Yin Xuege lay on the ground, bound so tightly by shackles that he could not move. He gasped for breath in great gulps and finally recovered from the excruciating pain. His heart pounded powerfully as faint cyan halos followed his blood throughout his body. His shattered bones and twisted nerves and blood vessels rapidly healed, and his strength soon returned.
He struggled with all his might and helplessly discovered that the shackles and fetters on his body weighed at least three to five hundred pounds. Countless binding runes were densely engraved across the instruments of torture, sealing away all his strength. He could barely straighten his body and sit on the ground, but standing and walking were exceedingly difficult.
Wumu's feeble howls came from the opposite side. "Hey, little bat, you aren't dead, are you? Say a few words to Lord Wumu! Do you want to know about your mother? Aha, your mother Yin Huangwu is one incredibly abnormal woman!"
"Back then, she nearly chopped off Lord Wumu's tail! I haven't seen her in over twenty years. Who would've thought she already had a little one?"
"Shut up!" A low, savage bellow rang out. To speak with Yin Xuege, Wumu had stuck his doglike nose out through the ventilation window again. A heavily armored guard suddenly charged over and viciously smacked Wumu's nose with a metal shield. Poor Wumu's nose was the most vulnerable part of his body. The blow sent blood spraying from it, and he cried out hoarsely in pain, clutching his nose as he leaped and dashed wildly around the cell. He no longer had the strength to yap.
Yin Xuege chuckled a few times. Taking pleasure in Wumu's misfortune, he shouted, "Wumu, you shouldn't be a werewolf commander. You should be a crow!"
"A—a crow?" Though his nose hurt to the depths of his soul and blood continued to pour from it, Wumu still roared at full volume. "I am the mighty Lord Wumu! I am the great Silver Wolf Commander Wumu! You may insult my race, but you cannot insult Lord Wumu himself!"
The crackling of thunderous lightning rang out without end. One of the guards boldly activated the restraints in Wumu's cell. Wumu, who had been shouting and hollering, was struck by lightning and yelped wildly. His fur stood straight up all over his body, and he spat out a cloud of smoke. Having suffered several heavy blows that day, he had finally exhausted his energy and fell completely silent.
Yin Xuege's smile vanished. His expression gloomy, he sat on the ground with his head lowered, calculating the possibility of escape.
Outside the Blood Prison, Jiang Rusheng and the three Grand Arbiters politely yielded to one another before taking their seats in a beautifully decorated Flying Car. Surrounded by dozens of Flying Cars, the resplendent vehicle, gleaming with flowing golden radiance, traced a brilliant stream of light through the sky and swiftly flew toward the government offices of the Great Berlin City-State.
The three Grand Arbiters and the Blood Prison guards alike failed to notice that, where Jiang Rusheng had stood moments earlier, a nearly transparent cyan copper coin drifted lightly into the air. A pair of exquisite wings unfolded from its sides. After flapping several times, the tiny coin streaked away in a trail of cyan light, rapidly flying toward somewhere in the urban district of the Great Berlin City-State.
Inside the government offices of the Great Berlin City-State, all twelve of the city's Grand Arbiters had gathered. They opened the government's most secret conference room, where Jiang Rusheng told them something that made every one of their expressions shift dramatically from moment to moment.
"According to the ancient records passed down through our Jiang family, together with the clues we have uncovered over the years, we can confirm that three months from now, a dwelling left behind by one of our Jiang family's ancestors will open within the territory of your Great Berlin City-State. It contains several things of great importance to our Jiang family members. We hope to receive the permission of all of you Grand Arbiters to help us open the dwelling and reclaim our ancestor's relics."
Fainlan and the other twelve Grand Arbiters all wore strange expressions at once. They stared blankly at Jiang Rusheng, unable to speak for a long while.
After a great deal of time passed, Allen was the first to recover from his shock. Looking at Jiang Rusheng, he asked solemnly, "Lord Jiang Rusheng, is the dwelling you speak of one left behind before the Era of Dharma Decline?"
Jiang Rusheng gazed amiably at the thirteen Grand Arbiters before him and nodded earnestly. "It is the dwelling of my Jiang family's ancestor, Old Ancestor Jiang Yichen, from before he attained the Dao, fifteen generations ago. During the Era of Dharma Decline, spiritual energy withered, and the dwelling sealed itself shut, never appearing in the world again. Now, at the End of the Dharma Age, the laws of heaven and earth are condensing anew, and the world's spiritual veins are sprouting again. That is why the dwelling has shown signs of opening!"
Fainlan clenched both hands, her ten fingers nearly twisting themselves into a hempen knot. She stared unblinkingly at Jiang Rusheng and cried out in bafflement, "But shouldn't your ancestor have established his dwelling in the East?"
Jiang Rusheng spread his hands helplessly. "An ancestor who attained the Dao acted in ways too profound and unfathomable for us to speculate about. Perhaps he simply wished to leave an additional inheritance for the younger members of my Jiang family overseas. Who can say for certain?"
Before the thirteen Grand Arbiters could speak, Jiang Rusheng smiled and said, "Our Jiang family only wants the cultivation manuals and various Magic Artifacts left behind by our ancestor within the dwelling. As for all other worldly possessions, they will belong to all of you!"
Jolus and the other Grand Arbiters immediately perked up. They exchanged glances and began haggling with Jiang Rusheng at once. A dwelling left behind by an Eastern cultivator who had attained the Dao before the Era of Dharma Decline—what a plump, glistening cake that was! Even though Fainlan had some personal ties with Jiang Rusheng, and Jiang Rusheng had even saved her life back then!
But personal ties were personal ties, and business was business. They absolutely could not let even the tiniest bit of profit slip away!
Time passed second by second. Jiang Rusheng and the assembled Grand Arbiters argued until spittle flew, and no one paid any further attention to what was happening outside.
Night shrouded the world in hazy darkness. The moon rose slowly from the east, while the Blood Parrot, a secret aerial treasure created by the Blood Demon Clan, glimmered with a cold, merciless blood-red light as it drifted lazily across the sky.
A faint white mist rose from the ground and enveloped the Blood Prison, a restricted zone in the core region of the Great Berlin City-State.
On such a bright moonlit night, white mist should not have appeared at all. It was clearly abnormal. Yet no one reported the matter to the city-state's upper echelons, because every guard inside the Blood Prison fell unconscious one after another beneath the assault of the white mist.
A middle-aged Daoist wearing an apricot-yellow Eight Trigrams Daoist robe, holding a Fishing Drum in his left hand and a Turtle Scale Green Steel Sword in his right, slowly approached the Blood Prison's main gate with dozens of figures that flickered in and out of sight within the white mist. They passed through everything in their path as if entering an unguarded land and went straight to the deepest level of the Blood Prison.
Yin Xuege was lying inside the Blood Prison in a daze. He still had not thought of a way to escape.
Wumu was still rambling and yapping away in the cell opposite him. At that moment, he was asking Yin Xuege whether he had anyone he secretly admired!
Several faint sounds of something slicing through the air suddenly rang out. Several streaks of cyan light shot down the tunnel, and the heads of more than a dozen guards patrolling back and forth flew into the air before their heavy bodies toppled to the ground.
A figure suddenly appeared outside the ventilation window of Yin Xuege's cell. He peered inside, then nodded vigorously.
"Found him. It's this little fellow!"
******
The Eastern cultivators have appeared!!!
Everyone, cheer and vote! Things will gradually grow livelier from here on!
Of course, the protagonist's strength is indispensable! A prodigy is about to be born!
The protagonist carries Eastern blood, and the place where his fortune lies is the East! (To be continued)
Before you continue