Chapter 35: Slaying the Second Rank

Heavy snow fell outside like goose feathers.

The pharmacy was desolate and quiet.

Su Chen fashioned a simple coffin. He placed Chen Ge’s aged body inside, along with a ceramic jar containing three hundred taels of silver. After three days of vigil, he would be buried.

"Master Xu, please accept our condolences!"

"All these years, we lowly people have received much care from you and Old Chen. This is a small token of our gratitude. If you use this to bribe Manager Li, he might at least allow Old Chen to be buried outside the city..."

Several young eunuchs placed a small bundle before Su Chen. After offering a few words of comfort and helping with some chores, they prepared to leave.

The bundle was heavy.

Clearly, it was filled with copper coins and fragmented silver—savings scraped together by these palace maids and eunuchs while enduring exploitation and living frugally.

In the Imperial Palace, if you didn't have silver to grease the wheels and show respect, life would be more miserable than death.

"I won't take the silver."

"I only want to know: a few nights before Old Chen died, when I went to the Library, what exactly happened?"

Old Chen's illness had been strange.

His remaining ten years of life had vanished instantly; he fell ill one night and died the next.

There was an aura of decay in his body.

He had withered and aged in a single instant.

It all felt too much like Zhang Gui from before.

"This..."

The young eunuchs exchanged glances; they clearly knew something.

In response, Su Chen slowly closed the coffin lid. With calm eyes, he poured a cup of hot tea for each of them.

"Little Ning, three years ago, you were beaten until your skin tore because you broke a noble's wine cup. If Old Chen hadn't applied medicine and tended to you carefully, you would have died that night."

"And you, Little Li, you stole a jar of Old Chen's medicinal wine—the aphrodisiac wine requested by the Imperial Guards. If Old Chen hadn't covered for you, the Guards would have found an excuse to beat you to death long ago."

As Su Chen spoke slowly, both young eunuchs lowered their heads in shame.

Then, Su Chen looked at the last remaining eunuch, his eyes deepening as he continued.

"Ji Yun, you truly owe nothing to Old Chen."

"But you owe me."

"I saved your life, and you still owe me silver!"

The three eunuchs were filled with shame, but they gritted their teeth and tried to persuade him.

"Master Xu."

"We are just lowly eunuchs; we can't fight the managers."

"Moreover, there are people above the managers."

"As a Black-robed eunuch, even if everyone calls you Master Xu, you can't truly act like a master here in the Imperial Palace. You might not care for your life, but we brothers do..."

"Stop asking. Old Chen simply died of a cold..."

Having finished, Ji Yun drank the tea on the table and led the other two to take their leave.

"Three... two..."

In the next moment, the three eunuchs collapsed to the ground, their expressions turning vacant.

Su Chen had added something to the tea.

Soon, the truth was told, detail by detail.

In fact, the sudden death of old eunuchs like Chen Ge had not been uncommon in the palace recently. Everyone assumed it was simply that more old eunuchs were freezing to death in the snow.

However, Ji Yun knew one thing.

Before these eunuchs died suddenly, they had all been summoned by one person: the Blue-robed Manager in charge of the eunuch registry, Eunuch Li Xi.

"Sigh!"

Su Chen let out a low sigh.

Wood-like tentacles surged beneath his skin.

In an instant, he transformed back into the form of the nameless Third-Rank minor official who had disturbed the Imperial Carriage a few nights ago.

"A Black-robed eunuch?"

"I am, but I am not."

"Old Chen was tough but kind-hearted. He looked after me in this pharmacy for three years, teaching me about medicine and pharmacology. I had saved up three hundred taels of silver, intending to give it to him for his retirement to repay our master-disciple bond..."

"But why must I be denied my wish..."

"Why must I witness the death of someone familiar..."

At that moment, Su Chen stepped out of the pharmacy.

*Whoosh—*

The cold wind blew incessantly.

Su Chen glanced at the pale sun obscured by the snow and rubbed his palms together.

Today, someone was going to die!

Perhaps only one.

Or perhaps, many would die.

...

...

The Imperial Archives.

The lamplight flickered uncertainly.

