Chapter 448 - 231: Half-Body Dan Demon

Chapter 448: Chapter 231: Half-Body Dan Demon

Since he wanted the Great Emperor to know he was diligently handling important matters, Zheng Xiu had no qualms about making Yin Qingqing his carriage driver, chauffeuring him and Feng Bei on their leisurely tour of the mountains and lakes. Yin Qingqing might have looked eighteen, but she was a fully ripened fruit, and Zheng Xiu felt not a pang of guilt ordering her around.

There was a certain relish in disciplining someone sent by the Great Emperor.

After a journey spent joking and laughing with Feng Bei, Zheng Xiu arrived before a valley filled with birdsong and fragrant flowers as dusk began to fall.

Peaks converged on both sides, concealing the valley’s entrance. The two great boulders at the mouth resembled the parted lips of a maiden. One side was a tapestry of dazzling flowers, lush fragrant grass, and cheerfully hopping birds. After alighting from the carriage, the Red King ordered Qingqing to guard the entrance. He and Feng Bei entered in single file. The path was narrow at first, barely wide enough for one person. But after a few dozen paces, it suddenly opened up, revealing another world within the valley.

In the distance, the murmur of water sounded like great waves crashing against a shore. The valley pool was the color of green jade. A silvery cascade plunged from the mountaintop, like a sharp, snow-white dagger piercing through a piece of uncut jade.

A simple hut stood on the bank. A bare-chested Swordman with long, unbound hair stood under the waterfall, the long saber at his waist still sheathed. He let the torrent crash down upon him, as immovable as a human boulder.

His body was covered in scars of varying depths.

The Swordman opened his eyes within the waterfall, yet his body remained completely still. "Are you here to kill me?" he asked calmly.

Feng Bei glanced at Zheng Xiu and took a step back, adopting the deferential air of a young woman letting him take the lead.

Zheng Xiu smiled. "Are you aware that Ye Weiyang now exists in name only?"

Gu Qiutang’s brow furrowed slightly, but he remained motionless. "So what?"

"I am recruiting talented individuals to alleviate the Holy Emperor’s burdens and solve the problems of the common people. The grudge between you and Miss Feng Bei from Shuzhou is a trifle. I declare it wiped clean. All you need to do is handle strange cases in the new department, just as you did before, and your monthly pay will be doubled."

At the words "doubled pay," a faint, mocking glint appeared in Gu Qiutang’s eyes.

Zheng Xiu smiled again. "Not enough?"

Gu Qiutang shook his head. "Truly, you live up to your name as the wealthiest man in the world, Red King."

Zheng Xiu heard the disdain for money in Gu Qiutang’s voice, but far from getting angry, he asked with curiosity, "If you don’t care for money, why did you stay with Ye Weiyang and work for the Night Lord?"

"For the greater good," Gu Qiutang said.

"And killing my Feng Bei is for ’the greater good’?"

Upon hearing this, the corners of Feng Bei’s lips curved upward slightly.

"Mystics are an aberration in the Common World."

"Is that what Zhu told you?"

"Zhu?"

"The Night Lord."

"Yes."

"He lied to you."

Gu Qiutang was silent for a moment, then shook his head. "I no longer care about such things. I intend to cultivate in seclusion here until I can glimpse the pinnacle of Martial Arts."

"Hah," Zheng Xiu scoffed. "Martial Arts. Did you know? The Cannibal Painting contains the Martial World from two hundred years ago. The Martial World is dead."

Gu Qiutang shook his head, his tone indifferent. "One man and one saber. That is the Martial World."

Zheng Xiu turned to Feng Bei. "Is he always such a sentimentalist?"

"’Sentimentalist?’" Feng Bei was puzzled.

"You know, the type who’s all angsty, overly sentimental, and kind of a fool."

Feng Bei let out a snort of laughter. "I suppose so." 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

Gu Qiutang didn’t move, his hand tight on his long saber, his face a mask.

The Red King stepped forward, rolling his shoulders and cracking his knuckles.

Feng Bei said in surprise, "You’re..."

"Don’t worry." After taking a few steps, the Red King glanced back and asked with a smile, "By the way, how good are Living Dead Situ Yong’s medical skills, exactly?"

Feng Bei pondered for a moment before answering truthfully, "He can’t bring people back from the dead, but as long as a single breath remains in a person’s body, they won’t die."

Now Gu Qiutang understood. He looked at the refined, wealthy, and imposing "Weak Prince" approaching him and, instead of anger, he laughed. "You?"

"Me."

Zheng Xiu walked up to the hut. "You’ve taken the wrong path."

Gu Qiutang was silent for a moment, still unmoving. He answered succinctly, "And that is?"

"The Immovable Saber."

Gu Qiutang’s pupils shrank. "Absurd!"

"Your will moves, but your body doesn’t. It’s all for show and no substance," Zheng Xiu said, trying to reason with him patiently. "That’s not how you’re supposed to use a Path. How about a wager? If Lower Four is beaten to death, then Gu Qiutang comes with me."

"On your own?" Gu Qiutang was clearly skeptical. If it were Feng Bei making the move, he wouldn’t have doubted it for a second.

Zheng Xiu waded into the pool step by step. "Think of this pool as a cage trapping the both of us," he said as he walked. "Neither you nor I can step outside the water."

’A cage?’

While he was still puzzling over the words, the Immovable Saber watched the Red King step into the Casting range of his "Immovable Saber" technique. He lowered his body into the "Immovable Stance," preparing to unleash an Electric Light Slash at the Red King.

"Move... and... die."

"And that’s why I said you’re practicing it wrong!" The Red King roared with laughter. In an instant, his muscles swelled as if inflated, knotting into stony knots. Two fleshy lumps suddenly bulged from one of his shoulder blades. Then, with a sickening POP, two thick arms tore through his flesh, white bone sprouting from under his skin.

’Huh? Why only on one side?’

This was Zheng Xiu’s first time using his "Dan Demon" Incarnation, but like a "Caged Sparrow," the transformation was incomplete, affecting only one side of his body. He was puzzled. He had no idea, however, of the sheer horror gripping Gu Qiutang. In the blink of an eye, the Red King had taken on the form of a Demon Fiend, sprouting thick, two-meter-long arms from his back. He looked like a Demon God silhouetted against the setting sun. But the moment Zheng Xiu "moved," the Immovable Saber’s Miracle Technique activated. Gu Qiutang teleported behind the Red King and swung his blade at that rock-hard neck.

But what met his blade was not just a thick, sturdy neck, but three massive hands.

"From this day forward, Lower Four is dead."

Zheng Xiu’s multiple arms pinned Gu Qiutang to the ground and began to beat him senseless.

「Outside the valley.」

BOOM!

Obediently standing guard at the valley entrance, Yin Qingqing heard a tremendous BOOM. She looked up to see a column of water surging into the sky, only to fall back down as a torrential downpour.

SPLASH!

Yin Qingqing stared blankly at the massive pillar of water, letting herself be drenched to the bone.

A short while later, the Red King emerged, carrying a blood-soaked man on his shoulder.

The man was perfectly still, like a corpse.

’Is he dead?’

Yin Qingqing stared at the "corpse" on the Prince’s shoulder and trembled in shock, the movement shaking a shower of glistening water from her drenched form.

’Who did this to him?’

Just then, Gu Qiutang let out a faint gasp of breath.

"Let’s move! We’re heading back!"

The Red King laughed heartily, shouldering the motionless Immovable Saber.