Who Has Grievances

"By the way." Just before leaving, Zhang Linchuan suddenly looked at Tang Dun. "Your name is Tang Dun?"

"That's this one's name."

Zhang Linchuan smiled. "Dun means honest, sincere. A good name."

Tang Dun scratched his head. "Our village teacher gave it to me when I was a kid."

"Oh?" Zhang Linchuan asked.

"Our Tangshe Town was poor, couldn't afford tuition, and not many hunter families cared about literacy. It was a traveling scholar who stayed to teach us for three years. But after three years, he packed up and left again. He liked me best back then, said I was some kind of jade."

That explained things, then.

The custom of traveling far to study was admired by the times, with disciples from various schools doing so.

Confucian Sect disciples believed in reading ten thousand books and traveling ten thousand miles, many wandering through different kingdoms. But some did it to broaden their horizons, others to peddle themselves everywhere.

Mo Sect disciples traveled the world, experiencing everything firsthand. But if they'd met Tang Dun, they might have taught him martial arts or even some basic mechanisms, rather than reading and writing.

Although the Zhuang Kingdom took the Daoist Sect as its state religion, it didn't completely reject followers of other schools. Tang Dun's background was naturally unproblematic.

Jiang Wang then said, "Since you've studied, staying a lowly constable here would be a waste. After you've handled Niu'er's funeral, if you have no other obligations, you could try the outer sect of the City Dao Academy."

This was seeing the man's simple nature, with some fondness for talent, but ultimately it was Tang Dun's own choice.

Leaving Tangshe Town, heading south along the official road was the way back to Maple Forest City.

Because of the corresponding array engravings, wild beasts were absent from the official road.

The horse's hooves were unhurried, and Zhang Linchuan's voice from the saddle was likewise unhurried: "Do you know how many resources the court has to invest each year just to maintain the official roads throughout the Zhuang Kingdom?"

Jiang Wang shook his head; he truly had no understanding of such matters.

"It's an astronomical number," Zhang Linchuan said. "And these arrays can only drive away low-level demon beasts. The powerful demonic beasts and fierce beasts still need strong cultivators to clear them out. The court invests enormous manpower and resources every year to keep all routes open. They pour resources into the Dao Academies without counting the cost, and all we can do is grow as fast as possible to shoulder the corresponding responsibilities."

"I take your lesson."

"Then let me ask you another thing. The big cities have great arrays protecting them, so why doesn't the court make everyone gather and live in the big cities?"

"I think there are two reasons." Jiang Wang pondered for a moment, then said, "First, even great cities have their limits and can't meet everyone's survival needs. Second, each city's reach is limited. The court needs these official roads to extend outward, with towns as nodes, because this represents actual territory. And land means resources."

"You see it clearly. The arrays in towns and villages can't be as safe as those in big cities, but villages have their irreplaceable value. Take Tangshe Town—as long as it exists, Maple Forest City can continuously harvest resources from the Qichang Mountain Range. If Tangshe Town disappears one day, the Qichang Mountain Range will have nothing to do with our Zhuang Kingdom."

"The people of Tangshe Town dare to hunt in the Qichang Mountain Range, so they naturally have their experts. That demonic cultivator lay low when the Criminal Investigation Bureau came, made no move when we weren't there. But he chose to attack just when we arrived..."

Speaking up to here, Zhang Linchuan turned his head and looked at Jiang Wang with a half-smile. "Junior Brother Jiang, is there something on you that attracts them?"

Jiang Wang couldn't answer.

He certainly had secrets, but only the Void Key inherited from Zuo Guanglie. All the changes had happened within the Great Void Illusion Realm; in reality, he shouldn't have been discovered. But if not for that, the first time he was attacked by demonic cultivators also seemed to be after he entered the Great Void Illusion Realm.

Just as he was weighing how to phrase a dodge, Zhang Linchuan suddenly raised a hand and pointed—middle and ring fingers curled, the other three extended, straight at Jiang Wang.

And arcs of electricity leaped from the tips of those three raised fingers, coalescing into a bolt of thunder, coming straight for Jiang Wang!

Jiang Wang couldn't even react in time. That bolt of lightning brushed past his ear, slamming directly into a poison arrow dyed dark green, shattering it and sending it falling.

Only then did Jiang Wang's ears catch the sharp whistle of the poison arrow's sudden acceleration, and his nose smell the burnt odor of his hair singed by the lightning.

"I've been waiting for you!" Zhang Linchuan leaped from his horse, his free right hand forming an extremely strange finger-seal gesture as he raised it, and a whip of lightning coalesced out of thin air.

