The Decaying World

"Not a single Mage can completely solve any of these cases. Not one," Brother Hao said in a low voice. "Even for the more troublesome cases, the Mages can’t handle them. They can only cooperate with the authorities to lock them down and quarantine the area."

"How is that possible!?" The young policeman felt like his entire worldview was being shattered.

"This is the reality. If you run into trouble, you can seek help from a temple or a Daoist Temple, but don’t think of them as your saviors, as a cure-all. This ’Blood-Word’ case... we’ve already gone above and beyond with our investigation. As for what comes next, when we get back, just seal the case file and forget about it."

"Right... okay..."

"What if we get a few dozen guns!? Or bring in a cannon and blast it!?" the young policeman asked, still unwilling to give up.

"You think the higher-ups haven’t tried that?" Brother Hao shot him a look. "The truth is, what we’re facing this time is the third-generation patriarch of the Tian Long Daoist Temple, who was said to have achieved Feathering two hundred years ago. When he was alive, that patriarch was already one of the strongest Mages in the region. Now that he’s returned from the dead, there’s no telling how powerful he’s become."

Brother Hao sighed.

"The higher-ups brought in a battery of cannons and shelled him several times. They blew the guy to smithereens, but he’d just reform a moment later and continue his killing spree. If the Mages from the Tian Long Daoist Temple hadn’t used a special technique to temporarily lure him away, even the commanding generals might have been killed back then. The guy is basically immortal!"

The two talked as they walked and were soon greeted by an arriving monk who led them inside.

From a distance, Lin Hui withdrew his Heart and Spirit, lost in thought.

In fact, the information he had gathered over the years largely matched what the two men were saying.

Perhaps the nation’s fortunes were waning. The world outside was filled with strange phantoms, and bandits and evil arts were emerging one after another. The Mages did their best, but they could only barely protect the larger cities. Smaller places were simply left to fend for themselves.

And based on the news reports and other information he had collected, it seemed that in this world, not only were other powers suppressed, but the strength of monsters created through decay and mutation was somehow amplified.

’I still need to find a chance to make contact and see for myself...’

Lin Hui told his cousin to get up, and they turned to head back toward his grandfather’s house.

But he hadn’t gone far when, on the roof of a dilapidated building south of the temple, a white-haired old man in a tattered black Daoist robe quietly appeared.

The old man’s face was wooden. He stared at Mingjing Temple for a long while before his figure abruptly vanished.

「Dusk.」

Lin Xiangnan, his wife Fu Yunxin, and Lin Hui had just left his grandfather’s house and were about to head home.

Suddenly, they saw the distant night sky glowing red.

"Fire!!"

"That direction... it’s Mingjing Temple that’s on fire! Quick, get the fire brigade!!"

"How could such a huge fire start so quickly!?"

People watching from the shadows quickly identified the location of the fire.

The three members of the Lin Family also stared in astonishment toward Mingjing Temple.

"Let’s go! Let’s go see!" Fu Yunxin wanted to go watch the spectacle, but Lin Xiangnan grabbed her firmly.

"No, we’re going straight home! Listen to me!" His tone was serious and firm.

Fu Yunxin looked back at her husband, hesitated for a few seconds, then nodded.

The three of them quickly hurried home.

Lin Hui spread out his Heart and Spirit, scanning Mingjing Temple from afar. He discovered there wasn’t a single living thing left.

The temple was filled with corpses. The fire, despite the lack of kindling, rapidly devoured all the buildings.

A great Mage temple, gone so easily, disappearing into the vast blaze.

The incident caused such a stir that for many days afterward, Lin Xiangnan didn’t dare let Lin Hui go practice his Swordsmanship alone.

So he simply stopped going out and practiced in his family’s courtyard instead. It was just a pretext, anyway.

「In the blink of an eye, more than two months had passed.」

News came from his grandfather’s shop: two more clerks had mysteriously disappeared. The police had investigated but found nothing.

Panic spread through the shop, and with no one in the mood for business, it was temporarily closed.

Following this, Lin Xiangnan consoled his father-in-law, telling him that at his age and with enough savings, he shouldn’t be running around outside anymore and should just enjoy his golden years at home.

