Chapter 204 - 202: Zuo Xianzhi, Fan Wuyan

Chapter 204: Chapter 202: Zuo Xianzhi, Fan Wuyan

Then the second, the third, the fourth...

With every step the young man in the white student uniform took, another person beside him died, their head severed from their body. Eerily, the process of their deaths was completely silent. Even stranger, the blood that should have gushed from their necks instead formed ruby-red beads, like pearls from the Southern Ocean, that floated in the air before converging on the spot between the young man’s brows.

Soon, it was as if the young man’s brow had drunk its fill of blood. The dense cluster of crimson droplets crowded his smooth, full forehead, bit by bit, looking as if they were about to force a third eye into existence between his brows.

Amid the scarlet, a sliver of pitch-black slowly split open. A vast, formless miasma surged like a silent, rising tide of stagnant water, flooding the entire platform in an instant.

The whole station became like a scene from a silent film, drained of all color save for shades of black and gray. Only the scarlet and snow-white on the young man remained, appearing exceptionally vivid and jarring.

By now, the third "demon eye" on the student’s forehead had fully formed. Dark red veins spread out from between his brows like a spiderweb, twisting his once-handsome face into a mask of indescribable ferocity and evil.

As the "demon eye" on his brow slowly opened, an indescribable, bizarre shadow began to spread out behind him. It writhed like a living creature, devouring what little light remained in the surroundings.

Li Tong stood his ground, watching all of this unfold, his expression as placid as a deep well.

"This is your Heart Scene?"

he asked, his voice calm. "You have already strayed onto a demonic path."

"Heh—"

A sneer escaped the lips of the young man in the white student uniform. The sound was like many different voices overlapping and resonating as one, and it echoed eerily across the empty platform.

"What is righteous, and what is demonic?"

"In this day and age, devouring evil through Cultivation is the one true path, the only way to reach for the status of a Celestial Being!"

"No heaven, no earth; no sovereign, no father; no family, no master; no Dharma, no Form!

I’m afraid you’ve forgotten, Junior Martial Uncle Ji, that our Formless Sect... was a Demon Sect to begin with!"

With that, the young man in the white student uniform gave a wicked smile and formed a seal with his hands.

In that instant, his demonic and aberrant aura erupted like fire meeting oil, flaring up spectacularly!

Countless turbid currents of air roiled madly around him. Beneath his snow-white student uniform, it seemed as if ten thousand rays of scarlet light were about to burst forth!

"Zuo Xianzhi, the current Walker of the Formless Sect, humbly requests that Junior Martial Uncle Ji..."

His smile was radiant, but his voice was as cold as the winds of the nine hells:

"Drop... dead... now!!"

"BOOM!!"

...

"BANG!"

The sharp crack of a storyteller’s gavel echoed from the bustling crowd by the roadside.

Street vendors, laborers, idlers, and children, all packed together, stared with wide eyes and bated breath at the storyteller in a long robe behind the mahogany table.

After waiting a moment and seeing him dawdle without continuing the tale, they finally couldn’t hold back and began to urge him on.

"Well, get on with it! What happened next?"

"Stop leaving us in suspense, or we’ll flip your stall over!"

Seeing that the mood was just right, the storyteller slowly lifted his teacup for a sip before leisurely continuing, "...and then the Demon Elephant Ji Shaotong transformed, revealing a fifty-foot Demon Body with three heads and six arms! With a casual strike of his ’Demon Elephant Heaven-Flipping Seal,’ he pulverized half of the Zhao Mansion!

Then, he reached out with his cattail-fan-sized hands, grabbed Chairman Zhao and his wife, and with a vicious tear—ripped them into eight pieces! Then he swallowed them whole..."

He hadn’t even finished this part before a wave of boos rose from the crowd.

"That’s a load of nonsense! The Demon Elephant is a man, not a Demon. Where would he get three heads and six arms? And eating people alive?"

The storyteller sneered dismissively. "What the hell do you know? This Demon Elephant Ji Shaotong was originally an Elephant Demon from the Southern Ocean who completed his Cultivation. Thirty years ago, he brought disaster to the Martial Arts world, and was subdued by an enlightened high monk who sealed him in a Buddhist shrine at the bottom of the Huangling River.

You know the truth behind that Gold case that caused such a stir on Shenghai Beach recently?

The Gold, the treasure—it was all a distraction! In reality, it was just a Fish Demon using the legend of Gold to attack the seal at the bottom of the river, all to help this fiend escape!"

As soon as this outlandish theory was voiced, many in the crowd, contrary to expectation, began to find it plausible.

Indeed, strange, loud noises had been heard intermittently from both the Huangling River and the Su River Shore recently, and many people had personally witnessed the bizarre silhouettes of Fish Demons in the water.

If what the storyteller said was true, then everything really did line up!

"Is this Demon Elephant really that terrifying?"

"Of course! Even Chairman Zhao, the head of the Martial Arts Association, is dead. You tell me if he’s formidable or not!

Whether he eats people or not is debatable, but that night, nearly a hundred guards at the Zhao Family estate attacked him with blades, spears, and Hidden Weapons, yet they couldn’t even scratch him. They just watched as he walked right out the main gate—and plenty of people saw that with their own eyes!"

"Hiss—"

Sounds of sharp gasps, heated discussions, and shouts spread out from the small stall.

