Li Banfeng tossed the Rust Pill into the old woman's throat.
Just then, Li Banfeng kicked her in the stomach. As she spasmed and inhaled, she swallowed the Rust Pill with that breath.
A searing pain struck. The old woman knew she had been poisoned and hurriedly tried to vomit.
Li Banfeng gave her no chance to throw up. Taking advantage of the moment, he went behind De Cai, pulled out the short knife, and hacked at the old woman's head again and again.
At first, the old woman dodged smoothly enough. But once the poison rapidly took effect, her throat felt as though it were on fire. Sour fluid carrying a metallic stench kept surging upward, not only causing unbearable pain but seriously hindering her breathing.
In the midst of their fight, hot sweat poured from the old woman. The sweat was reddish-brown, and mottled spots covered her face, as though she had rusted.
Li Banfeng knew this process well!
The old woman was purging the poison!
Though she could not vomit, she had other ways to expel toxins, and they were very similar to Li Banfeng's own methods.
She was a House Cultivator!
House Cultivators could conceal their own presence and make their opponents overlook them. The Carriage Driver had once said that Travel Cultivators could not sense the danger posed by House Cultivators. That was why Li Banfeng had never sensed the old woman's malice.
But the old woman's two sons were not House Cultivators. Why had Li Banfeng been unable to sense their malice when they poisoned him?
Li Banfeng quickly thought of the crux of the matter.
It had to do with where this had happened.
The place where it happened was this house.
This house was the key to every problem!
This was the old woman's house, the house of a House Cultivator.
Within their own homes, House Cultivators were sheltered by their Home Spirits.
The old woman had recognized Li Banfeng as a Travel Cultivator at a glance. Using the power of a House Cultivator, she had concealed her own malice, along with the malice of her two sons.
Was her level really that high?
Could her power affect her two sons?
Her level was not that high. She was only a first-layer House Cultivator. If she had reached the second layer, Li Banfeng would not have lived until now.
With her strength, she definitely could not affect her two sons outside the house.
But inside the house, with the Home Spirit's aid, the old woman's techniques were strengthened. That made her faster than a Travel Cultivator, fiercer than a Martial Cultivator, and tougher than a Body Cultivator.
Having a Home Spirit was truly wonderful!
Li Banfeng was green with envy.
If I kill this old woman, will this Home Spirit become mine?
The Peddler had said that an ownerless Home Spirit could be taken over by its next master.
The more Li Banfeng thought about it, the more excited he became. He threw himself into trading blows with the old woman with all his strength.
With the Home Spirit's help, the old woman kept sweating out the poison. But the Rust Pill was simply too destructive, and sweating was far too inefficient a way to purge toxins.
Li Banfeng was just thinking of personally conducting an experiment: could a House Cultivator inside her own house withstand the Rust Pill's corrosion?
Of course, conducting the experiment personally did not mean using himself as the experiment. The most important thing was one's attitude. He had to view the results with a scientific attitude.
Judging from tonight's experimental results, a first-layer House Cultivator could not withstand the Rust Pill when she could not vomit freely.
By Li Banfeng's estimate, the old woman's combat strength had dropped by more than half in less than two minutes.
Another two minutes passed. The old woman's movements grew increasingly sluggish, her speed falling below that of an ordinary person. Strange grinding sounds came from her joints.
Li Banfeng dodged the old woman's hairpin and kicked her in the stomach.
The old woman coughed and wheezed, then actually coughed up a great mouthful of reddish-brown fragments.
She had rusted. Her whole body had rusted.
Li Banfeng quickly moved away from the old woman.
He was not sure whether this rust disease was contagious.
The old woman walked toward Li Banfeng one step at a time, viciously cursing as she walked. "You little bastard, don't go! Come here!
"If you don't run, I'll let you die quickly. Take one more step, and I'll cut you into a thousand pieces!
"You can't run! This is my house! Heh heh heh, now that you've come here, don't even think of leaving. You'll never leave for the rest of your life!"
Her words were venomous, but she was terrified inside.
