Chapter 302: The Sheep Winter is About to Explode, the Hidden Story Within (48k, Seeking Subscriptions)

"Then, let us officially begin! Everyone, I hope you can truly show me something; don't make me mock you mercilessly later! Hahaha..."

The reappearance of Yang Dong's confident, strange laughter was the horn for the official start, making people feel even more stifled and angry.

Therefore, although the curtain had officially been raised, the crowd temporarily made no moves, looking at each other in dismay, then quickly reaching a tacit consensus.

By unspoken agreement, they wanted to see how Du En would make his move.

And this person in question did not change his position, remaining mixed in the crowd, calm and composed, with no intention of being the first to act.

Since he would not act, Tang Wenren maintained an attitude of learning and observation, likewise not being the first to do anything.

And so, while the lingering echoes of that strange laughter still remained, a deathly, heavy silence fell before the prison.

After a long while, Yang Dong, who had already prepared all sorts of taunts and jeers, was stunned to find that everyone here was motionless, leaving his preparations with no outlet... How could this be? He immediately changed his tune!

"No way? No way? The dignified elites of the Pivot City, having come for a heavy reward, yet now not a single one dares to move; it's enough to make one laugh their teeth out, hahaha!"

Laughing loudly like this, he deliberately pressed his sheep-face close, revealing his large teeth, completely crowding the spirit-light screen.

Under such mockery, the crowd was immediately enraged once more.

Forget about that Du the Traveler for now; first, give this disgusting fellow a hard slap in the face, then talk about the rest!

They immediately swarmed forward, and then, having just crossed a certain boundary line, many in the vanguard were directly flattened to the ground, unable to move.

"This?!"

"Core-of-the-earth heavy pressure?!"

"Divine sense completely sealed!"

"Cannot control artifacts!"

"Qi completely cut off?!"

"Spells cannot be cast either!"

People exclaimed one after another, unable to take a single step, as if they had stepped into a quagmire or were close to the core of the earth; the gravitational pull of their own Golden Core mass was simply a kitten meeting a big cat—not worth mentioning, impossible to resist, and fundamentally impossible to struggle against.

Yang Dong laughed so hard the wrinkles on his face were shaking, not even bothering to continue his taunts.

This kind of noisy sound did not make the crowd rise in anger at this moment; instead, it only made them feel a bit chilled.

Especially looking at the situation of the vanguard, they were even more hesitant to advance, not daring to act rashly or recklessly again.

It wasn't that they hadn't thought it would be difficult, but they hadn't expected it to be this hard right from the start!

"This is actually normal. After all, those who can enter the prison basically never walk out alive in the end, so normal cultivators usually only hear of its name and do not know its actual appearance."

Du En was not surprised by this, though he was somewhat surprised by Tang Wenren's look of shock and doubt.

"So that's how it is?"

He responded in a somewhat dazed, muffled voice.

Thus, Du En understood that this person really was a sheltered young master.

But upon second thought, he understood; if he had really been allowed to travel everywhere and see the various scenes outside the Southern Pivot City, he would long ago not have his current temperament.

If he still had it, then according to the original assumptions of the Southern Pivot City, having him go deal with Meng Changqing in the future would likely only be counterproductive.

After all, in that case, he would either be steeped in hypocrisy or be too naive.

The former would be deeply loathed and even purged, while the latter would not be relied upon or valued; relatively speaking, it would be much better, but clearly, his words would carry no weight, which did not align with the interests of the upper echelons of the Southern Pivot City.

As such, it was better to keep him penned up and nurtured, maintaining his original nature, making people feel that the future might be promising, and then perhaps they would choose to keep him nearby to provide guidance and instruction, allowing for a relatively high level of influence.

"What should we do now?"

Tang Wenren seemed to realize that his performance was appearing worse and worse, so without waiting for Du En to speak, he answered for himself: "Basically, the prison has a three-piece set of measures: Qi-sealing, Law-suppression, and Control. Now it seems that on this side, one must add extra targeting measures like Divine-sense-blocking, Heavy-pressure, Escape-prevention, and Void-sealing, etc. It is designed and built strictly according to the standards of the Nascent Soul stage."

