Chapter Six: Killing the Wicked Servant

Crushing the Evil Servant

“Brother Niu, I have a question. Aside from the household master processing beef this way, can we handle slaughtering cattle like this normally?” Wu Hong asked Niu Dali, puzzled.

“Brother, it’s possible! But no one does it, because it’s simply too much trouble. Going through this entire process, if regular people were to do it, it would take several people a whole hour! In that hour, think how many cattle could have been slaughtered! Efficiency is critical at a cattle farm,” Niu Dali patiently explained.

Wu Hong grew excited—this was perfect! Not only could he use slaughtering cattle to temper his body, but he could also practice his knife skills. In the end, transforming objects to perfect the self, he might even gain real combat experience.

Wu Hong had only been at the slaughterhouse for two days, yet his performance had continually amazed the butchers. Now, Niu Dali directly promoted him to the rank of senior servant, putting him on equal footing with Hou Shun. Apart from Niu Dali, no one else had authority over Wu Hong; instead, the other servants became his subordinates. But no one complained, for his strength was undeniable.

The attitude of everyone toward Wu Hong changed completely; their tone became respectful and courteous. In this way, Wu Hong settled into the servant’s quarters beside Niu Dali’s room.

The room, built entirely of wood, followed the typical architecture of common folk in the Great Qian Dynasty. Though not made from precious timber, it was nonetheless comfortable.

At night, Wu Hong practiced the Nineteen Movements of the Sunlike Tathagata's True Solution. In the day, he selected cattle at the slaughterhouse, applying insights from his nightly training to his work. His skills grew ever more refined, until at last he could slaughter a cow entirely on his own, finishing in just fifteen minutes without help—leaving everyone in awe.

In the process of slaughtering cattle repeatedly, Wu Hong discovered a secret: cattle, too, possess acupoints. While the human body has thousands of known acupoints, there had never been any record of such on cattle. Yet every time Wu Hong struck a cow’s body, experimenting with varying degrees of force, he gradually mapped out 360 major acupoints on the animal. There was the Laughing Point, the Weeping Point, the Numbing Point, and so on. Eventually, every time he slaughtered a cow, the animal passed away peacefully. Wu Hong noticed that the better the cow’s mood, the more he could absorb the energy of redeeming living beings—a discovery that delighted him.

This stable routine lasted for a month.

At dawn, a ray of sunlight streamed into Wu Hong’s modest room, filling it with vitality and life. He had not slept for a month, yet felt no fatigue at all. On the contrary, his nightly practice of the Sunlike Tathagata's True Solution had caused a dramatic surge in his physical strength.

By day, he went to the slaughterhouse, using the hammer and pointed knife Niu Dali had given him—tools that fit his hands perfectly. He noticed his strength increasing, but the hammer in his hand seemed ever as heavy as before, as though its weight grew in tandem with his own power.

Puzzled, Wu Hong secretly weighed the hammer once, only to find that its weight had increased from about twenty jin to two hundred jin; even the pointed knife had become heavier! The shock nearly made his eyes pop out.

His hammer now weighed two hundred jin—who knew to what level his own strength had risen?

Wu Hong was no longer worried about anyone discovering his Sunlike Tathagata’s True Solution manual. After repeated tests, he realized that even if he left it out on a crowded street, nobody else would be able to see or touch it. This put his mind at ease. He was only concerned that someone might discover the peculiarity of his weapons.

Though the hammer’s body showed no change, it gleamed more brightly than ever, as if polished daily. The slaughter knife shone with a cold, chilling light; at night, any ordinary person who saw it would feel instinctively uneasy, as if the blade’s keenness could pierce their very skin.

As usual, Wu Hong washed quickly and stepped out of his room, refreshed and dressed in blue wool, a felt cap on his head, walking along the small stone path within the inner courtyard of the Huang household.

Suddenly, a woman’s cry for help rang out from the woods beside the path: “Save me! Please, sir, let me go. I already have a husband—please let me return!”

Wu Hong was startled. Who dared commit such acts in the Huang estate? As the saying goes, righteousness makes one bold—without hesitation, he dashed into the woods.

He concealed himself behind a large tree, peering into a clearing where several senior servants in attire like his own were gathered. Their leader, wearing a lecherous grin, approached a woman sprawled on the ground, her clothes disheveled.

