She hurried to swear that she would take no part in anything happening in Wuti City. Even if human cultivators or demon cultivators died before her eyes, she would not interfere.
After making her oath, she glanced at the man cautiously. “Brother, what if somebody attacks me first?”
He glared at her. “Just stay obediently inside the inn. Don’t go wandering around. I’d like to see someone come barging in to attack you!”
The woman sighed in frustration. What fun was watching an exciting spectacle if she couldn’t join in? Unfortunately, however daring she might be, she did not have the courage to defy Brother Qingyan.
Before long, the wedding procession led by Fang Tianyun crossed nearly half of Wuti City and arrived at the Jiang family’s gates.
Through Jiang Bin and Jiang Ling, Fang Tianyun had one set of Qilin Jade Armor delivered inside. A short while later, Jiang Ying emerged slowly from the main entrance in a long red dress, looking both spirited and striking.
Jiang Ying was a gifted member of the Jiang family’s younger generation and possessed the same cultivation level as Fang Tianyun. In the cultivation world, rank did not distinguish between men and women. Anyone who attained sufficient strength received the corresponding respect.
Although she was the bride, Jiang Ying did not ride in a bridal sedan. Instead, Fang Tianyun dismounted and invited her to share his horse.
Only after Jiang Ying was seated did Fang Tianyun climb up behind her. Riding together symbolized their equal standing.
The people around them burst into cheers. Jiang Ying was one of Wuti City’s rare beauties, and her kind, approachable personality made her enormously popular throughout the city.
Now that Fang Tianyun had claimed this lovely flower, many people felt deeply envious, even though they knew perfectly well that without him they would never have had a chance with her either.
Fang Tianyun proudly led Jiang Ying back across half of Wuti City toward the Fang residence. Behind them came the Jiang family’s guests and friends, including the Xu brothers and the carefully concealed male Jiang Ying.
Fang Tianrui, who ought to have appeared for the wedding procession, was nowhere to be seen. This made the male Jiang Ying extremely restless. He had no idea what had happened to Fang Tianrui. Since the young man had left without saying goodbye a few mornings earlier, Jiang Ying had not had a chance to see him.
With Fang Tianrui absent from today’s procession as well, the wicked Jiang Ying was on the verge of losing control of his temper. Only a cold glance from Xu Zirong brought him back to his senses. Today was important. If he disrupted his master’s brother’s plan, he would surely suffer for it.
Beating drums and gongs, the Fang family’s procession crossed half the city and made its way back to the Fang residence.
More than half of Wuti City’s residents crowded the streets along the route to watch the festivities.
Smiling as he held Jiang Ying by the waist, Fang Tianyun looked exceedingly pleased on horseback. A closer look, however, would reveal that his smile never reached his eyes, where a trace of worry lingered.
Fortunately, nothing happened before the procession reached the Fang residence. Fang Tianyun secretly breathed a sigh of relief and walked through the main gates with Jiang Ying at his side.
First they bowed to Heaven and Earth, then to their elders. Just as they were about to complete the final bow to each other as husband and wife, an enormous surge of spiritual power erupted outside the Fang family’s main gates.
“Who dares cause trouble at the Fang residence?” Fang Qin’s eyes sharpened as he sprang outside. Two enormous fireballs flew from his hands simultaneously, hurtling toward the gates with a howl.
Fang Mian acted at the same instant. Just after Fang Qin leaped away, he activated the Fang family’s protective formation.
“Hahaha… We’re not here to cause trouble. We’re here to take your lives!” A shrill voice came from nowhere in particular. Two wet slicing sounds followed, and the throats of two guests in the hall split open, spraying blood.
“Ah!”
“Who’s there?”
The instant those two cultivators fell, the entire hall erupted into chaos. No one had seen how they were killed, and fear of an unseen attacker left everyone terrified.
Almost every cultivator activated a defensive spell at once. But those shields were as fragile as eggshells before the unseen assassin’s blade. In the blink of an eye, two more guests had their throats cut, and blood nearly painted half the hall red.
“Everyone, stay calm! Don’t panic! The more wildly you attack, the easier it is for the assassin to exploit an opening!” Seeing several guests randomly striking at their surroundings in fear, Fang Mian shouted a warning.
“Heehee… And what difference would staying calm make? I killed those two just now, didn’t I?” The shrill voice drifted unpredictably around the hall, seemingly coming from everywhere.
“You cowardly vermin! You dare skulk about and attack people in my Fang family home!” Fang Mian roared. His right arm suddenly swelled, and he seized a guest’s shadow. With a savage yank, he dragged out a black shape the size of a pumpkin.
