Aboard the warship, the various factional powerhouses watching the slaughter by the riverbank were all speculating as to what realm that Yongquan junior possessing multiple dharma artifacts actually belonged to, and just what his background was.
"To slay so many seven-spring martial cultivators and Top Hundred Martial Artists in a single night, cutting through the Sui River amidst an inescapable encirclement—I confess that in the Yongquan Realm, I could never have done it. The boy has truly made a name for himself tonight!" Shi Jiuzhai praised.
The man surnamed Long still stood at the prow, looking as though he had taken root there. He said mildly, "The world never lacks geniuses, but geniuses with such fighting will and combat wisdom are few and far between. Once he breaks into the Wuhai Realm..."
Shi Jiuzhai looked at Yang Qingxi's frost-cold face and asked, "What is his name?"
"Why does Dharma King Jiuzhai not ask the Grand Chan Master?"
Yang Qingxi naturally showed Shi Jiuzhai no pleasant look. If not for him and the White-Robed Lay Practitioner holding them back, how could that Yongquan Realm boy have captured Yang Yun right before her eyes and escaped scot-free?
If face was to be lost, they would all lose it together.
After all, the kill order had been posted through your Five Burials Temple.
Grand Chan Master Yuzhen chuckled unconcernedly. "Haha, a slip-up in an assassination is a common affair. He is a mere Yongquan; Eldest Miss Yang need not take it to heart. Two Wuhai Realm experts from the Changlin Gang have already set out in pursuit. They will surely rescue your brother."
With another person's biological younger brother taken captive, the White-Robed Lay Practitioner and Shi Jiuzhai naturally could no longer object, and each had even dispatched a person to assist in the rescue.
Yang Qingxi's state of mind had recovered from her initial anger. She said calmly, "Yang Yun is an eight-spring hero and a direct son of the Yang clan. Having brought so many experts to encircle and intercept his target, only to be captured by a nameless nobody—even if he dies, he has only his own overreaching incompetence to blame. He cannot fault anyone else, right, Senior An, Dharma King Jiuzhai?"
Yang Yun was captured, his life or death unknown, yet at this moment, he had instead become a bargaining chip for her to secure greater benefits.
The first round of negotiations among the four factions to divide their interests officially began.
They could only settle on a rough outline; the ones who would truly decide how to carve up Lizhou were the true veteran magnates behind them. Of course, a meeting of that caliber would mean that all-out war had arrived.
In the end, they decided to proceed cautiously, first following the plan of the elder surnamed Li to probe the true strength and vulnerabilities of the Jiuli Hidden Gate.
Of course, there was another important reason for postponing hostilities.
Namely, the upheaval in Immortal Burial Town.
Having already come to Lizhou, how could they not go investigate? If it could draw every senior figure of Jiuli City there, the fortuitous opportunity had to be monumental!
Just what had occurred there?
"Roar!"
Accompanied by a tiger's roar that shook the entire night, Cang Li, riding the Zouwu beast that resembled an enormous tiger, dashed out of Jiuli City's gates with a tall, straight posture and a zhang-long silver spear in hand, heading straight for the protruding bank of the Sui River in the distance.
The great tiger raised its head and roared, sending the waves surging.
Aboard the warship, doors and windows rattled, the "Sui" banner flapped loudly, and all the fixtures trembled.
Grand Chan Master Yuzhen remarked, "The fighting inside the city seems to have ended! Eldest Miss Yang, have your Yang clan and the Cangling Tribe completely torn off all pretenses this time?"
"How could that be?"
Yang Qingxi smiled faintly. "Our two families have intermarried for generations, bound by deep ties of kinship and blood. How could a minor scuffle tear apart our relations?"
"Is that so? Why do I see him looking rather murderous?"
Shi Jiuzhai stared fixedly at the distant bank, where Cang Li was galloping across the river atop his Zouwu beast. Dharmic qi surged outward, condensing into a tiger phantom tens of zhang tall that kicked up monstrous waves. His aura seemed poised to capsize the entire warship.
