Chapter 132: [New Card]

Shi Jinnian murmured to himself. His face, usually either sullen or composed, was now filled with confusion.

Had they failed?

After expending such great cost, depleting so many resources, and killing so many people.

And yet, the result was failure?

Why?

Shi Jinnian couldn’t make sense of it.

For more than a month now, it seemed the Shi family had encountered nothing but misfortune.

Every few days, someone died; again and again, lives were lost.

By today, nearly everyone capable of wielding power within the Shi family was dead.

They had hoped that with the old patriarch’s success, all could be restored.

But now, the old man was dead as well.

What remained of the Shi family?

Shi Jinnian sat dazed in the courtyard, staring blankly at the sky.

“Dad, dad, something’s wrong!”

A hurried, anxious shout cut through the stillness. A boy of about fourteen or fifteen came running, panic etched across his face.

“Dad, they’ve surrounded us outside. Everyone’s trapped inside the compound. We can’t get out.”

The boy trembled violently, waving his hands as if to ward off doom.

“…It’s alright,” Shi Jinnian’s gaze sharpened, his tone calm. “Order them not to panic or act rashly. It’s only a temporary restriction on our freedom. It will be lifted soon.”

“R-really?” The boy hesitated. “Dad, it would be okay if they were all from the Martial Suppression Department, but I heard the Li, Zhou, and Qi families are here too. What if they break in and slaughter us?”

“They won’t,” Shi Jinnian replied firmly. “They want our assets, not our lives. With the Martial Suppression Department present, they won’t dare commit wanton slaughter. Go tell the others to remain calm and obey the department’s arrangements.”

“…Okay,” the boy nodded, then turned and ran off to spread the word.

Shi Jinnian remained in place, eyes fixed on the sky, whispering under his breath,

“You want to swallow the Shi family whole? Fine, then have at it...”

***

At a small courtyard at the foot of the mountain, Su Jingxing took out all the cards he had collected on this journey.

They came from personnel left behind at the Shi family base, as well as those who had perished in the underground tunnels.

The count exceeded six hundred.

Among them, the card Su Jingxing cared for most was the one retrieved from the corpse of Shi Zhinie.

He held it in his hand and read the information.

A Regeneration Card!

Another new card.

As the name suggests, the Regeneration Card allows any organ to regenerate.

Even if the head is shattered or the heart broken, as long as the card is activated within three seconds, it can regrow.

Of course, to regenerate the head or heart requires one crucial condition: an unextinguished consciousness.

This is the prerequisite for using the Regeneration Card.

Only if consciousness remains can any organ regenerate.

Therefore, Su Jingxing could, at most, regenerate all internal organs except the heart.

Limbs were also regenerable.

But if the head or heart were destroyed, death was inevitable.

Although the consciousness must persist within three seconds, if the head is gone, does consciousness still exist?

Perhaps for top-tier martial artists, those who have condensed the true essence of martial arts, consciousness could briefly persist even after the head is lost.

This was mentioned by the Sword Immortal Jinghong, who claimed that at the deepest level of martial cultivation, one could separate the true martial spirit from the physical body.

Even if the body is destroyed, the martial spirit endures.

The details were unclear, but for mid- and lower-tier martial artists, this was impossible.

Hence, Su Jingxing regarded the Regeneration Card as a super self-healing card rather than a resurrection or revival card.

It was akin to the extraordinary vitality Shi Zhinie possessed in life.

Without the constant sabotage by Su Jingxing, Li Lilou, and others, the former tyrant truly could not be killed.

Treating the Regeneration Card as a super self-healing mechanism was the correct approach.

This card was also a last-resort life-saving measure.

Su Jingxing carefully stored it in the outermost layer of his palm’s spatial space.

Calming his mind, he began examining the other cards.

Six bloodline cards — somewhat few, but expected.

Three genuine energy cards — a pleasant surprise, all set aside as reserves.

One memory card — a delightful find!

Twenty-eight skill cards, including professions or life skills such as chef, dancing, carving, drawing, and sketching.

The rest were martial skills, but of mediocre quality; Su Jingxing set them aside.

One hundred and thirty-six internal energy cards, with cultivation periods ranging from half a month to six years.

So many internal energy cards indicated the number of lower-tier martial artists who had died in the tunnels providing blood to Shi Zhinie.

The remainder were either power-boosting cards or essence cards.

Su Jingxing unlocked them one by one, sorting the power pills and essence pills accordingly.

He also unlocked all internal energy cards, which, combined with his previous reserves, totaled over two hundred years.

After absorption and conversion into Sky-Stepping True Qi, his cultivation advanced by two years.

Accumulated True Qi cultivation now stood at 304 years.

Already a fifth-grade martial artist, Su Jingxing refined his skills further.

After a moment, he unlocked six bloodline cards and fed the blood of the Three Yin Candle to “Jing Lei.”

Immediately, he sensed that this spiritual weapon was still slightly short of full revival.

Su Jingxing was not anxious.

The Shi family had not been completely annihilated; that final bit could still be made up.

His confidence stemmed from the only memory card he had obtained, which contained the life memories of a man named Shi Tianjing.

Shi Tianjing, an orphan raised by the Shi family from childhood, was a death soldier.

At thirty-five years old, he was already a sixth-grade martial artist, nearly fifth-grade.

Like Nie Renchou, he was one of the captains of the Shi King Guard, leading a small squad of death soldiers.

Su Jingxing unlocked the card and viewed Shi Tianjing’s life.

He was fortunate to uncover one of the Shi family’s hidden secrets.

Beneath the Shi family mansion lay a secret tunnel connecting to the underground parking lot of a building eight hundred meters away.

That building did not belong to the Shi family but was guarded by a covert force under their control.

After the martial conflict failed, Shi Jinnian instructed Shi Jinlun to open this escape route, preparing to evacuate the remaining elite of the Shi family.

Shi Tianjing was among those involved.

Not only this secret tunnel, but Shi Tianjing had also visited the Shi family’s final secret base and knew its location.

From childhood, death soldiers of the Shi family were trained with a creed of dying before betraying secrets.

If captured, they would self-destruct.

This ensured that soldiers like Shi Tianjing and Nie Renchou could launch a final counterattack before death, safeguarding the family’s secrets from outsiders.

However,

Shi Jinnian never dreamed that Su Jingxing could retrieve cards from corpses!

And that he could obtain memory cards from Shi Tianjing and Nie Renchou’s bodies.

Through these two memory cards, Su Jingxing knew almost all of the Shi family’s secrets!

The underground passage, the final secret base, Shi Jinnian’s evacuation plan—

All were at Su Jingxing’s disposal.

Knowing Shi Jinnian’s retreat, neutralizing them, and acquiring bloodline cards was but a matter of ease.

Of course,

To maximize results, Su Jingxing did not plan to act within the city.

He intended to follow Shi Jinnian to the Shi family’s final secret base and wipe out the remaining members in one fell swoop.