Wisdom Exhausted by Greed

"Was this damn formation made of paper?!"

Li Shun watched the towering waves, howling in from the horizon like a galaxy pouring down, and his expression changed abruptly.

At the instant he cursed inwardly, the pale golden formation barrier hanging over Cold Mountain County suddenly let out a groan of unbearable strain before shattering with a thunderous crash! It seemed to transform into countless mournfully beautiful golden blossoms, fluttering across the sky.

Meanwhile, the formation around the county yamen seemed to have been driven to its utmost limit. Golden light burst forth, turning it into an impregnable golden cage, almost solid in form.

With the formation no longer blocking it, the raging flood crest smashed through the city gates in an instant and swept through the entire county town with the force of dead leaves before a gale.

The water dragon ran rampant, effortlessly swallowing every street, alley, and house in its path. The flood had come too fiercely and too swiftly. The townspeople had no time to find an escape route before they were dragged away alive by merciless muddy whirlpools amid shrill cries of despair.

"Fang Xun has truly gone insane—he doesn't care whether the people live or die!"

"Good thing I prepared for this long ago!"

Li Shun was no longer the cripple who had once struggled to take every step. Restored to youth, he was incomparably nimble. A moment before the muddy waves swallowed his residence, he deftly slipped into the underground passage.

At the original deepest point of the tunnel, he had carved out another route, digging an upward passage in the opposite direction. At its end, he had hollowed out a cramped, sealed chamber no more than three feet square. Li Shun had long since planted all four walls of the chamber with Cold Mountain Grass that emitted a dim glow.

Just as Li Shun crawled into the hidden chamber in utter disarray, the swift, muddy, freezing water began pouring in backward through the entrance below. The water level rose steadily, and his final hiding place was about to be completely submerged.

"Take it in!"

Li Shun forcibly steadied himself and reached out, lightly touching the surging water with one hand.

In an instant, the layer of pooled water touching his palm vanished into thin air. When the water behind it surged up again, Li Shun repeated the same process, over and over without end.

After who knew how many mechanical repetitions, the backflowing water below was finally forcibly checked. No more foul water rose into the hidden chamber.

Meanwhile, the originally empty area within Square Inch Space had already been filled with muddy floodwater.

The accumulated water formed an abyss, like an upside-down vast ocean!

Fortunately, every area within Square Inch Space was separated from the others, so this enormous mass of floodwater did not spill into the surrounding regions. Restricted by its boundaries, it could only rise endlessly through the void, like a muddy pillar of heaven whose peak could not be seen, standing rigidly within Square Inch Space.

"Just how much water did I take in?"

Li Shun shook his head, feeling dizzy and disoriented.

This intense dizziness was not backlash from Square Inch Space being overloaded. Rather, the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of forced collections had severely drained his spiritual sense.

"If Square Inch Space didn't require me to touch items with both hands to take them in, I wouldn't have been reduced to using such a stupid method."

"If I could retrieve things from a distance, then by myself alone, I could probably have easily resolved this flood threatening the whole city."

The Cold Mountain Grass lining the walls gave off a chilly, faint glow, illuminating Li Shun's ever-changing expression.

He raised his head, his gaze seeming to pierce through the thick earth to reach the surface. "I've escaped this disaster for now, but I'm trapped underground. I'll wait a little longer. If things haven't improved before dawn, I'm afraid I'll have to activate Threefold Self-Reflection once again."

Fortunately, what Li Shun feared did not happen.

At around nine that evening, Li Shun keenly noticed that the water accumulated in the tunnel had begun to recede.

Li Shun cleared away the remaining water as he went, then painstakingly crawled back to the surface through the slick, muddy passage. By then, he was soaked from head to toe and covered in silt, looking as though he had been fished straight out of the water.

As far as the eye could see, his residence had already become a field of broken walls and rubble. More than half the courtyard wall had been washed away. The air was thick with a pungent fishy stench and the faint odor of corpses.

Yet compared to the other residents of the city, Li Shun's circumstances were undoubtedly far better.

Looking in every direction, he saw cries of grief everywhere in the ruined Cold Mountain City. No one knew how many innocent lives had died miserably in this unprovoked calamity.

"Fang Xun has gone mad!"

After living in Cold Mountain City for decades, Li Shun could not help but feel the sorrow of the rabbit's death stirring pity for the fox as he watched those once-familiar, living faces turn into cold corpses before his eyes.

Yet Fang Xun was not as crazed as Li Shun imagined.

On the contrary, he was experiencing an unprecedented sense of triumph and satisfaction.

"I captured a remnant of the Xiang Kingdom alive! With such a heaven-reaching achievement, I will be promoted directly to the eleventh-rank Viscount Minister title and enter the ranks of the Great Qian Court's important ministers!" Fang Xun's usually gloomy face was flushed red with extreme excitement.