"I have two ideas now: one is to use techniques from outside the boundary to conduct probing attacks and crack it from afar, and the other is to use various illusion and concealment techniques to try not to be discovered or targeted by those measures, so as to sneak to the foot of the wall."

A very normal problem-solving approach; with so many people here, surely others had thought of it too.

And so, just as he finished speaking in a muffled voice, there was a 'thump' sound as a long wall of fire erupted, burning fiercely from outside the boundary toward the inside.

Then.

Pop~

The long wall of fire was like a bubble, disappearing on the spot.

Someone else refused to believe it and directly urged their life-bound magic treasure—a murderous, chilling decapitation blade—to strike at the head, and then with a 'clang', it fell directly to the ground, its magic light dim, like common iron, and no matter how much its owner turned red in the face, they could not control it in the slightest!

"Weak! So weak! With an attack of this intensity, are you trying to tickle my wall?"

Yang Dong mocked and jeered again, leaving the people speechless.

In this silence, another figure flickered and vanished from where they stood, attempting to deceive the various measures and reach the foot of the wall directly.

Then, they ended up lying there together with the vanguards who were either prone or flat on their backs.

Someone else refused to believe it and immediately slapped their waist.

"Roar!"

A Silver-Crested Gorilla roared as it charged out, reaching the Third Stage perfection, on the verge of a breakthrough, its eyes blood-red and full of ferocious killing intent; one look and it was clear it had been raised using some kind of demonic method, adding a few more points of fierce momentum.

It charged in, it took steps, it gradually slowed down, and finally, it whimpered powerlessly, only one zhang away from the wall.

"I have to admit, you are the most beautiful Third Stage little monkey I have ever seen. It's a pity, still a little short, just a little bit! So I say, your master is truly useless; how could they be afraid of you backlashing and not dare to feed you to the Fourth Stage?"

Yang Dong was extremely pained and regretful, making the beast-tamer's face turn a shade of green and then white.

Just at this moment, a black shadow darted out, nimbly leaping over the Silver-Crested Gorilla.

The crowd looked closely and discovered it was a humanoid puppet, with a beautiful form and excellent materials, reaching the Fourth Stage; at this moment, it was directly pushing hard against the various measures, arriving at the courtyard wall, and was about to climb over.

Boom!

A silver lightning bolt descended from the sky, striking it directly on the head, causing it to fall to the ground, charred and powerless.

"My Puppet-er!"

"Tsk tsk tsk! Not bad, your puppet is truly not bad! I am very satisfied!"

"Ah!"

Facing Yang Dong's sharp, bizarre, and seemingly pointed tone, the puppeteer was so enraged that he vomited blood on the spot and fell into a coma.

This was not surprising, as his puppet-manipulation method was a tightly linked technique; when the puppets were damaged, the person was injured, and since he had already reached his limit, being provoked further made it perfectly normal for him to roll his eyes back and pass out.

"Who else? What other tricks do you have? Ha!"

Yang Dong was exceptionally smug, until he saw Tang Wenren reveal a look of sacrificing his life for righteousness, stepping out from the crowd, which made him immediately fall silent.

"I'll do it!"

Hearing this genius from Shu City speak with such passion and fervor, the group of dejected Golden Core stage cultivators felt a surge of inspiration.

Then, the Whistling Gold Sword!

A whistling platinum sword, condensed and formed out of thin air, emitted a long, shrill whistle; it was fully thirty zhang long, slashed down directly from the sky, and collided head-on with the field formation set up around the prison, resulting in a violent clash.

"Oh? As expected of the genius Tang, to think you could achieve this much; it seems I still underestimated you!"

Facing this person, Yang Dong dared not be foul-mouthed, but he still had some lingering habits, making his words sound a bit strange, as if he were being sarcastic.

But the situation on the ground was actually just that; it looked like a stalemate, and it remained a stalemate—even as a genius, Tang Wenren was powerless to destroy these defenses aimed at ordinary Nascent Soul stage cultivators.

The crowd's excitement immediately faded back into dejection, and Yang Dong was already itching to act, one hand already prepared.

As long as he felt like running his mouth again in a moment, he would slap his own face!

In any case, he must not speak nonsense!

