Chapter 40.1: Zhu Hongyi

Wolf Cultivation Town! Wang Clan’s Manor!

Wang Ke and Zhang Zhengdao sent Zhang Shenxu off with the armchair. Then, the two looked at each other’s eyes and knew what the other was thinking about.

“Wang Ke, is your ass itchy? Why are you scratching it?” Zhang Zhengdao asked curiously.

He immediately caught the attention of the two Golden Crow Sect members tasked to keep watch over them. They looked at Wang Ke and saw his right hand moving into his pocket as though he were scratching.

The latter immediately stopped moving when Zhang Zhengdao mentioned it.

“Yes, I’m itchy! ” Wang Ke said, looking a little shocked and nervous.

Then his hand began moving again.

“No, something is in your pocket!” one of their captors said with staring eyes.

“Nope, you’re mistaken!” Wang Ke said nervously.

That junior disciple commanded him, “Wang Ke, you’re already our prisoner. How dare you play tricks on us! Take it out now!”

“There’s nothing. Aren’t you too nervous? What could I hide?” Wang Ke ridiculed them.

“Shwing!”

The saber on Wang Ke’s neck quickly moved and touched his flesh. He was startled by the wave of coldness coming through his skin.

“Take it out now!” that junior disciple threatened once again.

“No, let’s not do that, please?” said Wang Ke as if in a tight spot.

The two guards’ curiosity was piqued by his reluctance. The unwilling he was, the more their curiosity grew.

“Now! Or else, I’ll make you bleed first!” threatened the junior disciple once again with glaring eyes.

“I, I…!” Wang Ke looked extremely reluctant.

But he still complied and took his right hand out. Still, his hand was clenched, as if he were hiding something.

“Open your hand!” the junior disciple demanded.

Wang Ke looked like he had great difficulty, deciding to never show them.

Given his stubborn attitude, that disciple attempted to forcefully open Wang Ke’s hand.

“Piak!”

He took hold of Wang Ke’s wrist while using the other hand to press his saber against the latter’s neck.

“Senior apprentice-brother, I will keep a firm hold on his wrist, while you pry his fingers open. Let’s see what he is hiding. Could he be trying a sneak attack on us?” said that junior disciple with a serious tone.

One of the Golden Crow Sect disciples was at the Golden Core stage, while the other was at the Innate Stage; they were more powerful than either Wang Ke or Zhang Zhengdao. They would naturally have no chance to retaliate if they wanted to take things by force.

“Sure!” the Golden Core stage senior disciple agreed.

The senior disciple pressed his saber against Zhang Zhengdao’s neck with one hand and stretched over the other hand to pry Wang Ke’s fingers open.

Wang Ke’s hand was firmly closed and would not move, but the senior disciple opened his fingers with ease.

Both Golden Crow disciples stretched their necks and eagerly looked at Wang Ke’s palm. There’s nothing in his palm?No, there’s a ball of bright yellow gas. That was Wang Ke’s turbid essence Qi.

“What is this?” one of them said, puzzled.

And the swirling turbid essence Qi dissipated in front of their eyes, the fumes rushing towards the two disciples.

“Oh shit!” One of them looked shocked and realized that something was wrong.

He quickly expanded his Qi out of instinct as a means to repel the yellow gas. However, it easily penetrated his Qi-barrier and forcefully flowed into their nostrils.

Poisonous gas?

It was too late when the two fellows realized that something was off. That bright yellow gas had entered their nostrils and instantly flooded their minds.

“Boommcrakk!”

A thunderous explosion went off in their minds.

Smelly? How could the two of them ever expect to smell such a foul odor! Their faces froze, their souls boiled, their eyes were flooded with tears, while their stomachs roiled and refluxed like billowing seas.

“Blarrgghhh~~~~!” The two of them were immediately incapacitated, their bodies shivering uncontrollably.

Both of them had forgotten everything at that moment. They forgot who they were, where they were… The impending implosion of their souls was the only sensation they had; they didn’t even remember to firmly hold their sabers. They felt as though they were in hell; their stomachs were so upset that they broke down.

“Baam! Baam!”

Zhang Zhengdao slammed the two Golden Crow Sect disciples’ heads with his palm, which granted them salvation by allowing them to faint.

“Wang Ke, I said it before. Your cultivation technique is really powerful. Teach me, please! Let me become your disciple!” Zhang Zhengdao said excitedly.

