Meanwhile, Qing Chen strode forward, his boot soles grinding over fragments of the White Jade Corridor with piercing cracks.
He reached the edge of the ruins and stopped, looking down at the utterly bedraggled Fire Jiao.
"For King Wu Gui's sake."
"I'll forgive you this time."
He paused and stared at Fire Jiao. "Talking nonsense can get people killed."
"Am I someone you're entitled to get angry with?"
After hearing those words, Fire Jiao True Lord staggered upright amid the ruins. His right arm hung limply, healing with a series of hisses.
He coughed up blood, his eyes shot through with red. "Qing Chen! What are you trying to do? Declare war on Jiaogu Island? Do you want everyone in the Gouwu Sea to be your enemy?!"
"At the ceremony, I spoke up for you and publicly contradicted Hui'an! I even gave you an entire fourth-tier low-grade spirit stone mine vein! Even those ten thousand body cultivators were all transferred to your Cangming Army-and this is how you treat me?!"
Qing Chen stood ten paces away, tilting his head slightly, looking at him as though he were an idiot.
"You're already very lucky. It's exceedingly rare for me to strike without someone dying. That was for the sake of your having spoken up for me. I, Qing Chen, am not someone who repays kindness with enmity."
"Had it been anyone else, that punch would have blown apart their head, not their hand."
Fire Jiao's face went from red to purple, then from purple to livid green, his pent-up anger agonizing.
"Fine... fine! Fine!"
Fire Jiao heaved himself upright and repeated the word three times. "You can have those ten thousand body cultivators! Give Jiaogu Island's spirit stone mine back! Then we're square, and I, Fire Jiao, will never set foot