55: Chapter 55 Lin Qinghan's Bitter Search

Jiangnan City, top-floor intensive care unit of the central hospital.

Lin Qinghan leaned against the pristine white hospital bed. Her complexion remained somewhat pale, but her breathing had completely stabilized.

The extreme-yang heart blood of the Mutated Wild Boar had provided a perfect suppressing effect. The backlash of the extreme-cold Law that had tormented her for over a decade was forcibly suppressed deep within her Dantian.

The hospital room door was pushed open, and an elderly butler with graying hair, dressed in a tuxedo, walked in.

"Young Miss, the Family Head just called via video link." Butler Fu bowed slightly. "That young master from the Lei family will not be able to save his legs; he is currently still in a top-tier life-support pod in Kyoto, undergoing emergency treatment. The Family Head is furious. The private jet is already prepared on the rooftop helipad, and he has ordered me to take you back to Kyoto immediately for recovery."

Lin Qinghan did not look at Butler Fu; her gaze remained fixed on the gloomy sky outside the window.

"I am not going back." Her voice was cold and clear, allowing for no doubt.

Butler Fu was stunned. "Young Miss, your injuries..."

"My injuries are fine now." Lin Qinghan interrupted him. "The Provincial College Entrance Exam Combat Ranking Tournament is about to begin. As the representative of the Lin family, I must stay in Jiangnan City to prepare. This is my decision; I will explain it to Father myself."

Butler Fu opened his mouth, but knowing the Young Miss's cold-on-the-outside-but-warm-on-the-inside and extremely stubborn personality, he could only sigh helplessly.

"Understood. Then I will go and arrange the villa in Jiangnan City first."

"Wait."

Lin Qinghan turned her head. In those cold, clear eyes, a flash of extremely hidden fanaticism flickered.

"Butler Fu, deploy all of the Lin family's intelligence networks in Jiangnan City. Additionally, contact those high-level brokers in the Underground Black Market. No matter how much it costs, I need to find one person."

Butler Fu's expression turned stern. "What kind of person?"

"A rogue cultivator wearing a green-faced, fanged mask and a black cloak. Codename: Shura."

Upon hearing this name, Butler Fu's expression changed abruptly.

...

Three days later, Jiangnan City, the top-tier underground cultivation room of the Lin family villa.

Lin Qinghan sat cross-legged on a meditation cushion.

Butler Fu walked in, holding a black tactical terminal with the highest level of encryption, his expression extremely grave.

"Young Miss, we found him. But..." Butler Fu hesitated, seemingly wanting to say more but stopping himself.

"Read it." Lin Qinghan opened her eyes abruptly.

Butler Fu swallowed hard. Looking at the top-secret data on the screen, his voice trembled slightly. "In the past half-month, our intelligence network has practically turned Jiangnan City's Underworld upside down. This 'Shura' is practically a taboo."

"A month ago, he appeared in the black market for the first time. In Dead Zone Alley, without using a shred of spiritual energy, he crushed the cervical vertebrae of three mid-rank Martial Apprentices from the Blood Axe Gang with one hand."

"Immediately after, he stormed the Blood Axe Gang's headquarters alone. With a single punch, he blasted away a thirty-centimeter-thick alloy blast door. In front of over a hundred fully armed gunmen, he beheaded the gang leader, One-Eyed Blade, with a single strike."

Lin Qinghan's pupils constricted slightly.

She had witnessed that man's terror with her own eyes, but hearing these combat achievements, her heart still couldn't help but race.

"There's more." Butler Fu turned the page, his hand shaking even more violently. "According to reliable intelligence sent back by several veteran mercenary squads, in the past half-month, he has moved through the disaster-stricken areas of the D-rank wilderness as if it were an empty land."

"Someone saw him step on the air and charge up to a height of two hundred meters, then crush a Peak second-rank Gale Giant Eagle into meat paste with his bare hands."

"Someone saw him kick out dozens of vacuum slashes in mid-air that had no spiritual energy fluctuations, slicing tens of thousands of Mutated Bloodthirsty Bees into pieces."

"And there was a low-rank third-rank Iron-Walled Giant Crocodile... with a single punch from a distance, he shattered all its internal organs without breaking its outer shell."

Butler Fu closed the terminal and took a deep breath, as if suppressing the extreme fear in his heart.

"Young Miss, all the intelligence points to one thing. This person does not Cultivate spiritual energy, nor does he train Qi and blood. He has honed his physical body to a perverted level where he can ignore Laws and crush the Void Realm! The entire Underworld of Jiangnan City now doesn't even dare to mention his name. Everyone is saying... he is a reclusive monster playing in the world."

The cultivation room fell into a long silence.

Lin Qinghan stood up.

"Crushing the Void Realm... shattering organs from a distance..."

She murmured these words to herself. In her mind, the scene from that day in the swamp resurfaced: the man standing on top of the giant beast, casually saying the words, "Just a basic attack."

When ordinary people hear this intelligence, their first reaction would definitely be fear and avoidance.

But Lin Qinghan was different.