"At this crucial juncture, it is inadvisable for you all to expose yourselves. I shall go test this so-called Inheritor of the Jiuli Clan to see whether he truly measures up."
Whoosh!
The man surnamed Long swayed slightly, vanishing from the deck.
The next moment, he appeared on the water tens of zhang away, treading the Sui River against the current. Billowing clouds of dharmic qi rose around him, giving him the airy grace of an ethereal, handsome immortal lord as he charged head-on toward Cang Li astride the Zouwu beast.
All the clouds of dharmic qi condensed into a massive dragon phantom that unleashed a resounding roar, coiling and surging through the water.
Rumble!
A clash of dragon and tiger, an ocean of surging dharmic qi—it was as if the Sui River itself would be cut off by their blows.
Taking advantage of the commotion, the people of Mount Coffin and the Earth Wolf King's Army departed the warship, vanishing silently into the perpetual night.
Seated beside the bone lamp dharma artifact, Yang Qingxi gazed with bright eyes at the two fighting on the river far off. Her eyes had returned to their initial placid stillness, showing not a flicker of emotion. None knew what she was thinking.
In this world, people and matters were a blend of truth and falsehood; if one could not be seen through by others, it was better to pretend to be seen through.
Dragging his wounded body, Shi Chuanyu boarded the warship and fell to his knees with a thud at Yang Qingxi's feet, wailing and lamenting, "Eldest Miss, your subordinate was incompetent and allowed Young Master Yun to be taken by that thief Li! I am willing to accept any punishment!"
Yang Qingxi retrieved a Wuhai Pill and let it drop from her fingertips to the floor. Rising gracefully, her trailing gossamer hem swept behind her as her white porcelain, jade-like figure headed toward the second floor of the deckhouse. She said coolly, "You have opened eight springs; you are a talent. But after swallowing this Wuhai Pill, whether you break into the Wuhai Realm or not, you must bring Yang Yun and Li Weiyi back to me... dead or alive."
Ecstatic to the point of frenzy, Shi Chuanyu hastily shoved the Wuhai Pill into his mouth as if ravenously devouring it, then kowtowed repeatedly with loud thumps. "I swear to slay the thief Li and rescue Young Master Yun!"
...
Yang Yun woke to his own screams. Discovering that Li Weiyi had twisted and broken his right arm, he glanced around and found none of his own people in sight. He instantly realized that he was going to lose his life today to this star of slaughter.
Regret consumed him, and grief welled from within.
He was a direct son of the Yang clan, having opened eight springs at the mere age of seventeen, with hopes of striving for the ninth spring to become a Perfected Person. Even if he could not open nine springs, taking a Wuhai Pill would immediately make him a powerhouse of the Wuhai Realm. How glorious his future could have been!
To die here—he was utterly unwilling.
"Aargh..."
His left arm was snapped as well.
After a shriek of agony, Yang Yun's wits sharpened in desperation: "Brother Li... listen to me... killing me won't do you any good... As long as you spare me, I'll do anything... Ahhh..."
His right leg was broken.
Drenched in sweat from the pain, trembling all over, and gripped by peak terror, Yang Yun rambled incoherently in a daze, "I have money... I'll pay to buy my life..."
"How much?"
In the darkness, Li Weiyi, who had remained silent all this time, suddenly spoke up.
Yang Yun's spirits lifted. The tactic was actually working! He hurriedly said, "A lot... I have so much money..."
"Name a number," Li Weiyi said.
Yang Yun said, "One hundred... no, ten million silver coins..."
Ten million silver coins was equivalent to one billion copper coins.
Li Weiyi did not believe for a second that he could produce so much money, so he gave a cold sneer.
