Chapter 141.2: The Trump Cards Move

Seeing her doubtful look, Qi Yuan puffed his chest slightly, quite pleased with himself. "Your wooden hut is tiny, drafty, and only has one room. My brick house is finally finished, and I even built several side rooms. Your sister has nowhere to sleep at night, doesn't she? Why not have her stay here instead?"

Saying so, he gestured proudly at the modest brick structure. "It's small and barebones, sure, but I have a few stools. If she needs a place to sleep, we can tie a few planks together. It is perfectly hospitable."

Ever since forming his Golden Core, Qi Yuan felt his thoughts flow with delightful sharpness. On the surface, he was offering help. In reality, he was showing off his brick house.

In that moment, all the doubt in Jiang Lingsu's heart evaporated. "No need."

According to what Jiang Ya had told her, that mysterious senior was a true demonic path cultivator, someone who had slaughtered far more than a hundred thousand people. Qi Yuan looked absolutely nothing like that. How could he possibly be the Blood-Clothed Sword God? Unless that Mad Daoist was actually Qi Yuan's alternate identity?

"A pity about my newly built house." Qi Yuan let out a sigh, then remembered something and asked, "Say, is Jiang Ya really your sister?"

"Of course." Jiang Lingsu blinked, not sure why he was asking.

"Then how come one of you is skin and bones, while the other is,

well

, round and radiant?" He frowned in genuine confusion. "She looks like she's malnourished, and you look like you are...

well fed.

"

As he spoke, his gaze instinctively slid over the curves hidden under her loose robes.

Jiang Lingsu shot him a fierce glare. The mind of a young girl could be unpredictable, and hers took offense immediately. "Are you calling me fat?"

Qi Yuan met her gaze with utmost sincerity. "Absolutely not."

Her figure was perfect. Soft where it should be, firm where it shouldn't. If she was spinning a hula hoop in a not-so-loose robes, half the mountain would come watch.

"So, your sister,

uh

, is she very poor?"

Jiang Lingsu's glare deepened. "Poor? Her? She's richer than I am! Her master is Elder Wutian, the Pavilion Master of the Heavenly Ascension Pavilion."

"Lots of spirit stones?"

"Spirit stones?

Please

." Jiang Lingsu lifted her chin proudly. "The Heavenly Ascension Pavilion collects divine manuals from everywhere. In the thirteen regions of the Eastern Lands, they've gathered nearly every technique with a name worth remembering. Even our Divine Radiance Sect's Seven-Colored Flame Refinement Sutra is in their archives. Do you know Ling Tian Pavilion? They work closely with the Heavenly Ascension Pavilion, helping them gather cultivation methods from every corner of the world."

Qi Yuan's breathing quickened. His eyes lit up. "So, she's rich?"

Seeing that familiar look in her senior brother's eyes, Jiang Lingsu finally felt at ease. "

Mhm

.”

"You think," Qi Yuan mused, "if I married into their sect as a son-in-law, they'd let me read their techniques?"

"Senior Brother, what are you even thinking?" Jiang Lingsu turned her head away, cheeks puffing ever so slightly. "If you need techniques, come to me. I have a few."

That snapped him back to reality. He already had a brick house. Sure, he was missing a carriage, but he wasn't desperate enough to marry as a live-in husband?

"Thank you, Junior Sister. It's just, taking favors for no reason feels..."

"Here." Jiang Lingsu flicked her wrist, and several jade slips landed in his hands. "Take these and study them. I took them from Sister Yaya. Don't let her know."

Without waiting for a response, she fled back to her little wooden hut.

Qi Yuan stared at the jade slips, touched. Back in his room, he opened his alternate account. He let out a breath of relief thinking of what she had asked today.

"The Blood-Clothed Sword God persona suits me too well. Of course she’d get suspicious. The Mad Daoist is safer, nothing about that identity points to me." He looked up at the twin suns overhead. "Time for the Mad Daoist and the Seven-Desires Demon Lord to take the stage."

There were still many Bright Palace outposts in the Hundred Nations. He had to erase them one by one.

"They used to be my beloved White Moonlights. I'll personally send them off to reunite with their ancestors."

***

Outside the Cloudmist Mountain.

True Lord Windrage and True Lord Strongflood arrived together. They glared at the great array enveloping the mountain.

"That Liuqin actually shut himself in here to cultivate?" Windrage's eyes burned with fury. "Cultivate? More like rolling around with some Great Shang female cultivators!"

His disciple, Po Lang, seemed to have died at the hands of the Divine Radiance Sect. Yet instead of avenging him, Liuqin hid away in seclusion. Naturally, Windrage was livid.

"Perhaps he reached an important point in cultivation," Lord Strongflood said in an attempt to mediate.

Suppressing his anger, Windrage shouted toward the array, "Liuqin! Come out at once!"

