Destiny in Cinders

"Thank you for your precious technique."

This was no time for cultivation. Tucking the jade slip away, An Jing turned to Huo Qing, who sighed with visible relief. His eyes held a peculiar, unreadable glint. Calling it a "rescue" was a stretch. Beyond briefly treating his wounds, An Jing's later involvement had little to do with the man's survival.

Huo Qing had entered the city with him and shared a meal, which should have been the extent of it. At most, a small reward of merits might have been expected, but certainly nothing as significant as the gift of a secret technique.

This level of gratitude felt excessive. Upon further reflection, An Jing noticed other aspects of Huo Qing that were amiss. Huo Qing wasn't particularly strong. He was a Silk Essence cultivator on the verge of the River Essence Stage, yet his foundation was solid and his body robust.

Huo Qing's haggard and dark complexion was misleading. It was merely the toll of strenuous labor. Without his exceptional physique, the sheer physical strain would have worked any other man into an early grave. In fact, he possessed a remarkable talent for cultivation but had simply been held back by his time in the gang.

Boss Liu was right. The gang life didn't suit him. Huo Qing required quiet study and undisturbed cultivation to excel, unlike a natural like An Jing, who could cultivate effortlessly in any environment.

Huo Qing was still young. Squandering his years in a gang was clearly a waste of his potential. Had it not been for An Jing's intervention, he would have perished in the wilderness without a sound. Despite being orphaned young and raised by gang-member uncles, there was no reason for him to cling so stubbornly to this life.

Huo Qing was also a man with his own ideals and personal goals. His passion for food proved he had a vision, but for reasons unknown, he had cast those dreams aside.

So be it. Lifting his head, An Jing said with unmistakable sincerity, "An is my surname." Then he resumed eating and put Huo Qing's technique to good use, circulating his qi essence to digest the food.

Beside him, Huo Qing froze for a moment before beaming with delight. "Yes! Brother An!" He understood An Jing's true intent. The debt was settled. From this moment on, they could try being friends.

One serving was definitely not enough for An Jing, so Huo Qing paid for two more servings. Though his funds were meager, he could still afford a few roadside meals, viewing it as the cost of making a friend.

"That's enough." Draining the last of the soup, An Jing set the bowl down and looked at Huo Qing. "I may have saved your life, but we both know the truth. I only did it because I need your knowledge of the town. You've settled the debt by sharing your secret technique so we're even now. From here on, let's just call ourselves friends."

He rose to his feet. "Now, just point me toward someone who'll buy these spoils. If I have merits the next time our paths cross, the meal's on me. Anyway, if fate wills it, we'll meet again!"

"That's fine." Huo Qing looked slightly embarrassed, but his relief was impossible to hide. "I'll see you around then. As for the spoils, I know a man who runs a recycling house. He's actually an elder of mine...

"What is it?" Huo Qing stood up to bid An Jing farewell, and was just about to suggest a reliable recycling house when he caught the strange expression in the boy's eyes.

At that very moment, An Jing felt it—a sudden, resonant vibration from the depths of his soul, the locus of his lifearc. Faint, yes, but undeniably there. A ripple of feedback.

"Yvelbane!" An Jing called out to the sword soul in his sea of consciousness with utter disbelief. "My lifearc... it seems to have just evolved!"

"Indeed!" Even Yvelbane was astonished. Nesting within An Jing's sea of consciousness sharpened its perception, leaving it all the more stunned. "What did you do to enhance your lifearc? Know that a lifearc is decreed by the heavens. Once awakened, its core essence is immutable. Most people merely harness its power and further their cultivation with it."

Enhancing one's core and cultivation was actually surprisingly uncomplicated. Lifearcs functioned as the defining coefficient for innate capabilities. Cultivation represented the foundational value; for instance, a base of a hundred points of strength could be amplified by a lifearc to three hundred. Augmenting one's lifearc, for instance, could elevate that multiplier to 3.3 times, boosting output to 330 without requiring any further increase in cultivation.

