Old Matters

"The Four Fiends of Heshan, it was them?!"

"No wonder Zhao Village ended up in such a sorry state, no wonder!"

"That's right, I never expected these few to show up here! Thank goodness the Immortal acted, taking care of them once and for all. From now on, there'll be four fewer infamous bandit cultivators in this area!"

"Brother Ding, from the way you speak, you know them? Would you mind telling me a little about them?"

"Oh, so you're the new arrival, Brother Xu. Of course, no problem."

It wasn't long before,

about half a day later,

people from all six villages had sent representatives, gathering in Zhao Family Village.

To be honest,

when they first saw Zhao Family Village's miserable state,

many of them had felt uneasy.

They feared that Shen, the Cultivator from Dawan Village, wanted to annex Zhao Family Village and had launched the attack for that reason.

But their suspicions soon dissipated.

They had seen the four corpses hanging in the center of Zhao Family Village, and one after another, recognized who they were.

Clearly,

the disaster that had befallen Zhao Family Village was most likely connected to the Four Evils of He Mountain.

Only then did they breathe a sigh of relief.

For a time,

the square filled with the buzz of conversation.

Those who knew the story dug up the origins of the Four Evils of He Mountain.

The Four Evils of He Mountain were a notorious band of robbers.

Every summer and autumn harvest, when merchant caravans set out from Qing City and traveled throughout the Border Wilderness to trade with the various small cultivation forces,

that was when the four made their move.

With their strength, they naturally didn't dare to provoke those caravans.

Instead, they set their sights on the groups from the villages heading to the market to trade.

After the autumn harvest, for example,

if Shen Changchuan wanted to obtain more cultivation resources, he had no choice but to transport his share of the Spirit Grain to Wu Family Market and trade it with the merchant caravans.

And the Four Evils of He Mountain preyed on groups like these, heading to nearby markets.

They lay in wait on narrow mountain paths,

prowling the surrounding area like hyenas.

The moment they spotted a target they could attack, they pounced, swallowing it whole, skin and bones.

Unless a group had a cultivator at the late stage of Qi Induction Realm standing guard, or several nearby villages joined forces, meeting the four almost certainly meant certain death.

These men were infamous,

and from time to time, they would plunder a small cultivation family and drive it to ruin.

But ten years ago,

during one of their robberies, they had accidentally killed people from Wu Family Market.

As a result, the Wu Clan of Wu Family Market issued an official bounty for them,

and ever since,

they had not dared set foot in the surrounding region, wandering elsewhere instead.

No one knew why the Four Evils had returned,

but one thing was certain:

Zhao Family Village had almost certainly been destroyed by them.

Given the Four Evils of He Mountain's notoriety,

it was hardly surprising they had done such a thing.

"Though these four bandits have been put to death, I can't be sure how many other robbers like them are still out there."

"When you return, please strengthen your patrols and defenses. If anything goes wrong, you can come to Dawan Village and find me."

After exchanging pleasantries, explaining the situation, and building a little goodwill,

Shen Changchuan offered this warning to everyone who had come.

His words left the cultivators from the several villages deeply uneasy.

Whatever the Four Evils of He Mountain's motives had been, one thing was certain: if they had been targeted, they might have met the same fate as Zhao Family Village.

But there was no way around it. All they could do was strengthen their ties and help one another.

Several of them then suggested that, after the autumn harvest, they travel together to Wu Family Market to trade.

Shen Changchuan had no objections.

It was good to have someone familiar show him the way.

Having come from Tiannan City, several thousand miles away, he didn't know much about the surrounding area.

Besides,

each season, these people sent over seventy percent of their harvest as "protection fees."

Shen Changchuan felt he ought to do something to earn those "protection fees."

Zhao Family Village was now a ruin in need of rebuilding,

and it wasn't in a position to host anyone.

So the people gathered there stayed in the village for only half a day before taking their leave one after another.

With the matter settled,

and the others showing no resistance or objections to his taking over Zhao Family Village—instead, they were deeply worried about the possibility of more robbers—

Shen Changchuan nodded slightly to himself,

satisfied with how things had turned out.

That meant the two Spirit Fields in Zhao Family Village now belonged to him.

Some truths were never meant to be kept under wraps.

Bringing them out into the open,

could solve the problem more effectively.

Just like this time,

to be honest,

if Shen Changchuan had sealed off all the news and quietly taken over Zhao Family Village's fields,

those outsiders who knew nothing about what had happened would surely have been thrown into a panic.

They would have suspected that Shen Changchuan had attacked Zhao Family Village and wondered whether they would be his next target.

Then rumors would spread,

and everyone would be on edge.

Even if he tried to dispel them afterward, it might only give rise to bigger rumors, possibly leading to something tragic.

After watching the cultivators leave,

Shen Changchuan turned around

and returned to the village hall.

Han Qinhu was already waiting inside.

"Grandpa, how did it go? Did he talk?"

Seeing Han Qinhu, a flicker of delight crossed Shen Changchuan's eyes as he asked.

His maternal grandfather, Han Qinhu, had traveled far and wide for many years and had far more life experience than Shen Changchuan,

so Shen Changchuan had entrusted him with interrogating Zhao Hangao.

Now Han Qinhu was waiting in the hall, holding a thick stack of notes.

Clearly, they had gotten somewhere.

"Not bad. Maybe it's because his family was wiped out—his spirit's completely broken. He'll answer just about anything you ask. It's all here. Take a look."

Han Qinhu nodded and answered.

But his expression was somewhat uneasy, as if he had stumbled upon a tremendous secret he should never have learned.