Terrified that Li Weiyi would not believe him, Yang Yun said frantically, "I don't have it, but my sister does! Brother Li... believe me, from this moment on, I owe you ten million silver coins! If I can't pay it, I'll use... I'll use everything I can mortgage to repay it... I, Yang Yun, have always been a man of my word..."
"Fine! I'll remember this: you owe me ten million silver coins and a carriage," Li Weiyi said.
Just as Yang Yun was thinking Li Weiyi was gullible and felt a surge of joy, another scream tore from his throat—Li Weiyi had snapped his left leg.
"This is much safer. Otherwise, I might have actually worried you'd snap the ropes and escape."
Li Weiyi tied Yang Yun's limbs down to a small boat, stripped off his own bloodstained clothes, and threw them onto him. Then, he slit Yang Yun's wrists, letting the blood trickle slowly into the river.
Only after finishing all this did Li Weiyi shove the boat out, casting Yang Yun adrift.
Carried by the swift current, the little boat rapidly drifted downstream.
"If the people from the Yang clan and Sui Sect find you before your blood runs dry, it means your time hasn't come yet. Someday, I will surely come to the Yang clan to collect the debt."
Completely ignoring Yang Yun's muttered curses from the boat, Li Weiyi dived headfirst into the water and swam toward the opposite bank of the Sui River.
With Yang Yun's scent luring the pursuers downstream, Li Weiyi would have enough time to flee into the Mount Mang Range, hoping he could heal his wounds before they tracked him down.
Reaching the other bank, Li Weiyi immediately took a fresh set of clothes from the evil camel bell, put them on, and dashed toward the mountains cloaked in night.
The Mount Mang Range bristled with peaks, running north to south along Lizhou's eastern border. To the south, it bordered the Mist Domain of Departed Spirits and the Blood Sea, while extending a thousand li north into Zhizhou.
Legend had it that within this vast, unfathomable mountain range, every peak was an imperial tomb.
The Tomb of the Cang King was one of them.
Having fled all night, Li Weiyi had already penetrated deep into the Mount Mang Range.
When the horizon paled to fishbelly white, he finally could hold out no longer. His body went limp, and he collapsed onto a thick carpet of fallen leaves in a dense forest. Both the severity of his injuries and the exhaustion of his physical strength had reached their absolute limits.
At this moment, he wanted to think of nothing. He only wanted to sleep, whether he would ever wake again or not.
The sun rose.
Its first ray spilled into the dense forest, filtering through the branches and foliage to fall in dappled spots upon his face.
It was at this precise instant.
A beam of light actually passed through his body and appeared within his mind, illuminating the darkness of his skull.
Lying on the ground with his eyes tightly shut, Li Weiyi muttered under his breath, "At the shift between night and day, spiritual light dawns, and the path of the spirit soul opens. Who would have thought? Intentionally plant a flower and it doesn't bloom; casually stick a willow twig and it grows into shade.
"The more I tried to cultivate it, the less the spiritual light appeared. Yet right now, when I least wished to cultivate, the spiritual light has shown itself.
"Perhaps Senior Tablet was right. During my past cultivation, there were too many stray thoughts in my heart!"
...
Li Weiyi forced his utterly exhausted, excruciatingly painful body upright and sat up. Following the meditation method Senior Tablet had taught him, he absorbed the radiance released by the sun... or so he would call it for now!
The sunlight did not come in rays, but in particles.
Before long, countless speck-like particles enveloped his body, weaving in and out of his flesh. Glowing with lustrous rosy clouds, he sat cross-legged amid dead branches and rotting leaves, exuding an extraordinarily vigorous vitality as his wounds visibly knitted together.
Day and night alternated; withering and blooming shifted.
At the same time, hanging from his neck, the Daozu Taiji Fish—which he had never known how to activate or drive—absorbed those particle specks and began to turn.
The surrounding scenery, including the very ground beneath Li Weiyi, underwent an earth-shaking transformation in an instant.
Chapter 63