Squelch!
With a soft sound, Guan Tianyue's other leg parted ways with his body.
A piercing scream echoed through the front mountain's great hall.
Fang Shuwen had reached Zhou Qingmei's side by then. Seeing this, he said to her in a low voice:
"Are all the people in your Pearl Pavilion this vicious?"
Zhou Qingmei said earnestly:
"Anyone may put evil demons and heretics to death."
"Good point!"
Fang Shuwen nodded earnestly as well.
Zuo Qingshuang rolled her eyes hard from the side. How could this boy have the nerve to call Xu Chongshan vicious?
He ought to take a look at himself...
Feng Mantian, the Black Sha Cult's leader who had once held sway, had been beaten beyond human recognition.
He had even been smashed clean through the wall... Repairing it later would be quite a hassle.
Leaving Feng Mantian aside, there were the other old devils in the hall alone.
Qingyangzi's head had been smashed into his torso, and a hole had been punched clean through Ghost Scholar's chest.
As for Blissful Monk, his entire body had exploded.
By comparison, Li Nanchen had originally been relatively presentable... only for his own father to chop him into ten thousand pieces.
Now the entire Pearl Pavilion was drenched in blood, all this boy's handiwork.
And yet he acted as if nothing had happened and called Xu Chongshan vicious?
But looking at Fang Shuwen now, when he wasn't fighting, he really did have a somewhat refined air about him.
Even his name sounded elegant.
It had both "Shu" and "Wen" in it...
If she hadn't seen him kill with her own eyes just now, who would have imagined that he was an unparalleled fiend?
She thought for a moment, then said:
"Young Hero Fang, sorry for the trouble, but could you... go and see if Feng Mantian has the antidote to [Qi-Severing Powder] on him?"
"The antidote? Master, you've been poisoned?"
Only then did Zhou Qingmei and Lu Xiaoqing realize what had happened.
Fang Shuwen was taken aback, but he didn't hesitate. He went straight to Feng Mantian's corpse, though its chest and abdomen had been caved in by his blows, nearly flattening it into a pancake.
It really was a miserable sight... He searched it with a look of disgust, but found nothing.
"Was he the one who poisoned you?"
Fang Shuwen returned empty-handed, looking a little troubled.
"No... it was Li Nanchen."
Zuo Qingshuang spoke with an odd expression.
Fang Shuwen looked at Li Nanchen, whose remains could be seen all over the hall, then thought for a moment and said:
"Why don't you let me try, Senior?"
They actually didn't have that much time to waste in the hall right now.
Fang Shuwen had fought his way up with Lu Xiaoqing and Zhou Qingmei, tearing open a gap and rescuing quite a few Pearl Pavilion members along the way.
With those people's support, the battle outside had been kept from becoming completely one-sided.
Now they needed fresh forces to join the fight before they could fully withstand the Black Sha Cult's attack.
Fortunately, he hadn't wasted much time killing those men, but he hadn't expected Zuo Qingshuang and the others to have all been poisoned.
Zuo Qingshuang glanced at Fang Shuwen, then at the mangled corpses around them, and finally nodded decisively:
"Try whatever you like, Young Hero!"
Fang Shuwen felt that her words carried the bearing of someone facing death without flinching, and couldn't help marveling that she truly was a senior of the jianghu.
He immediately went behind her and sent the divine art of [Muscle Tendon Change] into her body.
The instant his palm touched her back, Zuo Qingshuang still revealed a trace of fear:
"Young Hero Fang, be gentle..."
Fang Shuwen: "..."
[Qi-Severing Powder] was exceptionally insidious. It hid within the meridians and was extremely difficult to detect.
Even if someone knew they had been poisoned, they still couldn't sense it unless their True Qi circulated.
But now Fang Shuwen's True Qi had entered Zuo Qingshuang's body and, with the cooperation of her inner breath, completed a full cycle through it, yet he hadn't detected a thing.
Fang Shuwen withdrew his hand, looking utterly perplexed, but Zuo Qingshuang's eyes widened:
"The poison... it's gone!!"
She sprang to her feet:
"Qingmei, Qing'er, attend to Young Hero Fang. I'm going out to help in the fight!"
"Master, I'll go with you."
Zhou Qingmei called out hastily.
"No need."
Zuo Qingshuang said at once:
"Young Hero Fang has shown our Pearl Pavilion a kindness as great as the heavens. Help me take good care of him."
As she spoke, she went past Xu Chongshan, who was still hacking off Guan Tianyue's hands and feet, wishing he could chop him into ten thousand pieces, and headed straight for the door.
Xu Chongshan glanced over and hurriedly called out:
"Junior Sister, take it easy... your poison!"
"Young Hero Fang cured me."
By the time those words reached his ears, Zuo Qingshuang was already nowhere to be seen.
Xu Chongshan froze, then, unable to spare any more attention for torturing Guan Tianyue to death, forced himself to circulate his Qi and seal Guan Tianyue's acupoints to stop the bleeding. Only then did he hurry over to Fang Shuwen.
But he was so accustomed to wearing a cold expression that he didn't know how to open his mouth to ask for help.
He scratched his head and ears for a long while, his face flushing red from the effort, yet he couldn't get a single word out.
Fortunately, Fang Shuwen understood:
"Senior, just turn around..."
"All right, all right, all right!"
Xu Chongshan turned around at once:
"Many thanks, Young Hero!!"
Fang Shuwen said no more and repeated what he had done before... In truth, he didn't know exactly how he had cured the poison just now, but since Zuo Qingshuang said it was gone, what he had done was clearly effective. He only had to do it again.
After one full cycle, Xu Chongshan was restored to normal as well.
He turned and gave Fang Shuwen a grateful look, then instructed Zhou Qingmei and Lu Xiaoqing:
"Take good care of Young Hero Fang. I'll be right back!"
With that, he too hurried out, flying forward. But as he passed Guan Tianyue, he saw that blood was still seeping from his wounds, so he sealed a few more of his acupoints...
He was terrified that Guan Tianyue might go and die while he was out, with no regard for anything.
Fang Shuwen scratched his head:
"I have hands and feet of my own. Is there any need to take such care of me?
"And with your Senior Sister Lu in this state, who should be taking care of whom?"
Zhou Qingmei didn't know whether to laugh or cry:
"Perhaps Master and Martial Uncle... are just too happy?
"In any case, if it weren't for you this time, a great calamity really would have befallen our Pearl Pavilion. This kindness is as great as the heavens; we can't thank you enough."
Lu Xiaoqing nodded earnestly as well:
"Qingmei is right. The Pavilion Master isn't here now. If it weren't for you, our Pearl Pavilion would have been finished this time."
Fang Shuwen looked at the other Pearl Pavilion disciples in the hall who had been poisoned by [Qi-Severing Powder], their eyes like those of baby birds clamoring to be fed, and said helplessly:
"Let's not talk about thanks for now... let's get on with curing the poison."
The Pearl Pavilion disciples, who had long been waiting but hadn't dared speak, hurried over at last.
It was easy enough for Fang Shuwen to cure them, one after another... Whether intentionally or not, every disciple whose poison he cured told Zhou Qingmei and Lu Xiaoqing before leaving that they absolutely had to take good care of Young Hero Fang!
Those who knew understood what was going on; those who didn't might have thought they were exchanging secret code words.