Ren Qing left South City.
The unrest on the streets was palpable. The Government Office had probably started cracking down on the Cultivators of the No-Eyes Technique after several days of investigation.
Since the Forbidden Guards were mobilized, there would be no mercy.
The Hundred-eyed Man must have anticipated this. He had likely already collected enough human eyes and would choose to lie low for a while.
Ren Qing did not rush back to the Firework Hall. Instead, he went straight to Butcher Zhang's meat shop.
Although Butcher Zhang had already closed his shop, the back room where he lived was brightly lit, and snores could be heard from within.
Ren Qing activated his Double Pupils, and everything in his surroundings came into view.
He knew the Hundred-eyed Man used some method to place eyes on insects or animals to kill from a distance.
But what confused Ren Qing was that such a method clearly exceeded the Hundred-eyed Man's scope of abilities.
They were both branches of the No-Eyes Technique, and the Repeater path even consumed an extra half-year of Lifespan. Why was there such a huge difference in power?
After scanning the area, he found a snail in the corner. Its body was retracted into its shell, so he couldn't see clearly if there was a human eye on it.
Without hesitation, Ren Qing crushed the snail. Immediately, Butcher Zhang's irrepressible scream echoed from the back room.
He quickly burst into the room to see Butcher Zhang kneeling on the floor, clawing at his throat as if trying to vomit something up.
Ren Qing used a pair of chopsticks from the table to prop open Butcher Zhang's mouth, preventing him from biting his tongue.
When Butcher Zhang lost control, a sour, foul-smelling black liquid gushed from his mouth. The stench was extremely pungent, and the liquid was corrosive.
Mixed in the black liquid were tiny eyeballs, but they quickly vanished.
Butcher Zhang collapsed weakly to the ground. Ren Qing checked him with the Information Flow and found that although his Lifespan had been reduced by five years, the strange illness was cured.
After settling Butcher Zhang, Ren Qing finally returned to the Firework Hall.
Ren Qing had just entered the courtyard and hadn't even had a chance to rest when he saw Bo Feng and the other three preparing their tools. It looked like they were going to dispose of some bodies.
Xiaowu sighed in relief. "Brother Qing, it's a good thing you're back in time. Fireworkers have been dispatched continuously since just now, and it's our turn."
Li Mian couldn't help but worry. "Has some great chaos broken out in Sanxiang City?"
Bo Feng said with a grim face, "Don't overthink it. It's probably a gang war."
"Let's just go and see."
Ren Qing figured it was related to the Forbidden Guards purging the Cultivators of the No-Eyes Technique.
Countless people had died recently because of the headless cases. The Government Office was bound to use an iron fist.
Led by a constable, the five of them arrived at a residence on Tan Street. As soon as they entered, they were greeted by the sight of flesh and blood all over the floor, swarmed by dozens of flies.
Even Xiaowu was no longer surprised by such scenes. They began to skillfully clean up the flesh and blood, placing it into special wooden boxes.
However, as they gradually cleared away the remains, they felt that something was wrong.
They had clearly pieced together a single corpse, yet they had found far too many human eyes. Furthermore, there were several human eyes embedded in the skin tissue itself.
Xiaowu and the Li Brothers couldn't help but step outside the house to relieve their frayed nerves.
Bo Feng's face was pale as he looked at Ren Qing, only to see that his expression was placid, without the slightest ripple of emotion.
Remembering Ren Qing's performance in the Prison, he couldn't help but feel a sense of admiration.
In fact, Ren Qing had already anticipated the strangeness of the corpse.
He appeared busy collecting the remains, but in his mind, he was organizing information about the Hundred-eyed Man. He felt as though he was shrouded in fog, yet the truth was close at hand.
According to what the Mutated Tree revealed, the Hundred-eyed Man's ability should be creating Illusions.
'Why can the Hundred-eyed Man I've encountered affect others from hundreds of meters away and even control animals and insects with eyeballs?'
