Chapter 2397: Come On, Young Man, Lift Your Leg

Chapter 2397: Chapter 2115: Come On, Young Man, Lift Your Leg

Of course, seeing Gan Ning mining so smoothly, Zhou Yu naturally dumped all his own ballast stones and casually loaded over a thousand tons of ballast iron ore into his empty cabins. Once he got back he could casually smelt a few hundred tons of iron, which would count as making his money back.

Zhou Yu felt inexplicably a bit envious—shameless, no bottom line, grass doesn’t grow where he passes, the sky three feet high above Gan Ning’s head. The iron ore from several hundred ships of all sizes—by Zhou Yu’s estimate, the iron smelted from so much high‑grade ore would be enough to arm hundreds of thousands, close to a million armored soldiers. He suddenly felt this was a huge profit.

But this was just talk. Zhou Yu was rather helpless too: this place was too far away, and unless they came this way again in the future, even Gan Ning couldn’t possibly come here just to mine ore. As for building a foundry on the spot and shipping the finished steel back—this kind of thing was only good to think about.

After several experts proficient in geomancy carefully investigated the surroundings, they confirmed that there was no coal mine within several hundred li, and by their estimate there wasn’t any coal within a thousand li either. With that, local iron smelting became a rather ridiculous plan.

With Lyu Bu’s disgruntled expression above them, Gan Ning, perfectly satisfied, started the northbound return with several hundred fully loaded ships of iron ore. In roughly a month they’d be back in the Central Plains.

“Hah, I really didn’t expect this—after Ascending you can still come down to the mortal world.” Liu Ye said, his eyes glowing. He and Jia Xu were the most interested in the Method of Immortality; if Immortals weren’t such scammers, the two of them might already have turned into Immortals together to extend their lives.

“You can forget it. You’ve got no way to reach that Martial Void Breaker stage. In terms of Martial Force, you’re at the bottom of our group.” Chen Xi casually took a jab at Liu Ye.

“Right now we’ve got a big problem. How are we supposed to deal with Lyu Bu?” Li Youu said, frowning. Not long ago they had just taken care of all people involved in that incident who could prove anything, and now Lyu Bu had descended to the mortal world—another hidden danger.

“It shouldn’t be a big problem.” Chen Xi said, rubbing his chin. “This guy’s political IQ is so‑so, but the Martial Force he reveres, and his own disposition, can actually be used by the Central Plains. After all, he’s someone who guarded the borders for the state and smashed the Xianbei border champions.”

“That’s true too. At this point, even if Marquis Wenn stands on the opposite side, his impact on us isn’t that big anymore. And the odds of Marquis Wenn choosing us are far greater than him choosing anyone else; we can even give him a reason to keep fighting.” Lub Su said cautiously after pondering a bit.

“I think maybe this time Zilong might actually win.” Guo Jia said with a smile. “A pity I couldn’t be on the battlefield in person to observe a thing or two.”

“That’s Marquis Wenn we’re talking about. If Zilong can beat him, that’s really terrifying.” Fa Zheng said in awe. Everyone in the Central Plains knew how strong Lyu Bu was—he was just a monster.

“Hah, true enough.” Guo Jia said casually, a glint of light flashing through his eyes.

Very soon the group drifted back, flying. Zhao Yun was a bit ragged, but the fact that he could fly meant his injuries were really not serious. What was more terrifying was that when Zhao Yun flew back, one hand was holding the Dragon Gall Spear, and the other was carrying Lyu Bu’s Sky Piercer halberd.

“Marquis Wenn actually disappeared?” Fa Zheng squinted up at the people in the sky. Only Zhao Yun looked a bit like someone who had just gone through a fight; the others didn’t have a single damn thing wrong with them.

“He won?” Guo Jia was also full of disbelief; he’d only been talking nonsense earlier.

When they flew over Ye City, Zhao Yun naturally landed at his own home first. He had already seen his wife standing at the door waiting. As for reporting what had happened, he’d leave that to Guan Yu and the others to explain. Still, with Ma Chao mixed into the group, it all felt a bit awkward.

Speaking of which, Ma Chao had indeed been extremely depressed after Lyu Bu scared him before leaving. Zhao Yun said Ma Chao could come to Ye City with him and join a First Stage short‑range assault class—he guaranteed Ma Chao’s strength would greatly improve within a month. Ma Chao decisively ditched Pang De and the others and ran off to Ye City with Zhao Yun.

After all, right now the relationship between Liu Cao wasn’t that tense, and Ma Chao counted as one of those rare Strange Species, so even the Xiahou Brothers didn’t mind Ma Chao flying to Ye City with Zhao Yun. As for today’s Lyu Bu incident, the Xiahou Brothers really did need to report to Cao Cao.

Actually, besides Ma Chao, who still hadn’t figured out what the hell had happened and why he’d also been treated as a target, everyone else already understood. They knew this was basically just a farce—aside from Zhao Yun, who was truly unlucky, for the others there wouldn’t be any real problem.

Lyu Bu would never do something like killing Ma Yunlu, and he wouldn’t really kill Ma Chao either. The only person he could vent on was Zhao Yun. The reason it blew up this big—put bluntly—was because Zhao Yun was too strong. If it were a normal person, they’d have been beaten unconscious by Lyu Bu long ago. At that point Lyu Bu wouldn’t keep going; he couldn’t very well let his own daughter become a widow right after getting married.

If that happened, how would Lyu Bu face Qiling’s questioning? It was true that Lyu Bu’s head wasn’t screwed on right, but it was also true that Lyu Bu cared about his family.

Given the current established facts, Lyu Bu couldn’t really butcher Zhao Yun. Even though he was furious, not long after he started fighting he knew he couldn’t actually go for the kill.

