"The best way to cover the truth isn't to erase traces, but to manufacture a new 'truth'."
Lin Mu stood beside Gao Xiong's corpse, gripping the heavy steel army knife. The warmth of the deceased still lingered on the handle, but as it transferred to Lin Mu's hand, only cold murderous intent remained.
The air at the bottom of the well seemed to coagulate. Only the thick scent of blood continued to ferment, stinging the nose.
Lin Mu took a deep breath, his eyes becoming as precise as scalpels in the darkness. He stared at the fatal wound on Gao Xiong's neck. It was a cut caused by the Iron Leaf Gu; the rolled flesh showed fine serrations, and the muscles around the wound displayed an eerie grey-green withered decay due to the erosion of Wood Path Primeval Essence.
This was irrefutable evidence.
"I must 'devour' this wound."
Lin Mu chanted silently in his heart, hesitating no longer. He gripped the knife with both hands, the muscles in his arms bulging, and chopped down viciously at Gao Xiong's corpse.
Thwack!
The first cut didn't land anywhere else—it struck precisely on Gao Xiong's neck.
This strike was heavy and angled perfectly. It not only severed the cervical vertebrae directly but also completely destroyed that neat, intricate Iron Leaf incision. The original serrated scar was roughly covered by the rolled edge of the crude blade, and that trace of grey-green wood qi was completely masked by the spraying blood and mangled flesh.
"Not enough."
Lin Mu's face was expressionless, his eyes indifferent as if he were chopping a piece of dead meat on a cutting board.
Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!
Immediately followed the second cut, the third cut.
He hacked successively at the corpse's chest, abdomen, and back. Every cut appeared chaotic, filled with tyranny and the scent of venting anger.
He was deliberately imitating the "Demonic Path Lone Cultivator" style common in the Southern Border.
In this world, Demonic Path Gu Masters were mostly perverse in character. They often cultivated evil Gu that offered quick success but came with massive side effects, leading to violent and bloodthirsty temperaments. When they killed, they never cared for the art of "one hit, one kill." Instead, they reveled in the pleasure of torture.
After a dozen cuts, Gao Xiong had turned into a pile of unrecognizable, mangled flesh.
The traces of the insidious, concealed killing method of the Iron Leaf Gu had completely vanished into this messy, bloody wreckage. Now, to anyone looking, this was a torture killing born of a personal grudge or pure venting of rage.
"Next, the props."
Lin Mu casually tossed the chipped steel knife beside the corpse, letting the blade bury halfway into the mud, creating the illusion of a weapon dropped in a fierce battle or discarded after the kill.
Then, he pulled a heavily damaged piece of coarse burlap from his robes.
He had picked this up on his second day after transmigration, near the refugees at the foot of the mountain. It was stained with unknown grease and blackened blood, emitting a nauseating sour stench. This was absolutely not a smell that would be found on a clan descendant of the Black Blood Stockade.
He crouched down, enduring the bloody stench rising from the corpse, and forcefully pried open Gao Xiong's fingers, which were stiff and spasming from the pain before death.
Crack.
With the faint sound of bone snapping, he wedged the burlap piece into Gao Xiong's fingers, then used the rigor mortis to make the fingers clamp down tight again.
A perfect crime scene.
Under the dim moonlight, this corpse seemed to silently narrate a story:
A ragged Demonic Path Lone Cultivator sneaked into the stockade to steal, only to be discovered by the dutiful Patrol Captain Gao Xiong. Gao Xiong chased him here, and a life-and-death struggle erupted in the narrow bottom of the well. Although Gao Xiong was heroic, the demon's methods were cruel, and he was ultimately defeated and brutally tortured to vent the demon's anger. But before dying, he deadly grasped a piece of the killer's clothing, leaving the final clue for his family.
"Captain Gao Xiong, you are a martyr."
Lin Mu looked at this scene coldly, the corner of his mouth hooking into a mocking arc. "The clan will posthumously award you honors. Your family will receive a pension. And I take the opportunity I need. We each take what we need."
This was the world of Gu Masters. The value of the dead was to be squeezed dry by the living.
"As for this hot identity token..." Lin Mu casually tossed it into the deeper silt at the bottom of the well. Taking it was seeking death; leaving it here further solidified the illusion of it being "lost in fierce combat."
Having done all this, Lin Mu felt no lingering attachment.
He grabbed another handful of slippery, cold mud from the well wall and covered the fresh blood splatters on his body and face, layer by layer. The cold sensation quickly cooled his body, which had heated up from the slaughter.