“Get lost!” Wang Ke shot him a stare.

“Wang Ke, why didn’t you use this earlier? I’m sure Zhang Shenxu would have succumbed instantly. Why was there a need to pretend defeat?”

“Nonsense! There were eight Golden Core stage disciples. What’s the use of rendering Zhang Shenxu unconscious if the rest cut us into pieces?” Wang Ke rolled his eyes.

“Oh yeah, right. What should we do now? Let’s leave!” Zhang Zhengdao urged him.

“We cannot leave by the main gate. Zhang Shenxu, the bastard… He only brought twenty juniors with him, but he still has a group of cranes watching from above! We cannot simply walk out. Let’s go underground; there’s a tunnel beneath the armchair in the main hall. We can make our escape through there!” Wang Ke advised.

“Yes, right! Haha, I wondered why you moved everything from the manor but left the armchairs behind. It really didn’t fit your usual way of doing things like the iron rooster that you are! So, it was to conceal the underground tunnel! Let me take a look!” Zhang Zhengdao immediately jumped toward an armchair.

Zhang Zhengdao indeed found the mechanism that opened the underground tunnel’s entrance after moving the chair away.

“Are all your clan members reincarnated rats? You dug tunnels even under your own house? You had tunnels in the Zhu Cultivation Town, and now you have them in the Wolf Cultivation Town too?” Zhang Zhengdao ridiculed Wang Ke as he jumped into the tunnel.

However, Wang Ke didn’t follow him.

Zhang Zhengdao popped out his head from the tunnel and urged, “Wang Ke, aren’t you going to leave?”

His eyes opened wide as he spoke. He saw Wang Ke deftly taking off the storage bangle of a Golden Crow Sect disciple. He slid the other hand into his captors’ pockets and took out a storage bag at the same time.

“Wang Ke, that’s not right!” said Zhang Zhengdao as he jumped out from the tunnel; he snatched the other fainted captor and searched wildly. However, that was a junior disciple with an Innate Stage cultivation; he had no storage bangles, only a storage bag with only a few valuable things.

“Wang Ke, you are not fair. I’m the one who knocked them out. I want half! Half I say!” Zhang Zhengdao demanded with indignation.

But Wang Ke completely ignored him. Instead, he began taking off that Golden Core stage cultivator’s clothes.

“What are you doing? He’s a man! Are you a pervert? How can you do that? No, you must have your eyes on his clothes! His clothes are a treasure that can be sold? Damn, Wang Ke, I didn’t expect you to profit from that! No, this one is mine. It’s mine!” Zhang Zhengdao quickly took off the clothes of the Golden Crow Sect disciple he had snatched.

The pair settled everything quickly and then jumped into the underground tunnel.

Once they covered the entrance, Zhang Zhengdao berated Wang Ke to express his disapproval. At the same time he tried to convince the latter through both sentiment and reason, hoping that Wang Ke would come around and share the plunder with him equally.

But there was no way Wang Ke would have a conscience when it came to money! Zhang Zhengdao was lucky enough to have gotten something. It was his bad luck that he didn’t read the situation well and got into the action a bit too late. Who could he blame? Wang Ke would never share a dime if he could beat him in terms of raw power.

————–

In the neighboring manor!

Zhang Shenxu sat on the armchair, fanning himself with his white paper fan. He and his juniors looked at the group of black-robed men. More specifically, they were looking at the red-robed Parlor Lord in their midst.

Wang Ke had told them that the demons would be handed over after the authenticating token was presented. But what if that was not the case?

Zhang Shenxu pretended to be proud and authoritative, all to use his pride as a reason to ignore the question should his opponents asked something. He merely sat there before the demons, with a no-nonsense attitude, emulating a commanding posture.

The black-robed men before him did deliver. All of them were silent.

Given that his pretense was effective, Zhang Shenxu continued waving his fan with a smile while he gazed at the group of men in black.

All the demonic cultivators were looking toward the red-robed Parlor Lord at the moment. The Parlor Lord thought that Chen Tianyuan had already ambushed them from all sides, considering how confident and assured Zhang Shenxu was behaving. Fury burned in his heart, but he was also more careful at the same time.

And so, the two parties gazed at each other without uttering a word. Zhang Shenxu’s smile lasted so long that it became awkward. He then got a little angry because his opponents had yet to react.