If the quantified strength of one's cultivation were to progress from a hundred to a thousand points, the lifearc would amplify that into a final power of three thousand. Raising one's cultivation was simple. In the initial stages, growth was the primary objective. But when progress could no longer be made, delving into the lifearc's essence was the most efficient way to enhance one's strength.

"Is it because I saved Huo Qing?"

An Jing couldn't wrap his head around it. Was Huo Qing's death supposed to mark the end of a great calamity? Would his survival pave the way for an even more earth-shattering catastrophe instead? Perhaps by saving him, the heavens were moved, thus enhancing his lifearc?

That was obviously not the case. An Jing was so visibly unsettled that even Huo Qing picked up on it. However, Huo Qing had little time to dwell on An Jing's strange behavior, as his own troubles were about to begin.

"Qing! You're still alive?!" A middle-aged man's voice, thick with shock and bewilderment, called out from across the street.

An Jing and Huo Qing turned at once to see a middle-aged man so burly he appeared bloated. He was staring at Huo Qing with disbelief and utter flabbergastment.

"Good heavens! Word from Old Jing was that you took a bullet and tumbled off the vehicle. To think you actually made it out alive!"

Behind the man stood several fully armed guards who radiated hostility. Their raincoats were charred and blackened by flames. The white-tiger insignia on their attire marked them as senior gang members of the Noontigers who had been active in last night's bloody street war.

"Uncle Gunner!" Huo Qing turned around in surprise and made a move toward the man, as if to greet him.

An Jing, however, watched it all through narrowed eyes. While a casual observer might mistake the man's intense reaction as surprise at Huo Qing's survival, he saw the man's shock for what it truly was. There was a lingering shadow of dread and the relief that he could still fix his mistake.

This feeling...

"Stop!" An Jing let out a sharp cry and struck with Ailment Swordfinger. The chopsticks in his hand shot out like bullets, whistling through the air toward the hand of a guard secretly reaching for a dagger. A heavy thud rang out as An Jing knocked the weapon aside. Huo Qing, who had been steps away from pulling the man into an embrace, froze in his tracks, his pupils shrinking to pinpricks. 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

"Uncle Gunner, wh-what's the meaning of this?!" Stunned, he recoiled, his eyes fixed on the guard who stood frowning after losing his blade. "Brother Blade, what are you doing with that dagger?"

He knew them all, yet in an instant, they had all become complete strangers.

"Idiot." Stepping forward, An Jing said coldly, "Don't you get it? They're trying to kill you!"

"What's going on?" Emerging from the stall, Boss Liu and his daughter-in-law were taken aback by the confrontation between An Jing and Gunner.

"Gunner, what's the meaning of this? What could Little Huo have possibly done to warrant such severe actions?" He stepped in, clearly trying to smooth things over. "Come on, we all know each other! Can't we just talk this out? Why—Ow!"

Boss Liu crumpled to the ground before he could finish speaking. His head landed on a stone corner and blood started flowing from it.

"Zip it! This is gang business, stay out of it!" Gunner snapped as he shoved the man, sending him sprawling. His expression turned vicious. "Huo Qing, you're busted! The gang knows about the missing supplies! If you had died, the debt would be settled, but since you're still alive, you're coming back with me to face the punishment."

"Is this some kind of joke?" Huo Qing was clearly blindsided, having no clue what he had supposedly done. The guard who had pulled his dagger earlier stepped forward and aimed straight for Huo Qing's chest. They weren't here to take him in, they were here to finish him off!

By then, they would be the only ones to tell their side of the story. Perhaps Huo Qing was gunned down while "fleeing" to avoid punishment, or he somehow managed to "commit suicide" with seven shots to the back.

A split second before they could tip their hand, An Jing struck! With a single step, he was suddenly there between Huo Qing and Gunner's men. He balled his right hand into a fist and channeled Armorpierce Impetus. Before a single person could react, his steel-hard fist smashed squarely into the guard's masked face, propelled by his surging aura.