"Stop!" Shen Fuyu, whose eyes were throbbing so badly he could barely keep them open and had to track his target only with his spiritual sense, roared in a fury, "I told you to stop right now!"
Nangong Yu plastered a speed-boosting talisman on her body, channeling spiritual power straight into her feet as she darted all over the mountainside.
She even equipped a new title on the fly.
[Come Catch Me If You Can]: As long as you keep moving your feet, the being chasing you will never be able to catch up.
(Note: This title will cease to function if you lose both your legs.)
What a useless, trashy title.
Nangong Yu circulated her spiritual power. At first, she was still a little unaccustomed to the sudden burst of speed, wobbling to keep her upper body balanced and having to put deliberate effort into stabilizing her posture. But after running two full laps around the great plaza outside the main hall, she had fully adapted to the pace, and her mind cleared up completely. "Help! The Fuyu Peak Master has gone mad! He's killing a junior disciple!"
"The Fuyu Peak Master has been bought off by enemy forces—"
"The Fuyu Peak Master is trying to execute the sect's top genius while the sect leader is away—"
"Ziyang Sect is doomed—"
Up in the air, Daoist Lord Zhoushan who overheard that last line could not hold back a snort of laughter, "Hahaha!"
Well, the idea of Ziyang Sect falling apart was honestly rather delightful.
With so many cultivators under their banner, all the other sects could carve up their share, and everyone's power and influence would grow by leaps and bounds.
He turned to look at the person beside him, still grinning. "Junior Brother Cangjing, your sect really does raise disciples in the most unorthodox, unrestrained fashion!"
Sect Leader Cangjing's brows twitched violently. He took a deep breath and replied, "This is the Hall Master of Discipline's most favored personal young disciple, that's why he's spoiled her a little too much."
He was not actually that angry. This kid had a loose tongue and never held back her words, and this kind of mess was not exactly a first-time incident.
"Stop this instant!" He projected his voice out with his full spiritual power, the sound wrapping tightly around everyone down below.
Shen Fuyu, Nangong Yu, every single Class A disciple in the area, all heard that command clearly.
They all recognized the sect leader's voice, of course. Every single one of them had met him in person on the very first day they joined the sect.
The crowd lifted their heads in unison to stare up at the sky. Right beside the sect leader, there was a blurry figure drifting like wispy clouds, light and agile as a gust of wind, but completely shrouded in mist so no one could make out their features.
"Greetings, Sect Leader." All the disciples dropped to their knees and bowed their heads in respect.
Nangong Yu did not stop running. She kept right on sprinting, heading straight for the spot directly beneath the sect leader. "Sect Leader! The Fuyu Peak Master is trying to kill me! Could it be that he's been bought off by another sect? That he's betrayed us? This is terrifying!"
Her voice carried far, but the sect leader's face remained perfectly calm.
He had already wrapped her in a shield of his own spiritual power, so at this moment, only he could hear the words spilling from her mouth.
"What exactly is going on here?" He waited until she had finished yelling before asking.
His steady, unflappable demeanor managed to calm Nangong Yu down a little. She gradually slowed to a halt and glanced back, only to see that Shen Fuyu had indeed stopped chasing her.
Nangong Yu did not rush to answer right away. She glanced at Shen Fuyu, paused for a moment, and then said, "The Fuyu Peak Master said I was bullying his disciples."
The sect leader's face darkened on the spot. "Shen Fuyu, is there any truth to this claim?"
Shen Fuyu still had his eyes squeezed shut, the sharp, stabbing pain in them making tears stream down his cheeks. He pointed furiously at Nangong Yu, his voice shaking with rage. "This little disciple is unbelievably audacious! She actually dared to attack a peak lord directly!"
Right now, he was seething with unbridled rage and utter loathing for Nangong Yu. How could he, in a moment of carelessness, have ended up bested by a mere Qi Refining stage junior disciple? This was an unforgivable, outrageous humiliation!
"Hmph." Nangong Yu said unhurriedly, "Attacking you is the least of what I've done. I even dug up your ancestral graves! There's my shit on the graves of your master, your grand-master, and your great-grand-master!"
Whoosh—
A violent gust of wind sprang up out of nowhere.
"I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!!" Shen Fuyu's long black hair flew wildly around his face. He lifted his palm, gathering a massive ball of condensed spiritual power that came crashing down directly toward Nangong Yu.
"Stop that at once!" The sect leader hurried to intervene.
"Shen Fuyu! How dare you!" True Person Qinghong who had just rushed over shouted in fury, shooting toward them like a streak of flowing light.
As for Elder Ling Heng, he did not waste a single word. His face dark with rage, he raised his palm and struck straight at Shen Fuyu.