He was a late-stage Nascent Soul, and his father was a Violet Palace powerhouse. Arrogance came naturally. Still, the mountain stayed dead silent. The two exchanged a look. Had something happened?

Just then, a wild laugh echoed through the air. "The world calls me mad, but I laugh at those who cannot see."

A ragged middle-aged man appeared out of thin air, wearing a tattered daoist robe. He clutched a vegetable knife, his eyes shining with madness.

Lord Windrage stiffened. "Who the hell are you?"

The man grinned, pointing the knife at him. "I am the Mad Daoist."

Fengnu's face shifted.

"Mad Daoist?”

The Divine Flower Society's Mad Daoist?

"What are you doing here?" Lord Strongflood demanded.

The Mad Daoist sneered. "Shouldn't I be asking you that? Instead of staying obediently at the outposts, you run around and waste my time."

He swung his knife, charging at Lord Windrage and Lord Strongflood like a full-blown lunatic.

The two late-stage Nascent Souls had absolutely no desire to fight. Something about this situation felt off. They both turned to retreat and reassess later.

Yet, that deranged voice clung to them like a shadow. "You can leave but your corpses stay."

The knife carved a bright arc through the air, slashing straight toward the two True Lords. They activated their protective divine techniques at once, but the knife was unstoppable, cutting through everything as if their defenses were paper.

"You dare oppose the Bright Palace? You're dead!" Windrage roared.

A heartbeat later, his body split cleanly in half. His body and soul were annihilated. Not long after, Strongflood suffered the same fate.

To Qi Yuan, these late-stage Nascent Souls were like newborn chicks. He didn't even have to use his Origin Divine Technique. They never stood a chance.

After butchering the two, Qi Yuan flicked his wrist, and their storage bags flew neatly into his hand.

"Windrage barely qualifies as a proper White Moonlight. And this Strongflood? He is dirt poor. He dares come to Great Shang when he's this broke? If there were internet here, I'd roast him online until he died of shame."

With that, his figure disappeared. His other identities had work to do.

***

Wei Kingdom, at the royal palace

The Bright Palace had turned the royal harem into their private playground. Several Nascent Souls were spending the night on the dragon bed, thoroughly enjoying themselves.

Out of nowhere, a miserable, drawn-out scream boomed across the sky. "WHERE'S MY CHICKEN? WHERE DID THEY GO?!"

Above the palace, a man in a black robe with wild, unkempt hair appeared, exuding a dangerous aura.

A Nascent Soul flew out to check. "Who are you? This is a Bright Palace outpost. We don't have your chicken!"

"Chicken... You're the ones who stole my chicken!" The wild-haired man trembled with rage. "You bastards, she was family! And you ate her!"

The Nascent Soul suddenly understood. "You're the Seven-Desires Demon Lord?"

He has to be the Seven-Desires Demon Lord from the Divine Flower Society.

The disheveled man pointed a condemning finger at him. "You heartless monsters! You even stole and ate such a cute chicken! Heaven's going to strike you down!”

The Nascent Soul sneered. "Raving lunatic, you are courting death!"

Not only did the man's aura not feel powerful at all, there were more than a dozen Nascent Souls here. This man had come to die.

Outside the palace, some of Wei Kingdom's Nascent Souls looked up with helpless expressions. "Hope this fellow survives..."

Qi Yuan's eyes burned with righteous fury. "Do enough evil, and heaven will punish you! Since the day I was born, I've helped everyone I met. I never stepped on an ant, let alone kill a chicken. You will be struck by divine lightning!"

"Divine lightning? Divine lightning hasn't appeared in this era for ages, idiot!" the Nascent Soul snapped and charged toward him.

Just then, a golden steamed bun materialized in Qi Yuan's hand, blazing with a terrifying aura. He tossed it and the bun landed at the Nascent Soul's feet. The man sensed a sudden rush of pure metallic aura.

A bolt of divine lightning tore through the sky and smashed into him. He tried to resist, but resistance was meaningless.

"No!"

Why had divine lightning suddenly descended? Why was it deadly?

He died confused, unable to understand.

Unbeknownst to him, this was one of Qi Yuan's secret arts. He could condense Metal Essence into a sword. Or bun, if he felt like it. And wherever they fell, the divine lightning followed.

Qi Yuan hovered like a thunder-wielding dragon lord in the clouds. "Time for buns. Chicken-stuffed, by the way.”

Countless buns poured from the sky like hail. The entire Wei Kingdom royal palace darkened under roaring thunderclouds, as if the heavens themselves were enraged.

Cultivators across the capital lifted their heads, stunned. Seeing the dense storm of lightning, terror and awe filled their eyes. Bolts of divine lightning swept across the palace in waves.

A bun was stuffed into every Nascent Soul's mouth, and a lightning strike came to finish the job. Truly, the divine lightning of the Nine Heavens was channeled through steamed buns, descending in righteous wrath.