Chapter 173: A Way to Eliminate All Corrupt Cultivators

—We meet again, Daoist Master Wang. I still remember our last conversation. Unfortunately, we parted on bad terms due to Daoist Master Shi, which was truly regrettable. Anyway, thanks to your esteemed master, our sect is now renowned throughout the world and mortal enemies with all righteous sects. Although we have held a thousand-year-long grudge with the Daoist sects, we are now quite passive, acting out of disorder and making missteps.

—Your senior sister, Fairy Bu Yu, seems to have cultivated the very Yin-Yang Secret Scroll that our sect has long been seeking. This has stirred up quite a bit of debate within our sect. In the coming days, some of the more extreme experts may come looking for you two, which I truly wish to avoid.

—I hold great admiration for you, Daoist Master Wang, and I have long admired the pure and untainted Fairy Bu Yu as well. How about this? If you hand over the Yin-Yang Secret Scroll to me now, I can take it back and present it to my father to claim merit and a reward. This would also help me restrain my hot-headed uncles and elders.

—What do you say? There's no need to waste your efforts investigating our social networks. If our sect couldn't even handle something as simple as getting rid of our tracks, we wouldn't be qualified to stand against the Daoist sects at all.

Whoosh!

The video ended there. Wang Sheng held the phone wrapped in an evidence bag and silently gave the screen the middle finger. He then pulled out his own phone, added the YouChat ID from the other phone, and called his senior sister.

"Senior Sister, it's me. Send me the most vicious meme you've got for cursing someone. I have to uphold the dignity of the righteous path. Yeah, the nastiest one you've got."

Several nearby officers exchanged glances. Wang Sheng quickly operated both phones and sent a reply to the young master—a meme captioned, "Eat shit, you bastard!"

Tsk. Using memes to curse someone actually feels pretty satisfying.

When he saw the message pop up in the chat box, he noticed that the other party had already blocked him.

He calmly returned the phone. "This is important evidence. Please investigate the other party's login details and report back to the Special Investigation Unit immediately."

"Understood, Advisor Wang. We're already on it."

"Keep people stationed in this village for now. I'm worried our enemies will lash out and come back for revenge."

"Yes, sir. Don't worry, we've already received orders from higher-ups."

Even so, Wang Sheng still felt a bit uneasy. With his hands behind his back, he circled the village several times and sent out his spiritual consciousness repeatedly to search the surroundings. He didn't detect any signs of cultivators.

Since it was his first time flying on a sword, he had been too careless. Out of fear of flying too high, he had kept low whenever he passed through the wilderness, ultimately exposing his position and scaring away the members of the Yin-Yang All-Creation Sect.

Honestly, no one else was to blame.

While the authorities were scouring the world in search of the Yin-Yang All-Creation Sect's corrupt cultivators, he and his senior sister somehow managed to encounter the very individuals the moment they stepped outside. They even accidentally stumbled upon their fiend-breeding site while trying to find a place to charge a phone. It really seemed like fate had brought them together with this sect.

Wang Sheng finished searching the village thoroughly—coming up empty-handed—just as the police wrapped up their investigation.

The dozen or so vicious dogs were being kept in an orchard in the mountains. Many villagers knew about it, but raising dogs for guarding property was common in most areas of the Hua Republic. Some people also secretly raised large dogs to sell for profit. Hence, the villagers hadn't thought much of it.

Besides, after every "dog sale," the "bosses" would give the villagers little gifts like small bags of rice or flour, or little bottles of cooking oil. They said it was compensation for the noise the dogs made. Their gestures made the villagers even less inclined to complain. Hence, no one had ever reported it. Although they were in an age of order and prosperity, most people wouldn't turn down a few free perks.

Wait, who did Senior Sister ever use that meme on?

Wang Sheng couldn't help but recall that time on Mount Sanqing, when he and his senior sister ran into a cultivator from Mount Hua. The man had seemed to be pursuing their senior sister, but he was unfortunately rather off-putting.

While thinking about the meme, Wang Sheng requested the video from the police and sent it to his master.

It didn't take long for Qing Yanzi to reply.

Qing Yanzi: Provoke them a bit. See if you can get them to strike first, then keep reeling them in.

Wang Sheng smiled calmly. He and his master seemed to be on the same page, but such an approach clearly wasn't that effective.

Before his breakthrough, he could have had some concerns. Now, having reached the Illusory Core Realm, Wang Sheng had undergone a genuine transformation that strengthened him by leaps and bounds. Corrupt cultivators who tried to overwhelm him and his senior sister with sheer numbers would be nothing more than cannon fodder for Spiritless.

Moreover, his senior sister, who cultivated using the Dao of the Yin-Yang Eight Trigrams, had received guidance from an immortal and was now at the peak of the Illusory Core Realm. Even if she couldn't defeat Golden Core Realm experts yet, she could at least hold them off.

The only issue was that his plan to cultivate at the Wudang Mountains seemed less feasible now. After all, he couldn't implicate the Wudang Daoist lineage. Among the various sacred mountains that held Daoist heritages, most only had junior cultivators who hadn't yet reached the Seed Formation Realm.

Stepping onto his sword, he flew back to the mountain hollow. Two Special Investigation Unit members had already arrived to take over the site. Wang Sheng asked them how they intended to proceed.