Her hands and feet, scraped and bleeding from rough branches, trembled as she saw the chief servant closing in. In terror, she pleaded, “Sir, please have mercy. I am already married. If you let me go, I won’t report this to the authorities.”

“Report us? Hahaha!” The leading servant burst into wild laughter at her words.

The others joined in, laughing raucously. After a while, the leader composed himself and sneered, “You want to report us? The county magistrate of Huangyun Town is our master Huang Hu’s own brother. Whom would you report to? Be a good girl and serve us, and perhaps we’ll give you some money. Otherwise, we’ll sell you to a brothel and send your husband to prison.”

His words drained the color from the woman’s face. How long she had been targeted by these fiends, she didn’t know. Today, while her husband was away, they’d abducted her here, intent on their crime—until Wu Hong happened upon them.

Losing patience, the leader barked, “You lot, hold her down! After I’m done, you can all have your turn. We’ll teach this bitch a lesson.”

The lackeys closed in, grinning wickedly. The woman seemed to resign herself, ceasing to struggle.

“Stop! Who gave you the audacity to assault a citizen's wife in broad daylight?” Wu Hong, having observed for a moment, felt his blood boil at the evil servants’ brazenness. He suddenly leapt from behind the tree, shouting thunderously, startling the group.

“Ha! Who are you? Oh, you must be that famous butcher, Hong Wu, from the slaughterhouse.” The leader recognized Wu Hong immediately; he had registered at the Huang household as Hong Wu for safety’s sake.

The chief servant, seeing Wu Hong, felt some fear. Perhaps it was the aura of killing intent Wu Hong exuded after so many days slaughtering cattle.

“If you know who I am, let the woman go. I won’t report this to the steward,” Wu Hong declared, upright and imposing.

“Sir, save me!” The disheveled woman, seeing Wu Hong as her lifeline, crawled painfully over and clung to his leg, begging for mercy.

“Haha! Boy, do you think I fear you? A few nice words and you think you can order me?” The leader, strong and clearly trained in some martial arts, became more sinister as Wu Hong refused to back down.

He wasn’t worried about Wu Hong complaining; though both were senior servants, he served at the side of the chief steward—someone even other stewards had to respect.

“Boys, get him! So he wants to play the hero—let’s enjoy the woman right in front of him! Then I’ll report him to the chief steward and see how he suffers for it!”

The leader’s words fired up his cronies, who obeyed at once because of his close connection to someone important.

They charged at Wu Hong.

Wu Hong said nothing, narrowing his eyes. To outsiders, he might have seemed frozen in fear, but in Wu Hong’s view, the attackers moved in slow motion.

Before they reached him, Wu Hong launched himself forward like a tiger among sheep, fists and feet flying.

With a series of heavy thuds, the attackers crashed to the ground, writhing in pain.

“Ah! It hurts! You’re in big trouble now, boy. Fighting here—you’ll be punished by the master!” one of them managed to gasp.

“Enough!” Wu Hong kicked him, sending the wretch flying into a nearby tree, which shuddered and shed a rain of yellow leaves.

Ignoring the groaning men, Wu Hong turned to the head servant.

“You—you—what are you doing? If you hurt me, Chief Steward Zhao Ming won’t let you go!” the leader stammered, his teeth chattering as he realized he had provoked a demon.

Wu Hong stepped forward, and every pace he took made the leader and the remaining lackeys shrink back. An invisible force radiated from Wu Hong, cowing all present. Even the woman behind him stared, stunned.

Hearing that this servant served a steward named Zhao, Wu Hong’s anger boiled over. In a single leap, he crossed more than ten meters, drew his slaughtering hammer, and brought it down on the leader’s head.

With a sickening splatter, the servant’s skull burst like a ripe tomato.

“Ah! Murder!” Only after a moment, as the corpse collapsed, did the others scream in terror and scatter.

Wu Hong was spattered with blood and brain matter. When he turned, the woman instinctively recoiled, terrified by his ferocious appearance.

This was Wu Hong’s first time killing a man, yet he felt no discomfort. He simply said, “Go now. Leave Huangyun Town with your husband.”

The woman, her tattered clothes exposing swathes of pale skin, possessed a striking, seductive beauty—no wonder she’d attracted the attention of these villains.

Coming to her senses, she realized this young man had saved her life; how could she be so rude? She hurriedly knelt to him. “Sir, how can I escape the high walls of the Huang estate alone?” she pleaded, on the verge of tears. She knew the situation was dire—her savior would surely be hunted as well.