Chapter 16: Flying Misfortune

**Volume One: Entering a New World**

Zu An was both shocked and angry. "It's you? We have no past grudges and no recent enmity. Why are you trying to harm me?"

Plum Blossom Twelve chuckled. "You only have yourself to blame for offending someone you shouldn't have."

"Who exactly did I offend?" Zu An urgently asked.

Plum Blossom Twelve stepped on his back, pulled out a knife, and tapped his face with it. "You don't need to know that. Go ask King Yama in the underworld."

Zu An couldn't help but wonder if this world also had legends of the underworld and King Yama.

"If you dare kill me, the Chu family won't let you get away with it," Zu An probed, trying to see if the mastermind was from the Chu family.

"Oh, I'm so scared," Plum Blossom Twelve said, theatrically patting his chest. "Out here in the wilderness, who would know how you died?"

He paused, then added, "But you did remind me. It's better to be safe than sorry. Hmm, I won't do it myself. I'll throw you into Jackal Valley later and let the Ferocious Black Jackals gnaw you until nothing remains. Then the Chu family won't be able to trace it back to me, right?"

Zu An was somewhat surprised. From the assailant's tone, the mastermind wasn't from the Chu family after all?

"Oh, by the way, do you know why Ferocious Black Jackals are called 'Ferocious Black Jackals'?" Plum Blossom Twelve chuckled, not waiting for a reply. "Because they specialize in disemboweling. You'll just have to watch them tear out your intestines with a single swipe, but you won't die right away. You'll simply witness them eating you alive. Trust me, that won't feel good."

Zu An was puzzled. What was the point of telling him all this at a time like this? Was it to satisfy some torturer's sadistic urge?

Plum Blossom Twelve assumed Zu An was too terrified to speak and didn't mind. Changing the subject, he continued, "However, if you can answer a few questions for me, I might consider giving you a quick death to spare you such torment."

"What questions?" Zu An was taken aback, wondering if the original owner of this body had known some extraordinary secret that had drawn killers from all sides.

Plum Blossom Twelve squatted down, a strange smile appearing on his face. "How big are Miss Chu's breasts?"

Zu An: "???"

He had considered all sorts of possibilities, but never expected such a question.

"About this big," Zu An gestured vaguely with his hand. He hadn't seen them himself, so he was just guessing.

"And her waist? How thin is it?"

"About this thin?" Zu An was growing impatient. If he couldn't get any useful information soon, he wouldn't bother wasting his time with this nonsense.

"Is it tight? How does she scream? Damn, just talking about it makes me hard." Plum Blossom Twelve felt his mouth go dry, and he pulled down his pants. "Come on, suck it!"

He probably wouldn't get to have Miss Chu in this lifetime, so experiencing her indirectly this way was still something.

Zu An: "???"

He had originally planned to use the opportunity to sound him out, but he never expected this guy to be such a pervert!

Zu An snatched the knife from his hand, his face darkening. With a swift cut, he severed the source of his troubles.

"Ah!" Plum Blossom Twelve had no time to react. He screamed, clutching his crotch, rolling frantically on the ground. Then his head accidentally hit a tree, and he painfully fainted.

Plum Blossom Twelve seemed to be having a long dream. In the dream, his gang leader sent him to the imperial palace to become a eunuch. He was castrated in the silkworm room, and the palace eunuchs fed him a lot of pale yellow. For days, they wouldn't give him water, and he was dying of thirst.

Perhaps Heaven heard his plea, for rain began to fall from the sky. The rainwater seemed warm and so delicious, faintly mixed with a salty taste.

He greedily drank a few mouthfuls, then suddenly felt something was wrong. He quickly opened his eyes and found himself tied to a large tree. He struggled to break free, but the ropes didn't budge. Only then did he notice that these were his own ropes, specially treated and used to restrain low-level cultivators.

What was going on?

For a moment, he couldn't quite process it. Wasn't he the one who had brought that good-for-nothing Zu An to Jackal Valley? He suddenly felt something wet on his face and instinctively licked it. It tasted much like the liquid in his dream.

Zu An, who was standing on a tree stump nearby, adjusted his pants and said apologetically, "Sorry about that. You wouldn't wake up, and I couldn't find any water to splash on you, so I had to make do with what was available. I've been a bit 'heated' these past couple of days, so it's a little yellow."

Plum Blossom Twelve instantly knew what was on his face, especially remembering how he seemed to have guzzled several mouthfuls in his dream. "You bastard!"

Rage from Plum Blossom Twelve: 777!

"Your 'fire' is quite something too, buddy," Zu An said, though he was secretly overjoyed. With such a good opportunity, not earning more rage points would be a disservice to his title as a "keyboard warrior."

Plum Blossom Twelve swore loudly, "How dare you tie me up, you motherfucker! Let me go!"

Zu An jumped down from the tree stump. "Have you forgotten what just happened?"

Plum Blossom Twelve froze, thinking, *I was just stepping on this kid, making him give me...* At this thought, he quickly looked down and saw only a bloody mess between his legs. Although the bleeding had stopped, the area was completely empty. He let out a mournful wail. "Where is it?"

With his furious roar, the wound reopened, and a stream of blood spurted out again.

Zu An couldn't help but marvel at the superior physiques of cultivators in this world. In his previous world, a man with such an injury would have bled to death long ago. Yet, a cultivator in this world could endure for so long.

