A Slap Sends Him Flying

The Bronze Coffin was pitch-black. A woman was crying, while a man sighed.

It was only after a long while that the inside of the coffin finally quieted down.

By Earth's reckoning, it was already the middle of the night.

After the harrowing escape, followed by their battle against those little crocodiles, everyone—including Lu Zhou—was exhausted and listless.

Gradually, they all fell asleep.

But no one slept soundly.

Quite a few people would wake up with a start in their sleep. Some women even woke up crying.

Like Ye Fan and Pang Bo, Lu Zhou slept poorly.

He knew that the Crocodile Ancestor's divine embryo and the Great Accomplishment Sacred Body's Deity's Thought had both entered this Bronze Coffin. There was no way he could sleep peacefully.

Just in case, he took the Quasi-Emperor forbidden artifact out of the Qiankun Pearl and hid it close to his body beneath his clothes.

After only five or six hours, everyone woke up. It took nearly another two hours before their emotions finally calmed somewhat.

Lu Zhou sat alone in a corner far away from both Ye Fan and Li Xiaoman, quietly listening to their discussions and speculation.

Before long, they discovered that someone beside Ye Fan had died.

Lu Zhou began watching the show again.

He watched Liu Yunzhi lead people in challenging Ye Fan, watched Ye Fan's best buddy Pang Bo argue with Liu Yunzhi's group, and watched Li Xiaoman deliver that seemingly rational speech.

All he wanted was to be a quiet bystander.

Yet he had not expected Liu Yunzhi's path to death to be so profoundly cultivated.

Who knew which wire in his head had gone wrong? After seeing that quite a few people supported Ye Fan, he deliberately—or perhaps casually—turned the flames toward Lu Zhou.

They heard Liu Yunzhi say,

"If it wasn't Ye Fan, then who was it? Could the murderer be someone else among us?"

As he spoke, his gaze remained fixed on Ye Fan. But instead of turning toward Pang Bo as he had in the original story, he looked at Lu Zhou, who was sitting alone in a corner.

Following his gaze, everyone turned to stare at Lu Zhou.

They remembered that there was still an outsider present: Lu Zhou.

They also recalled Lu Zhou's ferocity on the Five-Colored Altar, where he had slaughtered enemies with the Vajra Pestle and Jade Ruyi in hand.

He was even fiercer than Ye Fan, who had been called a barbarian, and Pang Bo, who carried a door plaque.

Only then did they remember that there was someone here stronger than Ye Fan.

Going by what Liu Yunzhi's group had just said, and by Zhou Yi's reasoning that he did not believe Ye Fan would kill his own classmates,

then Lu Zhou, the outsider, seemed more like the murderer.

After all, Lu Zhou was stronger than Ye Fan, and he had no years-long friendship with the dead man.

But the moment this thought arose in some people's minds, they extinguished it.

They could not think of any motive Lu Zhou would have for murder.

They remembered that during Lu Zhou's battle against the Divine Crocodiles on the Five-Colored Altar, he had saved Liu Yiyi, Zhang Wenchang, and several others at critical moments.

In the end, he had even fought back-to-back with Ye Fan and Pang Bo, blocking the largest wave of Divine Crocodile attacks.

The three of them had also killed the most Divine Crocodiles.

If not for them, who knew whether any of them would still be alive now

"Liu Yunzhi, what do you mean? Have you gone rabid? Biting whoever you can catch?"

"Lu Zhou can't be the murderer either. Don't forget, if Lu Zhou hadn't slaughtered his way through them just now, we might all have died back there."

It was Pang Bo who spoke.

Perhaps because they had fought side by side just now, he had developed a favorable impression of Lu Zhou. Just as he defended Ye Fan, he now defended Lu Zhou, voicing what some people were thinking.

Though Ye Fan said nothing, his expression showed that he too intended to stand by Lu Zhou!

In Ye Fan's eyes, Liu Yunzhi really had become the rabid dog Pang Bo described.

But before Pang Bo could finish, Lu Zhou's "Enough" cut off what he was about to say!

Lu Zhou's voice was not loud and carried no emotion. It sounded exceedingly calm.

Lu Zhou noticed that although Liu Yunzhi, who held the Fish drum, was looking at him, his gaze lingered more often on the half Vajra Pestle and the Jade Ruyi in Lu Zhou's hands.

Lu Zhou sneered.

Greed was the original sin!

Then everyone saw Lu Zhou, who had been quietly sitting cross-legged beside the small Bronze Coffin, rise to his feet.

He gripped the Jade Ruyi in his left hand and held the Vajra Pestle in his right as he walked toward Liu Yunzhi step by step.

"Y-you... what are you trying to do?"

Liu Yunzhi involuntarily took half a step back. Meeting Lu Zhou's utterly placid gaze, he felt afraid for some reason.

Despite his fear, he did not believe that Lu Zhou, an outsider, would dare do anything to him in full view of everyone.

That was what he thought. Li Changqing and Wang Yan beside him thought the same.

They were not the only ones. When they saw Lu Zhou walk toward Liu Yunzhi, many of the others thought so as well.

They believed Lu Zhou would at most defend himself verbally, just as Pang Bo and Ye Fan had done in the face of Liu Yunzhi's suspicions and accusations.

Even if he intended to fight, surely he would need to let his emotions build up first.

Yet what happened next quickly made them all understand what kind of person Lu Zhou was.

Lu Zhou walked up to Liu Yunzhi and, without a word, slapped him across the face.

The Fish drum in Liu Yunzhi's hand glowed, but so did the Jade Ruyi and Vajra Pestle in Lu Zhou's hands.

Then the light emitted by the Fish drum, which had little energy remaining to begin with, went out.

Smack!

The sound was exceptionally piercing in the silent Bronze Coffin.

Lu Zhou was now incredibly strong. With a single slap, he sent Liu Yunzhi flying several meters away. Liu Yunzhi slammed heavily into the coffin wall before falling to the ground.

"Aah!"

Liu Yunzhi let out a heart-wrenching scream. His mouth was crooked, the teeth on half his face had fallen out, and who knew how many bones throughout his body had broken.

"Aah! You... how could you... ah..."

"Y-you actually dared to hit... ah..."

It was Wang Yan and Li Changqing. Seeing Liu Yunzhi sent flying by Lu Zhou's slap, they instinctively began accusing Lu Zhou in unison.

Even now, some of their attitudes had not changed.

Before they could finish accusing him, Lu Zhou slapped them both.

They too were sent flying by Lu Zhou, following in Liu Yunzhi's footsteps. Their mouths and eyes were twisted, and they felt as though every bone in their bodies had broken!

They lay on the ground beside Liu Yunzhi, wailing miserably as blood spilled from their mouths.

Clearly, Lu Zhou had held back. He had no intention of killing them outright.

Lu Zhou was wary of the Great Accomplishment Sacred Body's Deity's Thought. He remembered that in the original story, the Great Accomplishment Sacred Body's Deity's Thought had once saved Liu Yunzhi's group of three in a saber-toothed tiger's lair.

Lu Zhou had forgotten why, but he was certain it had happened.

Otherwise, Lu Zhou truly could have slapped these three bastards to death right now!

Though he had not killed Liu Yunzhi's group, this scene instantly stunned everyone present.

Some people instinctively backed away several steps, not daring to get too close to Lu Zhou.

Only then did they gain a deeper understanding of Lu Zhou, this outsider.

"Now then, does anyone still think I'm the murderer?" Lu Zhou's voice remained calm.