Chapter 218: The First Villain

Among those people, some possessed extremely high martial arts skills, acting willfully and recklessly with no regard for human life.

There were also some whose martial arts were even inferior to the mountain bandits Lian Li had suppressed before, yet the evil deeds they committed were not the least bit fewer.

In fact, because their martial arts were not high, they chose ordinary people with even less ability to resist as their targets. This resulted in their actions going unnoticed for a long time, allowing them to remain at large even longer.

By the time someone accidentally discovered their crimes and exposed them, an investigation would reveal that the person was already steeped in iniquity.

Furthermore, they knew their martial arts were mediocre, so they were sufficiently cautious, making their movements even harder to track.

If Lian Li had previously treated this merely as a form of training—like a mandatory quest or a dungeon crawl one must complete to level up in a game—then now, he truly wanted to find these people and kill them all so they could no longer commit evil.

A month later, in Fengyi City.

Three young heroes sat at a window-side table on the second floor of a restaurant.

One was dressed in black; he was tall and peerlessly handsome. Another was dressed in green, with fair skin, a bright and beautiful countenance, and eyes so clear and bright that they naturally inspired a favorable impression.

The third person wore a bamboo hat, which he did not remove even while eating in the restaurant.

Suddenly, three burly men burst onto the second floor and charged toward the table where the trio sat.

The leading man pointed a blade at the person in green and roared, “You brat! If you don’t hand over my woman today, I’ll skin you alive!”

The person in green raised his hand with swift, unerring precision, snatched the last piece of meat from the black-clothed man’s chopsticks, and stuffed it into his mouth. After eating it, he turned to look at the three burly men. “Your woman? Isn’t your wife doing perfectly fine with your child back in Shuize Town?”

The person in green glanced at the sky outside the window and continued, “If nothing unexpected happened, they should have just finished lunch by now. Which ‘woman’ are you talking about? Could it be that woman of unknown origin you met half a month ago?”

The leading man gave a cold laugh. “It doesn’t matter which woman she is!”

A ruthless expression appeared on his face as he signaled the two brothers who came with him. They drew their blades and rushed forward.

On the other side, only the person in green moved; the other two remained seated, motionless.

Very quickly, the person in green sent the three burly men flying out of the second-floor window.

Upon hitting the ground, the three men each spat out a mouthful of blood. Clutching their chests, they scrambled up from the ground and shouted harsh threats as they ran into the distance: “We won’t let you get away with this!”

The person in green was, of course, Lian Li. He stood by the window watching the three depart, then shrugged and returned to his seat.

“That’s the fourth wave of people, isn’t it?” Yun Huizhou remarked.

Lian Li nodded and replied, “This Poison Scorpion Woman’s fish pond is quite large.”

“Fish pond?” Yun Huizhou asked, puzzled.

Even the South Island Lord looked over. Although his face could not be seen, Lian Li could tell from his movements that he was also very confused.

“Uh…” Lian Li sat up a bit straighter and said to Yun Huizhou, “You’ve read my storybooks, right? In them, some characters string others along emotionally, keeping them as substitutes or backups. This behavior can be called ‘raising fish.’ These people are all the fish in her fish pond.”

Yun Huizhou’s lips twitched. “I understand now.”

“However, the Poison Scorpion Woman intends to kill off all these ‘fish’ she’s raising along with their families. That part is a bit different from what I write in my storybooks,” Lian Li added.

He reached out, fished some loose silver from Yun Huizhou’s waist, and tossed it to the trembling waiter standing nearby. Then he said to Yun Huizhou, “Let’s go. Let’s continue our journey.”

Yun Huizhou and the South Island Lord had no objections. After the three left the small town, they followed the official road forward.

Only when the town was no longer in sight did the three change direction and dive into the woods, heading toward Shuize Town.

Upon entering Shuize Town, Yun Huizhou and the South Island Lord went directly into an inn, while Lian Li intended to act alone.

For several days in a row, Lian Li kept watch near a residential house. A woman lived there with her daughter.

She was the wife of the burly man who had demanded his “woman” back at the restaurant in Fengyi City a few days ago.

The “woman” that man spoke of was not the wife Lian Li was currently watching, but the villain known as the Poison Scorpion Woman.

That villain had a specific preference for harming married individuals or lovers who were deeply in love.

She had no specific requirements for harming married people; whenever she felt like it, she would go to a nearby town and randomly select a few young couples.

However, for those young couples who were in love but not yet married, she had requirements.

The better and deeper their feelings for each other, the easier it was for them to become her targets.

Childhood sweethearts, in particular, were her first choice.

The Poison Scorpion Woman was once an ordinary resident of a small town. After being deceived and abandoned by a man, she snuck into his home late one night, killed his entire family of five, set a massive fire, and then fled.

In truth, when he first learned of this, Lian Li felt no internal stirrings.

The Martial Arts Alliance booklet only stated that the Poison Scorpion Woman had been deceived and abandoned by a man, but it did not provide the specific details of how.

Lian Li had always believed in the principle: “Do not advise others to be kind if you have not experienced their suffering.”

Therefore, Lian Li did not offer any judgment regarding the Poison Scorpion Woman’s revenge.

Having stayed in this world for so long, he had learned that he could not use the values and morals of the modern world to judge matters of the martial world.

Otherwise, he might drive himself mad.

After all, people in the martial world spent almost every day doing things that would likely land them in a police station back home.

The reason the Poison Scorpion Woman made it onto the Martial Arts Alliance’s list was, naturally, not because of that initial incident.

It was because of what happened when she reappeared three years later.

She had somehow learned martial arts and kidnapped a young man and woman who were about to be married.

The young man’s elder brother was a manager in a nearby medium-sized sect, and his martial arts were quite decent.

Upon discovering that his younger brother and future sister-in-law had vanished, he immediately mobilized the sect’s members to search for them.

Finally, they found the two in a cave ten miles outside the city.

By then, the man was already dead, his body cut open and his heart missing.

The woman had only one last breath left. After haltingly recounting what they had endured, she also passed away.

The man’s elder brother naturally refused to let the person who killed his brother go unpunished.

Thus, he investigated all the way and discovered that the one who had harmed his brother and sister-in-law was a woman.

Furthermore, his brother and sister-in-law were not the first victims.

That woman specialized in capturing lovers like them. She would then tell them that only one of them could live and force them to choose who it would be.

If both chose to live for themselves and let the other die, she would use the most cruel methods to torture them both to death.