Reach the Summit was surrounded by a crowd. Though Du Shu was the weakest, he still stood at the very front, looking down at the people below as he replied coldly, "Han Gong, I already told you that Brother Yan went out to train and hasn't returned. Is there any point in standing here imagining that he's afraid of you?"
"More likely he's been hiding outside for a month," Han Gong sneered.
"If you can hide out there for a month too, I'll concede defeat on Brother Yan's behalf," Du Shu shot back.
The others froze at his words. Being able to stay in the Unowned Forest for that long did seem to be an accomplishment in itself.
Not only did one have to withstand attacks from all sorts of spirit beasts and the Jungle Killers, but one also had to endure the hardship and loneliness of training.
Seeing that Han Gong had fallen silent, Du Shu turned his gaze to Yang Xia. The chatterbox started up again. "Say, Gang Leader Yang, why aren't you people concentrating on alchemy instead of coming here to cause trouble?
"Do you feel you can't compete with us, so you want to use some filthy tricks to suppress Reach the Summit?
"You keep claiming we stole your Pill Formulas. Why would Reach the Summit steal your Pill Formulas? We've always had the Pill Formulas for the Precious Pill Pavilion's three main pills.
"Before we put them up for sale, I was actually against it.
"Why? Because their grade was too low. They lowered Reach the Summit's standards.
"Which of the pills we've released hasn't been a Peerless Divine Pill?
"If you hadn't acted shamelessly first and disrupted Reach the Summit's opening, would we even have spared small fry like you a glance?
"If you