Chapter 19: A Bountiful Harvest

Su Jingxing was overjoyed.

At last, a new type of card had appeared!

Vitality cards, strength-enhancing cards, internal energy cards, soul-calming cards, martial arts cards, skill cards.

And now, the newly discovered equipment card!

These cards were all different in kind, and the rewards revealed upon unlocking them varied as well.

Equipment cards, upon unlocking...

Hmm!

Holding the equipment card and receiving its information, Su Jingxing suddenly froze.

“What kind of reward is this?”

Corpse-dissolving liquid!

The reward hidden within the equipment card turned out to be two bottles of corpse-dissolving liquid.

Could it be that the members of the Black Tiger Gang and the Flying Cloud Sect actually carried such things with them during their bloody clashes?

Otherwise, how else could one recover this from their bodies?

The function of the golden finger was to pick up items that the deceased had possessed in life.

As for the purpose of corpse-dissolving liquid, its name made it clear enough.

Su Jingxing was astonished that people would carry it with them during fights.

“Were those fellows really prepared beforehand to destroy their enemies’ remains?”

He clicked his tongue in disbelief.

“And since equipment cards can be picked up, why hadn’t I encountered one before?”

He’d been moving corpses for some time now; other bodies should have yielded equipment cards too.

Not only martial artists, but even ordinary people carried items with them at the time of death.

Yet he had never picked up equipment cards from them—something must be amiss!

“Could it be that the bodies take too long to reach the crematorium after death?”

Su Jingxing pondered.

This time, the collection operation was extremely swift. The crematorium received a call almost immediately after the Black Tiger Gang and the Flying Cloud Sect began their fight, and Su Jingxing and his party rushed over at top speed.

He was, in fact, the first to arrive at the scene.

The deceased still had their personal items on them, untouched.

Thus, when the golden finger picked items, it extracted those objects.

These items were as important as strength pills and internal energy.

Only with this explanation did it make sense that the equipment card was picked up at random.

With this realization, Su Jingxing quickly examined the rest of the cards.

Sure enough, he found four more equipment cards.

Inside these four cards were three throwing knives, a bottle of bone-strengthening pills, a human-skin mask, and a false tooth.

A false tooth was considered important?

Su Jingxing was puzzled and checked carefully. The next second, he understood.

“So that's it—poison.”

Hidden within the false tooth were two drops of venom, each powerful enough to kill an elephant.

The throwing knives, bone-strengthening pills, and human-skin mask each had their own uses as well.

The throwing knives were not made of ordinary steel, but of precious weapon material, able to cut through iron as if it were mud.

The bone-strengthening pills, as the name suggested, could fortify the bones, moving a person closer to iron bones.

The human-skin mask was not made from actual human skin, but from a special material, covering the face and allowing the wearer to disguise themselves as another person.

Excellent items—five equipment cards, each containing a valuable reward.

Excited, Su Jingxing carefully stored the equipment cards.

This external assignment had yielded tremendous gains.

Five equipment cards, two skill cards, three strength-enhancing cards, four vitality cards, and all the rest were internal energy cards.

The longest internal energy card offered three years of cultivation, the shortest two months.

The two skill cards contained Black Tiger Fist and Falling Cloud Palm.

Su Jingxing examined the cards and found that both martial arts were inferior to Seven Steps Fist.

As expected, these were the basic martial arts taught to members of the Black Tiger Gang and the Flying Cloud Sect, available to everyone.

Such skills held no interest for Su Jingxing; practicing them would be a waste of time.

As for selling them on the black market?

After some thought, he decided against it.

Although Black Tiger Fist and Falling Cloud Palm each fetched a hundred thousand Dayu coins on the black market, within the Black Tiger Gang and the Flying Cloud Sect, these were foundational skills; outsiders who practiced them risked dire consequences if discovered.

Thus, even if brought to the black market, few would buy them.

On the contrary, it might attract the attention of the gangs.

It was worth noting that the starting price for any martial art was a hundred thousand Dayu coins.

That was why, when Su Jingxing had visited the black market previously, he had seen martial arts for sale but did not make any purchases.

He simply didn’t have enough money!

Selling a vitality pill brought in ninety thousand Dayu coins, yet it wasn’t enough for even the most basic martial art.

For ordinary people, it was more cost-effective to learn martial arts at a gym.

Su Jingxing had planned to do that himself; now, however, he already possessed several martial arts.

...

This single harvest equaled nearly half a month’s earnings from moving corpses.

To celebrate, after his shift that night, Su Jingxing bought himself a good meal before returning to his rented courtyard.

He took a roundabout route and, as he neared home, instinctively passed through a path near the mountain’s foot.

Unexpectedly, just as he approached his residence, he heard the sounds of a fight ahead.

Screech—

The bicycle tires ground against the road as he came to a sudden stop.

Su Jingxing got off, parked the bike at the roadside, and crept forward a few steps, hiding in a corner as he peered toward the source of the commotion.

He saw, in the buffer zone between the mountain’s base and the road, two groups...

No, that wasn’t quite right.

More accurately, it was a group of people besieging a single person.

By the streetlight’s glow, Su Jingxing noticed that the besieged man was enormous, standing over three meters tall.

Single-handedly, he was able to force back and draw in his attackers, holding his own for the moment.

Under the cover of night, both sides fought fiercely.

Strangely, the dozen or so attackers were all savage, yet not a single one made a sound.

Apart from the wind of weapons whipping through the air and the dull thuds of blows landing, only the night breeze whistled along the deserted path.

Su Jingxing watched from his hiding place for a while and saw the huge man gradually begin to lose ground for unknown reasons.

Slash. Slash. Slash!

The attackers’ swords and blades cut into him again and again, slicing open bloody gashes and flinging bits of flesh into the night air.

Most notably, a young man in a refined suit with perfectly groomed hair, using only his bare hands, forced the giant back repeatedly.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Heavy, muffled sounds echoed without pause.

The huge man never uttered a word—even when his hand was pierced by a sword, he made no sound at all.

It was as if he possessed no pain receptors; apart from occasional counterattacks, he only retreated and tried to flee.

But with a dozen pursuers, every few steps he took, he was quickly caught up again.

The inevitable result was more and more wounds covering his body.

Finally...

Boom!

With a heavy crash, the giant collapsed to the ground, motionless.

The final blow had come from the young man in the sharp suit and cold features.

His palm struck the giant’s chest, stopping his heart.

Having successfully killed his target, he exhaled slowly, then turned to face Su Jingxing’s hiding place.

With calm indifference, he said, “Friend, you’ve been watching for quite some time. Don’t you think it’s time to come out and meet us?”