Now only the sentries on the watchtowers remained. There was a watchtower in each of the four corners of the military camp, and another one right in the middle. Each tower was manned by three Woguo soldiers, with shifts changing every two hours.
When Luo Jiang entered, the sentry shift had just changed. Nearly two hours had passed since he began his operation, and the three sentries on the watchtower were grumbling about why the relief guards still hadn't shown up.
Employing the Wind-Riding Technique, he glided silently onto the watchtower, raised his hand, and unleashed two flashes of Wind Blade. "Swish, swish, swish!" The necks of the three Woguo sentries were cleanly severed.
Without pausing, he utilized the Wind-Riding Technique again to reach the western watchtower. Delivering a few more Wind Blades, he eliminated the three sentries stationed there, and then moved on to the southern watchtower, where he dispatched the guards in the exact same manner.
By the time he finished off the sentries on the eastern watchtower, the guards on the northern watchtower grew tired of waiting for the tardy relief shift and climbed down to fetch them.
Pushing open the door, the Woguo soldier was immediately hit by a thick, suffocating stench of blood. Flashing his flashlight around, he saw that the entire room was drenched in blood; even his own boots were soaked through. Terrified, he let out a shriek and bolted out of the room.
"Enemy attack! Emergency! Help!" The soldier had expected his screams to rouse the entire camp, only to realize that he was now the sole living soul left in the entire barracks—even his comrades on the watchtower had been slain by Luo Jiang.
Running and shouting at the top of his lungs, the soldier caught sight of a figure looming ahead. His heart leapt with joy—someone was finally coming to help! But in the very next instant, his head and body parted ways.
Upon returning to the quadrangle courtyard, Luo Jiang went straight to his bedroom to cultivate. Although the excursion had taken just a little over two hours, both his Divine Sense and spiritual power were heavily depleted, and he needed to recover as quickly as possible.
At noon the next day, the commander of the 16th Division had business with the commander of the Mixed Brigade. When phone calls went unanswered and telegrams were ignored, he dispatched a second lieutenant to investigate. Upon arriving at the camp, the lieutenant discovered that not a single soul remained among the over five thousand men of the 62nd Mixed Brigade—every single one of them had been decapitated. The barracks rooms were littered with severed heads, and the brigade's weaponry, along with the entire arsenal, had been completely cleaned out.
Horrified, the second lieutenant forgot all about making a phone call and rushed back to report the annihilation of the 62nd Mixed Brigade to the division commander.
Upon hearing the report, the commander of the 16th Division immediately led troops to inspect the site. To his horror, the situation matched the lieutenant's account precisely. The division commander was terrified out of his wits; casualties in battle were expected, but for thousands of men to be slaughtered inside a secure military camp without a single person noticing was a bizarre and spine-chilling phenomenon that would terrify anyone.
What was especially unsettling was that the arsenal, along with all the tricar motorcycles and trucks, had been cleared out without a single sound, as if they had simply vanished into thin air.
The division commander hastily wired the Imperial Headquarters to report the situation in Beiping City.
When the high-ranking officers at the Woguo headquarters received the telegram, they were utterly stunned. The disappearance of the previous garrison commander in Beiping was still an unsolved mystery, and now an entire mixed brigade had been wiped out—every single man decapitated.
To the Woguo people, a severed head meant becoming a wandering ghost, forever barred from entering the soul shrine. When fighting against the Twenty-Ninth Route Army's Dadao units, Woguo soldiers had even specially manufactured iron neck guards to protect themselves against decapitation, showing just how terrified they were of losing their heads.
Now, over five thousand men had been decapitated, creating over five thousand wandering ghosts who would never enter the shrine. Panic instantly spread through the ranks of the Woguo high command.
"Your Majesty, I suspect this was the work of Dragon Kingdom Taoists. They possess the Five-Ghosts Transportation Technique; how else could such a vast amount of supplies have vanished without a trace?"
One of the high-ranking Woguo generals voiced his hypothesis, while the rest nodded or shook their heads in disbelief.
"Send the four major intelligence agencies to lead their elite operatives and find out who is responsible. If you fail to uncover the culprit, you will all commit seppuku to atone for this disgrace."
Seeing that the senior generals had fallen silent—knowing they were eager to claim credit for success but quick to shirk blame for failure—the Woguo Emperor had no other choice but to issue the command once more.
The total annihilation of the 62nd Mixed Brigade could not be kept under wraps forever, primarily because there were simply too many corpses. The trucks hauling away the dead had lined up and run for an entire day; it was impossible to keep such a thing secret.
Once the news spread, both the Nationalist Party and the Red Party were overjoyed, and the morale of the fighters soared to new heights. Both sides immediately dispatched agents to Beiping City to gather intelligence, hoping to track down the mastermind behind the deed and bestow upon them the highest honors.
Upon learning the news, Captain Liu Haidong hurried over to question Little Monk Xingshan.
"Little Master Xingshan, who do you suppose is behind this?"
"It has to be that stubborn old Taoist! Don't you know the Taoists practice Magic Arts? Drawing talismans, banishing evil spirits, and catching ghosts are their specialties. That fellow has pulled off another massive stunt! No, I have to go find him. From now on, he has to take me along; he can't hog all the glory for himself!"
With that, Little Monk Xingshan turned to leave, but Captain Liu Haidong cajoled and persuaded him until he finally agreed to stay and drill the guerrilla fighters in martial arts, warning him how else they were expected to face the Woguo soldiers in hand-to-hand combat.