He paced back and forth in the depths of the prison, venting the excitement in his heart.

He paced through the depths of the sinister, damp prison, releasing the excitement that was nearly overflowing from his heart.

Fortunately, Fang Xun had not been completely blinded by greed. "Capturing him alive is one thing, but this foremost merit will only truly be in my pocket once I safely escort this brat back to the capital. Besides, this matter is of enormous consequence. I absolutely cannot conceal it from Master—I must report it at once."

Just as Fang Xun was calculating in secret, muffled sounds of struggling and groaning came from the cell beside him.

The source of the sound was Xiong Jin's nephew.

This giant of a man, burly as an iron tower, was bound tightly in layers of refined steel chains. His bare muscles were branded with dense black, bizarre characters. Though he originally possessed strength enough to pull up mountains, under this suppression he could not wield even a fraction of it.

Fang Xun cocked his eyes, his gaze full of contempt. He showed no mercy as he kicked him, then sneered, "Will you behave yourself already?!"

After sternly ordering the prison guards to keep a close watch, Fang Xun finally flicked his sleeve and left, returning to the study in the rear compound.

Back in the study, he followed his usual routine: washing his face, cleansing his hands, and straightening his clothes and cap. Every step was carried out with meticulous precision.

Then he burned incense and raised the mirror.

For some reason, however, his master did not respond for a long while this time.

Amid the curling incense smoke, Fang Xun lit a second stick of incense.

Only after quite some time did his master's majestic voice faintly emerge through the rippling water.

"Shensi, what is it this time?"

Fang Xun drew a deep breath, forcibly suppressing the excitement in his heart as he reported the entire matter of capturing the Xiang Kingdom remnant alive, leaving out not a single detail.

"Good! Shensi, I truly did not misjudge you!" The smoke suddenly roiled, and undisguised gratification came through in the voice.

After years of painstaking maneuvering, he had finally earned recognition. Fang Xun's eyes welled with hot tears. He immediately knelt prostrate on the ground, repeatedly kowtowing in thanks to his master.

His master offered Fang Xun a few more words of encouragement, then his tone suddenly turned grave. "You must personally stand guard and watch him closely. At dawn tomorrow, the Black-Robed Envoys will come to take over the escort."

Fang Xun repeatedly nodded and agreed.

After respectfully bidding his master farewell, Fang Xun did not dare act carelessly. He guarded the prison throughout the entire night.

At daybreak the next morning, a troop of Black-Robed Envoys rode upon drifting clouds and descended from the sky.

They still wore black heavy armor, fang masks over their faces, and rode armored qilin horses.

Killing Intent soared into the heavens.

The leading Black-Robed Envoy reined in his mount and looked down at the flood-ravaged ruins of Cold Mountain County. He could not help letting out a surprised sound.

Fang Xun's heart jolted. Keeping his expression unchanged, he immediately stepped forward to explain, "Brother Zhao, you may not know this, but this criminal is exceedingly crafty. Not only did he set fires to melt the ice, he even went mad enough to release the waters and drown the city. Fortunately, I captured him alive in time, preventing an even greater disaster."

The leader of the Black-Robed Envoys nodded slightly. An icy chill seeped from behind his mask. "So that is how it is. Once such a vicious and monstrous fiend is escorted back to the capital, we must skin him, pull out his tendons, grind his bones to ash, and scatter them to the wind. Only then can we frighten the world's petty villains into submission!"

Fang Xun repeatedly nodded in agreement beside him.

After that, the Black-Robed Envoys did not exchange any further pleasantries with Fang Xun.

They escorted Xiong Jin's nephew, turning into streaks of light as they sped back toward the Sacred Capital.

Only after watching that escaping light vanish completely beyond the horizon did Fang Xun's tense face bloom into an uncontrollable, smug smile. His mind had already begun freely imagining the splendid future of rising straight to the clouds.

The Black-Robed Envoys sped onward. Just as they were about to fly out of the Cold Mountain region, an abrupt change occurred!

The several dozen riders galloping through the air suddenly withdrew their escape lights without warning and descended from midair.

Then, at the instant they landed, those haughty Black-Robed Envoys and their armored qilin horses twisted and transformed, all becoming paper figures as thin as cicada wings. They drifted in the wind and scattered across the ground!

"Hm?!"

Under Xiong Jin's nephew's stunned gaze, a thin, frail youth slowly stepped out from the wild grass ahead.

His face bore a slightly sickly pallor. His features were exceedingly soft, even carrying a touch of feminine beauty.

With both hands tucked into his sleeves, the youth looked at Xiong Jin's nephew, who had fallen sitting in the middle of the road and was surrounded by a heap of eerie paper figures, with a smile that was not quite a smile.

Then he said teasingly, "Isn't this Jiang Chongguang, who calls himself a peerless hero? How did you end up in such a sorry state today?"