Chapter 34: Don't scare me anymore

Qin Xiaopang looked at the corpse on the ground, then at Li Banfeng.

Li Banfeng said he had been very scared just now.

Qin Xiaopang didn't know how to comfort him.

"I was afraid he would kill me, so I killed him. That way, he won't be able to kill me," Li Banfeng offered a logical explanation.

Xiaopang found this explanation... impeccable.

Li Banfeng walked over to Old Smoke's corpse, untied the cloth bag from his body, and counted its contents.

There were ninety-one snake-spotted chrysanthemums, which would fetch nearly eight thousand yuan.

"Is it worth killing for less than eight thousand yuan?" Li Banfeng considered the prices in Medicine King Gully; human lives shouldn't be so cheap, it seemed.

Qin Xiaopang sighed, "You're from outside; you don't understand the rules here. Money is too hard to earn and too quickly spent. In some remote places, people kill for as little as a hundred yuan. What's more, this is Bitter Mist Mountain, an extremely dangerous place. Here, lives are as worthless as grass."

Li Banfeng handed the bag to Xiaopang. "You can have this."

Xiaopang shook his head. "You killed those two bastards, and you avenged Old Smoke. His belongings rightfully belong to you."

"Just hold onto it for now. We can discuss it when we get down the mountain," Li Banfeng insisted, handing the bag to Qin Xiaopang.

Qin Xiaopang noticed Li Banfeng's empty hands and asked, "Where are your flowers?"

"That's a long story," Li Banfeng said, pulling a few black and white beads from his pocket. "Brother, do you recognize these?"

Qin Xiaopang took the beads and examined them, his eyes immediately lighting up. "These are Snake-Spotted Pills! I've seen them before. Where did you get them?"

They were indeed Snake-Spotted Pills.

Li Banfeng had actually made a similar guess.

Since he was willing to show them to Xiaopang, he had already prepared an explanation.

"On the way down the mountain, I met an old woman. She said she was from a medicine guild and wanted to trade pills for my snake-spotted chrysanthemums. Ten flowers for one pill."

Li Banfeng had originally intended to say five flowers for one pill, but on second thought, five flowers would barely cover the cost, and no one would make such a trade.

Trading at double the cost seemed much more reasonable.

Hearing this, Xiaopang stared at the Snake-Spotted Pills in his hand again, then turned to Li Banfeng. "You traded them?"

"Yes!" Li Banfeng nodded.

"All of them?"

"All of them!" Li Banfeng said with a proud expression. "Brother, don't you think I made a good deal?"

"I'd say you've... probably been conned," Xiaopang said, handing the Snake-Spotted Pills back to Li Banfeng. "Brother, I'm not good at telling if pills are real or fake, but I can tell the truth from a lie in the world. One Snake-Spotted Pill sells for at least ten thousand, while ten snake-spotted chrysanthemums only sell for eight hundred and fifty. Who would make such a trade with you? You've ninety-nine percent certainly been tricked."

"Really?" Li Banfeng clicked his tongue, put the Snake-Spotted Pills away, and offered no further explanation.

He couldn't explain. He couldn't tell Qin Xiaopang that he hadn't traded them with an old woman; they had emerged from the bronze lotus.

Qin Xiaopang sighed, "This trip to Bitter Mist Mountain has taught me a lesson: we're still too green. Some money, we're simply not qualified to earn. I was tricked by the guy with glasses, and you were tricked by that old woman. You just said there was a place with a lot of flowers; was that true?"

Li Banfeng scoffed, "Of course not. I saw they were about to attack you, so I invented that place to trick them. I hoped they would follow me, and I could deal with them on the way. But I didn't expect those two to try and kill you first, so I had no choice but to finish them here."

Xiaopang nodded. "You're still better than me. In fact, you're much better. Don't be too upset about your snake-spotted chrysanthemums being conned away; Old Smoke's chrysanthemums are all yours. Let's hurry down the mountain."

As the two were about to leave the woods, they suddenly saw a flickering light in the distance.

Xiaopang paused. "It's a torch."

