Mo Wuyun!

His thoughts snapped back to the present. Whenever his memories reached this point, an endless desolation would surge in his heart.

He wiped down the counter once more. Even though it was already spotless, he repeated the motion over and over.

Underneath the counter was a hidden compartment. He opened it gently and pulled out the item inside—a saber wrapped in worn white cloth.

His fingers rubbed against the hilt, wrapping around it out of habit.

Faint sounds of horse hooves drifted to his ears. He raised his head and looked toward the doorway. Tonight, the wind was particularly strong.

The door pushed open, but not from the wind.

Three figures stood in the doorway, bamboo hats concealing most of their faces. The wooden tokens carved with the character for “Martial” at their waists fluttered in the wind.

A suffocating aura of slaughter filled the entire inn. As the three stepped inside accompanied by a chilling breeze, a bitter cold instinctively took hold of the room.

“Wine is five wen, lodging is one liang,” he said expressionlessly, his tone flat and unbothered.

The man at the lead stepped forward, slowly removing his bamboo hat to reveal a gentle, soft-featured face. “We aren't drinking wine, nor are we staying the night.”

“We...”

“...are here for someone.”

As he spoke, he unhurriedly drew a portrait from his sleeve, depicting two faint figures.

“We received word that these two appeared in this area.”

He glanced at the portrait. It was identical to the one brought in earlier by those two men.

“Two women and one man stayed here. They've already left,” he said indifferently.

The man said nothing more, turning as if to leave...

Suddenly, the Shopkeeper's fingers paused on the hilt, and he whipped the saber upward!

The saber's blade precisely intercepted a thrusting blade with a crisp, metallic clash. The white cloth wrapped around the saber fluttered to the ground, revealing a blade gleaming with cold, lethal light.

Indelible bloodstains clung to its metal, merged with countless scratches carved deep into the blade.

The expressions of the two bamboo-hatted men behind him changed instantly. Marks like those could only be left by years of relentless slaughter.

How could an inn shopkeeper possess a weapon like this?

The soft-faced man was taken aback as well, but only for a fraction of a second—because the saber moved.

The Shopkeeper thrust the saber at a vicious, lethal angle, so fast that the blade left lingering afterimages in the air. A flash of cold light skimmed right past the man's hair.

So fast! The man felt a sudden chill, though he kept his expression calm.

Shifting his footwork slightly, he barely dodged another slash. The two men standing further back tensed; though the exchange seemed fluid and effortless, it was perilous beyond belief.

The Shopkeeper held the saber with practiced mastery, every strike brimming with lethal resolve. He was clearly no ordinary martial artist.

Seeing this, their eyes narrowed.

Unsheathing their own sabers in unison, the two leaped forward to join the fray.

With his companions creating an opening, the lead man finally found a chance to counter. The three worked in tight coordination—one checking and defending, while the other two mounted fierce attacks.

For a moment, they managed to gain the upper hand, yet the longer they fought, the more alarmed they became.

Even with their seamless coordination, they were only barely holding the advantage.

It showed just how terrifying their opponent truly was.

The soft-faced man felt a wave of horror in his heart. How could a figure of this caliber be a nobody in the jianghu...?

Just as the thought crossed his mind... a sudden surge of danger washed over them all, a lethal threat looming over them simultaneously.

The other two failed to react in time, but the soft-faced man's pupils shrank to pinpricks, and he slammed his shoulders into theirs to push them aside.

At some point, the Shopkeeper had raised his right arm, resting the saber vertically against his left hip with his shoulders slightly tilted, his body coiled into a stance bursting with explosive power.

In the next instant, a chilling arc of blade-light flashed through the air!

Had it not been for the oil lamp burning inside the room, no one would have been able to catch a glimpse of it.

A deep wound opened from the soft-faced man's collarbone down to his chest, exposing bone as blood gushed out immediately.

The other two had only survived that fatal slash because he bumped them aside, leaving them pale with terror—the feeling of that single instant was as if Death itself had laid eyes upon them.

While his companions were still shaken out of their wits, the soft-faced man was frozen in sheer shock, completely oblivious to the bloody wound on his chest.

The man before them held his saber as blood dripped from its blade, his face as expressionless as ever.

But he had recognized it. The man standing here was no mere inn shopkeeper...

That slash just now was the signature technique of Dead Man's Blade—the Mountain Severer Cut!

He was—!

Mo Wuyun!

Hadn't that man been hunted down and killed a year ago? Why was he here in these desolate mountains, running an inn as a shopkeeper?

For the first time, genuine emotion flickered in those dead-fish eyes, replaced by intense dread as he looked at Mo Wuyun.

Mo Wuyun finally looked at him directly. Countless souls had perished under his blade; only those who could dodge it earned the right to his full gaze, and those who could survive it were few and far between.

“You two leave first. Staying here won't do any good.”

The two behind him exchanged glances. They knew he was speaking the truth, but fleeing from battle was far too shameful...

After much hesitation, they left anyway. With their strength, they weren't qualified to stand here, and there was no need to throw away their lives over it.

Mo Wuyun didn't spare them a second glance. Holding his saber horizontally at his side, his figure suddenly lunged forward!

The soft-faced man's eyelid twitched as he silently tightened his grip on his own blade once more.

Past midnight, the dark clouds in the sky no longer veiled the bright moon. Moonlight poured down, illuminating a figure on the ground.

He leaned against a tree, breathing heavily. Multiple blade wounds marked his body, the most severe being his chest, which was hastily bandaged with strips of cloth.

“I... survived...”

A wave of utter exhaustion washed over his entire body. The webbing between his thumbs and forefingers throbbed with pain; he couldn't even hold his sword now.

Fortunately, he had managed to escape from Mo Wuyun's hands.

“Dead Man's Blade... truly lives up to his reputation.” He gave a bitter laugh, shook his head, and limped toward the edge of the forest...

Meanwhile, inside the inn...

The place was in complete ruin. Deep blade marks scarred the wooden tables and pillars around the room, and spots of blood stained the floor.

Mo Wuyun stood motionless. Who knew how much time passed, but when the sky began to pale with the first light of dawn, he slowly wrapped the saber in the white cloth once again.

Alone, he cleaned up the mess inside the inn, scrubbing away bloodstains and setting the tables and chairs back in place...

When everything was restored, he opened the hidden compartment beneath the counter. But as he prepared to place the saber inside, he paused.

Looking down, he noticed his hand was trembling slightly.

A heart that had been dead and still for years was beating once more. He had forgotten how long it had been since he last felt this way.

Probably starting from that day...

Last night's fight had been immensely satisfying—so exhilarating that he had momentarily forgotten his pain and grief.

It felt as though he had returned to the days when he first stepped into the jianghu. Yet he knew that, in the end, it was merely an illusion to numb himself.

This time, his hand didn't hesitate. He placed the cloth-wrapped saber directly into the compartment and watched it silently for a moment.

The saber returned to the darkness.

By mid-morning, a hunter who had gone up the mountain returned in high spirits, carrying two rabbits tied to a pole.

“My luck is pretty great! The traps I set yesterday caught something first thing this morning, hahaha.”

“I'll stop by Old Mo's for a couple cups of wine to celebrate, hehe.”

Humming a little tune, the hunter walked toward the inn in a wonderful mood. The two rabbits hung from the back of his wooden pole, swaying with every step.

“Hmm?” The hunter stopped dead in his tracks, frowning slightly as he looked toward the inn. “What's going on today?”

“It's not open?”