A plot to frame him

Mu Chen had only just narrowly escaped the swamp trap and had yet to catch his breath when a group of aggressive cultivators blocked his path. Their eyes brimmed with anger and accusation as they surrounded him, forming a ring so tight that not even a breath of wind could slip through. One of them, a black-robed cultivator with a brutish face, pointed at Mu Chen and roared, "Mu Chen, you shameless scoundrel! You dared to steal our treasure! Today, you'll pay for it!" His voice reverberated through the air like thunder, filled with anger and righteous indignation, as though Mu Chen truly were a thief who had committed an unforgivable crime. Mu Chen's brows knitted tightly, and a sense of foreboding rose within him. He knew perfectly well that he had never done any such thing. This was clearly a plot to frame him. He swept his gaze over the surrounding cultivators and discovered that quite a few were people who had envied him before and joined forces against him, while others had been incited without knowing the truth. "I never stole anything from you! Someone is framing me!" Mu Chen retorted loudly, his voice firm and forceful, his eyes shining without a trace of fear. The cultivators, however, refused to believe him. A young woman in white sneered, took a treasure emitting powerful fluctuations of spiritual energy from her Storage Ring, and held it up for everyone to see. "We have proof! Our team went through countless hardships to find this treasure. We kept it in our camp, but after you appeared, it vanished without a trace. When we tracked its spiritual energy fluctuations, we found you right here. What excuses do you have left?" At those words, the surrounding cultivators erupted in outrage and clamored in agreement. "Exactly! Mu Chen, you're always acting so mysterious. You must have used some despicable trick to steal the treasure!" "We can't let him go! Make him hand over the treasure and face punishment!" Looking at that so-called "proof," Mu Chen understood that this was a scheme his enemies had meticulously planned. They had deliberately placed a treasure near him and then accused him of theft, intending to make him the target of every arrow. He tried to explain, but the cultivators, their heads clouded by jealousy and anger, would not listen to his defense. "Hmph! You decided I stole it just because a treasure appeared near me? That's absurd!" Mu Chen said angrily. "On the Spirit Road, spiritual energy fluctuations are complex and ever-changing. Someone could have deliberately put the treasure here to frame me. Won't you even consider that possibility?" Yet his explanation seemed utterly powerless at that moment. The cultivators had already been stirred up, and all they wanted was to see Mu Chen punished. Several had begun channeling their spiritual energy, preparing to attack him. Just then, another group of cultivators arrived. Having heard about Mu Chen's "theft," they too joined the ranks of his accusers. The crowd grew larger and larger, and the situation turned increasingly unfavorable for Mu Chen. He knew that if he could not prove his innocence, he would fall into an abyss of no return on the Spirit Road. Not only would other cultivators hunt him down, but he would also lose the reputation he had painstakingly built. At this critical moment, Mu Chen forced himself to calm down. He began recalling what had happened, trying to find a way to prove his innocence from the faintest threads of evidence. Suddenly, he remembered that before he had been caught in the swamp trap, he had sensed someone following him. The sounds that had deliberately lured him into the trap had also been highly suspicious. "Think carefully! If I really stole your treasure, why would I stay here and wait for you to catch me? I would have taken it and flown far beyond your reach long ago!" Mu Chen called out to the crowd. "Someone clearly planned this to frame me! First, they lured me into the swamp trap, and then they brought out this treasure to accuse me. Their aim is to leave me without a foothold on the Spirit Road!" Some cultivators hesitated briefly after hearing his words, but most still refused to believe him. They thought Mu Chen was merely making excuses, trying to escape blame. "Don't listen to his nonsense! He's a cunning thief trying to bluff his way out!" the black-robed cultivator shouted again, his words rekindling the crowd's anger. Seeing this, Mu Chen knew he needed stronger evidence to prove his innocence. He looked around and noticed traces of battle not far away, left by his earlier struggle against the poisonous creatures and spiritual energy traps in the swamp. Inspiration struck, and he thought of a way. "Look! These are the traces of my fight against the traps and poisonous creatures just now. If I were fleeing after stealing a treasure, why would I stop here and fight enemies? This is enough to prove I was framed. Someone deliberately lured me here, then planted that treasure while I was trapped!" Mu Chen explained, pointing at the marks on the ground. Some cultivators began examining the marks carefully. They found that the traces were indeed fresh, and the battle appeared to have been substantial. A sliver of doubt stirred within them, and they began reconsidering the matter. Those who had plotted to frame Mu Chen, however, would not let him escape his predicament so easily. One of them secretly wielded spiritual energy to destroy and alter some of the surrounding marks, making them look more like something Mu Chen had deliberately fabricated. "Hmph! Perhaps you made these marks yourself to mislead us. Do you think this will let you escape punishment?" the woman in white said contemptuously. Seeing his enemies' despicable methods, Mu Chen felt fury blaze within him. He knew these people were determined to drive him to his death and would not let him off easily. But he could not simply accept being wrongfully accused. He had to fight to clear his name. "Since you don't believe me, we can search for real evidence together. I believe that as long as we investigate carefully, we'll find clues left behind by whoever framed me!" Mu Chen said firmly. But the incited cultivators were unwilling to cooperate. They only wanted to settle the matter quickly and see Mu Chen punished. Some had already begun attacking him, sending all manner of spiritual energy attacks raining down on him. Left with no choice, Mu Chen could only dodge their attacks while continuing to search for a way to prove his innocence. As he evaded the attacks, Mu Chen spotted a familiar figure flickering in and out of view amid the crowd. It was a cultivator with whom he had clashed before. A thought stirred in Mu Chen's mind, and he suspected that the man was one of the masterminds behind the plot. He decided to pursue that figure, hoping to find the crucial evidence on him that would prove his innocence and free him from this sudden conspiracy to frame him.