Things were manageable up to this point; at least the danger hadn’t truly reached their family.

Life settled back into a peaceful routine.

But through his covert investigations and by spreading his Heart and Spirit, Lin Hui sensed that the situation was likely growing more dire. He decided to start laying the groundwork for his future plans ahead of schedule.

He had originally planned to patiently wait until this body of his was thoroughly tempered before making his move.

But events were unfolding too quickly. Before he could fully prepare, the situation deteriorated rapidly.

A month later, Xiao Dayong, the headmaster of the Songfeng Swordsmanship Hall, fell critically ill.

Lin Hui had learned from him for a time, so it was only right that he pay a visit.

So, Lin Xiangnan took him, bought a gift, and they headed to the Swordsmanship hall.

The Xiao family didn’t actually live at the training grounds, but in a small, somewhat dilapidated courtyard on the outskirts of the city.

Before Lin Hui and his father could even enter the gate, they heard bursts of crying from inside the courtyard.

They quickened their pace and saw Xiao Shishi sobbing, slumped over a wicker chair in the courtyard.

On the chair lay a thin man, no longer breathing.

A group of the basic martial arts disciples were there, their eyes red-rimmed and filled with bewilderment.

Clearly, none of them knew what to do next.

There were about ten children in all. The oldest was only thirteen, and the youngest was just seven.

Though they were called basic martial arts students, many were just unwanted children sent by their families to get a meal and scrape by.

Before, they all depended on Xiao Dayong’s kindness; he had used the pretext of teaching basic martial arts to provide them with charity. But now, the headmaster was dead... and their pillar of support was gone.

The Songfeng Swordsmanship Hall taught a form of Swordsmanship for fitness; it was terrible for actual combat. Without Xiao Dayong’s smooth-talking and widespread promotion, the most likely outcome was that everyone would disperse and face the fates they were originally meant to.

When the group saw the cleanly dressed Lin Hui and his father enter, a few of the more spirited ones came forward to greet him.

Wu Anning was one of them. Two years had passed, and she had grown even bigger, reaching almost 1.8 meters tall. Her clothes didn’t fit at all and were so short they barely covered the vital parts of her body. She looked quite awkward.

"What do you all plan to do now?" Lin Hui asked Wu Anning and a few others privately, using the opportunity to chat and catch up.

"..." The few of them were at a complete loss, with no idea what to do. They all remained silent.

"If you don’t have other plans, I’ll take over the Swordsmanship hall. We’ll still practice the Songfeng Swordsmanship as before, but I’ll need to modify some of the details. Everyone can carry on as usual, and we’ll give it a try first to see if we can keep it going. How about it?" Lin Hui said.

"About that... you’ll have to ask our senior sister," one of them said cautiously.

"On what grounds!? This is the property my father left me!" Xiao Shishi, her face streaked with tears, had walked over and spoke stubbornly.

"Believe it or not, in a few days, people looking to prey on a family with no heir will come knocking to cause trouble for you," Lin Hui said calmly.

"..." Xiao Shishi grew a little scared again under his gaze.

When they practiced Swordsmanship together, Lin Hui had taken the opportunity to "teach" her a lesson more than a few times. A casual move from him was always far more powerful than when she used the exact same technique.

This was something she had never been able to figure out.

"I could just start my own hall from scratch. It’s only because the headmaster was good to me, and because this place and its equipment are already here. I’ll give you two hundred liang of silver coins for everything. Take it or leave it?" Lin Hui said faintly.

"I’ll take it!" Xiao Shishi nodded, gritting her teeth. This broken-down place was going to be sold anyway. Plus, with danger everywhere now, land wasn’t worth much, and as a child, she had no idea how much it would all sell for.

With no other relatives to rely on, two hundred liang sounded like a lot. She had once heard someone offer to buy her father’s hall for one hundred liang. Although her father had refused, it gave her a basic impression of its value.

"Alright, then." Acquiring silver coins was one of the preparations Lin Hui had made over the years.

The silver coins he stored in the Heart Source Demon Palace had all been exchanged from various gold and silver ingots. So money was not an issue at all.

The "Songfeng Swordsmanship Hall" brand could serve as a useful cover.