Li Banfeng's eyes darted around, realizing the situation was bad.

The newcomers were most likely the gold-rimmed glasses man's accomplices, probably the bald man.

The bald man's combat ability wasn't impressive, but he had many people with him. To defeat them, they would need an opportunity for a surprise attack.

Li Banfeng told Xiaopang, "Find a place to hide, as fast as possible. Wait for me to make my move, then you act. I'll go hide the bodies first."

Qin Xiaopang said, "I'll help you hide them!"

"No time! Don't worry about the bodies."

Li Banfeng dragged the bodies of the gold-rimmed glasses man and Tiger Cub deeper into the woods. Xiaopang watched anxiously; the woods were so sparse, where could one hide bodies?

Li Banfeng couldn't find a place to hide the bodies either, but the torches were getting closer and closer.

Seeing Xiaopang climb a tree, Li Banfeng moved out of his line of sight, took out a key, opened the door to his portable residence, and tossed the two corpses inside.

Li Banfeng felt it was bad luck to keep corpses in his residence, but it was a desperate measure.

Leaving the portable residence, he put away the key, then hid in the tall grass, observing silently.

The bald man entered the woods first, carrying Caoye over his shoulder.

Caoye was tightly bound and crying all the way.

Behind him, two men carried Youmao.

Youmao was covered in bruises and wounds. If not for the faint rise and fall of her chest, Li Banfeng would have suspected she was already dead.

Caoye and Youmao were thrown onto a clearing. One of the bald man's henchmen stepped forward and pinched Caoye's cheek. "Don't cry, why are you crying? I know what I'm doing; I promise not to hurt you!"

As he spoke, the henchman was about to lay hands on Caoye when the bald man barked, "Don't you dare mess around! Didn't I tell you to wait until Boss gets back?"

"Always waiting for the boss..." the henchman grumbled.

The bald man stepped forward and kicked him. "Here, let alone a woman, even a single grain of rice, the boss gets it first!"

The henchman dared not speak. The other henchman noticed Old Smoke's corpse.

"Third Brother, was this old man taken care of by Boss?"

The bald man told the other two henchmen to guard Caoye and Youmao, while he himself went to inspect Old Smoke's body.

"Look at this knife wound; it must have been done by Second Brother. But this old man was poisoned, which is indeed Boss's method," the bald man explained to his henchman with a hint of pride, differentiating between the techniques of the gold-rimmed glasses man and Tiger Cub.

Li Banfeng had no interest in hearing him explain these differences, as the gold-rimmed glasses man and Tiger Cub were already gone.

He only cared about one thing now: they were separated.

The bald man and his three henchmen had split into two pairs.

Li Banfeng, holding his sickle, cautiously approached the two henchmen guarding Caoye and Youmao.

One henchman was fumbling with Youmao, eager to take full advantage of the situation.

The other had his hand inside Caoye's clothes. Seeing Caoye crying too much, he quickly covered her mouth.

Closer, get even closer to them.

Li Banfeng had no ranged attack methods; for a successful sneak attack, he needed to be close enough.

It looked about twenty meters, a bit too far.

A few more steps, and it was about fifteen meters.

A little closer.

*Snap!*

Li Banfeng's foot landed a bit heavily on a dry leaf, making a sound.

He held his breath, hiding motionless behind a tree.

The two henchmen must have noticed; the sneak attack seemed to have failed. If all four of them surrounded him, he'd need a strategy to withstand the first wave before Xiaopang could come down to assist.

If worse came to worst, he could escape; he wasn't that familiar with these two women anyway.

After a moment of thought, Li Banfeng heard no other sounds.

Peeking from behind the large tree, Li Banfeng was surprised to see that the two henchmen were still busy harassing Youmao and Caoye, completely oblivious to his presence.

Home Cultivator's talent—Ignorance.

Not ignoring others, but being ignored by others.

His presence was ignored, and his footsteps went unnoticed.

In the wild mountains and forests, a snapping sound was normal. Their attention was fully focused on the two girls.

Since they hadn't noticed him, Li Banfeng continued forward.

