Outside Forty-Nine City, the land stretched flat as a horse’s gallop.

Once trouble broke out, refugees from all directions swarmed in like a tide.

The flood of refugees grew denser, a dark mass surging relentlessly toward them.

Uncle Jie knew something was wrong. With a thrust of his long spear, he bellowed, “Everyone, block the slope!”

His face appeared calm, but his heart churned like a stormy sea—years of running the ore route, and he’d never seen anything this strange.

In this world, the gap between ordinary folk and trained fighters was a chasm.

Aside from armed soldiers, who would dare charge into a gathering of martial artists?

Yet these refugees dared to rush forward. Only a fool would believe there wasn’t someone pulling strings behind them.

Xiangzi let out a soft breath, his short spear loosely gripped.

Despite the sea of people before him, he felt little fear.

After all, his group of dozens wasn’t just the East Tower guards who’d broken through the Blood Energy Barrier—even the second-class rickshaw pullers had awakened their blood energy.

As long as they held together, how could ordinary refugees get close?

But the real trouble was the ore on the carts.

Xiangzi knew well that in the eyes of Master Liu or the big shots in the embassy district, the lives of rickshaw pullers like him meant nothing.

The baskets of shimmering five-colored gold ore on the flatbed carts—that was what truly mattered.

Xiangzi’s brows furrowed sharply—these refugees pinpointed the convoy in this dead-end terrain. Someone’s guiding them from the shadows.

There might even be a traitor within the convoy.

His gaze darkened, sweeping over the group, landing on Jin Fugui.

Jin Fugui was fiddling with a long blade, and as if sensing Xiangzi’s stare, his eyes met Xiangzi’s without hesitation.

Xiangzi gave a cold smirk, his body tensing—

This had to be tied to Jin Fugui and his lot, but there were more pressing matters to handle first.

Uncle Jie, wrapping his leggings tight, was about to lead the East Tower guards down the slope when Xiangzi stopped him.

“Uncle Jie, hold the line here. Don’t act rashly.

”

They’d known each other long enough to understand each other’s ways.

Hearing “don’t act rashly,” Uncle Jie caught the hint. His steps halted, and his cold eyes scanned the scene.

“Wen San, Big Mouth Li, Brother Zhang Wu—unload the ore!” Xiangzi roared, tilting his cart’s handle—several baskets of five-colored gold ore crashed onto the dirt path.

The other pullers hesitated, but seeing Wen San and the named few follow suit, they quickly unloaded their ore too.

Four flatbed carts lined up side by side, blocking the narrow slope.

The refined iron plates at the carts’ fronts, like shields, covered them tightly.

Uncle Jie grinned—this kid Xiangzi. No wonder he’s been fussing with these pullers lately, insisting on old-school rules, making everyone add those iron plates.

So this was his backup plan.

Uncle Jie chuckled silently—this kid’s too cautious, hiding it even from me.

Amid the chaotic shouts, yellow dust swept over them.

The surging refugees moved with unsteady steps, their advance chaotic and disorganized.

Even so, the sight of endless heads made Xiangzi’s scalp tingle.

But when he spotted the men at the front wielding long blades, his eyes narrowed sharply—

The forged blades gleamed coldly in the sunlight, and those men moved with the fierce grace of tigers and dragons—they were martial artists who’d awakened their blood energy!

Refugees couldn’t have martial artists!

Nor such finely crafted blades!

“Charge!”

Without hesitation, Xiangzi roared, and the four flatbed carts surged forward.

The carts moved swiftly, crashing into the crowd in a blink.

The martial artists at the front hadn’t expected Harmony Rickshaw Yard, surrounded as they were, to charge first.

Caught off guard, several burly men slammed into the carts.

The iron plates proved their worth—their blades couldn’t even reach the pullers.

With the downhill momentum, the hundred-pound carts became battering rams.

Not even martial artists who’d awakened their blood energy—or even those who’d entered a higher rank—could easily withstand such a thunderous strike.

Muffled sounds of snapping bones and piercing cries mixed with flying limbs and sprays of blood, echoing across the scene.

In a few steps, the distance was covered.

“Retreat!”

Seeing several men knocked down, Xiangzi shouted.

Wen San and the others, too stunned to look closely, turned and dragged the carts back up the slope.

By the time the four carts returned, the dirt path was a bloody mess.

The pullers on the slope stood frozen.

Wen San and the others who’d charged were trembling.

Fights among pullers were common—turf wars or disputes between yards often led to brawls.

But they’d never seen such a gruesome, terrifying scene.

Yet the refugees seemed unfazed, their sallow faces carved with indifference.

Even scrawny, half-naked children slipped through the crowd, rummaging through mangled limbs for curled-up blades.

Wen San, shaking, turned to Xiangzi, about to ask something, but froze at the sight of his face—so different from his usual honest demeanor.

Part pity, part ferocity, but mostly calm.

Yet beneath that calm lurked something Wen San couldn’t quite grasp.

It was hard to imagine such complex emotions on one face.

Wen San was stunned.

A rough man who loved teahouse tales but never grasped their depth, he’d cheer loudly and parrot fancy phrases back at the second-class yard to show off.

Now, sunlight filtered through the sandstorm,

the shifting light cutting through the dust.

In the flickering shadows, Wen San looked at Xiangzi’s weathered face and had a strange thought:

The heroes in those tales… they’re probably no more than this.

The deaths only paused the refugees briefly.

The longing for life outweighed their fear of death.

The scattered refugees below the slope began to regroup.

Xiangzi’s gaze fell on the frail elderly, women, and even children with dirt-smeared faces.

These weren’t the disguised martial artists from before.

They were real refugees.

Could he really repeat the charge, plowing through them with the carts again?

A strange nausea churned in his gut.

This wasn’t the aftermath of killing—he’d killed Ma Liu Rickshaw Yard’s skinny man over a month ago.

In these times, killing was no big deal.

Unbidden, Xiangzi recalled the old man and his grandson he’d met in West City.

If not for that old man’s warning, he might’ve fallen into the skinny man’s trap.

And that pair, before Marshal Sun’s amnesty, weren’t they just refugees wandering outside the city?

Even Xiangzi himself, before becoming a puller in Forty-Nine City, wasn’t he a landless refugee?

No grudges in the past, no enmity now…

Why did it have to come to this life-or-death struggle?

Xiangzi couldn’t make sense of it.

But a nameless fire roared in his chest like a wildfire.

From his vantage point, he finally spotted his target.

At the back of the refugee crowd stood a fat man.

Though dressed in tattered rags, his plump figure stood out like a sore thumb.

This was the second time Xiangzi had seen him.

He was one of the two from Ma Liu Rickshaw Yard who’d ambushed him in West City.

The skinny one wasn’t bad—his death even yielded a beast bone.

This fat one, being his sworn brother, should be decent too—maybe he’d drop something good.

And the skinny one died miserably, lonely on the road to the underworld. Why not send this fat one to keep him company?

With that thought, Xiangzi’s eyes glinted, his wrist flicked, and a short spear slid into his grip.

His foot stamped down,

a cloud of blood-scented dust exploding beneath him.

A fierce, resolute figure leaped down from the slope.