"Die for me!"

He rode the lightning whip, his body plunging like a hawk striking, charging toward the attacker hidden in the woods on the left side of the official road.

So he had been prepared all along, and with a mind divided in two, he had secretly formed seals, preparing two Dao techniques in advance, enabling him to counterattack the moment the ambush struck.

Jiang Wang was still far from matching this battle-hardened senior brother.

Just then, a voice rang out from the woods on the right. "This target's tough—split up and retreat!"

Jiang Wang, who had been about to follow Zhang Linchuan, suddenly turned his head!

How could he not recognize that voice? In that little girl's room in Tangshe Town, though only a few short exchanges, they were enough to be etched into his bones!

A Dao Essence silently detonated within the Heaven-Connecting Palace. Jiang Wang made his decision on the spot, crashing with the most resolute posture toward the direction from which the voice had come.

Living in the Zhuang Kingdom, the first thing almost every commoner had to remember before leaving home—never leave the official road.

Because beyond the reach of human towns, everything outside the official road was wilderness. It was the domain of wild beasts, demon beasts, and even fierce beasts.

Zhang Linchuan was strong enough, so he didn't care.

Jiang Wang wanted to kill, so he didn't care either.

He had seen bloodshed, seen cruelty, but even the worst thugs on West Mountain wouldn't raise a blade against a child. That little girl had just begun to know the world—innocent, naive, radiant—how undeserving was she of this?

Jiang Wang's sword trembled in its sheath. As if it too was already excited, as if it knew it was about to unleash the most brilliant radiance of its life.

Ten years sharpening a single blade, its frosty edge never tried. Today I show it to you—who has an injustice to right?

Clang, clang, clang, clang, clang.

The moment the long sword leaped out, it clashed against the sheath five times. Then it broke free!

The sword was like a shooting star, the man like a flood dragon.

A great tree groaned and fell, and the demonic cultivator hidden atop it leaped back in retreat.

In the haste, he could not make out the face clearly—only saw, beneath the tangled hair, a complexion that was deathly pale.

Within the Heaven-Connecting Palace, Dao Essence after Dao Essence exploded open.

Jiang Wang had never squandered like this before. He felt his entire body brimming with power.

Before condensing a Dao Vortex, every Dao Essence spent was a step backward in cultivation.

But only thus could he kill.

He had to slay this fiend—only then would the pent-up rage find an outlet, only then could he gain peace of mind.

Purple Qi Coming from the East Sword Art, second killing move, brought forth a sheet of frosty light.

The pale-faced fiend retreated, too pressed to form hand seals. His right arm swelled rapidly, muscles bulging, veins bursting forth, and he threw a straight punch straight at the frost light.

The sword and that demonic right arm clashed over a dozen times in an instant.

Only then did Jiang Wang jolt awake—he had misjudged! This opponent was strong! Far stronger than him! Not, as he had assumed, merely relying on his setup or being a notch ahead in cultivation.

In other words, if the pale-faced fiend had unleashed his full power during the attack on Tangshe Town, Jiang Wang could hardly guarantee he would have survived.

But retreat had no place in his heart. The long sword shuddered again, and a sharp shriek arose.

Purple Qi Coming from the East Sword Art, third killing move!

A streak of flowing light turned, and that demonized right arm was severed clean off, flying away!

"Damn it!!"

The pale-faced fiend roared. He had not expected that, with a moment's carelessness, this desperate youth would corner him.

His rear foot slammed abruptly into a large tree mid-flight. He knew he could retreat no further—to retreat was death. Life was won through combat.

At the point where his foot touched, the entire tree withered instantly.

Then, from his roaring mouth, gray mist gushed forth, carrying an intensely corrosive stench, a pungent, foul odor.

The power to manipulate life and death—this was a Netherworld Dao art!

Sword light exploded.

Dao Essence drove the sword light; the sword light cleaved through the gray mist. Jiang Wang leaped out from within that gray mist!

Purple Qi Coming from the East Sword Art, fourth killing move!

In Tangshe Town, he had let this fiend escape, caught off guard and helpless.

But at least now, at this moment, he had to give that little girl named Niu'er an answer!

This was a cultivator's responsibility to the common people.

This was an adult's responsibility to a child!

Jiang Wang's figure, soaring through the air, broke through the gray mist and appeared in the pale-faced fiend's eyes.

And in those eyes, widening more and more, filled with terror, a brilliant sword light descended from above.

That was the last light he saw before the eternal darkness.

The various supports you all offer—recommendation tickets and the like—are the last light of this night.