Totem

At nine o’clock at night, Jiang Nan returned to Rheim Pasture.

At this time, Eddy had already left the pasture because he still wanted to continue looking for knife work specialists.

After Mallun and his son were severely berated by Eddy, not only did they not correct themselves, they even vented the pent up rage on Jiang Nan.

They publicly a.s.sembled all the remaining knife workers to ostracize Jiang Nan and even allied with all the overseers of the pasture. Having been driven to a remote horse shed on the pasture, all the treatment Jiang Nan received was even worse than what he had suffered at West Farms.

However, Jiang Nan really enjoyed this environment, where he was ‘estranged from the world’.

He enjoyed this kind of lifestyle: during the daytime, he slaughtered pigs to his heart’s content and then took advantage of those pigs to practice his secret ghost manual. When night fell, he stealthily went to stand outside Weylin’s courthouse. On one side, he would appreciate the moon, while on the other, he would secretly guard Weylin.

His only regret was this: he had never fulfilled the conditions of that Ghost totem master, and hadn’t yet gotten his hands on Mount Longinus’ map.

However, Jiang Nan also knew that this matter was something that could not be done rashly. Although he could directly ask for the map from Weylin, the sudden request of a slave to see the farm’s business secrets would inevitably lead to suspicion on Weylin’s part.

Jiang Nan was waiting, waiting for the right time.

Amidst his regret, it had already been five days since the a.s.sa.s.sination attempt.

More accurately, it was year 2143 of the Flowerstream Era, December 16.

This evening, Jiang nan was just about to go keep watch over Weylin and exit his horse shed when a voice rang out, “Gather up, gather up!”

He heard Eddy’s loud voice, “Brothers, I have good news for you: through my efforts, three hundred knife work specialists have already a.s.sembled! Immediately gather in the vacant land in front of the gate and I’ll introduce the new team members to you.”

Jiang Nan smacked his hand to his forehead in vexation, then changed out of his disguise and went to the vacant area in front of the pasture gate.

Mallun and the other knife workers had already arrived, and they were currently in the middle of sizing the team members besides Eddy up.

The new team members were forty muscular men with sinister faces.

They formed a square formation and were all dressed in short gowns of red and black. Two sharp knives hung from their back, one long one short, and their palms were extraordinarily withered, as though they were pieces of tree bark that hadn’t been watered in half a year.

An extremely burly man was currently a.s.sisting Eddy in maintaining order. Likewise, he also wore a red and black short gown and was a whole two meters tall. However, his hands were even more withered than the others, and he had a pair of rarely seen blood-red pupils.

Correct, blood-red pupils!

When he saw this burly man, Jiang Nan immediately recalled the Hank whom he had defeated.

When Eddy saw that the knife work specialists had more or less fully a.s.sembled, he patted the red-eyed burly man on the shoulder, “Everybody, this is a new team member whom I invited from elsewhere. He is my old friend, and his name is Talik! Do you all see the forty people by Talik’s side? They are all his subordinates, as well as our new team members! As for Talik and his subordinates’ ident.i.ties….”

His tone grew vague, “Their ident.i.ties are a bit unique, and it’s not really convenient for me to say, so…. I just won’t mention it, I won’t mention it! Haha! The only thing everybody needs to remember is that his name is called ‘Talik’!”

Won’t mention it?

When Mallun heard Eddy’s words, he grew suspicious and fiercely glared at Jiang Nan, “Captain Eddy, please state Talik’s ident.i.ty clearly! Since you’re being so ambiguous, don’t tell me that Talik is a lowly slave?! Eddy, you bringing the slave Rodi here is already quite enough. If you bring forty more slaves…. Hmph, I’ll go have a talk with Madame Suzanne. By allowing a large group of slaves partic.i.p.ate in the knife work feast, you clearly want to disobey Madame Suzanne’s orders, and you’re obviously….”

Pa!

Talik s.n.a.t.c.hed onto one of Mallun’s elbows. Without any seemingly complicated movements, he lightly tugged, and Mallun squealed miserably like a stuck pig.

He then smoothly pressed down, easily driving half of Mallun’s body into the gra.s.sy ground. His voice was like a steel knife sc.r.a.ping against bone, “You are the first person who’s ever dared to mention me on the same level as a slave, so I condemn you with the punishment of ‘knee crushing’!”

Mallun was no longer uttering any sort of sound, and his knees were already shattered by Talik!

