man or something? Helping him or helping us—is that even a choice you need to think about?”

”...N-no, I don’t need to think. Of course I’m on your side, one hundred percent.”

Scar Bear shook his head, an eager-to-please smile instantly appearing on his face.

At best, he, Scar Bear, was just a minor Gang leader in charge of a patch of turf in Kuhuai Village with twenty-odd households. The entire Black Wolf Gang’s territory, however, was under the jurisdiction of the Southern Three Guards Patrol Office.

He didn’t even need Zhao Chuan to get involved. Just Wu Dong and Liu San here could say a single word to the Black Wolf Gang’s leadership and have him, Scar Bear, ground back into the muck for good.

If he couldn’t even figure that much out, he’d have been dead many times over by now.

”Good, you know what’s what. Go get the stuff,” Wu Dong said coolly.

Scar Bear nodded and immediately darted back into the house, emerging with a rather deflated-looking Money Bag.

Wu Dong glanced at it and immediately swore, ”Did a fucking donkey kick you in the head? You think a prestigious Martial Artist from the Dragon Mountain Middle Courtyard would stoop to stealing this little bit of cash?”

Liu San, who had been watching from the side with his arms crossed, added in a sinister tone.

”Scar Bear, you’d better think this through. If the charges don’t stick and he gets a light sentence, when Chen Cheng gets out... the first thing he’ll be coming for is your hide.”

”HSSS—”

Scar Bear sucked in a sharp breath and scrambled back inside.

This time, he returned carrying a small, locked wooden box. As he moved, the muffled thud of heavy objects colliding could be heard from within.

”Lord Officials... th-this is everything I own...”

”Alright, alright. You’ll be compensated.”

Wu Dong’s eyes narrowed, his expression one of complete confidence, as if everything was falling into place.

”We’ll plant this ’stolen property’ in Chen Cheng’s house now. In an hour, you raise a ruckus and catch him red-handed. Liu and I will just ’happen’ to be passing by and will make the arrest according to the law!”

Wu Dong’s eyes turned cold, his aura growing even more grim and menacing.

”With iron-clad evidence, and in full public view, not even the Dragon Mountain Middle Courtyard will be able to harbor a degenerate like him, guilty of felony theft!”

”Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant!”

Scar Bear’s face was plastered with a fawning smile, but in his heart, he knew exactly what was going on.

The Southern Three Guards Patrol Office, especially this pack of mad dogs under Zhao Chuan, were all the same. When they couldn’t solve a case, or when they had some other scheme in mind, they would always fall back on the same despicable, underhanded tricks...

Planting evidence, fabricating stories, twisting the truth... They’d stoop to any dirty trick in the book!

’Shameless! Vile! A bunch of filthy animals! May their sons be born without assholes! Hah... Ptui!’

Scar Bear cursed them viciously in his heart, but on the surface, he obediently presented the wooden box.

...

The poor of Kuhuai Village had no choice but to curl up in their beds as soon as night fell.

The twisted, chaotic alleyways were long deserted. Every door and window was shut tight, with not a single lamp lit.

In the spots where leaning eaves blocked the moonlight, everything was plunged into dead, silent darkness. Only the night wind whimpered as it threaded through broken planks and rotten felt, like an unseen hand gently scratching.

The atmosphere made Wu Dong and Liu San deeply uneasy, and they moved much more slowly than they had planned.

”San...”

Wu Dong suddenly spoke, his brow furrowed.

”I’ve got a feeling... like something’s following us...”

”Shit! Don’t say creepy stuff like that, you scared the hell out of me!”

Liu San hissed.

”These spineless peasants who live in this shithole are all fucking dead to the world by now! Even if you gave them a thousand guts, they wouldn’t dare wander around in the middle of the night!”

Though his words were harsh, the hairs on the back of his neck were already standing on end. His right hand slowly crept to the cold hilt of his saber, his fingers tightening around it.

”Those pathetic peasants wouldn’t dare... B-but... you know what’s been going on with the Red Moon Nunnery recently...”

Liu San swallowed, but his throat was still dry.

”Wooo...”

He had barely finished speaking when a sinister gust of wind swept past, and a loose plank on a distant shack suddenly CREAKED.

”HSSS—”

The two of them sucked in a sharp breath in unison, their eyes snapping in that direction.

There was only deeper darkness, and the fleeting shadows of a few scraps—torn cloth or rotten paper—whirled up by the wind.

”Let’s go! Hurry! Just drop the stuff and let’s get out of here! This damned place... it... it feels evil...”

Liu San’s skin was crawling with goosebumps. All the bluster he’d shown when berating Wu Dong was gone.

They quickened their pace, breaking into a near-jog. Their ragged breaths sounded exceptionally loud in the silence.

The heavy wooden box in Liu San’s hands now felt like a red-hot branding iron he was desperate to cast aside.

”SWOOSH—”

Suddenly, a sound sharper and more clipped than the wind—like the release of a poisoned crossbow bolt—erupted without warning from a blind spot behind them.

”Who’s there!?”

The hair on Wu Dong’s body stood on end. Relying on the instincts honed by years of life-or-death battles, he spun around, his right hand flashing toward the hilt of his saber.

—