Chapter 110: The Dispute Between the Righteous and the Demonic

Night.

In the past, this would have been class time in the main world, but it's vacation now, so naturally it can be used for cultivation.

"Good, old fellow, you still haven't left."

Jiang Ding glanced at the surveillance, closed his eyes to regulate his breathing, and his internal force dispersed, flooding into every part of the Eight Extraordinary Meridians, nurturing and tempering the tiny meridian branches with extreme efficiency.

The steel sword lay flat across his knees; the talisman sword, not far away, gathered moonlight and the spiritual energy of heaven and earth to temper its blade, drawing ever closer to the talisman sword's perfection.

The Great Sun Spirit-Gathering Array — the moon is also a great sun; moonlight is sunlight refracted through the night.

Suddenly, Jiang Ding's brow furrowed, and he looked toward the courtyard wall.

"Yuejing's public order is far too poor. This is the third time."

……

Three masked men in night clothes approached the courtyard wall without a sound.

"Big Brother, anyone who can afford to rent such a large shop alone must have some tricks up his sleeve. Why not try another place?" the slightly shorter man said hesitantly.

"Third Brother, you son of a bitch are talking nonsense!"

Without waiting for Big Brother to reply, another man transmitted his voice in a furious curse: "Anyone with a bit of family fortune has some tricks, doesn't he? This guy just moved here, doesn't know anyone, and no one will care if he dies. Besides him, you find me another fat sheep, will you?"

"Or are you saying the money you owe Brother Ye at the Jin Zhi Gambling House doesn't need to be repaid?"

The man shrank back, not daring to speak.

All three had martial training. In two or three moves they climbed over the wall of the Sword-Forging Manor and groped around the front courtyard of the shop, especially around the counter where silver and money were kept, for a long time — not even a single hair, only a pair of dusty hands.

"Bad luck! He just got here, hasn't set up anything yet!"

The three exchanged a glance and silently felt their way toward the living quarters in the back courtyard, blocked by the main gate, and stopped.

The short masked man took the hint, drew out a dagger, and carefully fished it back and forth through the crack in the door.

Creak~

But the moment the dagger touched the courtyard gate, it creaked open on both sides, and the wide expanse of the middle courtyard came fully into view.

In the center, in the most conspicuous spot, a young man with a mature appearance opened his eyes and silently watched them.

"Halt! Listen up, we're only here for money!"

The three froze for a moment. The short man smashed the wooden door hard with the back of his blade and said viciously, "Be sensible. Hand over the silver at home. Don't make things hard for us, or else…"

"Mmph… mmph…"

He was muffled before he could finish.

"Hero! Forgive us, forgive us! We've come to the wrong door!"

Big Brother and Second Brother bowed and scraped, clamped a hand over his mouth, and dragged him rapidly backward.

"Or else you die."

Jiang Ding nodded and finished the sentence for them.

Whoosh!

The talisman sword, hovering silently in the sky, traced a graceful arc and pierced through the throats of all three. Blood spurted, and the three corpses toppled to the ground one after another, lifeless.

"Why do people always want to get rich without working for it."

Jiang Ding shook his head, stepped before the three, and didn't bother searching them. With a tap of his toe, a surge of internal force poured into the ground, churning the sand, soil, and stones of a small patch into a quicksand-like state, which slowly swallowed the three men whole.

The thieves from the previous two times — except for one whose attitude was decent and hadn't meant to harm anyone — the rest were also lying somewhere underground in the courtyard.

Three robberies in two days — that takes the cake.

Yuejing really isn't friendly to outsiders.

The talisman sword trembled, shaking the blood from its blade, and hovered beside him, continuing to inhale and exhale moonlight and the spiritual energy of heaven and earth. Jiang Ding sat cross-legged and resumed tempering the Eight Extraordinary Meridians.

……

Several days later.

The front courtyard of the Sword-Forging Manor, once used for business, had been tidied up; it was no longer a room full of dust, looking long abandoned.

On the table, the fragrance of tea curled upward.

