Chapter 10 Opening the Treasure Chest
As Chu Qing had expected, less than one stick of incense after he left, two figures rushed to the scene.
"The bodies are here!"
Chu Fan landed first, scanning the surroundings as though searching for someone.
His junior sister, Wen, said nothing. She simply stood beside him, holding a strip of cloth in her hand.
Faintly visible upon it were the two words—Night Emperor—fluttering in the wind.
After a long silence, Chu Fan found nothing and turned his gaze toward the two charred corpses.
"Again, the work of this 'Night Emperor'… Who on earth is he?"
Wen didn't reply. Her cold eyes remained fixed on the cloth.
Seeing this, Chu Fan waited a while longer before asking, "Junior sister, do you see anything unusual?"
After a moment of thought, Wen replied in a serious tone, "His handwriting… is ugly."
"…"
Chu Fan froze for a second, then gave a helpless laugh.
He'd long since grown used to his junior sister's temperament. Her bluntness no longer surprised him.
Still, remembering what had just happened, he couldn't help but frown.
"I've no idea where those two madwomen came from. Truly infuriating! Thankfully, this Night Emperor intervened and wiped out the Iron Horse Seven Bandits. Otherwise, who knows how many innocent people they would've harmed again."
Wen thought for a moment, then said flatly, "They were deceived."
Chu Fan nodded.
After the bandits fled, he and Wen had continued fighting those two women for quite a while before he finally got a chance to explain.
Through a few exchanges, they quickly learned of his identity and background.
The two women instantly stopped, embarrassed at first but soon furious. They cursed the two bandits for lying to them, declaring that such villains deserved death a hundred times over.
They vowed to hunt the bandits down and only then return to apologize to Chu Fan.
Having said that, they leapt away—vanishing in the complete opposite direction from where the bandits had actually fled.
The memory still made Chu Fan's face twitch.
He almost jumped on the spot from anger.
He truly couldn't tell whether those women were unbelievably foolish or just deliberately troublesome.
After that, he and Wen had followed the tracks here, only to find the horses carrying severed heads halfway along the road.
"In any case, the fall of the Iron Horse Seven Bandits is good news."
As Chu Fan spoke, he suddenly thought of something and asked, "By the way, junior sister—when we were fighting earlier, how did you suddenly disappear? Where did you go?"
Wen's expression remained unchanged as she replied evenly, "I saw a flower by the ravine. It was very beautiful, so I went to pick it."
"…I shouldn't have asked."
Chu Fan gritted his teeth.
If anyone else had said that, he'd have thought it was a lie.
But Wen—she never lied.
She truly was the kind of person who would wander off mid-battle to pick a flower.
Utterly unreliable.
So unreliable it defied reason.
But Chu Fan was long used to it.
After all, under the tutelage of Taiyi Sect's Unangered Divine Fist, Cui Bu-nu, Wen wasn't the only one with a strange temperament.
If their senior brother had been here…
Just the thought made Chu Fan's teeth ache.
He sighed softly. "No wonder master calls himself 'Unangered' and yet gets angry every single day…"
…
…
Inside a barren mountain cave, Chu Qing sat beside a small fire, roasting meat while opening his system interface.
[Unopened Martial Treasure Chest detected. Would you like to open it?]
"Open."
Without a moment's hesitation, he confirmed the command.
A flicker of light passed before his eyes, and the notification followed almost instantly.
[Treasure Chest Opened. You have obtained the lightness skill—Golden Wild Goose Steps!]
Streams of information flooded into his mind like running water, while his meridians and body pulsed with faint warmth.
After a long moment, everything settled.
Chu Qing digested the information, smacked his lips, and let out a quiet sigh.
"…Not an inner art, huh?"
What he wanted most from these chests was a high-grade internal cultivation method.
If he could acquire one, his strength would skyrocket, and he'd fear no one.
With Ah Fei's Fast Sword already in his hands, he was confident that one-on-one, he could kill an opponent even if their internal energy surpassed his own.
But if surrounded—or if the difference in internal strength was too vast—then things would turn dangerous.
"My biggest shortcoming is still internal strength… But this Golden Wild Goose Steps isn't bad either."
He paused, his eyes gleaming slightly.
"When mastered, it allows one to walk thirty-seven steps in midair. I wonder how far I can go with my current strength?"
As the thought crossed his mind, he took a deep breath and leapt from the cave.
His figure rose like a swift swallow darting through the woods.
He touched down lightly, pushed off with his toes, and shot up again—skimming through the air for nearly three zhang before exhausting his strength.
Even so, his breath steadied quickly. He adjusted his energy and jumped once more, soaring another zhang high before landing on a tree branch.
"The Golden Wild Goose Steps isn't known for speed or long-distance travel, but its ability to maintain balance midair is remarkable.
"With this, I can easily cross terrain others wouldn't dare attempt.
"It complements my family's 'Chasing Stars, Catching Moon Steps' perfectly—each strong where the other is weak."
Turning lightly, he descended back into the cave.
"This lightness skill could save my life one day. As for internal techniques… maybe I'll get lucky next time."
After finishing his meal, Chu Qing settled into meditation to cultivate the Ruo Xu Sutra.
Over the past half month, he'd come to appreciate the sutra's subtle genius more and more.
Whether due to his transmigration or some other change in his body, his cultivation progress was now much faster than that of the body's previous owner.
He was already on the verge of reaching the fourth level, and tonight, he might finally break through.
That night passed quietly. When dawn arrived, Chu Qing opened his eyes, twin flashes of light flickering within them.
"I've entered the fourth level of the Ruo Xu Sutra. My internal energy has grown thicker and steadier.
"This technique truly lives up to its name—its essence is endurance.
"Others with comparable strength can fight for one hour before their energy runs dry, but I can last three and still have strength to spare."
Satisfied with his progress, Chu Qing finished a simple breakfast of heartfruit and leftover meat, then carefully erased all traces of his presence before setting out again.
He was now within the borders of Tianwu City's territory.
At his current pace, he would arrive in no more than seven days.
The journey was calm and uneventful.
Tianwu City's Lord, Wu Ganqi, was known for his righteousness and capable governance; within his domain, killings and ambushes were rare.
But on the sixth day of travel, something unexpected occurred.
He was less than a day's journey from Tianwu City when, while gliding through the forest using lightness skill, he landed to catch his breath—and froze.
Lying beneath the leaves just three feet away was a corpse.
"Tianwu Guards?"
He immediately recognized the uniform—this was one of the city's elite enforcers.
"What's a Tianwu Guard doing dead out here?"
Perplexed, he crouched to inspect the body—
—but before his fingers could touch, the "corpse" suddenly opened its eyes!
(End of Chapter)