"Time to go."
He looked up at the square patch of night sky at the wellhead. The Iron Wire Miasma seemed thicker, a natural ally for Lin Mu.
Using both hands and feet, like a true gecko, he climbed silently up the wet moss of the well wall.
The moment he climbed out of the well, the night wind mixed with faint corrosive mist hit his face. Lin Mu lay prone in the grass, motionless. Only when he confirmed there were no footsteps of patrol squads nearby did he dart out like a ghost.
The way back was even more thrilling than the way there.
It was currently the Hour of the Ox (1 AM - 3 AM), when people were most drowsy and patrol defenses were most lax. But Lin Mu dared not be careless. He avoided all main roads and flat stone paths, specifically choosing dark, damp wall corners,stinking ditches, and even the hidden channels used for sewage.
His soles stepped on rotting twigs and muddy slush, making extremely faint squelch sounds. In this silent night, every sound felt like he was stepping on his own heartbeat.
Another quarter of an hour passed.
Lin Mu finally made it back under the window of the academy dormitory, frightened but safe.
The small window he had left slightly ajar remained as it was, like a half-opened eye awaiting its master's return.
He took a deep breath, circulated Primeval Essence to his limbs, made his body light as a swallow, gripped the window ledge with both hands, and rolled silently into the room.
Landing without a sound.
The room was still filled with the rising and falling sounds of snoring. In that air mixed with the sweat, foot odor, and mold of teenage boys, his roommates slept like dead pigs, completely unaware that just outside this wall, a life-and-death exchange had occurred.
Lin Mu quickly closed the window and bolted it.
He didn't go to bed immediately. Instead, borrowing the faint moonlight coming through the window, he carefully inspected his entire body.
The mud on his soles—cleaned. The grass clippings on his clothes—picked off. The bloodstains in his fingernails—wiped carefully with a small damp cloth prepared beforehand.
He worked extremely slowly, extremely meticulously, as if sculpting a work of art. Any slight negligence could become a fatal flaw in the great search that might come tomorrow.
Finally, he stuffed the damp cloth used for wiping stains into a rat hole under the bed and covered it with dust.
Only after doing all this did the adrenaline that had been sustaining him begin to slowly recede, replaced by a tide of exhaustion.
But he couldn't sleep. A more important matter awaited him.
Lin Mu drilled into his bedding, wrapping himself tightly in the heavy cotton quilt. In this enclosed, oxygen-deprived dark space, he felt as if he had returned to the womb, gaining a morbid sense of security.
"Phew..."
He exhaled a long breath, his trembling hand reaching into the leather pouch close to his body.
His fingertips touched something warm and soft.
The culprit that had nearly cost him his life at the bottom of the well, and forced him to kill to silence a witness—the Liquor Worm—was now curled up in his palm.
By the faint glow of Primeval Essence from his aperture, Lin Mu stared greedily at this little thing inside his quilt.
It was pure white throughout, chubby like a silkworm baby. Under its skin, a milky white halo flowed faintly, emitting an intoxicating, mellow wine fragrance. Just smelling it made the Primeval Essence in his body feel slightly more active.
"For you, I killed a Rank 1 Upper Stage Gu Master."
Lin Mu's finger gently stroked the smooth surface of the Liquor Worm, his eyes flickering with fanatical light.
"But it was all worth it."
In this world where strength reigned supreme, aptitude determined the ceiling, and resources determined speed.
Lin Mu, with B-grade aptitude, was destined to lose to those A-grade geniuses at the starting line. If he didn't rob, didn't snatch, didn't kill and commit arson, he would at most be a running dog for a clan elder in this life, or become cannon fodder in some beast tide.
But this Liquor Worm was the key to breaking class barriers.
With it, Lin Mu could purify his Primeval Essence, using middle-stage Primeval Essence to fight against the initial-stage essence of his peers, forming a crushing advantage. This wasn't just an improvement in strength; it was to amaze the world with a single feat in the upcoming clan examination, fighting for more resource allocation.
"Only the meat in one's belly truly belongs to oneself."
Only by completely refining it, branding it with his own will, storing it deep in his aperture, and using his own Primeval Essence to mask its aura, would he be truly safe.
"Now is the best time."
Lin Mu forcibly suppressed the excitement in his heart and sat cross-legged on the bed.
He closed his eyes, adjusting his breathing, letting his heartbeat gradually calm down. The snoring around him, the wind outside the window—all seemed to fade away at this moment.
In this cramped, dark quilt, only one person and one worm remained.