He rubbed his ears, clearly still uncomfortable from the shock, then pointed to a long bamboo pole not far away. A thin string was tied to the top of the pole, and at the other end, a bloody object dangled in mid-air. "There, your little darling is right there."

"You son of a bitch, you tricked me!" As scenes of what had just happened flooded his mind, Plum Blossom Twelve realized he had been completely outmaneuvered.

Rage from Plum Blossom Twelve: 999!

Seeing the rage value hit a new high, Zu An couldn't help but sigh. It seemed that men, no matter which world they were from, were extremely protective of their 'precious parts'.

"Are you a cultivator?" Plum Blossom Twelve gradually calmed down.

To snatch the knife from his hand, even by surprise, was something no ordinary person could accomplish.

Considering the immense strength he had just felt, his opponent's cultivation seemed even higher than his own. But how was that possible? Just two days ago, he was a powerless piece of trash!

"Now I'm asking the questions, not you," Zu An said, similarly tapping his mouth with the knife. "Tell me, who exactly wants to kill me?"

Plum Blossom Twelve hadn't expected the tables to turn so quickly, but he was still fuming and simply turned his head away.

"Not talking, huh?" Zu An wasn't annoyed. He walked over, picked up the bamboo pole that was stuck in the ground nearby, and gently waved it in the air. "Actually, losing 'that' isn't as serious as you might think. With timely treatment, it might even be reattached. But if you delay any longer, the surrounding tissue will necrotize, and then it's no longer my problem."

In his previous life, there were limb reattachment surgeries that could restore most function if treated promptly. In this world of cultivators with all sorts of miraculous abilities, it should be possible to achieve similar results, right?

Plum Blossom Twelve's expression shifted. A flicker of hope entered his previously dim eyes. "If I tell you, will you really let me go?"

"I can consider it," Zu An replied.

Plum Blossom Twelve snorted. An old hand like him wouldn't be fooled so easily.

Zu An shrugged. "Either way, if you don't talk, you definitely won't be released. If you do, there's a tiny chance. It's your choice."

"My gang leader ordered me," Plum Blossom Twelve replied.

"What's your gang leader's name?" Zu An pressed.

Plum Blossom Twelve hesitated, instinctively looking left and right to confirm no one else was present before saying, "His name is Mei Chaofeng."

Noticing his subtle movement, Zu An realized he must be quite afraid of this gang leader. *Wait, Mei Chaofeng?*

"Your gang leader isn't a blind woman, is he?" Zu An swallowed.

"No," Plum Blossom Twelve replied with a puzzled expression, clearly not understanding why Zu An would ask that. "Our gang leader is a pure man."

After confirming the details several times, Zu An realized it wasn't the person he had imagined. He searched his memories but had no recollection of this Plum Blossom Gang leader. "Why does your gang leader want to kill me?"

Plum Blossom Twelve's eyes flickered. "How could we, his subordinates, possibly guess what our elderly leader is thinking?"

Zu An sneered. "Are you messing with me?" He then made to throw the bamboo pole into the valley.

"Wait, I remember!" Plum Blossom Twelve exclaimed urgently. "One day, a mysterious person came to see the gang leader. The leader took that person to a secret room and talked for a long time, then he gave me the order to get rid of you."

"Who was that mysterious person?"

"I told you, they were mysterious. How would I know?"

Zu An chuckled. "It seems you won't shed a tear until you see the coffin."

Plum Blossom Twelve quickly explained, "I really don't know! When that person arrived, they were completely wrapped in a black cloak. I couldn't even tell if it was a man or a woman, so how could I know who they were?"

Seeing that he was on the verge of tears and didn't seem to be lying, Zu An changed the question. "What's the deal with your Plum Blossom Gang?"

After some coercion and persuasion, he finally understood. The Plum Blossom Gang was essentially the largest gang in Brightmoon City. Its leader, Mei Chaofeng, had adopted thirteen sworn sons, named Plum Blossom One to Thirteen. They were known in the jianghu as the Thirteen Plum Blossom Protectors, each a formidable figure in their own right.

The Plum Blossom Gang controlled most of Brightmoon City's underground industries. They typically earned money by collecting protection fees, and their largest source of profit came from casinos.

After Zu An had asked about the abilities of each of the Thirteen Protectors, Plum Blossom Twelve finally said, "Can I have my precious back now?" His eyes remained fixed on the item hanging from the bamboo pole, though in his mind, he was already planning to chop the guy's 'thing' into pieces and feed it to dogs once his own injury healed, then slowly dismember him piece by piece to satisfy his hatred.

Zu An watched the backend constantly display "Rage from Plum Blossom Twelve: 9999..." He couldn't help but be amused. This guy held a lot of resentment.

"Alright, here you go," Zu An said. He had been dangling the thing for a while, and even with the bamboo pole, it made him uneasy. He pulled the pole back.

Just then, a black shadow darted past. The sound of flapping wings was heard, and then the bamboo pole was empty.

Only then did Zu An notice a large black bird perched on a branch nearby. It looked somewhat like a crow, but much larger. In its beak, it held a small 'worm'—what else could it be but Plum Blossom Twelve's precious?

The crow glanced triumphantly at the two men, then tilted its head back and swallowed the 'worm' directly.

"No!" Plum Blossom Twelve shrieked repeatedly. Startled, the crow flapped its wings and flew away.

Zu An: "..."

Plum Blossom Twelve: "..."

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