"Daoist"

That day, Xiang Yang sat on a small wooden stool in the courtyard of his home, chopping firewood. A headscarf wrapped around his head concealed his gleaming golden hair, and he wore light-brown hemp clothes. His features were mild and unassuming, making him look like an ordinary mountain villager.

The firewood cleaver in his hand was long and narrow, more blunt than sharp—low-grade even among cleavers. Yet in Xiang Yang's hands, it was unstoppable. Following the grain of the wood, one strike split it in two, and another divided it into four, a pleasing sight to behold.

Yet after chopping only half the wood, Xiang Yang stopped. His ears twitched and his brows furrowed. He rose and walked outside, where quite a few people had gathered at the village entrance. Most of them trembled with fear, their legs shaking like sieves.

Ming Family Village's chief in particular wore a fawning expression and behaved with utter humility. He treated three people with even greater respect than he would his own father, not a trace remaining of the greedy look he had worn when he first met Xiang Yang.

Three outsiders had arrived: one middle-aged man and two young men, apparently master and disciples. All wore Daoist robes, but in Xiang Yang's eyes, they were merely hanging up a sheep's head while selling dog meat. Even Wu Yixi, who had accidentally cultivated genuine Daoist Sect arts, seemed more like a Daoist Sect disciple than they did.

They possessed not the slightest humility. Their manner was vile and their speech crude, while their eyes repeatedly swept over the rather attractive women in the village, their lecherous intent laid bare. Xiang Yang found it difficult to lump them together with the pure and detached practitioners of the Dao.

Xiang Yang was concealing his extraordinary