Chapter 251: Two Sides of the Story (Please Subscribe)

As the night quietly descended, within Yunyi City, three people set out stealthily from different places, eventually converging as if by prior agreement.

Ren Li's Seventh Senior Brother, Wang Zhun, middle-stage Golden Core.

Ren Li's Sixth Senior Sister, An Yan, late-stage Golden Core.

Ren Li's Fifth Senior Brother, Zhao Hong, peak Golden Core.

These three were all formidable top-tier Golden Core experts; meeting here now, they looked at each other in silence, their goal identical.

To eliminate a threat while it is still a sprout, one must absolutely not let it grow into a towering tree, only to end up like the dead Yun Ying, deserving of nothing but the words "death is a fitting punishment for their crimes"!

"Are you not going to stop them?"

Watching from afar as the three quietly left the city, Ren Li's Fourth Senior Brother spoke these words to his Third Senior Sister, who stood silently not far behind him, looking like solid ice.

"Why do you not go?"

She withdrew her gaze and asked back coldly.

The Fourth Senior Brother shrugged and said, "Little Nine has latched onto a powerful backer now. I heard from intelligence that this Du Youli has already broken through to the middle-stage of Golden Core. His cultivation is advancing by leaps and bounds, not slowing down in the slightest. He is truly worthy of being a person valued by our sect. If they don't act now, I'm afraid they won't have another chance."

"As for me, I am at the Nascent Soul stage, while Little Nine is only at Foundation Establishment. It would take at least a hundred years for him to climb to a level where he could compete with me, so there is no need to rush at all. In fact, isn't it a good thing to let that Du Youli help us prune away Zhao and the others who are already pressing in on us?"

Facing such words, the Third Senior Sister only said coldly, "If Master were to find out, you would also deserve the words 'death is a fitting punishment for your crimes'."

"Haha, I didn't expect that even though Third Senior Sister is cold-faced, you can also tell jokes. If you truly felt nothing inside, why haven't I seen you go to stop them? In the end, our attitudes are actually the same, aren't they?"

"..."

The Great Cultivator of Yunyi has nine disciples. The first two have already perished, and now the third and fourth disciples are at the head, both at the Nascent Soul stage.

Just as Ren Li's Fourth Senior Brother said, this matter would only be beneficial to the two of them.

"If Du Youli is unfortunately killed this time, then the potential threat is removed. After the incident, the three of them will be heavily punished, and the threat looming on the surface will be gone."

"If Du Youli doesn't die this time, the result is still that the threat is removed—removed both openly and secretly. Because if they only kill one person, it can still be called 'death is a fitting punishment for his crimes.' But if they kill three more, then no matter what our Master thinks, he will definitely pull that Du Youli into the ranks of those he detests. The closer Little Nine gets to him later, the more he will be implicated!"

Ren Li's Fourth Senior Brother thought about it with a leisurely sense of anticipation, meeting the gaze of his cold-faced Third Senior Sister at this moment. They shared a tacit understanding, yet neither spoke these things out loud.

Sitting on the mountain to watch the tigers fight, reaping the benefits of the fisherman!

It was on this night, when people's hearts were restless and undercurrents were surging again, that Du En flew rapidly, quickly approaching Lin'an City.

Lin'an City is located on the east side of the southern territory of the Luoyu Immortal Sect. It is a small city on the frontier in the overall southeast corner, and like Nanmo, it is a special border city.

It sits amidst lush grasslands and forests, separated by a long river that flows into the Nancang Sea. On the other side of the river is another immortal sect, the territory of the Xiulin Immortal Sect.

Although the two great immortal sects remain hostile and are rivals on the path of hegemony, a thousand years ago, due to a change brought about by their common enemy—the Fudong Immortal Sect that dominated the east—the two sects temporarily agreed to a ceasefire, cutting back the front-line battlefields and leaving only the border formations to separate and defend against each other.

To show their sincerity, the Luoyu Immortal Sect even reduced their original front-line city to this small city now, and changed its name to Lin'an, implying peace with the forest.

A thousand years have passed leisurely. The city lords of the Golden Core stage here have changed three times, and the Foundation Establishment and Qi Refining cultivators below have rotated batch after batch. By now, it is long forgotten that when the two great immortal sects were slaughtering each other, this place was actually one of the most brutal battlefields in the world.

The current Lin'an City is immersed in a state of ease and peace.

Although this does not mean that life for those at the bottom is very good, unlike the border city of Nanmo, there is no wasteland for burying corpses here, no need for an endless supply of bodies, no Nancang ruins, and no need to set up exhausting peripheral posts like outpost camps or sentry patrols.

Therefore, there is only a normal level of busy labor here: reclaiming and mining in the forest, herding and raising livestock on the grasslands. There are no excessively grueling jobs, and the physique of a cultivator can fully handle it.

For Lan Dieqiao, although life here is hard, it is still bearable.

As night fell, she, as a herder, waved her long whip and began to drive a group of Grass Spirit Pigs back.

"Oink, oink..."

This first-grade spirit beast is dull and simple-minded, weighing several hundred catties, white and plump, with a faint green tint. With hundreds of them gathered together, they walked back very obediently.

Lan Dieqiao's movements were mechanical. Without needing to worry about anything else, she faced the emerging stars in the night sky and thought somewhat of the past.

There was no moon tonight, just like the night before they parted years ago. That was also a moonless night, as if the future was dim and lightless, with only illusory stars, as if there could still be a glimmer of hope.

"Brother Wei, oh Brother Wei, are you doing well now? Do you miss me? Or have you already sought a new love, or thrown yourself under someone else's pomegranate skirt?"

Although she is over thirty, her face remains the same, in the prime of her youth, precisely because of her cultivation and success in preserving her appearance; her girlish mindset is also as if it were in the past.

Because the surrounding environment is relatively stable and she is at the bottom with blocked information, she judged others by herself and did not think that the Wei Ming she was missing would have long been a corpse in the wasteland, with not even bone dregs left, had he not been in good circumstances.

However, she was not without her own dilemmas and troubles.

Just as she drove the Grass Spirit Pigs back into the pen, a female cultivator suddenly darted out and blocked her path. It was Ding Hong, the overseer of this pig farm.

"What does Overseer Ding want with me?"

Lan Dieqiao appeared vigilant, especially when thinking of the rumors that had recently spread among the lower classes outside the city, she became even more nervous, yet forced herself to remain calm.

Ding Hong did not answer immediately, but stared at Lan Dieqiao, seeing her as a delicate beauty, youthful and lovely, her simple attire natural and not gaudy. She immediately smiled brightly and nodded repeatedly.

This made Lan Dieqiao even more uneasy, feeling that this overseer, who used to be easy to talk to, was now like a procuress in a brothel, scouting for suitable girls.

Sure enough, as soon as Ding Hong opened her mouth, it was coy and affected: "Oh my, Qiao'er, you have truly encountered a great blessing today!"

"W-what?"

"Don't play dumb with me. It's the manager of our garden, you know who, he is looking for a daoist companion, and you are just the right fit!"

Ding Hong stated her purpose, making one's heart tighten.

(End of chapter)