This place was situated underneath many stilted towers filled with firewood. These towers were slightly taller than other stilted towers. Because they were used as warehouses and contained heavy items, they had more wood pillars to bear weight than other towers. Some of the pillars had been casually raised and others were tilted. The wooden boards below were used as the pier ,with many floating buckets and small awning boats parked on both sides. The dock lines were all tied to these wooden pillars and the interconnected swaying circles of rope made people think of hanged ghosts.

His footsteps appeared casual but they were accurately measured.

This was Fish Market. It concealed many true experts that would not allow outsiders to do as they please. So if someone wanted to kill him here, he had a natural advantage.

The reason he had set a time with Shen Yi was because he wanted to give the enemy a chance to act, but he had to guarantee that people who could control the situation would arrive in time.

He naturally had to resolve the enemies that wanted to kill him in one blow. Otherwise, there would be many unspeakable dangers waiting for him. Also, he thought further than more people. This time, he could not learn from his assassins who was behind this. But it may be possible to use them to achieve another of his goals.

The water surface had frozen. Because the water here was usually dirty black water, the ice was black and even more fitting to the name of this Ghost Worry Pier.

The fragile boards were frozen securely to the ice so they were steadier to walk on than usual. The surrounding black-awning boats and round buckets were frozen still. Even the docking ropes had icicles hanging off.

Everything was deathly silent and there were no figures in his sight. But Ding Ning knew the closest cultivator to him was located in a black-awning boat several meters to his left.

The presence of this cultivator was extremely weak and he controlled his breathing so he would only breathe at long intervals.

Even though Ding Ning was so close, the cultivator’s breathing had not changed at all.

In reality, other than this cultivator, there were two cultivators who were further away and were coming to surround him. He was not able to even sense the presence of cultivators coming off the other.

He only smelled their scent.

This was a unique trait from the Three Corpses Nonself Consciousness Sutra.

While it was not as good at sensing physical energy, vital energy and primal energies of the universes as the Nine Death Silkworm, the Three Corpses Nonself Consciousness Sutra was unrivaled in its perception of minute sounds, scents and other senses.

He smelled a slightly noxious but almost sweet scent from the two cultivators secretly trailing him and the cultivator closest to him.

This was the scent of the coiled snake flower sap. This was not unfamiliar to Ding Ning.

The juices of the coiling snake flower were a natural poison. Cultivators below realm five were unable to force out the poison. For cultivators below realm three, this could be considered an instantly fatal poison.

But putting poison on weapons was something extremely shameless to people of Changling. Even in the Qin, only the outlaws in the Jiaodong Commandery would put poisons like this on their blades.

People with weapons like this would only come to kill him, and not to talk with him.

Hearing that soft breathing that only occasionally sounded, Ding Ning’s footsteps did not stop and his expression did not change.

He didn’t even look at the ship stuck on the ice. But suddenly, his right hand gripped the hilt of the Last Flower remnant sword and he sliced several paths at a rapid speed in the air.

A simple white sword seal immediately formed and then disappeared. Among a patch of white frost, several icicles immediately pierced the black awning. In this quiet space, ear-piercing tearing sounds occurred.

The cultivator inside the awning had been preparing to explode in the next moment. He had not expected his tracks to be exposed and that Ding Ning would attack ferociously and unreasonably without even asking for a reason.

In his great shock, as the sharp front of the icicles pierced into the awning, the black robed cultivator hiding within channeled his vital energy without any reservation. In this narrow space, he had no time to use a sword move. He slapped the awning behind him, and an even louder tearing sound occurred. He flashed out in a strange position like an injured large black bird.

He was a cultivator with a short beard. His lips were thick and his gaze as sharp as an eagle. He was not masked at all.

His reaction was quick but just as his body left the split awning, before he could think of a counterattack, a sword light made from many small white flowers pierced hard into his waist!

This wine shop youth, who he assumed he could kill immediately so he did not have to cover his face, seemed to have calculated his reaction. The youth moved without stopping to the back of the black awning. The other’s thin body was stretched to its limits as it closely followed the curve of the black awning. The youth tilted his body and accurately stabbed into his waist and his organs!

This short-bearded black robed cultivator heard a sound from his body like an inflated lamb’s intestine breaking apart.

The great pain caused his body to instinctively jump back like a shrimp.

He could feel power quickly slipping out of his body. However, he still raised the sweetly scented short black sword in his hand. He wanted to give Ding Ning a fatal blow before he died.

But at this time, a great pain came from his neck. A wave of momentum stopped him from completing his stab before he fell back hard.

He felt himself being slapped to the deck like a piece of meat.

When his back and the cold black ice collided, he could hear the bubbling sounds coming from his neck. Then the surrounding ice gave even finer bubbling sounds.

He finally reacted. Just now, Ding Ning had not hesitated. When he had tensed in his pain, the other’s sword had pulled out of his waist and stabbed quickly into his neck.

The bubbling sound was the hot blood spraying out of his neck and the countless beads of blood burning holes in the ice where they fell.

How was this possible!

This was just a street youth who had never fought. Why were his killing attacks even crueler and more practiced than him!

He first felt inexplicable shock and incomprehension. Then he felt terror. But when he opened his mouth, he could not make a sound.

His last feeling was hot blood flooding through his throat, filling his mouth and spraying out his lips.

—

This black robed cultivator twisted on the ice like a black fish that had just been slaughtered.

The red blood spread in a shocking contrast against the ice and quickly drained down.

Ding Ning, who had killed this black robed cultivator with two blows, had a strangely calm expression. He steadied himself on the blood-stained ice, stood up, and turned to look.

A cultivator in blue robes, and another in dark red embroidered robes appeared on the nearby ice.

These two cultivators had also not concealed their faces.

The blue robed cultivator had short hair and looked to be in his forties. His brows were thin, and his eyes were a special kind of brown.

The dark red robed cultivator had a round face. He was short and fat, looking very much like the fat merchants of Changling. However, his slightly narrowed eyes gave off a cold light like a poisonous snake.

“While I do not know who told you come kill me, you are too arrogant to come here.”

Feeling the powerful presences the pair was starting to give off, Ding Ning was still not nervous. He said in a slightly sympathetic tone, “This is Fish Market. Do you think this is a place anyone can come in and leave easily?”

Hearing Ding Ning’s words, the blue robed cultivator was expressionless. The merchant-like cultivator shook his head, and copied Ding Ning’s tone. “While I do not know how you found us, you dared to lure us to attack after discovering us. Even if this is Fish market, we will still have time to leave after killing you.”

Just as he started speaking, a dim thin blade dropped down following a wooden pillar behind Ding Ning, and then flew towards the back of Ding Ning’s neck.

This was an unpredicted flying sword ambush from a realm five.

But Ding Ning had smelled this flying sword. He stood motionless without even planning to use his sword to parry this attacking sword.

“No!”

These two cultivators felt something unusual at the same time. Their pupils contracted.

The fat merchant-like cultivator felt the cold coming from the ice under his feet. He felt great terror. Vital energy surged out of his feet, and his hands grabbed madly as though he was trying to capture something.

However, he and the blue robed cultivator were too late and unable to change anything.

With a crack, a split appeared in the black ice under his feet. Ice and mist sprayed out.

A crimson small sword stabbed through his right foot. Then the sword flew out the back of his head with blood and flesh like a snake!

This fat merchant-like cultivator’s eyes were wide. He fell backward heavily. Even now, he did not know who had attacked with this sword.

His thin flying sword went out of control and slid by Ding Ning by several inches before stabbing into a wooden pillar. After vibrating several times, it was motionless like a dead dragonfly.