That was also why Gan Ning had cried to the heavens for Nanhua to wake Lyu Bu up, forcibly ending the Zhao‑Lyu battle. Even though Lyu Bu wasn’t happy about that, he didn’t say anything—that was the reason.

Besides the fact that Gan Ning really did save Lyu Bu’s life, anyway you put it, what Gan Ning did was basically giving Lyu Bu a way to step down, letting him cool off and think about how to solve this properly, so he wouldn’t go to war in a rage. The way Lyu Bu was acting before was entirely because he was too furious and ignored a lot of things, which led to that mess.

“Zilong!” As soon as Zhao Yun landed, Lyu Qiling and Ma Yunlu pounced on him, then both of them caught a heavy stench of blood on Zhao Yun. They couldn’t help panicking and started frantically patting him up and down, finally confirming that although Zhao Yun was injured, it wasn’t serious.

“Good thing you didn’t take any serious wounds. My dad’s gone.” Lyu Qiling let out a long breath and said.

“Here, this is for you.” Zhao Yun handed the Sky Piercer to Lyu Qiling. Lyu Qiling froze, then looked at Zhao Yun in a fluster, “You didn’t kill my dad, did you!”

“…” Zhao Yun stared speechlessly at the panicked Lyu Qiling. “Marquis Wenn was just an avatar. His real body couldn’t come over. I just beat that part back.”

“Oh, that’s good, that’s good.” Lyu Qiling patted his little heart, looking completely relieved. What he feared most was his husband and his father ending up hurting each other badly. The current situation was simply perfect. As for his dad’s avatar being beaten back—ha, that just means he can have some peaceful days again for a while.

“Um, Yun Lu, I’m sorry. This kind of thing won’t happen again.” Zhao Yun comforted the equally flustered Ma Yunlu beside him.

“Mm, as long as husband is fine.” Ma Yunlu paused for a moment, then broke into a smile.

“So, did my dad say anything?” Lyu Qiling asked, slightly worried. He knew full well his dad’s true body could come, and if the avatar got blown up, there was a chance Lyu Bu himself would show up.

“Nothing much, don’t worry.” Zhao Yun patted Lyu Qiling’s shoulder and smiled, as if nothing at all had happened.

“Um, Zilong, if my dad comes again, let me talk to him, okay? He’s just more worried about me.” Lyu Qiling lowered his head, tapping the ground with the tip of his boot, his fingers tangled together, speaking with a hint of hesitation.

“No need. Since I married you two, I’ll naturally handle this myself.” Zhao Yun wore a warm smile as he pulled Ma Yunlu and Lyu Qiling into his arms. “I’m really strong.”

While Zhao Yun was busy comforting the delicate wives at home, Zhang Fei and the others were over there laying it on thick for Chen Xi’s group, describing just how savage Lyu Bu was—practically super savage and so on.

“Ha, so to sum it up, Zilong went all out just to knock down one avatar of Marquis Wenn, and then Marquis Wenn said he’d personally come over in a month.” Chen Xi pressed his hand to his forehead, looking rather helpless. “So, what’s Zilong thinking? Marquis Wenn wants to chop him.”

“Zilong doesn’t seem to have any special thoughts about it.” Guan Yu shook his head. “This is the kind of matter we’re not really suited to meddle in—an upright official finds it hard to judge family disputes.”

“A father-in-law beating up his son-in-law—let’s just wait and watch when the time comes. Since Marquis Wenn isn’t going to go for a killing blow, then nobody should intervene.” Chen Xi said casually. Lyu Bu hitting Zhao Yun? Fine, hit all you want. And since it conveniently happens to be a father-in-law and son-in-law, it’s even less likely anything will really go wrong.

Guan Yu and Zhang Fei both nodded. This wave, the reason they didn’t gang up on Lyu Bu included this factor. After all, when someone else’s old man is beating his son-in-law, it really feels inappropriate to step in. Otherwise, if this had been like a few years back, once they discovered Lyu Bu, everyone would have rushed in to hack away.

“This is pure disaster falling from the sky on me!” After hearing the whole story from beginning to end, Ma Chao nearly smashed his head into the ground. What kind of mess was this?

“Doesn’t this just prove how much Marquis Wenn cares about you?” Chen Xi smirked wickedly. It was ridiculous. Normally, Lyu Bu would only pick on Zhao Yun, but since Zhao Yun’s other wife is Ma Chao’s younger sister, then you can’t calculate things that casually.

Lyu Bu and Ma Chao have all kinds of stories: Ma Chao getting chased and hacked; Ma Chao getting hunted down; Ma Chao getting smashed by Lyu Bu with one blow into a thundercloud; Ma Chao in high spirits running into Lyu Bu, only to be rammed and beaten into a coma, lying in bed for half a month…

In short, there are plenty of stories between Lyu Bu and Ma Chao, and Lyu Bu really enjoys tormenting Ma Chao. So, when other people get caught up in this affair, at most Lyu Bu will give them a black face. But if Ma Chao gets caught up in it, he is absolutely going to be flayed a layer before it’s over.

“Come on, lift a leg.” Tong Yuan watched with interest as Ma Chao was there head-butting the ground, looking like he couldn’t go on living.

Ma Chao stared blankly at this white-haired, child-faced old man, who he remembered seemed to be called Tong Yuan. Completely baffled, he hesitated twice, then lifted a leg.

Tong Yuan bent his knuckles slightly and tapped in the air. Ma Chao felt as if struck by lightning, instantly hugging his knee and hopping around everywhere. Only after quite a while did he recover, then grabbed his latest model, perfectly nurtured Five-Hook Divine Flying Silver Gun, ready to have a showdown with Tong Yuan. Was there really such bullying in this world?