Boom—
Boom boom—
Boom boom boom—
The sounds of colliding spiritual power, the sound of Shen Fuyu being sent flying, and then the delayed rumble of a distant mountain peak collapsing echoed across the area.
Up in the air, Daoist Lord Zhoushan looked on in surprise. So this really was the Hall Master of Discipline's precious little disciple?
He was an old friend of Sect Leader Cangjing, both of them top-tier prodigies back in their younger days, and he knew Elder Ling Heng very well too.
"The older he gets, the stranger his tastes get," Daoist Lord Zhoushan murmured, shaking his head slightly.
This young disciple had no filter whatsoever, a total one-of-a-kind oddity. He never would have guessed that Elder Ling Heng would dote on her to such an absurd degree.
"Junior Martial Aunt, are you alright?" True Person Qinghong landed beside her, her voice laced with deep concern.
Nangong Yu's eyes went wide, and tears welled up in them in an instant. She staggered a little, then collapsed weakly onto the ground. "I, I, I didn't..."
She could not even finish her sentence, her breath coming in ragged gasps as she hunched over on the ground, coughing nonstop.
True Person Qinghong panicked immediately. She squatted down and used her spiritual power to examine Nangong Yu's body.
Her spiritual power traveled through Nangong Yu's meridians. She did not even pause to marvel at how unusually wide and spacious her meridians were, carefully checking every part of her. She began to relax a little once the full check was almost done.
But when her wisp of spiritual power drifted toward Nangong Yu's dantian, it vanished without a trace.
"Junior Martial Aunt?" True Person Qinghong froze. She gathered another wisp of spiritual power and tried to probe inside Nangong Yu's dantian again.
This time, her spiritual power was swallowed up just as mysteriously. Cold sweat trickled down her back.
Her master had told her to keep an eye on the Junior Martial Aunt during classes, but she had thought the lessons would be uneventful, so she had slipped away to go to Myriad Matters Peak to report the matter of evil cultivators digging out people's golden cores.
Who would have thought that such a huge disaster would break out the second she left?
Boom—
A low rumble echoed from the distance. Shen Fuyu was forcefully dragged out of the collapsed mountain rubble and hauled back to the scene.
"Who were you planning to kill?" Elder Ling Heng asked coldly.
Shen Fuyu had never suffered such a humiliating defeat in his entire life. He was now utterly terrified, his hair all messy and disheveled, his usual dignified image completely in tatters.
But he sneered, lifted his head to look at the sect leader, and said, "My grand-master made enormous, life-long contributions to this sect. Does the sect leader think I don't have the right to deal with this little brat?"
His grand-master was the cultivator who, two thousand years ago, had prophesied the end of the Canglan Realm and the fall of Ziyang Sect, and had burned away a huge portion of his own lifespan to try to prevent that outcome.
To the public, the official story was that when Ziyang Sect was demoted from a top-tier sect and driven out of Zhongzhou, his grand-master had suffered a grave injury while risking his life to protect the sect's spiritual vein, and the damage had been so severe that he passed away not long after.
Because of that legacy, the entire Fuyu Peak lineage had always been given special leniency and preferential treatment throughout the sect.
"She insulted your grand-master, so you think you get to beat her to death. But if you had beaten Elder Ling Heng's personal disciple to death earlier, would Elder Ling Heng then have the right to beat you to death in return?" The sect leader's voice boomed with unshakable authority.
If Nangong Yu really was the Ziwei Star, the fated prodigy mentioned in the old prophecy, then even if she did not just insult his grand-master but went so far as to build a public outhouse on his grave, that old dead man should still be kneeling down to thank the heavens for this great blessing.
The sect leader was so annoyed he could barely contain it. Why did she have to pick today of all days to start a huge ruckus, right when distinguished guests from Zhongzhou were visiting?
"All disputes will be handled according to the official sect rules," he thundered. "As a dignified peak lord, you personally tried to kill a low-ranking junior disciple. What kind of example is that setting?"
Shen Fuyu popped more Spring-Restoring Pills into his mouth one after another, all the while thinking to himself that if he did not strike now, he would never get another chance to kill that little brat.
But his plans had all gone wrong. That little brat was shamelessly thick-skinned, and had started yelling for help the second things went south, wasting all his carefully laid plans.
Worse still, that vicious little witch had injured his eyes and insulted his grand-master's memory.
After swallowing bottle after bottle of Spring-Restoring Pills, the injuries Elder Ling Heng had inflicted on him were barely getting any better, but the pain in his eyes had finally faded.
He did not think much of it. He opened his eyes, casting a disgusted glance at Nangong Yu. "She bullied my Fuyu Peak disciples and stole their storage pouches. She must return every single one of them. And for insulting my grand-master, she must kneel at Black Ice Cliff for ten years to atone for her sins!"