Shen Changchuan didn't notice his reaction. He took the notes and began to read through them.

"So that's how it was!"

After reading all the information, Shen Changchuan felt a weight lift from his heart,

but his brows furrowed, and he fell silent for a long while.

The worst possibility had not come to pass. The Four Evils of He Mountain hadn't been paid by someone to come after his life.

On the contrary,

there might be a great opportunity hidden in all this.

It was a long story,

one directly connected to the old affair surrounding the change of ownership of Dawan Village twenty years ago.

Twenty years ago,

a distant branch of the Shen Clan had traveled to the Border Wilderness to search for treasure.

But because he was unfamiliar with the climate,

he was trapped in Dawan Village when the mountain leech plague broke out during the rainy season, and met the head of the Hu Clan, who ruled Dawan Village at the time.

After the rainy season ended, the Shen Clan branch member, having experienced the dangers of that season, understood that if he wanted to enter the mountains, he would need a local guide.

Otherwise, if he encountered a crisis like the rainy-season mountain leech plague in the mountains, he might not even leave a whole corpse behind.

So the Hu Clan of that time entrusted the task to the Zhao family in Zhao Family Village.

Back then, Zhao Hangao was still young,

but he had no choice but to become the guide for that Shen Clan branch member.

Later,

under Zhao Hangao's guidance,

the Shen Clan branch member successfully ventured deep into the mountains and, using the map he carried, found the ruins of a cave abode in a hidden spot on a cliff.

Zhao Hangao hadn't been able to enter the cave abode.

The Shen Clan branch member, however, used a keepsake he carried to open the outer restriction gate.

Though Zhao Hangao, waiting outside, didn't know what was inside,

he felt the fluctuations of the cave abode's outer restrictions from outside. They had to be at least at the Out-of-Body level!

No one had expected that, deep in the desolate, uninhabited Monster Beast Forest, there would be a cave abode belonging to a true cultivator of the Out of Body Realm!

Even in his excitement, Zhao Hangao had keenly realized one thing.

Faced with such a windfall, the Shen Clan branch member might well kill him to keep it secret!

So he fled in advance.

But the head of the Hu Clan at the time found out along the way

and summoned him to question him about what had happened.

Panicked, Zhao Hangao told him the details, but also cleverly chose his words, persuading the head of the Hu Clan to let him go and focus his attention on the Out-of-Body Realm cultivator's ruins.

Later,

when the Shen Clan branch member returned from the mountains, the head of the Hu Clan suddenly turned on him, ambushed him, and killed him.

After hearing the news, Zhao Hangao panicked, afraid that the head of the Hu Clan would kill him and the entire Zhao family to silence them.

Fortunately,

he had already secretly reported the matter to the Shen Clan.

To gain their trust, he had even revealed some information about the ruins of a true cultivator at the Out-of-Body level.

Not long afterward, just as expected,

a true cultivator of the Out of Body Realm from the Shen Clan arrived and swept through everything.

The Hu Clan, the former rulers of Dawan Village, was wiped out,

and Dawan Village became the Shen Clan's spoils of war. From then on, the Shen Clan sent people to oversee it.

As for Zhao Hangao, whose role had been pivotal,

since the affair involved cultivators, outsiders knew nothing of the details beyond those directly involved. He had also hidden himself well,

and after the Shen Clan branch member and the head of the Hu Clan died one after another, no one knew he was hiding a huge secret.

And so he managed to get away with it, living on to the present day.

All of this,

continued until his son, Zhao Jingming, was born.

Because he had only one son, Zhao Hangao had spoiled him rotten from childhood, giving him everything he wanted.

In fact, after getting drunk one time, he even told his only son, Zhao Jingming, the secret he had kept buried in his heart and never told another soul.

And this,

was the root of all the calamity.

Perhaps because he had grown up coddled, with everything going his way,

Zhao Jingming believed he was born to become an immortal, but his origins had held him back.

He wanted to pursue freedom and the thrill of a cultivator's life.

So he ran away from home,

and set out to roam the world.

The outcome was plain to see.

He fell in with the wrong crowd,

Revealing a great secret

had brought down a catastrophe that wiped out the entire clan.

"The Cultivation World really is fraught with danger at every turn!"

"But if that's how things were, then I've suffered a calamity out of nowhere?!"

After a long bout of thought, Shen Changchuan finally pieced together what had happened.

After Zhao Jingming revealed the great secret, the Four Evils of He Mountain had secretly followed close behind.

With Zhao Jingming's life and death in their hands, Zhao Hangao hadn't dared make a move and could only cooperate with everything they did.

The reason they had targeted Shen Changchuan was simple:

They had visited that cave-dwelling ruin.

From the outside, they had sensed that its innermost chamber was still largely intact.

The Shen Clan's collateral branch had probably left back then because some trial inside had blocked their way, forcing them to depart.

The inheritance of the Out of Body Realm True Cultivator within was very likely still there!

But the formations and restrictions laid down by an Out of Body Realm True Cultivator were too powerful.

To enter,

they needed the keepsake once held by the Shen Clan's collateral branch.

And they believed

that the keepsake the Shen Clan's collateral branch had used to open the outer gate back then had fallen into Shen Changchuan's hands.

Otherwise,

why would the son of the head of a great cultivation clan like the Shen Clan come in person to a remote backwater like Dawan Village?

There was definitely something fishy about it!

Even if the keepsake wasn't on him, it had to be somewhere in Dawan Village, undiscovered by the Shen Clan!

So,

that was how this ambush came about.

Their preparations hadn't actually been aimed at Shen Changchuan,

but at the possible Dao Protector behind him!