Among ordinary people, Yu Nianbai was exceptionally strong. Although he had no spiritual roots and could not cultivate, his father had fed him a great many pills specially refined for mortals.
The strength of his body was now comparable to that of a body cultivator at approximately the third level of Qi Refining. The only difference was that his dantian contained no spiritual power, so he could not use more powerful techniques.
To Xu Ziyan, Yu Nianbai’s attack was laughable. But the naked killing intent behind it stirred a corresponding desire to kill in his own heart.
Xu Ziyan was no saint. If someone was so blatantly trying to kill him, he naturally would not let the other party off. So… he moved to strike. Before he could unleash the lightning in his hand, however, a blood-red whip flashed across the space and sent Yu Nianbai flying with a thud.
“Big Brother… why would someone like that be worth your trouble? Let me handle him.” Xu Zirong smiled gently. He took Xu Ziyan’s hand and softly stroked it.
Xu Ziyan quietly withdrew the lightning in his hand. But that brief caress from Zirong had felt like a breeze passing without a trace, leaving faint ripples across the surface of water.
Strange… why did it feel as though something was wrong?
Xu Ziyan began fretting for no apparent reason. He could not even say what was troubling him. Zirong’s attitude toward him seemed peculiar, yet wasn’t it exactly the same as before?
Whether acting spoiled or playing the obedient little brother, the grown-up Zirong behaved just like the twelve-year-old Zirong he remembered!
Xu Ziyan was baffled. Then a thought flashed through his mind: wasn’t it rather unusual for someone grown up to keep behaving that way?
Unfortunately, before he could catch hold of that thought, the fighting took another turn. The brief flash of insight vanished, and he forgot it completely.
Yu Nianbai was sturdy, and Xu Zirong had not intended the first blow to kill him outright. In his previous life, those who coveted his beauty and dared act against him had never died quite so easily. The Blood Demon had earned his name for more than merely cultivating the Blood Sea Heart Scripture.
Yu Nianbai knew something was terribly wrong the instant he was sent flying. As the blood vine touched him, a jade pendant he wore shattered, and a protective glow enveloped his body.
“A protective jade pendant?” Xu Zirong glanced at it, a cold smile playing about his lips. He flicked his fingers and launched three more seeds.
Urged on by his spiritual power, four enormous blood-red vines lashed Yu Nianbai again and again. The protective shield formed by the shattered jade pendant gradually grew dim.
The young attendant who had led Yu Nianbai there was completely stunned. He collapsed in terror, wetting his trousers.
Even he could tell that ordinary people could never summon such enormous blood-red vines. When he remembered trying to play his little trick in front of two cultivators, he realized he had practically been courting death.
The four thick vines whipped through the air while Yu Nianbai’s body was tossed about like a ball. The surroundings were in chaos. Guests in nearby partitions either scrambled away on hands and knees or lay paralyzed on the ground, able only to scream.
Wuti City was home to both cultivators and ordinary people, though most establishments treated the two groups separately. The mortals were accustomed to cultivators living among them, but watching gigantic vines batter someone at such close range was an entirely different experience.
The commotion had long since attracted the attention of the person in charge of Moon-Embracing Garden. One look at the direction of the disturbance was enough to make the strikingly beautiful woman realize something was terribly wrong.
Four enormous vines were thrashing about wildly. She did not dare approach. Instead, she hurriedly summoned a maidservant and sent her to find someone from Star-Pointing Tower to handle the situation.
“Is that…?”
“From his build, it looks like Young Master Yu…”
The guests seated near the stage had not been caught up in the disturbance and were still in the mood to comment. Cultivators usually seemed so far above ordinary people. Seeing one fight for the first time was fascinating.
“What? The one being beaten is Young Master Yu?”
“Tsk, tsk. Those two have some nerve, attacking Young Master Yu. Do they have a death wish?”
Spectators were never afraid of trouble growing more entertaining. Young Master Yu had a poor reputation in Wuti City. He was a mortal himself, yet relied on his cultivator father’s power to look down on other mortals. People who had some standing despite lacking cultivation resented him greatly.
Cultivators looked down on him, and mortal young masters did not want his company either. Young Master Yu was something of an outsider in Wuti City. So when people saw him suffering, nobody even thought of going to alert his guards.
“Who dares show such disrespect to our young master?!”
Just as the onlookers began wondering when Young Master Yu’s guards would appear, an enraged roar rang out from above.
Xu Zirong raised a brow and snorted coldly. Abandoning his playful approach, he poured strength into the blood-red vines. With a sharp crack, Yu Nianbai’s shield shattered. Two vines struck him at once, making him cough up blood and roll on the ground, clutching his arm in agony.
