Time quickly passed by and ten minutes were gone in a flash. As the old man sitting cross-legged on the fishing boat’s deck sobered up, his eyes gleamed with an excited look. His figure floated and came before Tang Xiu. Looking at him fixedly, he said, “I need 10 Holy Healing pills with the same effect.”

A smile outlined on the corner of Tang Xiu’s face as he nodded and said, “No problem. I still have nine pills left in this jade bottle. You just need to transfer 200 million dollars to my account.”

“Deal!”

The old man nodded without hesitation. After receiving Tang Xiu’s account number, he immediately transferred the money to that account.

An incredulous look appeared on the blonde man’s and the female’s faces. They watched as their Master received the jade bottle and looked satisfied. The former then immediately asked, “How’s your injury now, Master?”

“It’s almost healed,” said the old man happily. “I only need to adjust my breathing later to return to my peak state. This Holy Healing pill has much better efficacy than I thought. This Little Brother Tang is correct, having such Holy Healing pill is equal to having half a life during the fighting with enemies.”

The blonde male and female exchanged glances and they also looked eager, unable to remove their eyes from the jade bottle in their Master’s hand. The duo quickly conversed in whispers, then the female immediately looked at Tang Xiu and asked with a smile, “Can you sell us some more Holy Healing pills, Mr. Tang? My Senior Brother and I want to buy five pills for 100 million dollars.”

Tang Xiu let out an odd smile and said, “That’s OK! You got better luck since I still have ten of them. To prevent you from dying first from your predecessor, I’ll sell you five pills.”

Having said that, he took out another jade bottle and took five Holy Healing pills from it. After giving it to them, he said, “Pay me 100 million dollars now!”

“Please wait a bit!” The duo quickly transferred the money to Tang Xiu with happy faces.

As the transaction was completed, Tang Xiu looked at the old man again and said, “Senior Zhong, what do you think of joining hands to chase those two half-ghouls since you’ve healed now? I’m sure you can track them easily since a Bounty Hunter has the means to do so.”

“That’s right, those two half-ghouls have already fled to the direction of Lushunkou about less than 200km from us. However, we’ll need transportation, else we can’t chase them in a short time if they keep running away.”

Duanmu Lin nodded and said, “That’s fine. I’ll get it arranged at once.”

Ten minutes later, two military helicopters quickly arrived as the group floated up to the cabin without the helicopter landing. Duanmu Lin issued an order and the two choppers then flew towards Lushunkou’s direction.

On the way there, Duanmu Lin received another message: A homicide case happened in Lushunkou and the bodies of the victims lost half of the blood in their bodies, allegedly from having their blood sucked out.

“It’s really abominable!”

Killing intent overflowed from Duanmu Lin’s eyes as he hung up. He had encountered the likes of half-ghouls in the past. This irregularity had spiritual wisdom similar to that of cultivators and also boasted formidable force that made killing an easy job for them.

Half an hour passed by as the old man sitting next to Duanmu Lin suddenly spoke, “They’re nearby. The tracking disc traced their position in the forested mountain southeastward about five kilometers ahead.”

Tang Xiu glanced at the tracking disc in the old man’s hands and said, “Can you tell me the principle of this tracking disc? How can it lock the target and what is the longest distance it can track?”

“This thing is the lifeline of Bounty Hunters and each of us just can’t live without it,” said the old man smilingly. “In actuality, it’s very simple to use it. As long as you encounter the target and collect a drop of their blood, you can track them as long as their position is no more than 300km away.”

“Ah, so you have fought these two-ghouls previously?” asked Tang Xiu in surprise.

“They were threatening a taxi driver when we bumped into them,” said the old man with a bit of a solemn face. When we intercepted them, they killed the cab driver and we got into a brief clash with them. I would never have let them escape if it wasn’t because of my injury. Luckily, I injured one of them, and used his blood on this tracking disc.”

Tang Xiu looked a bit enthusiastic and asked, “Can you sell it to me? Or if you have an extra, I’m willing to buy it.”

The old man shook his head and said, “I only have this one. We even spent quite an effort to buy this from the black market since my previous tracking disc was ruined during the fight. If you wanna buy it, you can go to the black market. To my knowledge, however, there are better tracking discs than mine there.”

‘The black market?’ Tang Xiu thought for a moment and asked again, “Where is this black market you’re talking about?”

