You, a tyrannical ruler, roam the heavens; you cannot understand my joy.

Lu Zuo put away the Demon Blade Thousand Blades and the Thousand Blade Flowing Slash Technique, then exerted a little force with his feet and shot out, landing on a branch that stretched out at an angle several feet away.

Then, exerting force again, he lightly glided and sprang to another tree branch.

After repeating this process more than twenty times, they finally arrived at the edge of the forest, in front of a cliff.

He stood on a tree branch and looked down, where he saw flames shooting out at the bottom of the cliff, turning the valley a fiery red.

Dozens of wooden houses were engulfed in flames that illuminated the bottom of the cliff and the village of about a hundred households at the foot of the hillside.

The village is being robbed by bandits; there are people everywhere, and shouts, screams, curses, and roars fill the air...

Meanwhile, Chu Yunlong was fighting with dozens of bandits at the village entrance.

"Bandits are causing trouble near the capital?"

Throughout history, bandits have been a persistent problem, but only the People's Republic of China has completely eradicated the issue.

Robbery is nothing new.

But if it happens in the important area around the capital, near Jiankang, then it becomes rather bad.

A glimpse into the whole reveals the extent of the deterioration of public security in the Southern Chen Dynasty.

"Let go of my granddaughter!"

A roar caught Lu Zuo's attention. He looked in the direction of the sound and saw an old man, about fifty years old, standing in front of a burning house. His face was covered in blood, making it impossible to see his features.

His body was thin and trembling slightly, yet he held a hoe and stood in front of a burly man with a knife.

On the burly man's back was a little girl who looked about twelve or thirteen years old.

"The old man's got some backbone, huh?"

The burly man raised an eyebrow, threw the girl on his shoulder to the ground, then raised his long knife and chopped it down at the old man's head!

The old man instinctively raised the hoe and held it horizontally above his head.

But how could those wooden farm tools withstand the powerful chopping of a strong man?

Snap!

The wooden handle of the hoe broke in two, and the burly man's broadsword followed suit, but stopped abruptly less than three inches from the old man's head.

Looking at the burly man again, his eyes were wide open, a long knife was stuck in his throat, and blood was gushing out, splattering all over the old man's face.

Just as the old man was still in a daze, a figure pounced over like an eagle, gripped the hilt of the knife with his right hand, and kicked out with his leg!

Bang!

The burly man flew backward, and his long sword was pulled down in the process.

Lu Zuo flicked his arm, and drops of blood from the blade fell to the ground, splashing out a crimson line of blood.

"Take your granddaughter and find a place to hide."

He said in a deep voice, then kicked off with both feet and rushed straight towards a burly man who was raising a knife to slash at a woman not far away!

Whoosh!

A flash of cold light, and the burly man's head fell to the ground.

Without pausing, Lu Zuo headed towards the next bandit carrying a box.

"Wow, that's amazing..."

The girl who had fallen to the ground stared blankly at Lu Zuo's back, muttering to herself.

Lu Zuo had no reason to hold back against these murderous and thieving bandits. He started from the east end of the village and fought his way to the west end. Whenever he saw a bandit robbing someone, he would rush up and kill him with a single blow!

And just like that, the knife fell, the knife fell... without even blinking.

Wherever he went, no enemy could withstand him!

In less than a quarter of an hour, more than fifty bandits had died at Lu Zuo's hands.

"good!"

"Well done!"

"I never imagined that you, a lackey of the imperial court, would actually have any conscience?"

Just as he dealt with a robber, he heard the voice of Chu Yunlong.

Lu Zuo looked in the direction of the sound and saw a man holding a large knife, grinning, looking in his direction from an open space outside the village.

At his feet lay more than twenty corpses.

Lu Zuo thought to himself, then shook his head and smiled, "I've already said, I am not a lackey of the imperial court."

Chu Yunlong was slightly taken aback, then looked him over carefully and nodded, saying, "I'm starting to believe you now."

"After all, they're just lackeys of the imperial court; they wouldn't be as kind as you."

Lu Zuo laughed, turned around, and charged at the village bandits again.

These bandits all possessed martial arts skills, but their strength was not high, and most of them were no match for Lu Zuo.

Occasionally a few slightly more skilled ones will appear, but they can be dealt with in about two or three moves.

Fifteen minutes later...

Whoosh!

Lu Zuo slashed horizontally with the blade in his hand, cutting open the throat of a bandit, and then kicked him, sending him flying several feet.

Just as they were about to search for other bandits, they turned around and saw Chu Yunlong standing in front of a corpse, staring at the dominoes at the corpse's waist, his face extremely gloomy.

"Vermilion paints the bones, ink depicts the soul; a thousand faces of Asura, a single stroke defines the perfect form."

"not good!"

"They are from the Painting Bone Studio!"

At this point, he suddenly turned around, pounced on another corpse, and squatted down to search through it.

After finding a bone plaque, his arm trembled slightly: "No wonder, no wonder..."

"No wonder they not only plunder property, but also kidnap children under the age of sixteen."

Lu Zuo narrowed his eyes slightly, and after thinking about it for a moment, he realized that there was something wrong with these bandits.

Generally speaking, women and children are targets of robbery, since they can be sold to brothels or wealthy families in exchange for silver.

Their targets were only children; they either killed or ignored the women in the village.

Not only older women, but also pretty girls in their twenties were killed without any looting.

"What is Huaguzhai?" Lu Zuo stepped forward and asked.

Chu Yunlong tossed aside the dominoes in his hand, turned to the side, and asked, "Have you ever heard of the name 'Bone-Painting Demoness'?"

Lu Zuo shook his head. He didn't know much about the martial arts forces and the overall situation of this world, only about some of the original characters in "Twin Dragons of the Tang Dynasty".

However, the world here is vast and full of masters, and many characters do not appear in the book.

"She is a master of unorthodox martial arts who appeared in the martial arts world seven years ago."

"For the past seven years, the Painted Skin Demoness has roamed freely in Southern Chen, wreaking havoc on countless villages and killing countless righteous masters."

"Two years ago, she killed a member of a collateral branch of the Yu clan of Donghai, which angered the court, which dispatched three black-clad guards to hunt her down."

"But the result..."

"Those three black-clad guards all died at the hands of the enchantress!"

Lu Zuo's pupils suddenly contracted!

He knew all too well the strength of the Black-Clad Guards; to defeat even one of them was already a first-rate skill.

Simultaneously dealing with three people...

Just how powerful must this Bone-Painting Demoness be?

It's likely that he has not only entered the Innate Realm, but has already achieved the Great Perfection of the Innate Realm!

Chu Yunlong continued, "The Bone-Painting Demoness often issues bone-painting tokens to mountain bandits and thieves, instructing them to abduct children for her to use in practicing her evil arts."

"And if a thief wielding the dominoes is killed, the Bone-Painting Demoness will surely avenge him upon learning of it!"

"The Twenty-Eight Swords of Yuntai, as well as masters like the Golden Bell Sect and Xue Kong of the Shadowless Blade, died because of this."

"Over time, few martial arts factions dared to take action against thieves who possessed dominoes."

"Even the imperial court turns a blind eye. As long as it doesn't touch officials or powerful families, they won't interfere."

"These thieves gave themselves the name 'Painting Bone Studio'."

Lu Zuo raised an eyebrow: "So, in other words..."

"You, me, and this entire village will all suffer the wrath of the Bone-Painting Demoness?"

Chu Yunlong nodded: "That's right!"