"What's wrong with the young master?"
"No idea..."
"Hiss-his forehead's bleeding. That looks painful. Shouldn't we stop him?"
"How? Everyone who went over to stop him ended up kneeling with him."
Inside the Great General's Residence, two guards whispered helplessly to each other. Suddenly, a deep, resonant voice sounded behind them. "What's going on?"
Startled, the two hurriedly turned sideways to greet him.
"General!"
The man they greeted was a burly, bearded man in armor: the master of the Great General's Residence, Feng Mo's father, Feng Shuhu, who had hurried over after hearing the news.
Father and son looked much alike, except for their entirely different eyes. Feng Shuhu's eyes were large and piercing, and an old sword scar by his right eye made his face look even fiercer.
As his tigerlike gaze swept over them, all the nearby servants and guards bowed their heads deeply, not daring to meet his eyes.
"Mo, what are you doing?!"
His voice boomed like a great bell. A short distance away, the people kneeling behind Feng Mo all froze, stopped kowtowing, and looked toward him.
"Father?" Feng Mo called softly, then explained, "Look at the sky. The clouds are curling in layers, vaguely forming the shape of a giant dragon..."
Hmm? Feng Shuhu looked up at the sky. His eyes froze for a moment, and his knees bent slightly. Then the flesh of his face twisted, and he forcibly straightened his legs!
Boom!!
With just that bend and straightening of his legs, the ground split outward around him as though struck by a meteor, forming a crater dozens of meters across! Onlookers and kneeling worshippers alike cried out as they fell into the pit! At the same time, a ripple of Saint Soul power quietly faded away!
"Seeding? Six-star mastery of the Deception Scripture!" Astonishment showed in Feng Shuhu's tigerlike eyes. It was extremely difficult for mastery of a Saint Soul to exceed a cultivator's own rank. Anyone with a six-star Deception Scripture had to be a six-star Kaiyang cultivator. Yet cultivators had limited energy, and generally only their one or two most frequently used Saint Souls could keep pace with their own rank.
He had never heard of anyone mastering the one-star Saint Soul, the Deception Scripture, to the Six-Star Sowing stage!
"Mo, who did you provoke?"
Feng Mo sat sprawled on the ground, gradually coming to his senses. "He was actually... a six-star Kaiyang?"
Xia Yi's face flashed before his eyes, and his complexion paled slightly. He took several deep breaths, trying to calm himself. Suddenly, as though something else had occurred to him, his face turned deathly pale again.
"Oh no, Uncle Lin..."
As the commander of the Great General's Residence household guards, Lin Gong stood at the peak of four-star Tianquan, just one step away from forming his fifth star and reaching a higher tier. He ranked among Lieyang City's strongest fighters. One could even say that, apart from its handful of five-star Jade Balance cultivators, he was the strongest.
Yet few people in Lieyang City knew him.
In his earlier years, he too had been an important general commanding troops in his own region. But greedy and lustful by nature, he had embezzled military pay while in command and raped civilian women during a war against an enemy country. His grave crimes earned him a death sentence. Only by begging Feng Shuhu, his sworn brother through life and death and a fellow general at the time, to find a way to save him had he survived, through a substitution trick.
Thus, he generally kept to himself. To repay the debt of his life, he had become the commander of Feng Shuhu's household guards, training them for him.
Given his standing, Feng Mo normally could not order him around. But old habits died hard. He had accepted a thousand taels in banknotes from Feng Mo, and Feng Mo had only asked him to come take a look, without needing to act directly. Thinking it would be easy, he had come out for a stroll in the early morning.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk. This girl really is extraordinarily pretty. No wonder she's bewitched Feng Mo."
Gently poking through the window paper, Lin Gong peered inside through the hole and saw Zhou Xiaoxian's delicate profile as she slept soundly. He swallowed slightly.
After a moment's hesitation, he tore his gaze away. Something crossed his mind, and he gave a lecherous smile. "Feng Mo is my dear nephew, after all..."
Just then, his ears twitched. He faintly heard footsteps coming from the stairs. His eyes flickered, but he remained unhurried, raising his head and straightening his back as he walked casually along the corridor like a passing guest.
Zhiya—just then, a door ahead creaked open. Lin Gong saw a white-haired old man step out and glance at him.
White beard, white hair, white eyebrows, and a bamboo hat. This is the target? Completely unremarkable. He doesn't look remotely like a four-star Tianquan cultivator. Did Feng Mo get it wrong? Or has the target's strength declined considerably with age and infirmity?