The brand had history, age, and a clear lineage. Having been rooted in the city for many years, it wouldn’t attract any unwanted attention.

As the strongest student in the hall, it was perfectly logical for him to take over and support it along with everyone else.

Xiao Shishi soon brought out the property deeds and other documents. She exchanged them with Lin Hui for the money, and the two quietly completed the transaction.

Then, as if worried about something, she left in a hurry with two of the younger boys who were closest to her, without so much as a goodbye.

And just like that, the entire small courtyard and the training grounds were handed over to Lin Hui.

Lin Xiangnan had no idea that the two children had just completed a transaction on their own. Thinking they were just chatting and catching up, he took the initiative to wander around and clear his head.

When he returned and heard that Lin Hui planned to keep the Swordsmanship hall running with the other basic martial arts disciples, he was a bit stunned.

"Nonsense! How old are you!? How can you do something like this without discussing it with an adult?" he scolded with a frown.

"We’ve already discussed it. Everything else will stay the same, and we’ll give it a try first. Besides, Xiao Shishi gave everything to us, so maybe we can forge a path to survival this way." Wu Anning, the oldest and biggest of the group, was taller than Lin Xiangnan when she stood up, possessing the physique of a full-grown adult.

Lin Xiangnan looked at the pairs of eyes staring at him. He knew about the family situations of these children; he’d learned about them from casual chats with Xiao Dayong.

He considered it. While it seemed like childish nonsense, he knew they would feel regret if they didn’t at least try.

So, after asking a few more careful questions, he agreed to bring Lin Hui to the Swordsmanship hall every day after his regular schooling was finished.

But he remained pessimistic. With so much turmoil outside, how many people would be willing to spend money to come practice so-called "fitness Swordsmanship"?

That was his line of thinking, and Lin Hui’s was actually the same.

That was why Lin Hui had no intention of sustaining the hall by recruiting new students. He planned to rely purely on his stored silver coins to cover their living expenses.

In any case, all he needed was a pretext, a justification for establishing his own small faction.

The group worked together to handle Xiao Dayong’s funeral arrangements. From then on, the Swordsmanship hall had a new master.

Lin Hui also officially began to teach his modified version of the Songfeng Swordsmanship to those who had chosen to stay.

The Swordsmanship was still the same set of moves, but he had slightly altered each one to make them sharper and more effective in actual combat.

Thirteen people in total—they would be the foundation of his future power.

「In the blink of an eye, five years went by.」

Lin Hui was halfway through his studies when his schoolteacher had an accident—shot and killed by a roving bandit soldier in the city. After that, the class disbanded, and everyone went home.

Lin Hui simply focused most of his energy on the Swordsmanship hall.

After its Swordsmanship was modified, the Songfeng Swordsmanship Hall’s combat effectiveness increased dramatically. Over the five years, Lin Hui sent Wu Anning out to issue challenges in the surrounding areas. After she achieved an undefeated record, the hall easily made a name for itself.

This attracted a few wealthy young masters who wanted to learn martial arts for self-protection. The Swordsmanship hall slowly entered a positive cycle, no longer requiring Lin Hui to fund it out of his own pocket.

And during these five years, Lin Hui’s physical transformation was also fully completed.

His investigation into the abnormal decay also yielded some results, especially after he made detailed comparisons between the Mutant Bodies born from decay here and those from his past life.

He discovered many inconsistencies. The initial mutated forms from the decay seemed to be the same as in the Fog People World. But then something major happened over three hundred years ago, and since then, the nature of the decaying Mutant Bodies had changed cataclysmically.

At first, the Mages could still fight the Mutant Bodies. But after the change, the Mages’ forces were beaten back time and again. Now, they could only defend their own territories, and even that was a struggle.

Just as Lin Hui was planning to make his move and capture some decaying Mutant Bodies to imprison and study, a major upheaval occurred in the country. Amidst the warlord conflicts, the original warlords of Xidong City were defeated and retreated. A new warlord’s army entered the city, and in just a few days, the regime had changed.

And Lin Xiangnan’s family, having been associated with one of the previous warlord commanders, was implicated and now under a wide-net investigation by the new commander.

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