As he had already expected, the two Special Investigation Unit members didn't dare perform any killings in front of Mu Wanxuan. Even though she wasn't particularly concerned about such matters, they still planned to wait until the martial siblings had left before shooting most of the vicious dogs, sending only one or two to the nearest research institute branch.

As soon as Wang Sheng and Mu Wanxuan flew away on Wang Sheng's sword, gunshots and barks echoed from the mountain hollow. The noise died down not long after.

They didn't fly too far. They just went to a small forest nearby, where they could rest and monitor the mountain village while discussing where to go next.

Wang Sheng wasn't particularly concerned about the fiend breeders. In his previous life, although he had heard of fiends harming people, they had been extremely rare cases.

Back in ancient times, lots of deep mountains and forests hadn't been explored yet. In today's Hua Republic, however, very few places were still undiscovered. Creatures that had been turned into fiends simply had no place to survive. In his previous life, he once bypassed the firewall and read foreign news online that showed large groups of fiends ravaging the wilderness beyond the southern borders of other countries.

If anything, the threat that the Yin-Yang All-Creation Sect posed worried him more. He and his senior sister watched the video several more times, dissecting it carefully.

Soon, Mou Yue sent over a summary of their findings. According to the report, the registration and login info of the social media accounts turned out to be completely fabricated. There was no way to trace them to anything useful.

Still, based on the video, the young master of the Yin-Yang All-Creation Sect appeared to be a man under thirty. The way he spoke and pronounced words suggested he had spent some time in the southern provinces. From his stance, hand gestures, and other mannerisms, he came across as extremely confident—bordering on arrogant.

After a few more replays, Wang Sheng remained convinced that the man had thoroughly altered his appearance. Only his eyes—which were very unpleasant to look at—could still be considered real.

"Where do we go next, Senior Sister?"

Remembering that her phone had run out of battery, he passed his phone to Mu Wanxuan. They couldn't really drift around aimlessly like this.

Mu Wanxuan thought for a while. She then clenched her fist and fiercely declared, "Counterattack!"

Since the enemy had already shown up at their doorstep, waiting passively would be foolish. It was better to strike first.

Wang Sheng couldn't help but laugh. "The issue is, we don't know where they are. We can't counterattack if we don't have a target."

Mu Wanxuan blinked, patted Wang Sheng on the shoulder and then sent him a meme with the caption, "The heavens place great responsibility on this man."

Obviously, she expected her junior brother to handle this kind of problem.

Since Wang Sheng wasn't quite sure either, he started a video call to check in with their master. After confirming he was fine, the three discussed the matter in detail.

Qing Yanzi still didn't want them to take unnecessary risks. Without sufficient backup and prearranged ambush support, he wasn't willing to let his disciples expose themselves recklessly. Besides, after the Immortal Dao Conference and the battle to secure the celestial tablet, the Yin-Yang All-Creation Sect had become much more cautious. Although the authorities had thrown out bait several times, this particular big fish hadn't taken it once.

Fighting wits with corrupt cultivators wasn't as simple as it sounded. It required intense planning and respect for the enemy's intelligence.

"Master, does Mistress have any ideas?" Wang Sheng asked.

Qing Yanzi sighed.

—Your mistress is a woman of action. She's been purging Yin-Yang All-Creation Sect branches and strongholds. While 'nothing ventured, nothing gained' is sound advice, trying to force them to regroup and challenge us openly isn't going to be easy unless we find something that really strikes a nerve. Considering they've already obtained a third of the Yin-Yang Secret Scroll, it won't be easy to use that as bait again.

Wang Sheng and Mu Wanxuan fell into deep thought. After a while, Mu Wanxuan lit up, typed something on the phone, and held it up to show him.

Challenge them to a one-on-one duel. Find an isolated place and fight to the death. A final duel at the peak of Mount Hua

[1]

!

Wang Sheng was speechless.

How much does she dislike that young Mount Hua Daoist Priest who tried to flirt with her? If a fight really broke out there, half their Daoist heritage could be reduced to rubble.

"Senior Sister, those corrupt cultivators kill without hesitation and slaughter the innocent like it's nothing. They couldn't care less about honor or fairness. Some of them may be arrogant, but they're not stupid enough to fall for something so obvious."

Mu Wanxuan pouted, furrowed her brow, and went back to pondering.

Just like the night they had devised a plan to use the celestial tablet as bait—which dealt a heavy blow to the Yin-Yang All-Creation Sect—the three racked their brains to come up with a plan again.

Qing Yanzi had a feeling that this little group of theirs was about to stir up some more trouble. Soon enough, Wang Sheng looked up at his phone.

Here it comes,

Qing Yanzi thought. He waited expectantly for his second disciple to speak.

"Master, do you remember the ancient devil at the Ziyan Temple?"

Qing Yanzi blinked, then adjusted the phone camera, inadvertently revealing glimpses of his elegantly furnished room and the breathtaking Erhai Lake scenery beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows. Finally, the camera revealed a Buddhist master sitting cross-legged on the bed beside him.

Rufeng was right beside him!

1. A meme about two guys having a super melodramatic final battle at the top of the Forbidden City in the Chinese Drama

Top on The Forbidden City,

but Mu Wanxuan replaced Forbidden City with Mount Hua. It also means over-the-top dramatic duels. ☜