“How dare you!” A black shadow roared as it vaulted over the entrance to Moon-Embracing Garden and sped toward the corner where Xu Zirong and his companions stood. “You dare hurt the young master? You deserve to die!” The newcomer immediately formed a hand seal, sending a streak of blue light toward Xu Zirong.
Xu Ziyan’s expression darkened. A bolt of lightning as thick as his thumb shot out and met the incoming blue light head-on. A deafening crash followed. Not only did the blue attack disappear, but the dark figure was sent hurtling backward along the very path it had taken to arrive.
“Whoa!”
When Xu Zirong was tormenting Young Master Yu with blood vines, the onlookers had been surprised but not utterly shocked. After all, Yu Nianbai was only a mortal. There was nothing extraordinary about a cultivator overpowering him.
But when Xu Ziyan acted, the impression was entirely different. Everyone knew that two powerful cultivator guards usually accompanied Young Master Yu. Yu Moran doted on Yu Nianbai to an excessive degree, so naturally the men he assigned to protect him were no ordinary guards.
It was said that a passing Foundation Establishment cultivator had once clashed with Yu Nianbai and tried to kill Yu Nianbai, only to be killed by one of those guards. From that point onward, Wuti City’s residents had formed a rough idea of how powerful the guards were.
Yet this supposedly formidable guard had been knocked away by a single attack from the handsome young man. The spectators might not have been able to tell cultivation levels apart, but even they understood such an obvious comparison.
“Tsk, tsk. Yu Nianbai has finally run into someone he can’t bully,” a gleeful spectator remarked.
“Hmph! That brat Yu Nianbai should have learned this lesson long ago.”
“Exactly… But Yu Nianbai is usually quite clever. How did he manage to offend cultivators this time? Wait, if those two are cultivators, why didn’t they go to Star-Pointing Tower?”
“Who knows? It’s none of our business. Let’s just enjoy the show.”
“True enough! Hahaha, this is quite a spectacle…”
After retreating to relatively safe corners, many of the guests began whispering among themselves. Far from feeling sympathy for the bloodied Yu Nianbai, most secretly rejoiced at his misfortune.
“Fellow Daoist, please show mercy!”
Shortly after the first shadow was knocked away, another figure rushed over. This newcomer had learned from the other’s mistake. Rather than launching an attack, he called out a greeting first.
Xu Ziyan did not strike this time. He merely regarded the man coldly as he hurried over and stopped a short distance away, not daring to move rashly.
The newcomer was middle-aged and at the early Foundation Establishment stage. That made him a respectable expert in Wuti City, but it seemed rather wasteful for such a cultivator to serve as an ordinary person’s bodyguard.
The middle-aged man drew a sharp breath when he saw Yu Nianbai hanging upside down from a giant vine, unconscious. Was that bloodied man, his face swollen like a pig’s head, really their young master? Why… even his own mother probably would not recognize him!
(At that moment, the cultivator had yet to learn the expression ‘beaten so badly even his mother wouldn’t recognize him’… →。→)
“Fellow Daoist, I don’t know how our young master offended you, but I hope you will show some mercy out of respect for the Yu family,” the middle-aged man said. He was a shrewd fellow. Having followed Yu Nianbai for so long, he knew exactly what sort of person his young master was. Seeing Xu Zirong’s exquisite face from close range, he could readily guess what had happened.
Besides, although the young master had taken a terrible beating, the guard could tell his breathing was still relatively steady. Someone strong enough to knock Old Liu away with a single blow could have killed Yu Nianbai already. Since they had not done so, there was probably still room for negotiation.
“The Yu family?” Xu Ziyan raised a brow. The Yu family of Wuti City? The name sounded familiar, but he could not remember where he had heard it.
“Yes. This is the eldest young master of Wuti City’s Yu family, the son of our clan patriarch.” The middle-aged man straightened proudly, evidently pleased with the Yu family’s position in the city. Then he seemed to remember something and hastily added, “The patriarch’s only son.”
“The Yu family? Is it particularly powerful?” Xu Ziyan asked, feigning confusion.
“It ranks third in Wuti City,” Xu Zirong supplied coldly.
“Oh… third place…” Xu Ziyan said meaningfully.
The middle-aged man’s face flushed red, but he could not argue. The Fang family held the strongest position in Wuti City, while the Yu family had originally ranked second. But the Jiang family’s young lady had quietly become engaged to the Fang family’s second young master. With that alliance, the Jiang family, previously only slightly weaker than the Yu family, had immediately risen to second place.
“Young Master!”
While Xu Ziyan was needling the middle-aged man, the guard who had been sent flying earlier returned. Xu Ziyan had not held back in that strike. Anyone who dared attack Xu Zirong would have to endure the full force of his lightning.
Yes, a real lightning strike! [Azure Firmament Divine Lightning: proud face!]