Despite these two major events, Liu Haidong still remained skeptical of the little monk's claims, yet this time he etched them firmly into his memory, planning to report them to the special envoy upon arrival.
Li Fucheng and his wife had also heard the news. In the dead of night, they moved their bed aside and hurriedly tapped out a telegram to their superiors detailing the full story, receiving orders in return to track down this hero.
Luo Jiang took no notice of the couple transmitting telegrams in the middle of the night. He had long known they were underground operatives, and with such a massive incident unfolding, it would be strange indeed if they failed to report it upstream.
The next day, as the three of them sat down for a meal, Li Fucheng and his wife wore unmistakable smiles. Although the couple concealed their identities well, Luo Jiang had long since seen through them. He pretended to be entirely oblivious as he shared a meal with them.
There were no house-to-house searches in the city this time, but the streets were suddenly crowded with peddlers. Without exception, every single one of these individuals carried concealed weapons, and a closer look revealed them to be secret agents. Of course, it was only thanks to Luo Jiang's Divine Sense that he could spot them; ordinary people would have found it nearly impossible to detect these operatives, given the rigorous specialized training agents underwent.
Another half-month passed, and Luo Jiang decided to make a trip back to check on the Taoist temple. During dinner one evening, he brought it up to Li Fucheng and his wife.
"Teacher Li, Sister Guo, I need to go look for some news about my uncle. He still hasn't returned, and I'm worried something might have happened to him. Could I ask you both to keep an eye out for me at home?"
"Don't worry, you'll be fine! But be careful when you're out. Try to stay out of trouble, steer clear of crowds, and don't stop to gawk at things. Times are far too chaotic these days, so you must watch yourself when you're out and about."
"Alright! Don't worry, I'll be careful. Besides, I go out all the time. Don't let my size fool you—I know martial arts, and handling two or three people is no problem at all for me."
With that, Luo Jiang flashed a tiny, confident fist. Li Fucheng and his wife burst into laughter, completely disbelieving his words as they thought to themselves: *With a tiny frame like yours, how could you possibly fight anyone?*
The next morning after breakfast, Luo Jiang left the quadrangle courtyard and headed toward the city gate. As the child walked down the street, the secret agents merely glanced at his youthful, tender face before losing interest entirely.
Once outside the city, he took a secluded side path. Seeing that there was no one around, he instantly unleashed the Wind-Riding Technique and sprinted away in the direction of the Taoist temple.
A little over half an hour later, he arrived before the temple. Gazing at the ruins before him, a surge of fiery rage seized him, and he let out a furious roar, "Who did this? I'll slaughter every last one of you!"
With a heavy thud, he dropped to his knees before the temple grounds.
"Master, I failed to protect the temple! I have failed you, and I have failed all the ancestors of our lineage. I swear I will find the fiend who burned this temple down and bring back his head to honor the memorial tablets of our predecessors!"
Kneeling before the ruins, Luo Jiang swore his vow. Tears streamed down his cheeks, pattering onto the ground and quickly sinking into the soil.
"Don't move! Where did the Taoists from the temple go? Speak, or you die!" A shout shattered Luo Jiang's grief. He looked up to see five middle-aged men pointing handguns at him from not far away.
"Was it you who burned down the Taoist temple?" Luo Jiang's heart jolted. Confronted with the destruction of the temple and overwhelmed by grief for failing his master's trust, his mind had been in turmoil, preventing him from detecting these men sooner; otherwise, he would have killed them long ago.
"That's right, we burned the temple down! Kid, tell us where the Taoists went, or we'll kill you right now."
"Bastards! Go to hell!" Luo Jiang roared, raising his hand to summon the spiritual short sword. A flash of white light cut through the air, and in a split second, the five middle-aged men were sliced into ten pieces by the weapon. With several heavy thuds, they collapsed to the ground.
With a wave of his hand, he arranged the five severed heads neatly before the ruins of the temple.
"Master, Three Pure Ones, ancestors of our lineage, I have slain the villains who burned down our temple. In time, I will rebuild it and wait for Master and Senior Brothers to return." With that, Luo Jiang stood up and stepped into the rubble to search for anything salvageable.
As he searched, he cursed the Woguo invaders; if they hadn't invaded the Dragon Kingdom, his master and senior brothers would never have had to leave. In his mind, slaughtering every last Woguo soldier was the only way to bring his master and senior brothers back.
He saw that the buildings within the temple had been burned down to bare walls, their roofs collapsed. The statues of the Three Pure Ones and the memorial tablets of the past masters had all been consumed by the fire.
The secret chamber was covered by fallen bricks and tiles. Fortunately, these men had not discovered it; even if they had, there was nothing left inside anyway, as all the texts from the secret chamber were safely stored within his Storage Bag.
A few bowls and porcelain basins remained unbroken in the kitchen, but he had no use for them—he could simply buy new ones later. The quarters of his master and senior brothers had also been razed; nothing usable remained in the entire temple.
After inspecting the ruins, he knelt once more before the wreckage, kowtowed three times, and stood up to leave.
Roughly two hours after he departed the temple ruins, a group of five men arrived at the site. Among them was none other than Little Monk Xingshan.
"Amitabha, benevolent heavens. Tianyun Taoist Temple has been burned to the ground. The little Taoist must know by now; he undoubtedly killed these five men, and leaving their heads displayed here is an offering to the Three Pure Ones."