Desperate people, accept the seed of my soul!

Meanwhile, Song Chao arrived at a small village.

The village is called Shikan.

The name cannot be found on the map.

It sits in a mountain valley at the northernmost part of Jeolla Province, surrounded by rocky mountains, with a field smaller than a threshing ground for growing crops.

poor.

They were so poor that all the young people had left, leaving only the elderly squatting by the wall in the sun, their eyes following the pockets of passersby.

But the people of Shikan Village don't feel poor.

They think they are smart.

The third son of the Wang family at the village entrance pushed a fellow worker off a building at a construction site in the city, staged it as a safety accident, and extorted 200,000 yuan from the boss.

The eldest son of the Li family at the end of the village would scatter nails along the provincial highway, specifically to puncture the tires of passing trucks, and then steal the cargo from the trucks when the drivers got out to change the tires.

And then there are those two brothers from the Zhao family, who act as troublemakers outside the hospital. They go to the door of any family whose patient dies in the hospital and wail about until they are paid.

There is an old saying in Shikan Village.

Those who live near mountains live off the mountains, those who live near water live off the water, but those who rely on honesty will starve.

They truly believe this statement.

If a child from the village goes out to work and honestly earns money and comes back, no one envies them. Instead, people talk behind their backs, saying that the child is useless and only earns dead money.

If a child from another village makes a fortune through swindling and cheating, the whole village gives them a thumbs up, saying that the child is capable and quick-witted.

Chen Hu, Zhao Gang, and Wang Qiang all came from this village.

The three of them used to steal cigarettes from the village store when they were kids. When they grew up, they went to the city to become hooligans. Later, they were recruited by Tang Ming and made to do dirty work, such as beating people.

Three years ago, when they returned to the village for the Spring Festival, they drank and boasted to others that they had beaten a clueless migrant worker in the city into a cripple, specifically kicking him in the crotch and then stomping on him twice.

The group of people at the table burst into laughter.

Chen Hu's father, Chen Laoshuan, laughed the loudest, slapping the table and saying that his son was promising.

While cracking sunflower seeds, Zhao Gang's mother said, "What's the big deal about hitting someone? When my Gangzi was a kid, he even burned someone's woodpile."

Nobody thought there was anything wrong with it.

What's the difference between breaking a migrant worker's back and stepping on an ant?

The lower class deserves to be stepping stones for the rich.

Isn't this just a matter of course?

Song Chao stood under the old locust tree at the entrance of the village, looking at the crooked stone houses on the hillside, his eyes showing no emotion.

His work clothes were so faded that their original color was no longer visible.

After the bloodstains dried, they turned into dark brown, hard lumps that stuck to the fabric and crumbled off as you walked.

He hadn't slept in a long time.

They fought their way from the Public Security Bureau to the Cloud Tower, from the Cloud Tower to Lao Zhou's rented room, from Lao Zhou's rented room to the old family compound, and from the old family compound to the courthouse.

In one night, he killed a total of forty-six people.

My strength was long gone.

My mental state was stretched to the limit.

But he didn't want to stop.

Zhao Dehai's memory flashed through his mind: the judge had said before he died that the three thugs were hiding in Shikan Village and would run away once things calmed down.

Zhou Zhengqing's men are on their way here.

He doesn't have much time left.

Song Chao lifted his foot and walked towards the village along the gravel-paved dirt road.

The soles of the shoes were worn through, revealing toes covered in blisters.

He couldn't feel any pain.

The soul seed in his heart was pounding violently, like a red-hot branding iron searing into his chest cavity.

With each beat, a surge of scalding power rushes through every part of my body.

He could hear the sound of blood flowing in his veins.

Splash!

Splash!

Like the rising tide, one wave higher than the next.

The air around us was filled with the smell of rust, which grew stronger and stronger.

That was the bloodline power overflowing from his body, which had already begun to affect the surrounding environment.

At the village entrance, under the eaves, an old woman was sitting on a small stool, basking in the sun.

Her name is Liu Cuihua, she is 73 years old, and she is a well-known "eagle-eyed person" in the village.

She was the first to notice when a stranger came to someone's house.

If someone loses a chicken, she'll be the first to start yelling and cursing.

If someone's daughter-in-law ran off with someone else, she could make up seventeen different versions of the story and tell them to every household.

At that moment, her cloudy eyes were fixed on the half-circle of banknote sticking out of Song Chao's tattered work pants pocket.

The money was taken from Zhang Jinshan's office by Song Chao, intended for Niu Niu's art studio renovation; it hadn't been deposited into the bank yet.

"Hey, whose relative are you?"

Liu Cuihua spoke, her voice so loud that it could be heard throughout the entire alley.

She stood up as she asked the question, her eyes not looking at Song Chao's face at all, but staring at his trouser pocket.

Song Chao ignored her and continued walking forward.

"I'm asking you a question! Are you deaf or mute?"

Liu Cuihua became anxious.

She trotted up to him on her small feet and reached out to grab Song Chao's arm.

The moment her fingers touched Song Chao's sleeve, a cold, stinging sensation pierced her palm from her fingertips.

It felt like countless tiny needles were piercing my skin at the same time.

She cried out "Ouch!" and pulled her hand back, looking down.

My fingers are perfectly fine, not even broken.

But the stinging pain persisted, spreading from her fingers to her wrist, and from her wrist to her arm, as if something had burrowed into her blood vessels and was crawling up to her heart.

"What...what are you carrying on you?"

Liu Cuihua's face turned pale.

She took a step back, but her eyes never left Song Chao's trouser pocket.

There must be at least thirty or forty thousand yuan in cash inside.

Thirty to forty thousand.

That's enough for her son to gamble in town for a week.

That's enough for her to buy blood pressure medication for six months.

That's enough for her to set up three mahjong tables at the village entrance during the Chinese New Year.

Her son called a couple of days ago, saying that the city's security bureau was arresting people everywhere, and three young men who worked in the city were hiding in the village, afraid to go out. He asked her to keep an eye on them and prevent strangers from entering the village.

She didn't take it seriously at first.

Seeing this stranger covered in blood, she suddenly realized what was happening.

Isn't this the murderer my son was talking about?

His photo was shown on television.

Her hair was a mess, her face was so thin that her cheekbones were protruding, and the blue overalls she was wearing were exactly the same as those on TV.

Liu Cuihua's heart began to pound.

She remembered another sentence her son had said on the phone.

"Mom, the city has offered a 500,000 yuan reward for the capture of this murderer. If you see him, don't do anything yourself. Call him first to let him know."

Five hundred thousand.

She lived to be seventy-three and never saw what 500,000 looked like in her entire life.

The 500,000 was right in front of her.

Moreover, this person looked as thin as a bamboo pole, covered in injuries, and could barely walk steadily.

How powerful can it be?

Those supernatural abilities advertised on TV are definitely just hype.

If you really had that skill, why would you have been beaten up like this?

Liu Cuihua swallowed hard, a glint of light flashing in her cloudy eyes.

She did not use her phone to call the police.

She turned and ran back to her house, pulled a wood-chopping axe from under the stove, and shouted at the top of her lungs towards the neighbor's yard.

"Gousheng! Tiedan! Come out quickly! That murderer has entered our village!"