With only ten meters left, Li Banfeng stopped sneaking.

He suddenly burst from behind the tree, and with the speed of a Journey Cultivator, he reached one henchman's back in less than a second.

Before the henchman could even see Li Banfeng clearly, Li Banfeng slit his throat with a single slash.

The other henchman dodged behind Caoye. Li Banfeng pushed Caoye aside and swung his sickle again. The blade struck the henchman, sparking, but surprisingly, it didn't pierce his skin.

Youmao cried out, "He's a Body Cultivator!"

This fellow has natural armor!

Li Banfeng swung his sickle again, but it still didn't break the skin. By this time, the bald man and the other henchman had already arrived.

Li Banfeng was in a bad situation; he was about to face an attack from three people.

Amidst his fear, Li Banfeng trembled all over, his eyes reddening.

The bald man looked at his dead henchman on the ground, then at Li Banfeng.

"You little bastard, you're a real son of a bitch," the bald man said, tilting his head and looking at Li Banfeng, his eyes glinting with cold light. "How dare you touch my man? Today, I'm going to chop off both your hands, then gouge out your brains and make you eat them yourself!"

Hearing this, Li Banfeng turned and ran, but he wasn't fast enough. As he reached a tree, the Body Cultivator with natural armor blocked his path.

The bald man and his remaining henchman pursued him steadily from behind.

Li Banfeng was so terrified his features seemed to shift, his knees buckling as if he were about to collapse to the ground.

The bald man walked step by step toward Li Banfeng, stopping beneath the large tree, his slightly smiling face appearing utterly ferocious.

"Kneel! Kneel nicely, and I'll make your death quick. Hurry up and kneel! I told you to kneel! Are you deaf? Can't you hear me...?"

*Thud!*

The bald man heard a muffled thud.

Xiaopang had jumped down from the tree.

He didn't know why Xiaopang had jumped from the tree.

He certainly didn't know why Li Banfeng had run towards this particular tree.

Xiaopang's axe landed squarely on the henchman's head, splashing the bald man's face with shattered skull fragments and splattered brains.

The bald man's ferocious smile vanished as he saw Li Banfeng raise his sickle.

As a Martial Cultivator, the bald man reacted incredibly fast. He immediately raised his dagger, assumed a horse stance, and prepared to parry with all his might. Then, with a searing pain, he crumpled to his knees.

Li Banfeng's sickle was still raised, but raising the weapon and striking a person were two different things.

He raised the sickle with his right hand and kicked the groin with his left foot, performing the action in one fluid motion.

Combined with the bald man's cooperative horse stance, the effect of this strike was devastatingly obvious.

The bald man knelt.

He cursed Li Banfeng inwardly: *Why is this bastard so despicable?*

Only the henchman with natural armor remained.

Like everyone else, this henchman had been on Bitter Mist Mountain for a day, and his physical condition wasn't great.

But Xiaopang was in better condition than him; a Food Cultivator's resilience was tougher than a Body Cultivator's.

Xiaopang wielded his axe, striking fiercely, blow after blow.

The henchman resisted stubbornly with his armor until he could no longer hold out, and Xiaopang cleaved half his body from his left shoulder to his right rib.

Meanwhile, Li Banfeng hooked his sickle into the bald man's jaw.

The bald man's jaw trembled as he mumbled indistinctly, "I just wanted to... to scare you a bit. I didn't want to kill anyone. I wouldn't kill anyone, I definitely wouldn't..."

"You wanted to scare me?" Li Banfeng blinked, asking very earnestly, "Is that true?"

"It's true!" The bald man's jaw was hooked, so he couldn't nod, but his gaze was sincere.

"You shouldn't do that again in the future; I get really scared," Li Banfeng advised him very earnestly.

Hearing this, the bald man saw hope.

"I'll never scare you again, never again..."

Before the bald man could finish speaking, Li Banfeng took out a shovel, plunged it into the bald man's skull, and pried open his cranium.

PS: Today's update is ten thousand words. Please vote for Salad and leave comments.