[Pavilion Master Has a Problem?]

It had to be said that although Pavilion Master Yang of the Golden Rainbow Martial Arts School had remained quiet and out of the public eye for two years, none of the methods he ought to have possessed had diminished in the slightest.

Before long, most of the disciples had been mobilized. The city yamen had placed bounties on the heads of every Crimson Fire Bandit, and the disciples' fighting spirit burned fiercely.

Their pavilion master had merely spoken and promised a few rewards, yet the disciples were already boiling with hot blood.

But compared with the few instructors in the school, carrying this out was not so simple.

After all, the older one grew, the more one understood the value of preserving what one had. They were not rash youngsters who could be set ablaze with a spark. Pavilion Master Yang's personal grudge did not warrant dragging the entire martial arts school into the water.

The Crimson Fire Bandits had entrenched themselves around Taixi City for many years, coiling like tigers and crouching like dragons. They would not be so easily eradicated.

With their strength alone, they were likely somewhat unequal to the task.

Yet their change of face came swiftly after Pavilion Master Yang revealed that the city yamen would offer five Breakthrough Pills.

They instantly changed their attitudes.

After all, the Breakthrough Pills from the Sifang Medicine Workshop were exceptionally potent, Mysterious Grade medicinal pills.

Their function was relatively singular: they aided martial cultivators who had long failed to break through, prying open a crack in the tightly shut gates of advancement.

Pavilion Master Yang then delivered another piece of news. The city yamen had already assembled another team that would join them in the extermination campaign. Thinking of the recent stirrings within the city yamen—

—that was what finally put the instructors fully at ease.

After all, based on their current strength alone, they might surpass the Crimson Fire Stronghold, but facing the Crimson Fire Bandits on their home ground at White Tiger Ridge, it would still be rather uncertain without expending considerable force.

Afterward, Pavilion Master Yang summoned some of the strongest disciples from the list and informed them of the departure time.

They would leave during the hour of the Tiger, in the fifth watch of the night.

Pavilion Master Yang and the city yamen had devised a thorough plan: travel under cover of darkness, then launch a sudden attack when the Crimson Fire Bandits were at their most lax and exhausted.

The plan seemed to have no flaws.

"Hey, why are your scales so white? Say, don't you have some nickname like Bai Suzhen?"

There was still some time before departure. That night, Shen Xiu ran to the Lishui River to chat with the White Python whenever he had nothing else to do.

Over this period of interaction, he had figured out the great white python's temperament. Among snakes, he was considered rather mild-natured.

He was also naturally lazy, spending all day sleeping at the bottom of the river. Other than that, the White Python did not seem to have anything else to do.

Moreover, the White Python's old home was Hongye Temple. It sounded like a Buddhist temple, so perhaps he had been influenced by it and acquired a trace of Buddhist nature. There was none of the savage, vicious aura unique to demon beasts about him.

The White Python's enormous head rested on a riverbank piled with soft sand, while his slender tail swayed lazily across the water's surface.

Whenever it brushed the water, it scattered a patch of starlight. Hearing Shen Xiu's words now, his enormous pupils could not help rolling.

"I told you already. My old home is Hongye Temple. I don't know Leifeng Pagoda, I don't know Jinshan Temple, and I don't know Bai Suzhen. Also, why do you keep staring at my tail?"

Caught red-handed, Shen Xiu felt a little embarrassed and changed the subject. "By the way, the Lishui River runs south straight into the Liujiang River. Why don't you follow the river out to sea instead of staying in this backwater?"

The White Python gave him a very human-like eye roll. "Travel the rivers to become a flood dragon, enter the sea to become a true dragon—do you think I don't know that? You think I want to stay in this place? I only stayed because I once promised some kid that I'd help look after Taixi City..."

And with that care came sixty years of favorable winds and timely rains.

Shen Xiu was a little dumbstruck. "And you actually kept watch over it?"

"What else could I do after making a promise? I couldn't just ignore it..." The White Python's voice gradually sank as he recalled something.

The Lishui River in Taixi City led directly into the Liujiang River. There were many dangerous, turbulent stretches along the way, but for a Great Demon capable of summoning rain, they were nothing.

More than once, the White Python had silently swum out of Taixi City.

But whenever he reached the mouth where it joined the Liujiang River, he would raise his head from the water and gaze at the Liujiang River rushing ten thousand miles away for a long while before reluctantly turning back.

He had promised that kid. He did not want to break his word...

A snake becoming a flood dragon, a flood dragon becoming a true dragon.

That was the ultimate dream of every Snake Demon, and it was also the White Python's ultimate dream. But some things were more important than dreams.

It was a lesson he had learned from an old Zen master when he had fallen into the Dragon Locking Well as a young snake.

Seeing the White Python's mood clearly sink, Shen Xiu did not want to dwell on the subject any further.

Remembering what the White Python had previously said about the martial arts school throwing something into the river, he asked, "You said the martial arts school I'm in throws things into the river. What did they throw?"

"What else could it be? People, of course!"

"People?"

"That's right. They've done it before. Your martial arts school really has no sense of hygiene."

Hearing the White Python's words, Shen Xiu abruptly froze on the spot. It was as though a bolt from a clear sky had struck his mind.

Without warning, countless fragmented images flashed through his head.

Eldest Young Master Chen, Chen Mo, had vanished without reason. He had been found drained dry in the Lishui River, and there were still no clues. Some disciples had seen the pavilion master fail in his breakthrough, blood lingering at the corner of his mouth.

No way, right?

All those clues became linked by some strange route, leading to a possible answer. Even Shen Xiu found it somewhat unbelievable.

His thoughts spread outward as he continued considering it.

More than two years ago, Yang Jinhong had led the disciples in a joint campaign to eradicate the Crimson Fire Bandits. Of the four Personal Disciples, two had died outright.

At the time, the explanation had been that they encountered Yang Long, the Boss, a peak third-realm martial cultivator among the Crimson Fire Bandits.

Later, while carrying out a task for the school, another Personal Disciple had vanished without reason.

Yang Jinhong had sent people to search, but the matter eventually came to nothing.

And now, disregarding the possibility of suffering severe losses, Pavilion Master Yang had somehow persuaded the Deputy Pavilion Master and numerous instructors to launch another campaign to exterminate the Crimson Fire Bandits.

In a flash of realization, everything seemed to carry an illusion of eerie familiarity.

Had Pavilion Master Yang cultivated some kind of demonic art, one that made him willing to use even Personal Disciples and talented members of the school as sacrificial offerings and blood food?

If that was the case, then everything before this seemed to make sense.

Staring at the calm, shadowy Lishui River, whose bottom could not be seen, Shen Xiu unconsciously arrived at such a conclusion—and even he was shocked by it.

Thinking of the looks Pavilion Master Yang had repeatedly cast his way before, was the meaning behind them truly as simple as wanting to accept him as a Personal Disciple?

By the Lishui River, Shen Xiu sat quietly on the bank, silently digesting this startling deduction until a cold wind sweeping over the river woke him.

At some point, the White Python had sunk beneath the water.

Within Taixi City, the night watchman's clappers drifted faintly from distant streets and alleys. The hour of the Tiger had just passed, and dawn was approaching.