They were fighting!
Hong Yang was extremely excited.
In all his years, this was the first time he had ever seen immortals do battle.
From the ancestral hall, he could not see what was happening at the inn entrance, but he could hear the commotion over there growing louder and louder.
Streaks of sword light flashed across the sky, and from time to time came the sounds of villagers collapsing to the ground.
At Granduncle’s command, the villagers seized hoes and sickles and surrounded Bai Yuheng in layer after layer.
But these ordinary people had no power to fight back against a cultivator’s flying swords.
Sword light rose, and heads fell one after another.
“You devil! To slaughter the common folk of our village so wantonly—this old man swears he will not let you off!”
Granduncle hid in the rear, shouting at the top of his lungs.
Bai Yuheng was so angry he almost laughed. This old man’s skill at turning black into white had truly reached perfection.
If you weren’t back there giving orders, who among them would dare charge at me?
And even after I’ve killed so many, they still fight to the death without retreating. You’re telling me these are ordinary villagers? Calling them elite hardened troops would hardly be an exaggeration!
If it were some greenhorn fresh to the world, he might truly have been cowed by this old bastard’s words, guilt rising in his heart until his hands and feet went weak.
But I am a grand cultivator of the Golden Core realm. How could I possibly be deceived by such nonsense?
When dealing with the remnants of the Apothecaries, one had to strike decisively. Even chopping off their heads might not necessarily kill them.
The reason Bai Yuheng was still holding back now was not because he felt any pity for these Apothecary remnants. Rather, after careful observation, he had discovered that there were still many elderly, weak, women, and children in the village who looked like normal people, not puppets under control.
He could not very well slaughter those innocent people along with the rest.
Of course, it would be best not to let the enemy notice his thoughts either. Otherwise, they would surely seize those innocents as hostages—these heretics and devils had never had any bottom line to speak of.
With this in mind, Bai Yuheng made as if to retreat.
First, he would feign defeat, lure that old fellow and his followers out of the village, then annihilate them in one fell swoop. At that point, even if a few slipped through the net, they would no longer pose a threat.
Seeing that Bai Yuheng seemed about to flee, Granduncle immediately grew anxious.
It had not been easy to catch a lone cultivator; this was a once-in-a-thousand-years opportunity. If they could capture him alive, extract his blood essence, and refine it into spirit pills, then never mind extending their lives by a hundred years—even stepping into the immortal gate might not be impossible!
At this thought, he raised the peachwood cane in his hand and struck it heavily against the ground, shouting, “Junior brothers, form the Eastern Yimu Grand Formation with this old man!”
As soon as the words left his mouth, the other seventeen elders in the village, each over a hundred years old, suddenly straightened their backs and lifted their heads. Their shriveled skin swelled and filled out at a visible speed; in just a few breaths, they had returned to the peak state of their youth.
A vibrant green light rose from within the village. The branches of thirty-six ancient trees distributed throughout the village began to grow wildly, connecting in the blink of an eye into a vast net that blotted out the sky and sealed the entire Songlin Village airtight.
Bai Yuheng’s expression changed slightly. This was bad, he thought.
He had been a little too arrogant.
How was this merely some Apothecary remnant? He had clearly stabbed straight into a thieves’ den!
Although the situation within Yunzhong County was complicated, he had never heard of Apothecary remnants occupying the area on such a scale. If not for the fact that he had gone a little farther in search of his clan’s children this time, he might never have discovered anything abnormal about this place.
At this thought, he immediately decided to stop holding back and end the battle as quickly as possible.
Bai Yuheng leapt into the air. Two wings of light unfurled behind him, and a full twenty-four flying swords shot out explosively.
“Wow—”
Hong Yang pressed himself tightly against the window, watching the sword light that filled the world outside, unable to keep from exclaiming in admiration.
“Xiaochen, Xiaochen, look! A sword immortal! That’s the legendary sword immortal!”
Li Qiuchen lay flat in the corner, curling his body into as small a ball as possible.
“Hurry up and get down! Aren’t you afraid a flying sword will shoot over and skewer you?”
“How could it? That sword immortal must have heard me calling for help!”
Hong Yang shouted excitedly, “He definitely knows we’re here. Once he defeats Granduncle…”
Swish—
A streak of sword light pierced through the ancestral hall, brushing over the top of his head. The sharp sword intent scraped painfully across his face, and he lost his balance, falling flat on his backside.
Hong Yang wilted on the spot.
Only then did he realize that whether Granduncle could win was hard to say, but in a battle of this level, a little brat like him was as insignificant as an ant. He could not even withstand the aftermath of the fight between the two sides.
With a thunderous crash overhead, the roof of the ancestral hall was torn clean off. Granduncle’s robust figure fell from midair, smashing through the ancestral hall before barely managing to steady himself.
Yes, robust.
Even yesterday, Hong Yang would never have been able to associate that word with Granduncle.
Yesterday, Granduncle had still been a decrepit old man with one foot in the grave. But now, Granduncle had become a towering, muscular figure twelve chi tall, his entire body bulging with clearly defined slabs of muscle.
More terrifying than those fearsome muscles were the dozens of eyes embedded across his entire upper body and both arms.
Hong Yang was scared stupid.
People only had two eyes and one nose. What proper person would grow eyes all over their body?
Yet at that moment, Li Qiuchen, hiding in the corner, sensed a trace of bloodline intimacy from those eyes.
Those were… the eyes of the Li clan?