A thought struck Ren Qing. 'Could he possess multiple Magic Techniques at the same time, which, when used in combination, produce a powerful and mysterious effect?'
The more he thought about it, the more plausible it seemed.
Moreover, the chaos caused by the Hundred-eyed Man had affected almost all of Sanxiang City. To avoid revealing himself, he must be hiding in an absolutely safe place.
A glint shone in Ren Qing's eyes.
'That only leaves the Government Office.'
He felt a moment of enlightenment. The chaotic clues converged in his mind and were organized into useful information.
The changes brought by the Information Flow weren't just a superficial cheat; even Ren Qing's analytical abilities had been enhanced several times over.
The Hundred-eyed Man possessed at least one other Magic Technique besides the No-Eyes Technique, both of which were mastered by consuming Mysterious Objects.
With his path forward blocked, this person could only struggle to survive. It was almost impossible for him to obtain the Mysterious Object for the Ghost Envoy Realm of the No-Eyes Technique, so he could only focus on continuous Life Extension.
Ren Qing suspected that the Life Extension effect of the No-Eyes Technique weakened with Age, which was why the Hundred-eyed Man was becoming so frenzied.
To have hidden in the Government Office for so long, the Hundred-eyed Man's initial methods of Life Extension must have been more subtle. He likely only resorted to eating human eyes out of desperation.
For Ren Qing, the Hundred-eyed Man was a significant opportunity, one he could even use to reach the Ghost Envoy Realm in a short amount of time.
As Ren Qing considered how to deal with the Hundred-eyed Man, a plan gradually began to form.
Discovering the Hundred-eyed Man's identity could be done slowly. The most important thing was to be fully prepared.
Ren Qing's strength was still too green to face the Hundred-eyed Man. His Half-Corpse Realm No-Eyes Technique was more of a support Skill, and he had only just begun with the Human Skin Book.
He had to maximize the advantages of the Repeater path.
Ren Qing's first thought was the Divine Sutra.
If his legs gained extreme explosive power after being Mutated, then he would only need to use his Double Pupils to lock onto an enemy's weakness to be invincible.
Furthermore, the Divine Sutra was in the hands of a faction associated with beggars, and they surely had a deep understanding of the paths of mutation.
At least Ren Qing wouldn't have to grope his way forward. He could directly consume Lifespan to advance the Divine Sutra to the Half-Corpse Realm.
As he laid out his preliminary plan, he realized that all the flesh and blood in the room had already been packed into the wooden boxes.
The five of them continued to the next location for body collection. There were simply too many dead; in the west of the city alone, there were twenty to thirty scattered about.
Ren Qing noticed that about eighty percent of the corpses were Cultivators of the No-Eyes Technique. The rest were merely victims who had developed a strange illness from the Hundred-eyed Man's influence, their heads swollen and eyes bulging.
If Butcher Zhang hadn't been saved by Ren Qing in time, even if he had been lucky enough not to die, he would have surely been disposed of by the Forbidden Guards.
From this, it was clear that the Forbidden Guards' attitude was to rather kill a thousand innocents than let a single guilty one escape. Who knew how many more would die in the coming search for the Hundred-eyed Man.
Ren Qing returned to the Firework Hall and sat on a stone chair, feeling a bit melancholic.
In the distance, the furnace blazed fiercely.
'Without the Information Flow, I might have ended up as one of those corpses. I would have struggled to finally cultivate the No-Eyes Technique, only to be killed by the Forbidden Guards for some unknown reason.'
'It's almost laughable. In this world, could it be that you only get to encounter a Dharma Gate for cultivation if you're unlucky enough?'
Ren Qing chose to lower his profile. For the time being, he put aside thoughts of the Hundred-eyed Man and began secretly asking about the beggars in the west of the city.
He discovered that even compared to the Government Office, gangs that possessed Magic Techniques were still considered a significant power.
There was even a considerable number of Forbidden Guards who came from gang backgrounds.