The next morning.
Lin Mu changed out of his immaculate Steward's azure robe, donning instead an ordinary hemp long shirt.
In his hand he carried a pouch of cheap tobacco he'd just purchased, looking like an ordinary manager who had come to this place seeking cheap labor to save money. He ambled leisurely toward the northwest corner of the stockade.
This was Black Blood Stockade's "Rotten Shed District."
If the core district was heaven, this place was the sewer of hell.
The moment he stepped into this area, a smell mixed with moldy food, excrement, and stale death assaulted his nostrils.
The path beneath his feet turned muddy and impassable, with sewage flowing everywhere. On both sides stood crooked shacks carelessly assembled from rotten wooden planks and thatch.
Those living here were mostly old soldiers missing hands or feet, or bottom-tier branch members like the former Lin Ping who had completely lost all hope.
Their gazes were numb, curled up against walls basking in the sun like walking corpses. Aside from a few fearful and fawning glances, Lin Mu's arrival as a "respectable person" stirred no ripples whatsoever.
Lin Mu's expression remained unchanged, his pace unhurried.
He passed through the filthy alleys and stopped before a ramshackle grass hut in the furthest corner, drafty on all sides.
This was the address recorded in the file.
Lin Mu pretended to be passing by, but his eyes swept inconspicuously across the interior.
No one.
Through the teetering window frame, the furnishings inside were clearly visible—or rather, there were no furnishings at all.
Bare walls on all sides. Not even a proper bed, just a pile of dry straw in the corner.
But the anomaly was that it was too clean.
No garbage, no dust. Even the cracked bowl used for drinking water was placed neatly. This wasn't like the den of a lazy, hopeless orphan at all—more like the cave of an ascetic monk in cultivation.
"Not here?"
Lin Mu wasn't disappointed. Instead, he patiently stationed himself beneath an old tree not far away, lit his pipe, and pretended to be waiting for someone.
Time passed bit by bit.
The sun tilted westward. Just as Lin Mu thought today would be a wasted trip and prepared to leave—
Hum.
Deep within his aperture, the Blood Scent Gu that had remained dormant suddenly trembled without warning.
Immediately after, an extremely faint yet eerily sweet-smelling blood scent drifted over on the breeze from the alley entrance.
The smell was so faint that ordinary people couldn't detect it at all, but to Lin Mu's enhanced perception, it blazed like a lighthouse in darkness.
"Here he comes."
Lin Mu narrowed his eyes.
At the alley entrance, a young man carrying a bundle of firewood was slowly approaching.
He was thin, wearing a threadbare single-layer shirt that had been washed who knows how many times. His complexion was so pale it was nearly transparent, even appearing somewhat frail, as if a gust of wind could knock him over.
In the eyes of passersby, this was merely a malnourished wretch struggling to make ends meet.
But in Lin Mu's eyes, beneath that seemingly frail shell surged a violent, chaotic, and extremely dangerous blood-essence fluctuation.
This wasn't the aura a normal Gu Master should possess. It was more like a beast wearing human skin.
The two passed each other in the narrow alley.
Less than three feet apart.
Lin Mu instinctively suppressed all his aura, preparing for any sudden situation.
However, that young man—Lin Wuxie—walked straight past Lin Mu without so much as a sideways glance, carrying his firewood.
He didn't look at Lin Mu once, nor did his expression change in the slightest. As if Lin Mu standing there wasn't a living person at all, but empty air, or a stone by the roadside.
That extreme indifference made Lin Mu's heart turn cold.
"In his world, there seems to be only 'survival' and 'cultivation.' Beyond that, nothing else exists."
This kind of pure-minded person was often the most terrifying.
Creak—
Lin Wuxie entered the grass hut and casually closed the ramshackle wooden door.
But this door panel was full of cracks and large holes—it could keep out gentlemen but not villains, and certainly not the prying eyes of those with intent.
Lin Mu retreated into the shadows nearby. After confirming no one was around, a golden gleam flashed deep within his left pupil.
Eagle Eye Gu, activate.
His vision instantly pierced through the dim door crack, seeing everything inside clearly.
What happened next made Lin Mu's pupils contract sharply.
He watched as Lin Wuxie set down the firewood. He didn't start a fire to cook, but expressionlessly removed his upper garment.
On that thin body, the skin displayed a deathly gray deterioration. Flesh clung tightly to bone, muscle definition extremely rigid, even somewhat calcite-like stone... or like the flesh of a corpse.
He sat cross-legged on the straw pile and took out an oil-paper package from his robe.
Opened it.
Inside was a piece of raw meat still dripping with fresh blood. Judging from the texture and color, it should be muscle from a Rank 1 demon beast.
"What is he doing?"
The question had barely risen in Lin Mu's mind when he witnessed a scene that made his hair stand on end.
Lin Wuxie didn't meditate or circulate breath, nor did he activate any auxiliary Gu. He simply grabbed the raw meat, stuffed it into his mouth, and began chewing in large bites.
Crunch, crunch.
The raw meat along with bone fragments was expressionlessly ground up and swallowed whole.
His face showed no enjoyment, no disgust—only a mechanical sense of feeding, as if completing some sacred yet cruel ritual.
As large amounts of blood food entered his stomach, a sudden transformation occurred.
His abdomen suddenly lit up with an eerie black glow. That light wasn't pure like Primeval Essence, but rather carried an evil quality that devoured everything.
Under this black radiance, Lin Wuxie's originally thin body actually began to expand as if being inflated!
Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle—
The sound of muscle fibers tearing and reforming was clearly audible.
His previously shriveled muscles instantly swelled, veins bulging like earthworms. In just a few breaths, he transformed into a monster of knotted muscle.
That sense of violent power even seeped out through the door crack.
But this state lasted only moments.
As the black light gradually dimmed, seemingly having finished digestion, those swollen muscles rapidly contracted and collapsed, returning to the appearance of that thin, pale youth.
Only this time, his skin carried a barely perceptible hint of rosiness—the residue of blood essence forcibly plundered and digested.
The interior returned to deathly silence.
Lin Wuxie put his clothes back on, lay down on the straw, and closed his eyes as if nothing had happened.
Outside the hut, in the shadows.
Lin Mu slowly dispersed the Eagle Eye Gu's effect. A layer of fine cold sweat had seeped from his forehead.
"This isn't a Black Blood Stockade Gu, nor is it any orthodox cultivation method."
He took a deep breath, calming the shock in his heart.
No need for meditation or essence refinement, directly devouring flesh and blood—even minerals—to strengthen the physical body... This method was simple, brutal, yet terrifyingly efficient.
"Is this the 'Strength Path'?"
"Or something more obscure, more forbidden—the 'Food Path'?"