The Martial Saint begins by collecting corpses.

In late autumn, a cool breeze was blowing. The night in Heishui County was eerily quiet. The wind howled through the empty houses and dark alleys, its mournful sound like the wailing of ghosts.

Lu Ming's expression grew increasingly solemn as he walked.

After twenty days, the population of Heishui County had dwindled even further, with large swathes of houses remaining vacant.

As night falls, the streets are almost deserted.

Lu Ming dodged several sentries and arrived at the dark alley opposite the brokerage firm.

He had already found out that the brokerage manager finished work around this time every day and went back to his residence.

The broker had betrayed and schemed against him several times, and he had long harbored a murderous intent towards this man. Having endured so much, now that he was leaving, he finally had no more reservations.

After waiting for a while in the dark alley, I finally saw the brokerage manager, who had gotten even fatter, with a shiny, oily face in the flickering light of the brokerage's door.

Lu Ming narrowed his eyes and discovered that the broker was accompanied by four strong and sturdy men. Judging from their gait, they were all martial artists at the Skin Refining level.

Each of the four men was carrying a large package, almost the size of an adult.

All four of them had furrowed brows and a hint of disdain for the large bundles on their heads, but they had no choice but to follow the broker out and hurry down the street.

Lu Ming's heart skipped a beat; Ah Lang hadn't reported this situation before. It seemed the brokerage manager was off dealing with something today.

However, killing four more people was still the same as killing them, so sending him four portions of root bones was like adding an extra dish.

Lu Ming gave a slight sneer and immediately followed.

He had assumed that the broker and his party were delivering some important medicinal herbs so late at night.

Unexpectedly, they traveled further and further into remote areas, eventually arriving at a place where the eastern and southeastern urban areas meet.

There is a small hill here, which is just a pile of rocks, overgrown with weeds, and scattered in the wild are some tombstones with or without words, clearly a mass burial ground.

"Take care of it while no one's around."

The broker tightened his fox fur coat and kept looking around in the cold wind, but didn't look at his men digging the pit at all.

The contents of those sacks... he was terrified just thinking about them and didn't dare to look at them.

Huhu~

Suddenly a strong wind blew by, and a figure seemed to flash across a broken stone tablet not far away.

The broker's expression changed. He rubbed his eyes, looked closely, but saw nothing. He breathed a sigh of relief.

On this cold, quiet autumn night, how could there possibly be anyone in the mass grave?

Don't scare yourself. The broker took a breath of cold air, and suddenly felt that the cold air was somewhat warm, turning into a half-cold and half-hot wind, and into a solid shadow rushing towards him.

"What the hell..." The broker was horrified and was about to back away when the shadow had already covered his face. In an instant, his breath stopped.

click!

A solid cracking sound rang out, and the broker's face below the eyes suddenly deformed and shattered, with bone protruding from his face and blood spurting out.

The excruciating pain nearly made him faint. His vision blurred for a few moments, and through the blurry vision, he could only see something being flung out of the person in front of him.

Then, the faint screams of four of his men reached his ears, and then all sound ceased.

His vision quickly cleared, and when he saw Lu Ming's face by the light of the torch that had fallen to the ground, his eyes widened:

"It was you... all this time..."

"You've forgotten, but I haven't!" Lu Ming sneered, seeing a hint of regret appear in the man's eyes as his pupils dilated and he slowly died.

Lu Ming exhaled a breath of stale air, finally realizing his revenge.

He then began to search the body.

The brokerage manager actually had two hundred taels of silver notes on him. He couldn't earn that much just from this position, and this was probably not even all his wealth. It was clear how much he had embezzled.

As for the others, they only received a dozen or so taels, which was just an extra amount.

As he circled the corpses, five beams of gray light surged into his body.

[Gain martial arts experience.]

[Acquired martial art: Fierce Tiger Fist.]

[Obtained incomplete bone structure.]

[Gain martial arts experience...]

There were no surprises. All five of them were learning the low-level Tiger Fist, a style he had already mastered.

Their bones and joints are all incomplete, barely better than nothing.

These men had just dug a pit and were preparing to bury the large packages when one of the packages rolled to the ground, the binding broke open, and the contents were exposed.

It was filled with bones.

Lu Ming took a closer look by the firelight, and his pupils shrank. It wasn't just bones; the surface of the bones was covered with a layer of shriveled skin, which had been compressed, broken, and stuffed into a package.

This package contained the remains of countless people.

Based on his previous experience collecting corpses, these bones seemed to be from the last month or two, yet the flesh and blood of the remains had become strangely shriveled.

It's as if all the blood has been drained and the bones have been dried out.

Lu Ming walked back and forth several times around the bags of bones, but did not find any light flashing out.

He frowned slightly. These bones were useless to him? Was it because they had been dead for too long?

How did the brokerage firm manage to acquire so many skeletons? Lu Ming had a bad feeling and turned to walk back.

In the darkness, he hurriedly left the mass grave and walked to the nearest street.

The streets were deserted, and he could hear the echo of his own footsteps.

He walked up to a huge, crooked tree, and suddenly frowned, sensing that something was wrong with his surroundings.

The next moment, he saw a green light flying towards him from behind the crooked tree.

[Gain martial arts experience.]

[Acquired martial art: Small Knife Technique.]

[Obtained incomplete bone structure.]

As soon as this martial arts experience emerged, Lu Ming immediately discovered that the experience was extremely disorganized.

There are insights from not only those who practice skin-based martial arts, but also those who practice flesh-based martial arts, and even a very small number of those who practice tendon-based martial arts.

These insights are so fragmented, it's as if they don't belong to a normal person, but to a mental patient.

The main, complete martial arts skill I acquired was merely a small knife technique, a martial art that uses daggers.

He immediately recalled the ghost behind Yan Pengfei last time; the martial arts experience of that ghost gave him the same feeling as this one.

At the same time, he realized where the unease he felt came from. He glanced furtively at the crooked tree in front of him, a fierce glint in his eyes.

Behind the crooked tree, a man in black stood quietly.

He held a palm-sized scale in his hand.

The scales were covered with mysterious patterns, and in the very center was a fleshy bud that was constantly wriggling, as if it were alive, and it even tried to bite the man in black's hand from time to time.

As the footsteps on the street grew closer, a cruel glint appeared in the man in black's eyes.

Suddenly, the footsteps on the street slowed down, and the man in black, without thinking, immediately threw away the scales in his hand.

Bang! The expected scream did not come. Instead, the scales fell to the ground naturally with a thud.

The man in black froze, wondering what was happening, when a sinister voice suddenly reached his ears:

Are you waiting for a ghost?

The man in black felt a chill run down his spine, only then realizing that the footsteps had disappeared sometime earlier.

He was greatly shocked and immediately turned around to retaliate.

However, it was too late. He suddenly heard the sound of the waves, and then he felt a sharp pain in his back. Suddenly, he was lifted into the air, as if in a dream.

How could there be the sound of ocean waves on the street? Perhaps he really had seen a ghost. That was his last thought.