This wasn’t the only "lively" scene on the street. The focus of all these discussions pointed to one place: the Zhao Mansion, which was draped in mournful white funeral banners.

The once most prominent household on the entire street of Martial Arts Halls was now a desolate scene of "when the tree falls, the monkeys scatter."

Less than three days after the violent deaths of Zhao Jigang and his wife, their entire estate had already been carved up and devoured by relatives, followers, and disciples. What little remained that couldn’t be easily divided, they now fought over daily in the memorial hall under the pretext of holding a vigil, turning the place into a chaotic mess.

As noisy as it was outside the Zhao Family’s gates, it was not even a ten-thousandth as "exciting" and "lively" as the chaos within.

The death of Zhao Jigang barely made a splash in the grand scheme of Shenghai—enough bigwigs and important figures had already died in the preceding days.

But for the world of the Martial Arts Association and the martial arts profession, it was nothing short of a cataclysm. The cause, effect, and subsequent chain of events were enough to give the common folk of the martial arts districts and Quanyong Lane something to gossip about from the beginning of the year to the end.

At this moment, three extremely conspicuous people were standing on the street outside the Zhao Mansion’s main gate.

One was over two meters tall, built like an iron pagoda, and stood perfectly still, shrouded in a massive dark cloak.

Another was petite and delicate, looking like a girl of sixteen, yet she wore a sleeveless, cherry-blossom-patterned cheongsam in the dead of winter, her bare arms and legs a flash of pale, dazzling skin. She held a small red oil-paper umbrella, tilted just so to hide her face, revealing only the slender, elegant nape of her neck. Her posture seemed shy and timid, yet it was irresistibly alluring.

The last was an elderly man who looked more normal. He was in his sixties, short and stout, with squinting eyes, a handlebar mustache, and wore a vermilion long robe and jacket with a copper coin pattern. His hair was impeccably tied back with a cyan jade clasp. He appeared to be the leader of the trio.

"Looks like we’re a step too late."

From under the red oil-paper umbrella, the girl in the cheongsam spoke in a cloyingly sweet voice, "The fellow who sent the black pigeon with the message... he’s been dead for several days now..."

"As long as Ji Shaotong is still in Shenghai, it’s not too late,"

the cloaked giant rumbled.

"Have you examined it?"

the old man with the handlebar mustache asked, his voice flat.

"Examined. Looks like he was killed by a single palm strike from a top-tier Iron Body technique. It wasn’t the Dragon Elephant Seal, but with Ji Shaotong’s power, he wouldn’t need to use any special Seal Technique to kill an ordinary Gratitude Sensing Realm cultivator..."

the giant replied. "I heard someone sketched a picture of him. We’ll have to look for it later."

"First, we find a place to stay. Then, we look for clues."

the old man with the handlebar mustache instructed coolly. Neither the cloaked giant nor the girl in the cheongsam had any objections.

Just as the three were about to turn and leave the Zhao Mansion’s gate, a figure suddenly shot past them.

"WHOOSH—"

A gust of cold, sinister wind blew past, and all three of them stopped in their tracks.

The next second, a savage laugh echoed from beneath the cloak. "Courting death!"

"BOOM!"

The street cracked in a radius of several meters as the cloaked giant launched himself forward like a cannonball, chasing straight after the figure!

Amid a flurry of startled cries, the red oil-paper umbrella twirled. A bell-like laugh came from the sixteen-year-old girl beneath it as her graceful figure also drifted after them like a wisp of red smoke.

The two of them moved at almost the same time, but the old man with the handlebar mustache remained unperturbed, continuing to walk forward slowly, step by unhurried step, as if nothing had happened.

After walking for some time, the old man with the handlebar mustache strolled, hands behind his back, into a quiet alley.

He stopped.

In the alley, the cloaked giant and the red-umbrella girl were already waiting. Between them stood a gaunt man with a deathly pale face, greenish eyes, and the appearance of a living corpse.

Hundreds of black-clad, uniformed, and fully armed soldiers had blocked the alley completely. Hundreds of black muzzles from foreign-made rifles were aimed grimly at the alley’s entrance—aimed at him.

The old man with the handlebar mustache lifted his eyelids slightly.

Just then, a soft chuckle was heard.

"Ever since the Corpse Bat King mentioned you, I have been waiting day and night. And now, I have finally had the honor of welcoming the three of you from the Black Tower..."

A middle-aged man in a crisp suit, slightly heavyset and wearing gold-rimmed glasses, strode out from the forest of rifles. He raised a hand and gently pressed down, signaling for the soldiers to lower their barrels. Walking up to the old man with the handlebar mustache, he politely extended a hand, his face wreathed in smiles. "My humble self is Nan Xiangcheng. May I have the honor of knowing your distinguished name?"

The mustachioed old man glanced at the beaming man before him, then his gaze swept over his two companions, standing "quietly" at gunpoint.

He suddenly broke into a faint smile, slowly extending his hand to shake the other’s. His voice was gentle but clear. "Fan Wuyan. Just call me Fan Wuyan."

"Ah, so it is Mr. Fan!"

Nan Xiangcheng laughed heartily, then waved his hand expansively. "I’ve already prepared carriages behind the alley. Let’s find a restaurant and discuss things over a meal!"

With that, the entire group departed swiftly, vanishing completely in the blink of an eye.