Chapter 278 — Nobody's Kills

CHAPTER 278

Nobody's Kills

“Six of them,” Wen Bo whispered. “Six, and they're looking at us.”

The cinder hounds had come out of the reeds in a half-circle, low and silent. Each stood as tall as a man's hip, with a dull grey mane and eyes like coals about to go out. A Bone Refinement disciple would have run. These were Foundation Establishment beasts, and running from them just meant being caught from behind.

Wen Bo, who was thin and fresh from Qi Condensation, stood very still with his spear shaking in his hands. Beside him, Fu Heng had gone the colour of the ash.

“Behind me,” Shi Feng said.

He stepped forward through the grey rain. The first hound sprang. His knife turned once, and the animal dropped in the mud without finishing its leap. The second and third came together. He took one on the blade and one on the flat of the Slag Weight, and neither got up.

The fourth hound hesitated. The fifth looked at the bodies and backed away. The sixth made a decision and went for the nearest throat, which belonged to Wen Bo.

A narrow blade flashed from the left. The sixth hound hit the mud with its head turned a little the wrong way.

“Get behind the rest of us,” Sima Lan said, wiping her blade on a reed. “That one picked you because you were standing alone. Don’t give the next beast the same chance.”

“That's me,” Wen Bo said faintly.

“Yes,” Sima Lan said.

The two remaining hounds fled. Nobody chased them. Eleven outer-court disciples let out a long breath all at once, and then, as one, they began to cheer.

“Senior Brother Shi killed three!”

“Senior Sister Sima killed one!”

“It's attendant,” Sima Lan said.

“Senior Attendant Sima killed one!”

“…”

Shi Feng crouched beside the nearest body and cut. The core inside was the size of a plum, clear red, warm. He wiped it and handed it to Wen Bo.

“Yours,” Shi Feng said.

“Senior Brother, I didn’t kill it,” Wen Bo said, staring at the core. “You shouldn’t give this one to me.”

“It's on your side of the path,” Shi Feng said. “Put it in your bag.”

“Senior Brother Shi, it's twenty points!” Wen Bo said.

“Good. You can afford proper meals this month,” Shi Feng said. “Put it away before you drop it in the mud.”

He went down the line of bodies and handed one core to Fu Heng and one to a quiet girl with a bandaged knee. The last core he gave to Sima Lan, who weighed it on her palm.

“I killed one,” Sima Lan said. “This is the one I killed.”

“That's why it's yours,” Shi Feng said.

She put it in her sleeve. She did not say thank you. Her ear turned slightly pink, and she began to write rapidly.

Behind them, Zhu Liu stood with his receipt book open and a worried line between his brows.

“Senior Brother Shi,” Zhu Liu said. “Who do I write as the hunter?”

“The cohort,” Shi Feng said.

“But you killed them,” Zhu Liu said.

“Leave the hunter blank,” Shi Feng said.

“I can't leave it blank,” Zhu Liu said, with real distress. “A receipt with a blank is a receipt that could be forged.”

“Then write 'nobody',” Shi Feng said.

Zhu Liu studied the entry, puzzled. Then he nodded. His senior brother had chosen how the credit would be shared. If the hunter column needed a name, ‘Nobody’ would have to serve.

They worked along the reed line for the rest of the day. Foundation Establishment beasts were rare in the shallows, and every one that appeared died in two strokes or three. The cohort's bags filled with cores, and Shi Feng's pack stayed empty. By dusk, Zhu Liu's ledger showed a hundred and sixty points for eleven juniors. Under Hunter, the same word ran down the page again and again.

Nobody. Nobody. Nobody.

“Why don't you keep any?” Wu Qiang finally asked, scratching at the film on his neck. He had spent the afternoon trying to decide whether he was grateful or insulted. “You could sell them. You're the one who's poor.”

“These cores are too small,” Shi Feng said.

“Too small for what?” Wu Qiang said.

“For what I need,” Shi Feng said.

The Physique had been humming under his ribs since noon. Each time a hound died, a thin thread of the beast's leftover qi climbed up his right arm and vanished into his palm. The Ledger noted it quietly.

[Devoured: cinder hound residue | Gain: trace | Note: small portions]

Shi Feng accepted the trace of qi. It wasn’t enough to meet his need, but every beast gave him something. The juniors could keep the cores without taking that benefit from him.

“He wants a big one,” Sima Lan said, packing her ledger into its oilcloth. “Lin Langtian said so.”

“The one with the heart,” Zhu Liu said.

A crack of thunder tore across the marsh.

Every head in the cohort jerked toward the east. The water in the nearest pool jumped. The grey rain had been falling steadily for two days, but the thunder had come from a sky with no storm in it. Beyond a stand of dead reeds, a column of pale light stabbed down from a patch of clear air and vanished.

A second clap followed. The reeds bent flat.

“That's the hollow,” Qiu Bao said, with the cauldron rattling on his back. His voice dropped. “Everyone in the outer court knows about the hollow. Nobody hunts there. Men die for wealth and birds for food, but not even the greedy go in.”

“Why not?” Fu Heng asked.

“A Martial Palace team went in last year,” Qiu Bao said. “They came out bald.”

“All of them?” Wen Bo asked.

“Every hair,” Qiu Bao said. “And one of them said something was singing.”

Silence fell. Sima Lan looked at the white light fading above the reeds, and then at Shi Feng.

“A big heart,” Sima Lan said flatly.

“Yes,” Shi Feng said.

“Of course he did,” Sima Lan said.