King Yanluo Calling the Roll

Li Guanqi had no idea that Shi Lin had already heard his words. Just then, however, a youth as scrawny as a monkey in Room 95 next door suddenly caught the sound of soft murmuring. "Sixty-two, seventy-nine, eighty-three, fifty-one, ninety-two..." At first, the youth did not understand what was happening. Yet the moment he heard "ninety-two," realization struck him, and he sprang to his feet with a start! The youth had sharp ears, sunken monkey-like cheeks, triangular eyes, a flat nose bridge, slightly high cheekbones, dark skin, and sparse hair. He swallowed hard, murmuring in terror, "Those... those are the room numbers of everyone who mocked and cursed him just now..." "What is he trying to do?" After a long moment, something seemed to click in his mind. Gulping with difficulty, he thought of a folk legend... *King Yanluo calling the roll!* What Li Guanqi was doing right now was just like King Yanluo calling the roll of the dead, tallying up their room numbers one by one. Suddenly! Li Guanqi called out softly toward the distance. "Is the manager around?" As soon as the words left his mouth, a chorus of jeers broke out. "Heh, who do you think you are? You think the manager comes just because you shout?" "The manager only appears when it's time for you to go out and fight! Stop yelling, you're wasting your breath." From a room in another direction, someone sneered, "Heh, you're already in a place like this and you still think you're somebody?" "Look at yourself in a mirror first." Li Guanqi turned toward that direction and asked in a calm voice, "What room are you?" The man in that room was infuriated to the point of laughter. Stepping up to the door, he bellowed, "What room, what room—what the hell business is it of yours? So what if you know my room? Come challenge me then, you bastard!" Ignoring the man's roaring, Li Guanqi raised a finger and counted the cells one by one. "Next to eighty-three... eighty-four... eighty-seven." "Oh... Room 87." Silence instantly fell over that room. For some reason, Li Guanqi's habit of noting down room numbers struck an inexplicable dread into many hearts. Inside Room 87, the middle-aged man felt a sudden, baseless chill run down his spine. "What the hell... why do I feel... a little scared?" Just as the words left his mouth, the barrier above the Huang rank cells shimmered with faint light. The black-robed man who had brought Li Guanqi in earlier reappeared! When the black-robed manager materialized, quite a few people sensed that something was amiss. The manager flashed over and came to a halt outside Li Guanqi's cell. "What is it?" Li Guanqi cupped his hands with a smile and tossed over a storage ring. Inside were ten thousand immortal crystals. Pointing in two directions, Li Guanqi said, "Ninety-two and eighty-seven." "Could you arrange for the occupants of those two rooms to face me together in three days?" Hearing this, the manager nodded slightly and replied in a low voice, "One against two. If you win, it counts as three victories." "However... are you sure?" "Ninety-two has already won two matches, and eighty-seven has won three." Li Guanqi smiled, perfectly calm. "Neither of them is a True Immortal, right?" The manager was somewhat at a loss for words... Had Brother Lei above not given him specific instructions, he would have turned around and left immediately. "No." Li Guanqi turned back and smiled. "Then there's no problem. Please arrange it for me, Manager." Arrogant! Utterly arrogant! Inside the two designated cells, the cultivators' expressions turned grim as death. *Clang, clang, clang, clang!* A clamor of rowdy jeers and shouts erupted. "Ooooh! Calling out challenges! He's calling them out!" "Hahahaha, the new guy's got guts!" "Ninety-six! Ninety-six!" "Ninety-six! Awesome!" The cheers stimulated everyone's nerves, while the two men called out by Li Guanqi wore expressions darker than thunderclouds. Room 92 was only four cells away from Li Guanqi. A narrow eye, cold as a viper's, peered at Li Guanqi through the gaps. Li Guanqi glanced back and bared his teeth in a grin. "Don't stare. In three days, I'll gouge your eyes out." With that, Li Guanqi paid no further mind to the outside world, entering deep meditation in the span of a single breath! Only the ones who had been counted on Li Guanqi's roll retreated anxiously into the depths of their rooms. All at once, everyone began anticipating the slaughter three days from now! The beast colosseum had one good feature. For all the fighters imprisoned across the Tian, Di, Xuan, and Huang ranks, whenever someone engaged in battle, they could actually watch the fight through a water mirror light screen. Thus, cultivators who could win many matches here were usually extraordinarily formidable! That was because many fighters would repeatedly spend points to view and study footage of another's battles. Yet Li Guanqi had no victories to his name, so even if they wanted to watch him, they could not. The night passed in silence. Li Guanqi spent it recovering from his injuries and reviewing every move in his mind. In the West District, Shi Lin did not sleep all night; a gleam of light gradually returned to his eyes. Immortal essence surged as flames swept through his body, shattering the grime clinging to him. Wiping away the blood from the corner of his mouth, he entered a meditative state of cultivation. Early the next morning, Li Guanqi opened his eyes, two wisps of lightning shooting forth from his pupils. Knitting his brows, he abruptly coughed up a large mouthful of dark, clotted blood. His face remained somewhat pale, but he was far better off than before, and a hint of color had returned to his lips. Having recovered from seventy to eighty percent of his internal injuries, Li Guanqi narrowed his eyes as he sat cross-legged on the futon. Regarding the game across the six bay cities, Li Guanqi had orchestrated the most flawless scheme within his power! Facts had also proven that his ability to engineer such schemes had improved greatly; every step had been accounted for, including every possible permutation and variable. Human nature, how each person would react when faced with choices— Li Guanqi had even prepared different contingencies for either choice. Just like in the end... had Chen Ce still stood firmly by Chu Yuan's side, he would have used other means to force Chu Yuan into killing Chen Ce! Right up until the very end, until he obtained the Cold Soul Jade Glaze, he had executed everything to perfection, bringing the game to a flawless conclusion. What he had never anticipated, however... was the appearance of Ye Lingyun. His arrival was an insurmountable force from outside the game; the man had never been on the board at all. The moment he arrived, he flipped the chessboard with absolute power, completely beyond anyone's control. In the end, had Li Guanqi not managed to bring in the beast colosseum to hold off Ye Lingyun, his life or death would have been anyone's guess. Throughout his flight, he had relied heavily on his various inscribed talismans. At this moment, Li Guanqi felt a twinge of longing for Gu Li... In another distant place. Inside a sunless, damp cavern, a tattered, skin-and-bones Gu Li swung a pickaxe like an emaciated ghost, his eyes hollow. Anyone seeing him in this state could only shake their head in resignation. Yet if a grandmaster of the talisman Dao were here watching, they would discover something with utter shock... For the grooves Gu Li carved into the immortal crystal ores with every strike of his pickaxe contained the extraordinarily profound heavenly might of the talisman Dao! Deep within Gu Li's hollow, numb gaze, a bright light sparkled like stars. Pale-faced and with chapped lips, Gu Li murmured under his breath, "A little more... just a little more..."