"Brother Liu, Song Qing of Qingniu Palace — 'Green Divine Sword,' ranked ninth on the Dragon-Phoenix List — has challenged Shen Tu Kuang of the Langshen Sect — 'Shattered Bone,' ranked eighth. The dispute between the righteous and the demonic has flared up again."

The scholar Zhang Zihou, thin of frame and with a sickly look on his face, said worriedly.

The two were no longer as stiff with each other as when they first met.

Mainly because most of the shop owners in this area were steady, settled folk in their forties and fifties; although everyone was polite enough, he always felt they couldn't really talk about the same things.

It wasn't easy to find someone of his own generation, so naturally he perked up and came by every day to chat, and after a while they grew familiar.

"The dispute between the righteous and the demonic?"

Jiang Ding looked baffled, thought for a moment, and said, "You mean those jianghu people fighting every night?"

These past few days, he had also figured out the main reason for the sharp deterioration in public order — a bunch of jianghu people were fighting and assassinating each other, of all cultivation levels, and it rarely involved ordinary civilians.

The authorities rarely took part, only handling the corpse collection and cleanup after dawn each day.

"Qingniu Palace and…?"

Jiang Ding asked in confusion.

As far as he knew, hardly any of these jianghu people were willing to talk about jianghu morality.

When they had the ability, they all swarmed in together.

"Brother Liu, that isn't quite right."

Zhang Zihou lowered his voice and said, "I heard that the Wolf Lord, a Grandmaster of the Heavenly Wolf Sect, once appeared outside the imperial palace, scaring Your Majesty so badly that he didn't hold court for three days."

"Think about it — if the imperial court sent a great army to encircle and suppress them, the Grandmasters could also completely cast aside all pretense and dignity to carry out assassinations. In all the world, there probably wouldn't be a single safe place except the imperial palace where guards are gathered."

"If it weren't for the deterrent presence of the Qingniu Palace Grandmaster, this world would have changed long ago."

"Makes sense."

Jiang Ding agreed wholeheartedly.

Let alone a Grandmaster, even a Heaven-Being like Wan Qianyu could, given the right opportunity, easily wipe out the entire family of the Prefect of Chizhou Prefecture.

"What's more, the so-called conflict between the righteous and the demonic is really just a struggle between the Green Ox Palace and the Langshen Sect. The six great sects like the Golden Blade Sect are mostly sitting on the sidelines. Without their approval, even if Your Majesty wanted to move troops, it might not actually be feasible."

Zhang Zihou shook his head and sighed, deeply pessimistic about the situation in court.

"Brother Zhang looks like he comes from no ordinary family."

Jiang Ding said in surprise. Such insight couldn't be picked up from listening to storytellers in teahouses — one would have to truly come into contact with people inside the game. This was no simple bookshop owner.

"Brother Liu, you say that, but—"

Zhang Zihou gave Jiang Ding a strange look: "At our age, to have our own shop on the precious Jin Shi Street in Jingcheng — could it really be done on our own without relying on family?"

"Don't tell me you did it all on your own ability."

"... That is true, I suppose."

Jiang Ding thought for a moment: if not for the education and resources the immortal sect had given him, he would probably have already been swept up into the army of the Zhendong Marquis by now.

After seeing off his neighbor, Jiang Ding went to the forging furnace and stared for a good while at a head-sized iron ore on the stove.

Clang!

Draw sword, slash.

A slanted sword-shadow lingered for half a breath, then slowly dissipated.

The iron ore was completely unharmed.

Jiang Ding sheathed his sword and lightly tapped it with one finger.

Boom!

With a soft sound, the head-sized iron ore collapsed, shattering into a pile of powder on the ground, dust scattering everywhere.

"It worked... The martial arts in the library about 'shock' techniques, like the Shock Sword Art and the Heaven-Shaking Hammer, also played a big role. Of course—"

Jiang Ding held up his index finger; a faint blue tinge at its tip flashed and vanished.

"The most important thing is that, under the influence of the blue-gold potion, my internal force underwent a qualitative change, and its power increased considerably."

Jiang Ding gathered his focus, split open several more iron ores in succession to make up a furnace's worth, then sprinkled in a handful of iron ore powder and a handful of charcoal powder, and lit the fire in the furnace.

(End of chapter)