Becoming a martial arts god starting from the mortician.

The wind was biting cold in the courtyard, but Shen Qi stood shirtless in the wind.

He closed his eyes slightly, and his internal energy circulated through the twelve meridians, completing a full cycle.

Shen Qi suddenly opened his eyes, lowered his shoulders and elbows, and with his blood and qi surging, he unleashed a "Tiger Subduing Fist" straight out.

"Bang!"

The thick elm tree stump exploded with a loud crack, sending wood chips flying everywhere, the upper half of which landed askew on the ground.

Shen Qi slowly withdrew his stance and exhaled a long breath of white air.

He walked over and kicked the scattered pieces of wood together, piling them in the corner. The stake was now completely useless.

After tidying up the courtyard, Shen Qi pulled the cotton robe draped over the stone table, put it on, and pushed open the door to the front hall's accounting room.

"Seventh Brother, finished practicing? Hurry up and eat while it's hot!" Zhao Youtian was sitting at the table, slurping a bowl of corn porridge in his hands. When he saw Shen Qi come in, he quickly freed one hand and pushed the plate of steaming meat rolls on the table toward him.

As usual, a newly printed copy of "Records of Peaceful Times" was placed next to it.

Shen Qi walked over and sat down, grabbed a flatbread, rolled it with meat, and took a bite.

"Brother, I just broke that wooden stake in the yard with one punch," Shen Qi said indistinctly while chewing meat.

"Cough cough!" Zhao Youtian almost choked on his porridge. He stared at Shen Qi with wide eyes. "That's decades-old elm wood!"

But Zhao Youtian's eyes lit up, and he immediately smiled again: "This is good news! The fact that it broke means Seventh Brother's skills have improved again! This is no big deal, leave it to me! I'll go to East Street later and find an old carpenter to get you a piece of ironwood, I guarantee it'll be sturdy!"

"Thank you for your trouble, brother." Shen Qi nodded slightly and casually pulled over the copy of "Chronicles of Peace and Prosperity" from the table.

The front page was still filled with the same old clichés. It was nothing more than the prefectural government issuing another strict order, and the patrol battalion raiding the headquarters of some unknown gang in the outer city last night, killing off a number of rioters on the spot, and seizing a number of weapons.

It's all just bureaucratic writing; it's disgusting to read too much of it.

Shen Qi glanced at it briefly, then flipped the newspaper over and focused his gaze on the last page.

At the very top, a short story written by Chengwen Bookstore was published.

Shen Qi became interested and read on while eating his steaming hot cornmeal porridge.

The story goes that a thousand years ago, at the end of the Great You Dynasty, a villain from the previous dynasty was captured alive by the army of the founding emperor and taken to the execution ground. The villain had practiced an evil skill that made him invulnerable to swords and spears. The executioner drank a farewell drink, raised his hand, and brought down his blade three times.

As a result, the blade curled into jagged edges, but not even a white mark was left on the villain's neck.

The villain laughed loudly on the execution platform, mocking Emperor Taizu's army as cowardly wimps who hadn't eaten and couldn't even sharpen a killing blade.

The executioner was furious and immediately ordered his men to search for the precious sword in the city.

At this critical moment, a blacksmith rushed in carrying a newly forged demon-head cleaver. The executioner switched to the cleaver and once again brought it down. This time, as easily as cutting tofu, the villain's fine head rolled off the platform, blood spurting more than three feet high.

The story ends abruptly here, followed by a line printed in bold:

[Zhang's Blacksmith Shop in the Inner City, with a family-inherited, hundred-times-refined forging technique. Cuts hair in two, slices iron like mud! The best choice for home use! Show this notice at the shop and get a 20% discount!]

Shen Qi shook his head, his lips twitching involuntarily. This move was truly impossible to defend against.

However, this did remind him that there would be executions to be seen at Caishikou at noon today.

Shen Qi put down the newspaper, finished the rest of the porridge in a few gulps, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and turned to Zhao Youtian, saying, "Brother, I want to go to the execution ground to see the excitement of beheadings."

"What are you going there for?" Zhao Youtian was picking his teeth when he heard this. He paused, his features contorted instantly, and he waved his hand with disgust. "What's so interesting about that bloody place? We deal with dead people in the morgue every day. We finally have some free time, and you're going to go there and get yourself into trouble?"

But as soon as the words left his mouth, Zhao Youtian realized what was going on.

He secretly glanced at Shen Qi and muttered to himself, "This Brother Qi is indeed an extraordinary person!"

The officials of the Imperial Observatory, instead of enjoying the comforts of the inner city, insist on coming to this government-run mortuary in the outer city to rummage through the dead. This hobby is already bizarre. Now, watching an execution seems rather reasonable?

Thinking of this, Zhao Youtian quickly put on a smiling face: "Alright, Seventh Brother, you can go if you want. But there are a lot of corpses being brought to the mortuary today, so I have to stay here to keep an eye on the roster and won't be able to join in the fun."

He rubbed his hands together and earnestly advised, "But Seventh Brother, make sure you stand far away when you get there. That executioner is ruthless; the blood and grime will be everywhere. Don't let it splash onto your clean clothes."

"Got it, thanks for reminding me, bro."

……

Caishikou was originally a market town outside the city, spacious and flat, and has historically been an execution ground for the government.

When Shen Qi strolled over, the crowd was already packed with people, three layers deep. The people of the Dayan Dynasty were bored, and watching people lose their heads became a rare form of entertainment.

"Selling sunflower seeds! Delicious roasted sunflower seeds!"

"Make way! Don't push! Ouch, who stepped on my foot!"

The crowd buzzed and hummed, making everyone's head ache. Relying on his strength, Shen Qi forced his way through the crowd and stood outside the wooden fence at the very front.

"Sigh, speaking of which, it's been quite a while since we've seen bloodshed at this execution ground. Those kneeling people up there don't look very old, it's truly a tragedy." Beside him, a thin old man with his hands tucked into the sleeves of his tattered cotton-padded jacket sighed as he looked at the platform.

"Traitors? Pitiful my foot!" Another man spat heavily on the ground, his face full of disgust. "These bastards cause trouble in the outer city every day, bullying the weak and fearing the strong. Even beheading them would be too lenient!"

Shen Qi's gaze passed over the wooden fence and calmly landed on the half-person-high platform directly in front of him.

On the high platform, five men dressed in tattered prison uniforms were kneeling in a row.

All five men had disheveled hair, their heads slumped limply against their chests. The heavy shackles on their hands and feet had been removed, replaced by thick hemp ropes that bound them tightly to the wooden stakes behind their backs.

Their expressions were blank, their eyes empty and cloudy, showing no sign of the desperate cries of the dying.

It was like an empty shell, its soul and essence drained away.

From the side of the platform, an executioner dressed in red, with half his chest exposed, strode up. He carried a large, gleaming sword with three rusty iron rings hanging from its back, making a clanging sound as he walked.

The executioner walked behind the first prisoner and stopped. He picked up a bowl of strong liquor from the wooden table next to him, tilted his head back and took a big gulp, then with a "plop," sprayed all the liquor onto the blade of his executioner's knife.

A cold light shone brightly.

The executioner sat behind the desk and looked up at the sky.

The sun was directly overhead.

"It's noon!" The executioner abruptly pulled out a vermilion tally stick, slammed it to the ground, and shouted, "Execute!"

The executioner's arm muscles bulged suddenly, and he raised his large, guillotine-like blade high above his head.