As a fanatic with an extreme pursuit of martial arts, these mythical combat achievements made Lin Qinghan's admiration and curiosity for this man grow wildly in her heart like spring weeds.

The belief in "elemental talent supremacy" that she had built over the past eighteen years had been completely punctured by that one finger of the man.

She desperately wanted to know if the end of martial arts was truly the pure violence that the man had displayed!

"I want to see him." Lin Qinghan said decisively.

Butler Fu gave a bitter smile. "Young Miss, he cannot be found. In the past few days, not only us, but countless major conglomerates and high-ranking officials of the Martial Arts Alliance in Jiangnan City have been searching for him in secret. But he is like a ghost; after leaving the wilderness, he left no trace behind. Those intelligence chiefs with heaven-reaching connections have dug three feet into the ground and haven't even found a single hair of his."

"Then increase the stakes."

Lin Qinghan walked to the metal table in the cultivation room, her tone revealing a madness that disregarded any cost.

"On the highest encryption section of the Underground Dark Net, post a bounty in my name."

"Fifty million star coins. Plus an unconditional promise from the Kyoto Lin Family!"

Butler Fu gasped. "Young Miss! This price is too high! What do you want him to do?"

"Nothing."

Lin Qinghan looked at Butler Fu, her eyes extremely serious and stubborn.

"These fifty million and the Lin family's promise are just to obtain a way to contact him, or... a chance to meet him."

Butler Fu was dumbfounded.

Fifty million in cash, plus a promise from a top-tier conglomerate. This was enough to make any underground force in Jiangnan City risk their lives.

Now, it was just being used to buy a chance to meet?

After the bounty was issued, the entire upper circle and Underworld of Jiangnan City were triggered into a magnitude-ten earthquake.

Countless bounty hunters and intelligence peddlers were like rabid wild dogs, frantically searching every corner of Jiangnan City for the man wearing the Shura mask.

However, three consecutive days passed, and there was no substantial reply under the Dark Net bounty.

Lin Qinghan stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows on the top floor of the villa, looking at the wilderness shrouded in gray fog in the distance, her expression lonely and infatuated.

"Where exactly... are you hiding?"

...

At the same time.

Jiangnan City No. 3 High School, the most remote corner on the first floor.

The preparatory bell for the first class of the morning had just rung.

Class 10 of Grade 12, commonly known as the Cannon Fodder Class.

The atmosphere in the classroom was boisterous. With only three days left until the Provincial College Entrance Exam Combat Ranking Tournament, these F-rank and E-rank talent students, who knew they had no future, were excitedly discussing gossip.

"Hey, have you guys seen the screenshot on the Dark Net? That Ice Goddess from the Lin family must be crazy! Fifty million just to see that 'Shura' once!"

"I heard! That's the Wilderness Death God; even a Grandmaster can't find him. I wonder which old monster hiding in the city he is."

"I'm so envious. If I could meet Lin Qinghan once, I'd be willing to live ten years less. Yet Shura won't even pay her any mind."

The front door of the classroom gave a soft creak.

The conversation paused slightly.

A young man wearing a washed-out Third High School uniform and carrying a cheap black canvas bag walked in through the front door.

He wore his hair in a clean, short style, had delicate features, and his eyes were calm, without a ripple.

Seeing the person enter, the students in the classroom just glanced casually, then immediately withdrew their gazes and continued their heated discussion of gossip.

"Hey, Su Chen is back."

"Haven't seen him for a month; I thought he died in the slums."

"Coming back is just embarrassing himself. The big exam is in three days, and Zhao Kuang has already declared he's going to burn him to death. As an F-rank double-trash, what does he have to fight with?"

"Shh, keep it down, mind your own business."

No one cared about this young man who had been missing for a month. In their eyes, he was just a pitiful bottom-feeder who had lost his fiancée, offended an S-rank Genius, and was about to become cannon fodder on the combat exam field.

Su Chen turned a deaf ear to the whispering around him.

He pulled at his slightly frayed school uniform collar and walked with steady steps straight to the corner in the last row of the classroom by the window.

He pulled out the chair and sat down.

Su Chen stuffed the cheap canvas bag into the desk drawer. The bag's zipper wasn't fully closed, and one could vaguely see it was packed with several brand-new black combat outfits and some sharp-edged beast crystal core fragments.

He pulled a book titled "Basic Qi and Blood Circulation Theory" from the desk, turned to the dog-eared page, and began to read quietly.

The sunlight shone through the window onto his profile, making him look incredibly relaxed and gentle.

Outside the window was Jiangnan City, which was going crazy for "Shura."

The Underworld was killing each other red-eyed over the fifty-million bounty; major conglomerates were racking their brains to win over the mysterious powerhouse; and the high and mighty Ice Goddess was standing in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, looking out with longing and pining day and night.

And that peerless Death God, who was regarded as a "god" by the entire upper echelon of Jiangnan City and revered as a "faith" by countless mercenaries.

At this moment, was sitting quietly in this bottom-tier Cannon Fodder Class classroom.

Wearing a faded school uniform.

Reading the most basic theoretical book.

Waiting for the upcoming combat exam that was about to overturn the entire perception of the high-martial world.