Blood-Stained Rivers and Mountains

Lu Bai could clearly see the fervor in the young man's eyes.

He seemed to have no strength to fight back at all as he watched the young man approach.

Of course, most of his attention was still on Flower Face.

"Hey, kid, don't go over there," someone who'd been watching the commotion called out with a sigh.

"Don't stick your nose where it doesn't belong!" someone beside him said, pulling him back. After a brief struggle, the man stopped speaking.

Even if he had continued, the young man wouldn't have listened.

Old hands in the Jianghu were different from these inexperienced youngsters. They knew what they could and couldn't do.

They kept their greed and hatred in check, and didn't let their sense of chivalry run wild.

Otherwise, they'd end up dead.

They dared to attack Lianwu Mountain because they had justice on their side, so they could afford to act on their sense of chivalry.

Now, although they couldn't bear to see the young man become a free scout, they still had to hold back.

The people from the Hundred Flower Grave were watching. That remark earlier had already been enough to invite trouble.

The young man didn't care about any of that. He raised his saber and charged straight at Lu Bai.

He'd made up his mind to be careful and not let Lu Bai's little tricks scare him like before.

Then he saw Lu Bai move. Lu Bai hooked his foot under the plaque beside him and flipped it up.

He caught the plaque in both hands and swung it.

A fierce gust swept through the air. The young man wanted to flee, but the plaque was so large there was nowhere to dodge.

He had no time to react before it smashed into him. He couldn't even get a word out before collapsing to the side. The plaque had caved in his forehead, and blood gushed out, spattering across it.

"Clap, clap, clap, clap!" Flower Face applauded as he walked closer, step by step.

Lu Bai planted the plaque upright on the ground and fixed his eyes on Flower Face, his expression utterly calm.

"You're no Blood Monk. Blood-Stained Rivers and Mountains suits you much better. No wonder you're a demon from the Outer Realm!" Flower Face said, looking at the plaque.

The young man's blood ran across the words "Heshan Pavilion," staining them red.

The title Blood Monk had originally been pinned on Lu Bai by the Hundred Flower Grave. Now they'd added a word, cleverly replacing "Monk" with its homophone, "Mountains," and given Lu Bai's nickname a new and more fitting form.

Blood-Stained Rivers and Mountains!

The moment the name was spoken, it seemed as if a thick scent of blood filled the air.

It also set the tone for Lu Bai's identity as a demon from the Outer Realm.

The people around them had been mostly neutral toward Lu Bai, and some had even seemed to admire him.

But now, they instantly drew their weapons and pointed them at him, ready to fight another battle at any moment.

Every family in the Martial Forest had some sort of grudge against the demons from the Outer Realm.

Before, the Holy Lands had been too powerful, so people could only keep those grudges buried in their hearts. But now...

"Is this true?" someone immediately asked, glaring at Lu Bai with hatred.

"Of course," Flower Face replied. "The technique he used to defeat Senior Lin Haixian was a technique of the demons from the Outer Realm."

"Then why don't you say that your Hundred Flower Grave is also backed by us demons from the Outer Realm?" Lu Bai said with a smile, unconcerned by the others' hostility.

He didn't bother to explain that he wasn't from the same side as the people of the Tianwu Holy Land.

As he'd said before, taking out your anger on others was one of the most common human responses.

People hated an entire group because of something one individual had done. A man hurt by a scumbag might come to hate all men; a woman hurt by a terrible woman might hate all women; someone harmed by a person from a certain place might start mocking everyone from that region.

Once someone with an agenda stirred things up, the resulting conflict and hatred couldn't be cleared away with a simple explanation.

"You demon from the Outer Realm, you still dare to make baseless accusations!"

"Everyone knows that the heroes of the Hundred Flower Grave are at the forefront of the fight against the demons from the Outer Realm. How could such heroes have anything to do with them?"

Before anyone from the Hundred Flower Grave could speak, many others had already come to its defense.

Some of them had ties to the Hundred Flower Grave, while others simply didn't believe Lu Bai.

That was the difference between having the prevailing momentum on your side and not. The Hundred Flower Grave was a faction, and it was growing more powerful by the day. Lu Bai, on the other hand, was all alone—and badly wounded at that.

People believed what a powerful faction said. When someone alone made an accusation, they dismissed it as slander.

The fact that anyone had even asked Flower Face, "Is this true?" was thanks to Lu Bai's reputation and his alliance with others to wipe out Lianwu Mountain.

"Excellent! I didn't think we'd still catch a living demon from the Outer Realm. Let me, an old monk, see whether his heart is black!"

A burly monk nearby gripped his crescent-moon spade and shouted as he charged at Lu Bai.

Holding the plaque, Lu Bai thought that if he activated [Blood Burn: Volcano] one more time, he'd probably have to collapse immediately afterward and stay down until the duration ended.

And even then, it was hard to say whether he could escape.

"Stop!" Just then, someone arrived to break up the fight.

Senior Lin Haixian, with several new wounds on his body, had been helped over by someone. He was the one who stopped the burly monk.

There was no denying that Lin Haixian carried some weight. His arrival steadied the situation.

"Senior, this man is a demon from the Outer Realm! He—he—he—he used underhanded tricks to beat you," the burly monk stammered, scratching his head in agitation.

"That wasn't an underhanded trick. I accept my defeat," Lin Haixian said, shaking his head. He didn't deny that Lu Bai was from the Outer Realm.

When all was said and done, Lu Bai wasn't one of them.

"We don't know what the Outer Realm is like, nor do we know whether everyone from there is a demon."

"If we kill him rashly, we may invite trouble."

"Isn't that right?" As Lin Haixian said this, he looked at Flower Face.

Flower Face smiled, understanding the situation.

Clearly, the people behind the Hundred Flower Grave couldn't hide their affairs from these men, and they had their own calculations.

Before, the Tianwu Holy Land—a faction backed by the Outer Realm—had stood alone at the top, acting with arrogance and doing evil.

Now that the Tianwu Holy Land had run into trouble, the Hundred Flower Grave had been raised up by another power from the Outer Realm.

The Hundred Flower Grave might well end up standing alone at the top too. No matter how noble its current slogans sounded, it might not prove any better than the Tianwu Holy Land.

So they had to find a way to keep it in check. As long as there were limits, the people below could at least catch their breath.

They could save Lu Bai, an outsider from the Outer Realm. No matter what, things couldn't get any worse.

That was what Lin Haixian thought, and so did the people standing behind him.

Now, they were making a veiled threat.

If Lu Bai, a man from the Outer Realm, was a demon, then they could investigate whether there was a demon behind the Hundred Flower Grave too.

First update. Sorry, I really might not have been getting enough sleep lately. I slept until eleven this morning.