The knife workers were so gobsmacked that they couldn’t speak.

“b.a.s.t.a.r.d, you d.a.m.ned b.a.s.t.a.r.d!” Mallun’s sun Malfoy suddenly howled. After Jiang Nan injured him several days before, even now, he still had not fully recovered. He didn’t dare to provoke the fiendish Talik, so he just targeted Eddy, “Eddy, hurry up and tell Talik to let my father go! My father is an imperial chef and aristocrat. I, I’m going to go report to the judicial hall that you, you dare to harm an aristocrat!”

“Judicial Hall?” Eddy smirked in disdain, “Malfoy, your own father was the one who courted death. What are you bothering me about it for?! If you have the guts, then go lodge a complaint with Judicial Hall! I’m not afraid to tell you that even the highest court of law in the empire wouldn’t dare to handle a judicial case concerning Lord Talik!”

He glanced towards Talik, and seeing that Talik didn’t object, he continued speaking, “Hmph! I originally didn’t want to reveal Talik’s ident.i.ty because I was afraid that it would scare you and make it so that you wouldn’t dare to remain in this knife work team, but since Mallun is blind, fine! I’ll tell you Talik’s ident.i.ty!
Talik is only his official name in in the empire’s highest court of law. However, don’t worry if you haven’t heard of it because he has a universal nickname that is known throughout the continent—Man Slaughterer!”

Man Slaughterer!

The knife worker specialists’ faces suddenly drained of all color.

If, on the Yuanzhi Continent, one used the ‘degree of understanding of the human body’ as a standard and extrapolated it into a ranking, the first would undoubtedly be a ghost totem master.

The second would be an ‘executioner’.

This was because while executioners carried out torturous methods such as ‘*death by a thousand cuts’, ‘flaying’, or ‘eye-gouging’, they were legally permitted to take apart any convict’s corpse. 
(*TL: old form of capital punishment)

Furthermore, in order to carry out torture even more effectively, executioners had their own educational set of curriculum. Those who studied execution would begin studying how to disa.s.semble the parts of the human body more efficiently, more quickly, and more ruthlessly starting at five years of age.

One could say that being an executioner was a profession on the continent that was the most ruthless, cold-blooded, and most understanding of the human body.

Talik was precisely an executioner.

Furthermore, he was the empire’s most notorious executioner.

Talik was the vice-captain of the firing squad, the highest level of law within the empire, and was specially in charge of putting down the empire’s major felons. The empire’s Judicial Hall even had records in writing that Talik became an executioner at seven years old, and that in thirty years, he had personally executed more than 19,300 criminals!

This figure contained no trace of overstatement: for example, after the rebellion that occurred five years past in Yanjing quelled, Talik was in charge of executing the captives of the rebel army. He burned and waterlogged, personally executing eight thousand people in just one night.

And it was exactly that night in which Talik received his extremely b.l.o.o.d.y t.i.tle…. Man Slaughterer!

What must be clarified is this: while Talik was the most brilliant executioner, for the sake of carrying out his torture more effectively, he had already researched the structural composition of the human body to an ‘exceedingly great’ degree.

   ……

As the knife workers all stood around in a daze, all the rumors and legends pertaining to Talik flashed through Jiang Nan’s head, and then he looked at Talik with a gaze br.i.m.m.i.n.g with interest.

Okay, since Talik also played around with dissection, he could also be considered as half of one of his coworkers.

The forty newly arrived people were all executioners! The reason why their two hands were all shrivelled up was because they were constantly soaked in fresh blood from year to year, and they lacked a means of properly protecting their hands.

However….

In regards to the reason why Eddy invited these executioners here, could it be that he wanted them to become a member of the knife work team?

A knife work specialist also inquired the same thing, “Eddy, why have you invited a group of executioners? What we are going to conduct here is a ‘chef’s knife work feast’. As to why you want them to join us, don’t tell me that these cold-blooded creatures who are only capable of killing people are more skilled than us in knife work?”

“This….”

Eddy suddenly dashed towards the knife work specialists and bowed deeply, his face full of shame, “There are still ten odd days before Yulianne arrives. Whatever, I won’t hide it from you!
In this period of time, you all have asked me numerous times about the concrete details concerning the knife work feast. However, I never answered you….
In fact, it is because I did not dare to tell you!” Eddy’s face was a bit pale, “This is the definite content of the knife work feast: before Yulianne, we are to use our knife work to slaughter…. slaughter three hundred living people!”