Just at this moment, under the watchful eyes of everyone waiting for the spell to collapse, Du En flashed out, stretched out both hands, and plucked at the air.

Click!

Bang!

The key point of that field was found by the Spirit-Seeking, plucked out by the Extraction-Appraisal, and thus it collapsed instantly; the remaining power of the Whistling Gold Sword drove straight in, slamming hard against the high wall.

Boom!

A bolt of thunder fell.

Slap!

The dazed Yang Dong subconsciously slapped his own face.

Because he happened to see, under the dazzling light of the thunder, a figure had already quietly surged forward to this point.

The thunder damaged the Whistling Gold Sword, forming a layer of radiant canopy, as if crowning Du En beneath it.

He calmly raised his fist, and he ordinarily threw his punch.

Boom!

A large section of the wall was punched through by him.

Who breaks into a prison by climbing over the wall?

Isn't jailbreaking supposed to be done by punching straight through the front?

Inexplicably, looking at that back as calm as water, Yang Dong seemed to read these two sentences.

"Ah? This, this!"

Yang Dong, with a slap mark on his face, was instantly dumbfounded and couldn't help but lean in to look.

He only saw that Du En had already stepped inside, and incidentally, with a vine, violently dragged Tang Wenren's side over as well; the speed was much faster than him flying on his own, which could be called spatial movement.

As long as one ignored that short, startled scream, there were no problems or flaws.

"Impossible! That wall of mine was repaired using fourth-tier mid-grade spirit materials, and I added a full thirty-six other types of fourth-tier low-grade materials, while also integrating information on various known spirit bodies; it naturally targets body-refiners, innate spirit bodies, and so on—anyway, it's just impossible for him to break it!"

"It is a new spirit body, and it was not a head-on collision."

An Ruqin, behind Yang Dong, was silently observing and recording these things.

Hearing her calm words, Yang Dong finally steadied himself and pulled back his face, seeing that after the thunder, the wall parts were in large and small pieces, but there were no fragments; it was clearly the wall parts being shaken apart by a massive, eruptive force applied to the flaws and gaps found during the refining process, rather than being smashed or blown up.

"Damn it, are the refiners of the Construction Department all trash?!"

Yang Dong was immediately trembling with rage.

His subordinates couldn't help but look up, wanting to speak but hesitating.

Wasn't that your own handiwork?

In the end, they didn't dare to speak and silently buried their heads again.

At the same time.

"Fellow Daoists! Quick! While they haven't recovered yet, let's charge!"

The Golden Core cultivators in front of the field were still stunned, until someone reacted and shouted, and suddenly the group responded, all coming to their senses and surging over like a tide.

"Wow! How can you all take advantage of the situation like this?!"

"Don't go over! Don't drill in!"

"You can't do this!"

Yang Dong screamed repeatedly, but these words reached the ears of the crowd like a potent stimulant, making them charge even faster; in the blink of an eye, they had all vanished, and even the Silver-Crowned Ape and the stranded puppet were swept along inside.

For a time, they no longer had any hostility toward Du En, only full gratitude.

Sheep-faced bastard, let's see if we don't piss you to death!

"Ahhh!"

Yang Dong almost collapsed to the ground and began to act unreasonably: "Supervisor An, you should have noticed just now, why didn't you remind me? Are you in cahoots with them?!"

"If Construction Supervisor Yang has time to be startled here, it would be better to quickly activate other means and step up the adjustments to reinforce the outer wall."

Facing An Ruqin's cold words, Yang Dong felt as if a basin of ice water had been poured over him, and he instantly sobered up.

"Right, you are correct; this matter cannot happen a second time. Traveler Du, oh Traveler Du, when you come out, I will make you understand what it means to be easy to enter prison but hard to leave!"

Gritting his teeth, he took out spirit materials and used a spatial movement to leave this place, running off to build the wall himself, swearing to use his highest standard to create a seamless wall capable of trapping and killing geniuses, so as to trap Du En inside to death.

"My lord, do we not need to stop them?"

The others here, someone couldn't help but speak up.

Because Yang Dong was clearly beginning to lose control and was acting beyond his boundaries.

"……No need."

An Ruqin paused slightly before saying this.