“Ah!”
The shadowy creature had clearly not expected its hiding place to be exposed and was caught too off guard to escape.
Fang Mian remained expressionless. He squeezed hard with both hands, crushing the shadow into a bloody mass that fell to the floor in scattered clumps.
“Urgh…” A cultivator who had moved close while trying to avoid the assassin was splashed with blood and fragments of flesh, which covered half his gray clothes. At merely the third level of Qi Refining, he had rarely witnessed a battle between cultivators. The brutality of Fang Mian’s attack sent him stumbling into a corner to vomit.
Cold-faced, Fang Mian flicked his wrist, shaking the remaining blood and flesh from his hands. He surveyed the hall. Apart from the Shadow Cat he had just caught, at least four more were moving among the guests, slaughtering other cultivators.
Outside the hall’s protective formation, Fang Qin flitted about, sending enormous fireballs and fire dragons from his broad sleeves. He had single-handedly suppressed the enemy causing such a disturbance at the gates. Satisfied, Fang Mian gestured for several family guards to hunt down the remaining Shadow Cats.
Shadow Cats were demonic beasts capable of hiding inside a person’s shadow. Their claws were extremely sharp and could easily cut through a cultivator’s skin.
Such small beasts made ideal assassins, but their feeble defenses were also their greatest weakness. Fang Mian had exploited that fact, deliberately using an extremely brutal method to steady the guests’ confidence. Had everyone kept running about in a panic, the Shadow Cats could have hidden in their shadows and killed them with ease.
Fear was strongest when the danger was unknown. Once the guests realized the killers were Shadow Cats, cultivators at the seventh and eighth levels of Qi Refining could fight back. Working together, they soon reduced the remaining four Shadow Cats to corpses. Fang Qin also returned from outside carrying two hedgehog-like demonic beasts.
“Why would demonic beasts launch a sneak attack?” Most of the guests shivered inwardly at the sight of the assassins’ corpses.
There were plenty of intelligent people among them. Beasts such as Shadow Cats and Arrow Civets could never infiltrate a city to carry out assassinations without being controlled by high-level demon cultivators. Their presence was strong evidence that such demon cultivators were lurking in or near Wuti City.
Seeing suspicion and surprise written on most of the guests’ faces, Fang Mian exchanged a discreet glance with Jiang Tianxing before finally speaking.
He did not reveal the whole truth. Instead, he selectively reported what the cultivators he had sent to investigate had discovered.
When the guests learned that every trace of demonic beasts had vanished from the dense forests surrounding Wuti City, their faces turned extraordinarily grim.
Demonic beasts could not simply disappear into thin air! Someone had clearly gathered them together, and only high-level demon cultivators possessed that ability.
What did those demon cultivators plan to do with so many beasts? Almost everyone could guess the answer.
“Patriarch Fang, exterminating demon cultivators is everyone’s duty. My Jade Sword Sect is willing to contribute!” an elderly cultivator at early Meridian Condensation declared coldly. The Jade Sword Sect was small, but this elder had fought at the Far Western frontier.
Most human cultivators united in their hatred of demon cultivators. Moreover, if Wuti City fell, the surrounding smaller sects might be annihilated as well. However they looked at it, they had to help defend the city.
As the leaders of those small sects were pledging their support to the Fang family, several more guests arrived.
The Yu and Bu families entered the Fang residence with several wounded cultivators and two corpses.
Both patriarchs looked terrible. At their meeting two days earlier, they had already concluded that the demon cultivators might strike at the city’s four great families. Neither had imagined that even after taking precautions, the enemy would still succeed in ambushing them. The patriarchs themselves were unharmed, but each family had lost one member of its younger generation.
The disciples brought along for this occasion were naturally among their clans’ elite. Losing even one such person was a tremendous blow to a family, so neither patriarch had reason to be pleased.
With both the Yu and Bu families attacked and the gate guards urgently sounding the alarm, any cultivator who still failed to realize a beast siege was approaching might as well have wasted every year of cultivation.
The signs of the impending attack had become impossible to conceal. Even those who had secretly suspected the Fang family of manufacturing a crisis suppressed their doubts. The conflict between human cultivators and demon cultivators was irreconcilable. In a siege like this, only one side could survive!
Under the leadership of the four great families, everyone quickly gathered and devised a relatively comprehensive defensive plan.
As in Xu Ziyan’s memories of the original story, each of the four families was responsible for one city gate. This time, however, thanks to his indirect warning, they had not been forced to prepare in haste. Pills, talismans, and other supplies were distributed to the gate defenders in short order, and everyone eagerly readied themselves for the coming battle.