At the side, Duanmu Lin looked amazed as he asked, “Ehh? You never knew the existence of the cultivation world’s black market all this while, Tang Xiu?”

“I really had no idea.” Tang Xiu shook his head.

“I thought you knew about it, so I never told you.” Duanmu Lin was at a loss of whether to cry or laugh. “In fact, the cultivation world’s black market is established in Philadelphia, United States. The place wasn’t in that city originally, but since there was a need for resource exchange between cultivators and other practitioners, the market for practitioners all over the world was gradually formed there. The development scale then got faster and bigger over the past decades and now it can be compared with a medium-sized city.”

“The world has so many practitioners and they also formed a medium-sized city?” asked Tang Xiu with a strange expression.

“There are a lot of cultivators as well as different races over there,” added Duanmu Lin with a smile. “But most of the inhabitants are average people who moved due to the gradual development. Whether they are cultivators or divergent races, they are blending among ordinary people. They only reveal their identities when needed and during the transaction with others.”

Tang Xiu suddenly understood and nodded. “I see. It seems I’ll need to find time to visit Philadelphia later. Anyways, let’s get down and deal with those two half-ghouls since they’re nearby.”

****

In the depths of a vibrant and lush forested mountain, two runaway clansmen of the Fan Family looked a bit dark and distressed—the result of being covered by cadaveric qi.

“Where do we go now, Fourth Brother? Those three Bounty Hunters are just like dogskin plaster that can’t be shaken off. We’ll be in trouble if we don’t kill them.” Thick killing intent filled Fan Jinzhong’s eyes. There was still a bloodstain in the corner of his mouth.

“Those three Bounty Hunters are indeed quite a bit skilled, though I’m not that worried about them,” replied Fan Jinxing coldly. “It’s those Chinese ability users I’m concerned about. The fucking thing is those bastards who were unable to control their cadaveric energy. They even got affected by it and killed people wantonly and brought calamity to our family. Do you think such a big incident in the capital won’t make those people from the Special Abilities Bureau to appear?”

“That Second Fan brat is really a motherfucker!” Fan Jinzhong exclaimed angrily. “Our family spent so much to obtain this cultivation art. Even though we got it from unearthing a cultivator’s corpse from an ancient tomb, it does give us formidable power. It would’ve taken us a few decades before our family can have a huge powerful army and scheme against the country according to our original plan. But ultimately… everything is for naught in the hands of that bastard!”

Fan Jinxing strongly suppressed his anger inside and coldly said, “We’ve escaped for the time being, but the rest of our family members are still in the capital. I can tell they are all likely under control now. However, there’s no way to save them in our present situation either. Our only option is to flee China first before coming back later to save the rest.”

“Our family has arranged a retreat route more than a decade ago, Fourth Brother.” Fan Jinzhong nodded. “We can escape quickly once the matter that we’re cultivating in a ghoul cultivation art is exposed. We still have dozens of kilometers to go before arriving at the concealed ship, and our men over there are at the ready too.”

“Uncle’s arrangement is wise indeed,” said Fan Jinxing. “Those damn Bounty Hunters and Chinese officials—just wait! We, brothers, will soon kill you all!”

Suddenly, Fan Jinxing’s complexion changed and his slightly grayish pupils shrunk all of a sudden. His body instantly bounced off the ground as he grabbed Fan Jinzhong’s hand and quickly fled towards the distance.

“They caught up this quickly?”

Fan Jinzhong loosened his hand from Fan Jinxing’s with a disbelieving look while running.

“Those fucking bounty hunters must have some way to track us,” replied Fan Jinxing. “Let’s speed up running. Otherwise…”

He abruptly stopped speaking as his heart shuddered upon seeing dozens of figures blocking their path ahead. The brothers were top members of the Fans and naturally knew about China’s Special Abilities Bureau. They also knew the person in charge of the bureau, Duanmu Lin. Yet, they didn’t expect that Duanmu Lin would actually lead his men to block their path in advance, and even the bounty hunters who had been chasing them were just a few hundred meters away from them.

“They are… cooperating?”

At the scene, Fan Jinzhong couldn’t help but feel despair. No matter how powerful he was, the people from the Special Abilities Bureau were not weak either. More so that they were collaborating with the bounty hunters—a force that they wouldn’t be able to face against.

‘What should we do? Are we really going to die here?’

Fan Jinzhong clenched his fists and grabbed a rusty bronze sword, then he immediately rushed leftwards to escape.