He had actually transplanted the Yin-Yang Dharma Eyes cultivated by members of the Li clan onto himself?
This old thing really knew how to play.
At this moment, Granduncle’s body was covered in eyes, and he no longer looked human at all. Many of those eyes had been stabbed blind, oozing foul, bloody tears.
He crawled up in a sorry state, glared viciously at the dazed Hong Yang, then reached out toward Yingcao’s corpse beside him.
“No!”
By the time Hong Yang realized what he was about to do, it was already too late.
Granduncle grabbed Yingcao and tore hard. The small body was ripped open by him with ease, yet strangely, not a single drop of blood flowed out from within.
That was nothing more than a skin bag. The flesh and blood inside had long since been devoured clean by the “spirit root.”
Granduncle reached into the ruined corpse and yanked out that blood-colored spirit root. He stuffed it into his mouth, chewed it haphazardly a couple of times, then swallowed it down with his neck stretched taut. Still unsatisfied, he licked his lips and turned his gaze toward Hong Yang beside him.
“You worthless little bastard!”
From the expression on his face, it could be seen that he was extremely disappointed in Hong Yang.
He was not disappointed by Hong Yang’s mischief and rebellion, but by the fact that he still had not grown a spirit root even now.
But at this point, there was no room to be picky.
Sword light poured down from above the nine heavens like a waterfall.
Just as Granduncle reached out toward Hong Yang, Bai Yuheng’s flying sword arrived immediately after.
Sword light flashed, instantly severing Granduncle’s arm.
Bai Yuheng emerged from within the sword light and stood in front of Hong Yang.
After that exchange just now, he too had been gravely injured. Blood had nearly dyed the front of his robes red, and strange tender shoots were growing out from the wounds on his body, greedily tearing at and devouring his flesh and blood.
“Don’t be afraid.”
Even so, his expression did not change as he said to the two children behind him, “Find a place to hide.”
As soon as he spoke, the ropes binding Li Qiuchen and Hong Yang snapped apart inch by inch, restoring their freedom.
Granduncle roared. Dozens of eyes all over his body looked at Bai Yuheng at the same time. In an instant, countless tiny wounds burst open across Bai Yuheng’s body, and Granduncle seized the opportunity to charge forward, grabbing Bai Yuheng in a bear hug and rushing out of the ancestral hall.
Hong Yang was still immersed in the terrifying scene, unable to extricate himself. At that moment, Li Qiuchen had already stood up and exchanged a glance with General Crayfish, who had secretly untied his own ropes.
“Now?”
“Wait a little longer.”
“They’re already fighting like this, and you’re still waiting? Are you the reincarnation of some thousand-year-old turtle spirit? You can endure even this?”
“Wait!”
Li Qiuchen’s tone was firm.
“Wait… wait for what?”
Hong Yang came back to his senses and hurriedly asked, “Why aren’t we running? What are you waiting for?”
“Don’t you want to avenge your parents?”
“I do, but Granduncle has already turned into that ghostly thing. Even the sword immortal can’t deal with him. What can the two of us… no, the three of us do?”
Hong Yang felt terribly wronged.
“Then follow me. We’re going to Granduncle’s house.”
“Huh? Why?”
“To take back what belongs to us!”
The village was already a stretch of ruins. Walls had fallen, houses had collapsed, ancient trees had been uprooted one after another, corpses lay everywhere, and devastation filled the eye.
Sword qi crisscrossed the sky, chopping countless branches and vines into fragments. But in the next moment, those branches and roots grew back again. Even the villagers who had been killed had their fatal wounds rapidly healing.
This would be a long battle of attrition.
Bai Yuheng’s flying swords were certainly sharp, but facing these endless heretics who simply could not be killed, no one knew how much longer he could hold on.
Granduncle’s own residence had not been spared either. It had long since been caught up in the fighting and collapsed into a pile of rubble.
Li Qiuchen, familiar with the way, found the hidden door in the bedroom. He grabbed the pull ring and yanked it upward, opening the secret chamber in Granduncle’s home.
The secret chamber was piled full of gold, silver, and treasure, all plundered in the past from merchant caravans that had passed through Songlin Village.
The inn in town was a black inn.
Few people traveled this mountain road to begin with, and the mountain travelers and merchant caravans who passed through here all more or less carried things that could not be openly displayed.
If the target was too difficult, then naturally they would let it be. But if there was an opportunity—for example, if the other party had been injured or suffered losses, making Granduncle feel there was an opening—then they would devour both people and goods outright.
Apart from those treasures, there was also a three-foot-tall bronze pill furnace placed in the secret chamber. From within it faintly seeped the smell of medicinal herbs; no one knew what sort of pill was being refined inside.
On the other side, against the wall, a bookshelf was stuffed full of all kinds of books.
“Songlin Village hides many secrets. Some things everyone knows, but no one says. Some things… even Granduncle himself may not necessarily know.”
Li Qiuchen pulled a blue-covered booklet from the bookshelf. On its cover were written three characters in bold: Jingyunzi.
Jingyun meant qingyun, auspicious clouds; when jingyun appeared, sweet dew would descend.
He had once heard the villagers say that the name of the Li clan’s ancestor was Li Jingyun.
This was the Li clan’s inherited cultivation art. Back then, Yingcao had stolen it out and given it to him, but Li Qiuchen had politely declined.
Because…
“As long as you begin cultivating in this village, no matter what cultivation art you practice, you will become a puppet.”
“Granduncle is too evil.”
“No. Granduncle is also a puppet.”
“Huh?”