An elderly eunuch dressed in blue robes sat cross-legged on a cushion, continuously inhaling and exhaling black and white Qi. In an instant, the energy within his body surged.

His aura, which had previously looked like the late stage of the Fourth-Rank Qi Bursting Realm, suddenly broke through to the peak of the Qi Bursting Realm.

"It works!"

"The effect is too strong!"

"Eunuch Mu, this mysterious fragment combined with this life-stealing secret technique truly works. In just three days, I have climbed from the early Fourth-Rank to the perfection of the Fourth-Rank..."

"As long as I devour a few more people, even a Third-Rank Condensing Astral expert might be within reach..."

Li Xi was ecstatic, unable to help but let out a low cry of astonishment.

One must know that moving from the early Fourth-Rank to the perfection of the Fourth-Rank would take even a martial prodigy at least three months.

And he had done it in only three days.

The price required was nothing more than a few aged eunuchs.

"Thank you, Eunuch Mu, for granting me this technique."

"Your subordinate will serve you faithfully!" Li Xi said loyally.

*Puff!*

In the next instant, his eyes widened in disbelief as he stared at the hand piercing through his chest. Before him, the white-haired Grand Eunuch Mu Xuan, dressed in red robes, was covering his nose and mouth with a silk handkerchief, his face full of disgust.

"I was merely using you for experimentation."

"Do you know what this is? The world's greatest Purple-robed one, Zhang Gui, obtained the Heaven-Swallowing Demonic Art from the Demon Mountains. Though it is only a fragment, it is not something as trashy as you can dare to touch..."

Li Xi was dead.

"This life-borrowing secret technique is useful..."

"It seems that person was not lying; the transaction with him can continue."

Mu Xuan took the technique fragment from Li Xi's body, gave a cold laugh, and prepared to leave.

At that moment, gusts of cold wind surged in through the window.

At some unknown point, the window had been opened.

"Who goes there?"

Mu Xuan's dark eyes turned toward his side, only to see a black figure standing before the deceased Li Xi.

His eyes were like ice, his spine like a sword, and with his hands behind his back, he carried an air of wild arrogance.

"It's you?!"

"A mere Third-Rank White Marrow dares to appear before me? You truly seek death!"

"When did you get here?"

Mu Xuan's face instantly became distorted with rage.

A mere Third-Rank White Marrow—a thing like a dog—had actually caused him to lose face before the young Emperor and allowed him to be mocked by the Purple-robed one for a long time.

Moreover, his secret had been discovered.

Today, he would definitely kill this fellow!

"Li Xi was someone I wanted to kill, but you went and killed him first."

"So..."

"How are you going to compensate me?"

Su Chen turned to face the premier Red-robed official of the Imperial Palace.

"Compensate you?"

"This master will send you to hell!"

Mu Xuan's robes billowed as a massive surge of Angry Qi erupted, transforming into a strike like a raging azure dragon, lunging forward fiercely.

He didn't believe it.

Even if this kid was strange, at the end of the day, he was just a Third-Rank White Marrow. Could he really defeat a Second-Rank Angry Qi Realm expert like him?

"Why seek death so needlessly?" Su Chen sneered.

"Bluffing!"

"If you could truly fight a Second-Rank Angry Qi, why did you run back then?" Mu Xuan mocked.

Run?

Su Chen shook his head. Facing the Azure Dragon strike, he remained unmoved. He looked out at the snow, closed his eyes, and recalled the snowy sword strike of the Purple-robed one.

"You even dare to close your eyes?"

"What audacity!"

*Boom!*

The Angry Qi Azure Dragon surged forward.

However, in the next instant, the snow outside surged wildly. Ten feet of snow gathered in an instant, shattering the structure of the archives and descending like a heavy blade upon the First Grand Eunuch.

"This technique..."

"Ah!"

"You are the Red-robed... Su..."

Terror filled Mu Xuan's eyes as he instantly realized Su Chen's identity. By the time he wanted to beg for mercy, it was already too late.

A headless corpse fell to the ground, soaked in the surrounding snow.

"Why did I run back then?"

"Because killing you would have exposed my identity, and it wasn't worth it at all."

"Fool!"