Every part of her body felt as though molten iron had been poured over it, scalding away layer after layer of flesh while continuously seeping deeper into her body.
Her son was a Poison Cultivator, and she had seen plenty of poisons, but she had never seen one so terrifying.
The agony was unbearable, but that was not the most terrifying part.
The most terrifying part was the numbness after the pain.
Amid the pain, she felt her body rapidly losing all sensation.
Aside from the rusty foam in her mouth, bitter and fishy, she could barely sense that her body still existed. Even vomiting would be of no use.
She wanted to return to her room. She wanted to hear the Old Grandfather Clock's voice.
But if she returned to her room now, her son would certainly die.
The old woman took several steps forward, each one slower and harder than the last.
Rust powder fell from her body, while rusty froth sprayed from her mouth and nose. Her graying hair yellowed strand by strand, shattered inch by inch, gradually turning into rust dregs and scattering on the wind.
Crack!
The old woman staggered and fell to the ground.
She turned her head and saw half a lower leg broken off on the ground. She saw rust-snapped bones and flesh that had already rusted into dregs.
She could see this bone.
Many other bones had broken as well. She could not see them, but she could feel them.
Her body was about to crumble apart.
Her eyes stared fixedly at her room, the largest room in the courtyard.
She hoped the clock would ring, even if only once.
But she never heard it.
She saw De Cai lying on the ground, twitching and struggling, and thought of De Mao, whose whereabouts were unknown.
How had things come to this?
How could she die at the hands of some brat?
No, it was not just this damned brat. There were also those two shameless little sluts.
The moment they entered, she should have killed them. She should never have let those two little sluts seduce her sons.
My sons are mine, mine alone, and they will be mine for life...
"You... spare my son, and I... I'll give you something good..." The old woman looked at Li Banfeng, her voice carrying a trace of pleading.
Li Banfeng looked at the struggling De Cai and sighed. "I don't want to kill people either, but I can't bear it."
The old woman shook her head. "What are you saying? I don't understand."
"How can you not understand?" Li Banfeng took the short knife and walked over to De Cai. "The mother is dead, so why let the child live? Wouldn't leaving him alone in this world make him suffer? Better to send him on the road with you.
"Wasn't that what you just said?"
"Bastard, if you dare touch my family, I'm with the Jiang Xiang Gang! The Jiang Xiang Gang will never spare you..." The old woman let out a series of hisses.
The Jiang Xiang Gang again.
He had to give the Jiang Xiang Gang some face!
Right before her eyes, Li Banfeng chopped off De Cai's head.
"Mother, save me..."
De Cai's voice stopped abruptly.
Seeing De Cai's head fall to the ground, the old woman's body twitched without pause.
She remembered the children of other families she had killed before. Their fathers and mothers had twitched like this too.
Specks of red filled her vision. She did not know whether they were rust stains or bloodstains.
Her consciousness vanished, turning into a lump of rust dregs along with her body.
A gust of cold wind blew over, scattering that large heap of the old woman's fragments everywhere.
Xiao Yeci looked at Li Banfeng with admiration on her face and terror filling her heart. Her hands remained over her daughter Lu Chunying's eyes.
The old woman was dead. De Cai was dead too.
Though Xiao Yeci had long wanted to kill this family of evildoers, seeing them truly dead still filled her with fear from the bottom of her heart.
She did not know where Li Banfeng came from, nor could she tell what path or cultivation he practiced.
He moves so fast. Is he a Travel Cultivator?
But what happened to make the old woman rust?
He saved us, so he should let us go, right?
What if he doesn't let us go? What then?
Li Banfeng looked somewhat dejected, as if mourning the old woman.
Xiao Yeci noticed Li Banfeng's regret.
Mourning an evildoer... he must be a good person, right?
Perhaps he can help us once more...
Looking at the rust dregs all over the ground, Li Banfeng wore a solemn expression and let out a long sigh.
He had not expected this outcome.
What a pity!
What a pity!
They could have been taken back for Pill Refining.
(End of this chapter)
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