Thoughts flashed through Lin Gong's mind, but his expression remained unchanged as he nodded to Xia Yi, like two early-rising guests greeting each other. Everything went smoothly and naturally. Then he turned to leave, only for his steps to falter suddenly.
The man approaching him gave him a tremendous shock!
"Lin Gong? What are you doing here?"
What am I doing here... I'd like to ask what you're doing here. At a loss, Lin Gong could only bow in greeting. "My lord, Xiyuan Marquis!"
Song Qu frowned involuntarily. Song Ziyu, following behind him, did not recognize Lin Gong or understand the situation. Looking past Lin Gong, he spotted Xia Yi.
"Father, this is the elder."
Song Qu turned his gaze toward Xia Yi. After their eyes met for three seconds, an icy-blue light suddenly rose in his eyes.
Lin Gong, who had intended to seize the chance to leave, instantly felt a chill through his entire body! This was the five-star Saint Soul: Record of Redressing Injustice!
Two hundred years earlier, the Song family's ancestor, Song Ci, had compiled and summarized humanity's first forensic work, the Record of Redressing Injustice, creating a five-star Saint Soul and earning the title of king through it!
Those who wielded the Record of Redressing Injustice could easily perceive people's weaknesses, and even go further to perceive the weaknesses of all things. It was said... anything could be killed!
Lin Gong had once heard Feng Shuhu say that over two hundred years, the Song family had refined the Record of Redressing Injustice until it was only one step away from becoming a six-star Saint Soul. Unless he gathered a hundred elite soldiers and officers to form a military formation, even Feng Shuhu would have no chance of winning against Song Qu using the Record of Redressing Injustice!
At that thought, Lin Gong stiffened even further, not daring to move. "My lord, Xiyuan Marquis?"
Song Qu ignored him. At that moment, the world looked entirely different through Song Qu's eyes.
Threads covered Lin Gong's body, the corridor beneath Song Qu's feet, the windows beside him...
These threads were red, yellow, and green, representing lethal points, threatening points, and ineffective points respectively. They allowed him to effortlessly "kill" the entire inn, including Lin Gong!
Except for Xia Yi!
Xia Yi's body was shrouded in a blue curtain unlike anything he had ever seen. He could not see through it at all!
The icy blue in his eyes gradually faded. He bowed slightly in respect. "Song Qu, Xiyuan Marquis, pays his respects, elder. Forgive my many offenses!"
The feeling of being locked onto by the Record of Redressing Injustice vanished.
Yet Lin Gong's body grew even stiffer, and beads of sweat the size of beans seeped from his forehead.
That "elder" from the Xiyuan Marquis... surely, probably, definitely wasn't addressed to me, was it?
[You have discovered the five-star Saint Soul: Collected Cases of Injustice. Current exploration progress: 1%]
Xia Yi smiled. "It's fine, it's fine. Nothing to forgive. Hmm, let me take care of something first. It won't take long."
He reached out to place his hand on Lin Gong's shoulder.
Plop!
A large bead of sweat fell from Lin Gong's forehead. He gritted his teeth, and the instant Xia Yi touched him, he suddenly turned into a green wooden stake and vanished!
[You have discovered the three-star Saint Soul: Replace the Beams with Rotten Timber. Current exploration progress: 25%.]
Holding the wooden stake, Xia Yi paused, then glanced to the side. He shook his head with a chuckle. "A fine Replace the Beams with Rotten Timber. Never mind. I'll find him later."
After saying this, he seemed to sense something else and glanced toward the stairs, frowning slightly. Song Qu noticed nothing, however, and nodded respectfully, following Xia Yi into his room. "Ziyu, stand guard outside. Don't let anyone in."
Several hundred meters away.
Lin Gong sprinted to a secluded corner by a wall and looked around. Seeing no one pursuing him, he breathed a sigh of relief, then cursed under his breath through gritted teeth. "That brat Feng Mo nearly got me killed. That old man was actually..."
"You were peeping at Xiao Xian just now."
A deep, muffled voice exploded nearby, making him jump.
He looked over and discovered that it was neither Xia Yi nor Song Qu, only an unremarkable, burly young man. Irritably, he snapped, "Get lost!"
"Moo won't! You have bad intentions! Peeping at moo's Xiao Xian! Moo~!!"
Lin Gong said, "Moo?"
"You dare imitate moo? Moo will beat you to death!"
Before you continue