"What just happened?" Two streaks of light shot over, arriving in the forms of Elder Baihe, who had stepped out earlier to attend to some matters, and Luo Qingyuan, the Second Class Elder who never showed up for classes.
The moment Luo Qingyuan spotted her Little Yu, my disciple lying on the ground, she flew into a rage at once. "Shen Fuyu! You hurt my disciple?!"
Up above, Daoist Lord Zhoushan looked on in faint surprise and asked the person beside him, "Isn't she supposed to be Ling Heng's disciple?"
The sect leader was afraid that Daoist Lord Zhoushan might take an interest in Nangong Yu, so he replied in a lukewarm tone, "Luo Qingyuan is a teaching elder at the Disciples' Peak. She has always been very protective of her students."
Daoist Lord Zhoushan nodded, saying no more.
The sect leader secretly let out a sigh of relief, then his gaze swept over Elder Baihe and he shot the elder a sharp, warning glare.
He was so caught up in the moment that he did not notice Daoist Lord Zhoushan glancing at him sidelong, studying him quietly.
Down below, Elder Baihe felt a chill run through him. When he took in the chaotic scene across the square, his scalp began to prickle. He swept his gaze around, then waved Mo Jiuyou over. "What happened here?"
Mo Jiuyou was still young, and children never lied. What was more, he had a lively, outgoing personality and was quite familiar with Elder Baihe.
"Reporting to Elder..." The moment Mo Jiuyou was asked, he blurted out the whole story in a rapid, nonstop stream of words.
Hearing that Shen Fuyu had personally gone to pick on a low-ranking young disciple, Elder Baihe was so furious that he almost charged over to fight Shen Fuyu right then and there.
But as he got to the later part of the story, all the details about Nangong Yu's lines like "chopping down a genius", "betraying the sect", and even "taking a dump on your grave", his temples began throbbing violently.
There was only one thought running through his mind at that moment — why on earth did you have to provoke her?!
"Enough." Elder Ling Heng's voice rang out, clear and resonant as jade chimes, carrying a subtle, profound aura. "The valuables that Little Yu was keeping safe for the disciples of Fuyu Peak are to be returned right now."
What good possessions could a few Foundation Establishment disciples even have? Elder Ling Heng had lost countless far more precious items to ashes in his storage ring over the years.
But there was no way he would let his young disciple bear such a tarnished reputation. The girl was just fond of playing pranks, and this whole mess was no more than a small warning to teach the other side a lesson.
"As you wish, Master." Nangong Yu did not argue. She tossed all the items out from her storage ring. "Count them carefully, make sure nothing is missing or extra, so no one can spin this into some unclear accusation later."
Her gaze drifted toward the figures standing right behind Shen Fuyu.
Those disciples who had gone to Shen Fuyu to complain after the incident at the Disciples' Peak had followed him up the mountain. But the scene had been far too chaotic earlier, leaving them no chance to speak up. Now the group of them dared not make a sound, and could only look at Shen Fuyu anxiously.
Shen Fuyu was injured, and he no longer tried to force himself to stay strong. He sat cross-legged on the ground, and gestured to them. "Go ahead."
Only then did the few disciples respond, stepping forward to count their belongings.
Everything was intact, as Nangong Yu had not touched a single item. She barely kept anything of value in her storage bag anyway — all her truly precious possessions were stored in her system space, and the most important ones were sealed within her own acupoints.
When they finished the count, the disciples glanced at Nangong Yu with a mix of dread and fear, before hurrying back to Shen Fuyu's side.
Elder Ling Heng spoke again, his voice cold and unyielding. "Shen Fuyu has failed to properly instruct his disciples, leading them to commit serious wrongdoings. Among them, Zhou Yun got into a conflict with the outer sect disciple Zhao You, which indirectly caused the innocent deaths of over a hundred villagers in Little Yan Village. This is an unforgivable atrocity."
The moment these words landed, everyone present froze, their faces draining of color.
Over a hundred lives!
No one could possibly bear the weight of that kind of karmic sin!
"This entire mess came to pass because Shen Fuyu was lax in his guidance, and allowed his disciples to run wild and do evil." Elder Ling Heng held his palm forward, and a golden token floated up from his hand. "Seal his spiritual power, and imprison him at the Black Ice Cliff for one hundred and twenty-six years."
One hundred and twenty-six lives lost, and Shen Fuyu would spend one hundred and twenty-six years locked away at the Black Ice Cliff to atone.
"Go."
Chains forged from condensed spiritual power shot toward Shen Fuyu, coiling around him and binding him tight.
Right after that, a pair of disciples from the Hall of Discipline stepped forward, lifted the struggling Shen Fuyu up, and flew off in the direction of the Black Ice Cliff.