The others looked at one another; whether they belonged to the Construction Supervision Bureau or the Prison and Punishment Bureau, they all vaguely sensed that the waters in this matter were unexpectedly deep!

"Your master, that Perfected Lord Zhenhong, I am willing to believe that he would not dare to openly defy the resolution."

Du En was walking inside the prison at this moment, feeling the lack of shackles or restrictions in the surroundings, and spoke slowly: "However, it is not certain that the Great Cultivators are of one mind."

"What does your Excellency mean?"

Tang Wenren used magic power to soothe the swelling on his face, his voice somewhat muffled, "Some of them will stir up trouble in this matter?"

He only lacked experience, not intelligence; as soon as it was pointed out, he immediately thought of this situation.

That temperament of Yang Dong's was clearly very prone to losing control.

If he truly lost control and no one restrained him in time, leading to the scene spiraling out of control, then it could be determined that either the Executive Great Cultivator from the Construction Supervision Bureau or the Executive Great Cultivator from the Prison and Punishment Bureau—in any case, one side must be playing tricks in this matter to express their own opinion and stance.

"Moreover, your master will only watch from the sidelines in silence."

Du En pointed this out directly as well.

"……"

Tang Wenren looked around, speechless for a moment.

Because inside the high walls and courtyards of this prison, it was not some cold, icy dungeon, but rather individual courtyards of various styles with exquisite furnishings; rather than calling it a prison, it was more like a summer resort, with all kinds of truly pleasant environments.

Looking up again, there was only a clear sky for ten thousand miles, without a single wisp of dark cloud to be seen.

Designing and building a model prison like this…… was actually a kind of probe from the Southern Hub City side!

A way out, a retreat.

This was the meaning contained within this new prison.

On the surface, it appeared that in the future when Meng Changqing took charge of the South, they could choose to demote and confine themselves, voluntarily moving into this prison built in advance.

In reality, what they wanted to see was whether Meng Changqing would stop or refute it once this kind of place and this retreat were laid out.

Because it was costly and extravagant, there would surely be a reaction.

If there was no stop, it would mean the attitude was actually fine, and next, they could engage in mutual tug-of-war and compromise regarding what level and what form the subsequent "official version" would take.

If he stopped it firmly, it would prove that Meng Changqing was still the same as ever and did not want to provide any retreat, so they would have to change their response strategy in time.

In other words, they just wanted to obtain a baseline—a baseline on whether or not to give them a way out!

And the reason they did not report and ask for an answer through official channels, but instead went around in circles through Du En to have him state it privately, was because of the extreme caution of the Southern Hub City side.

They dared not act rashly, lest they tear off the mask of civility and leave no room for maneuver.

Moreover, they also hoped that Du En could have some positive influence.

That was why there was that "generous reward."

However, the Southern Hub City was a collective after all, not to mention that other True Lords had long since been meddling, so although the main tone was like this, there would inevitably be some noise and changes.

When Tang Wenren looked at Du En again, he only hesitated and said: "Master is old, his great limit is approaching, and he has guarded and led the South for a thousand years; he does not want to lose his integrity in his twilight years, so, so it is inevitable that there will be some……"

By the time he finished speaking, he thought of a word, but he could not say it at all.

Wavering!

The one who set the main tone of probing for a retreat was Perfected Lord Zhenhong, but the one who tacitly allowed some Great Cultivators to play tricks was also him.

This was naturally because he himself possessed a contradictory psychology, and also, a sense of being at a loss regarding the current situation.

"Because a True Lord under two hundred years old is too unexpected, Perfected Lord Zhenhong likely never imagined it at all; therefore, he originally expected that he would only be able to hand over the South after he passed away, but now it will be handed over before he dies, so he is naturally at a loss and finds it hard to believe."

Du En thought to himself.

Therefore, even though he had already given the other party a few years of buffer time, they still had not been able to fully make up their minds.

"Could it be that a few years is too short? Although for me, it is already considered quite long……"

Du En, who was only forty years old this year, naturally could not understand the concept of time of an elderly Perfected Lord of several thousand years, so as he pondered this, he realized this situation with some hindsight.

However, even if he had thought of it in advance, he would not change his own rhythm; when he was supposed to come here, he would naturally come.

(End of chapter)