The two hurried their steps, quickly rushing into the courtyard and arriving beside Guo Huaijin's corpse.
After inspecting the body, their expressions turned grave.
"The Old Master was killed by this pipe, which was forcefully inserted into his heart to drain his blood."
The thin man mused, "The person who did it was very efficient, without the slightest hesitation."
"None of that matters."
The fat man said, a bit flustered, "The key is that the Second Leader will surely be enraged when he finds out about this, and if he takes it out on us, won't we be finished?"
"He won't."
The thin man consoled him, "Although the Second Leader is cruel and bloodthirsty, he only acts that way towards outsiders; he has always been loyal and true to his brothers."
"No, no, no."
But the fat man shook his head, saying, "I think we should still consider this carefully..."
Before he could finish his sentence, a series of biting winds swept towards them.
Their speed was so great that the two of them couldn't react at all.
Crack~ Crack~
After a continuous series of crisp sounds, the two men simultaneously groaned and knelt powerlessly on the ground.
They looked down and found that their knees had been forcibly caved in by several palm-sized wooden blocks, and the force of the impact was so great that the wooden blocks had even shattered and embedded themselves into their flesh and blood.
These two men were quite tough; after suffering such injuries, they didn't even let out a single scream, only scanning their surroundings with fierce eyes, trying to find traces of their enemy.
"What fierce eyes, you must have killed quite a few people, huh?"
Accompanied by a lazy voice, Li Hai's figure appeared before the two of them.
He looked down at them from above and asked calmly:
"I ask, you answer. Any questions?"
The thin man did not answer; instead, he lifted his head and stared intently at Li Hai's face, scoffing coldly:
"You don't even know who we are, yet you dare to act so casually. Heh~ you're finished, kid."
The fat man beside him glanced at Li Hai, also speaking coldly:
"No one on the entire Dragon Mountain can save you."
"Heh~ I'm going to curse."
Being continuously mocked by these two, Li Hai grinned maliciously and said, "You two, with your back-and-forth, are still so brave even in this situation. Are you drunk or not fully awake, hmm?!"
Accompanying the "hmm" sound, Li Hai casually pulled out the copper pipe from Guo Huaijin's chest and, without even looking, fiercely plunged it into the thin man's thigh, through his calf, and directly into the ground below.
"Ah ah ah!!"
This strike was truly too brutal; the thin man couldn't hold back and began to scream loudly.
Unexpectedly, after only a few shouts, he was slapped on the head by Li Hai, rolling his eyes and sitting up as he fainted.
But just a few seconds after he fainted, the long pipe that had pierced through his thigh and calf was forcibly pulled out by Li Hai, tearing skin and flesh, and then inserted into his other leg, similarly piercing through the thigh and calf directly into the ground.
"Ah ah ah, I give up, I give up!"
The thin man, whose snot and tears were spurting out from the pain, wailed, "Sir, please don't torment me anymore! I'll answer whatever you ask!"
The fat man, who had witnessed all of this from the side, was also scared into silence and quickly began to smile obsequiously at Li Hai:
"Me too, me too."
"Same what, same what."
Li Hai sneered, pulled the copper pipe out of the thin man's leg, and brutally smashed it down, crushing the fat man's right palm, which was propped on the ground, into a bloody mess.
This immense pain, far exceeding the pain of ten fingers connected to the heart, immediately caused the fat man to roll on the ground in agony, almost passing out.
And the instigator of all this—Li Hai—stood before the two men with his arms crossed, and began to question them:
"I ask, you answer. Any questions?"
"No, no!" The two shook their heads repeatedly, "Please ask, Sir!"
"Good." Li Hai nodded, "Where are you from, and whose subordinates are you?"
"We are from the Black Wolf Bandits!" The two replied in unison.
"Black Wolf Bandits?" Li Hai raised his thick eyebrows, "Are you a group of bandits?"
"Uh~ sort of."
The fat man replied, "But our scale is larger."
"Larger?" Li Hai asked again, "How many people?"
"Over ten thousand people." The thin man replied.
His face was a bit off, deathly pale.
It was clearly due to the large wound on his leg and excessive blood loss.
"Sir... Sir."
The thin man stammered with difficulty, "Can... can I, can I bandage it? I feel like I'm already about to..."
Bang!
A loud bang.
The thin man's head was actually exploded in mid-air by Li Hai, who wielded the copper pipe, splattering white and red all over the fat man's head and face.
"Alright, no need for bandaging now."
Li Hai casually tossed aside the copper pipe, clapped his hands, and looked at the fat man, saying, "I heard you two outside just now say that Guo Huaijin is your Second Leader's biological father, is that right?"
The fat man stared blankly at the headless corpse lying on the ground beside him, swallowed, and replied tremblingly:
"No... not biological father, he's the father-in-law. Old Master Guo married both of his daughters to the Second Leader."
"Oh~"
Upon hearing this, Li Hai immediately laughed, "What a dog who sells his daughters for glory, quite good at playing the long game, aren't you?"
After laughing, he continued to ask:
"What's your Second Leader's name, what's his background, how good is his martial arts, and what's the deal with the First Head? Oh, and tell me about the situation of this Dragon Mountain too."
Facing this barrage of questions, the fat man thought for a moment, then began to answer slowly:
"Our Second Leader's surname is Zhou, and his given name is Hu. He was originally from the Southern Border..."
As he recounted, Li Hai gradually understood that the so-called Black Wolf Bandits were not merely simple bandits or mountain brigands, but rather a black armed force, active within the vast Dragon Mountain range where he stood, possessing fixed territory and a considerably elite military force.
As for the Second Leader named Zhou Hu, he was one of the core figures of this armed force, and his martial Dao Realm was suspected to have reached the Steel Tendons Iron Bones level, putting him in the same Realm as Li Hai.
It was also through this fat man's narration that Li Hai learned that the world he was currently in was called Yu Continent, and the Great Jing Dynasty ruled over most of Yu Continent.
The fat man didn't know much about the Great Jing Dynasty, only roughly knowing that the entire Jing Dynasty encompassed two capitals and thirteen provinces.
The Dragon Mountain range, spanning thousands of miles where Li Hai was currently located, was situated in the southernmost part of Yun Kang Province of the Jing Dynasty, and was one of the many mountain ranges within its borders.
What was quite interesting was that the Dragon Mountain range precisely encircled and guarded the southernmost tip of Yun Kang Province, thus nearly half of its mountain body extended beyond the borders of the Jing Dynasty.
Or rather, the northern side of the entire Dragon Mountain range was actually the southern border of the Jing Dynasty.
At the same time, because this area of Yu Continent, adjacent to the southern end of the Great Jing Dynasty, had no established nations, not even small ones, and all regions were densely forested with numerous snakes and insects and pervasive miasma.
Therefore, the Dragon Mountain range, a vast mountainous area with complex terrain far from the prosperity of the Central Plains, became a chaotic land completely free from government control.
And the Black Wolf Bandits were one of the preeminent forces in this lawless territory.