Chapter 69: Old Tao

Li Xiangping closed his eyes and sensed for a moment. His face instantly turned pale, and he clenched his teeth, cursing softly.

“Ten Qi Cultivators, damn it? How can anyone be rescued from this plague? Where did the Ji family get so many Qi Cultivators!”

Lu Jiangxian, in the mirror, continuously urged the mirror to transmit information. Watching seven auras guarding the central one, he thought to himself,

“What kind of situation is this? If Li Xiangping hadn’t been extremely cautious, anyone else rushing in would surely have died instantly.”

Lu Jiangxian finally breathed a sigh of relief, but then he was alarmed to find another Qi Cultivation aura rising from Moon Lake.

Li Xiangping also closed his eyes again to check, sensing a powerful aura rising from the direction of Moon Lake in the distance. It swayed gently in the air and headed westward.

An alarm immediately blared in Lu Jiangxian’s mind. He felt an intense sense of familiarity and attraction from that aura and almost cursed aloud:

“Damn it, this is clearly the aura from Moon Lake that can repair the Dharma Mirror, which I sensed a few years ago!”

The naked greed and malice of the Qi Cultivation aura flashed red like a large light bulb within his spiritual sense. Many thoughts flashed like lightning through Lu Jiangxian’s mind.

“This person must be coming for me; they’ve been dormant in Moon Lake for at least a decade!”

Li Xiangping also froze for a moment. Seeing that aura shooting straight towards him like a meteor, his hair stood on end. He slapped a Swiftness Talisman onto his leg, changed direction, and ran north.

“Who is this person now?! How can they come so directly towards me from such a distance? Damn it, the Wan family has truly messed me up this time!”

While running wildly, thoughts constantly flashed through Li Xiangping’s mind.

“This person came flying through the air, so they must be a Qi Cultivator. I absolutely cannot run towards my home in the west! My death would be a minor matter, but if I lead this person home, it would be an unforgivable sin, even with ten thousand deaths.”

“The Dharma Mirror is still in my hand; I absolutely cannot lose it.”

****

Wan Xiaohua looked at Ji Dengqi standing quietly outside the formation, hatred almost flying from his eyes. Beside him stood a man wearing a stone-blue embroidered cloak, with a broad forehead and an arrogant expression. He spoke discontentedly:

“Brother Wan, why isn’t the Li family making a move yet? Didn’t we agree they’d act as soon as the Earth-Locking Profound Array was activated?”

“Brother Pingyuan, please calm down and wait a little longer!”

This man was precisely the newly advanced Qi Cultivator from the Lu family, whom Li Tongya had met on Crown Cloud Peak. Now, the Wan family had paid a hefty price to invite him to assist; they were determined to kill Ji Dengqi.

Wan Xiaohua gave a bitter smile. His heart was filled with doubts as he thought to himself:

“Li Xiangping is also a smart man. How could he not understand the principle of ‘when the lips are gone, the teeth are cold’? Once my Wan family falls, the Ji family will border the Li and Lu families. Even an idiot like Lu Pingyuan can see the need to help my Wan family hold on. How could Li Xiangping not know this?”

He sighed deeply, and Wan Xiaohua’s heart grew increasingly uneasy.

After waiting for another stick of incense’s time, Lu Pingyuan grumbled and stood up. Disregarding Wan Xiaohua’s dissuasion, he flew his shuttle out of the formation and shouted towards Ji Dengqi down the mountain:

“You, head of the Ji family!”

“You can’t break through this turtle shell, so what’s the point of wasting time surrounding this mountain? My Lu family protects the Wan family. Hurry up and scram, lest we have to fight.”

As soon as he finished speaking, both Wan Xiaohua in the mountain and Ji Dengqi down below were speechless. Wan Xiaohua felt a wave of suffocation and thought viciously to himself:

“Even an idiot like this can cultivate Qi?! Truly unfair!”

Ji Dengqi narrowed his eyes, his heart filled with disdain, and whispered:

“Even my underpants have more brains than this guy.”

After speaking, he lifted his blade and was about to leap forward, when he heard a burst of laughter from the void. As if an invisible curtain had been pulled away, a golden-robed man, surrounded by a group of cultivators, finally appeared. He held his stomach and pointed at Lu Pingyuan below, laughing heartily:

“Hahaha, this is quite amusing. There’s actually someone more arrogant than I am!”

Wan Xiaohua, within the formation, looked up at the sky. Seeing the group of cultivators standing in mid-air reveal themselves, his face instantly turned pale. His mind buzzed and went completely blank.

“One, two, three… eight. Qi Cultivators… all Qi Cultivators… How is this possible!”

He immediately felt an unusual tightness in his chest, almost spitting out a mouthful of blood, and forced himself to call out:

“Yuankai! Wan Yuankai!”

Wan Yuankai also looked terrified. He quickly went up to support the family head, his eyes slightly red, and said in a deep voice:

“Family Head, Yuankai is here.”

Wan Xiaohua took a breath and said coldly:

“Today, my Wan family is likely doomed. Li Xiangping has yet to appear; he is probably in grave danger as well.”

“Gather all direct lineage disciples in the family. Once the grand formation breaks, immediately cross the mountain in different groups and directions, and head towards the Li and Lu families.”

Wan Xiaohua’s face was pale, but his mind was exceptionally clear. He slapped himself hard and said in a deep voice:

“No, that’s wrong. Ji Dengqi would never let my Wan family go so easily.”

“Pass on my order: Only direct descendants of the third generation who have opened their spirit apertures and are between seven and fifteen years old may head west. The rest, along with you and our direct lineage, will remain on the mountain. When the formation breaks, scatter and flee in all directions. Ji Dengqi will not spare my Wan family unless he kills them all.”

“As for the illegitimate descendants…”

As Wan Xiaohua was giving his orders, he felt the grand formation shake. A shower of blood rained down from the sky. Lu Pingyuan had failed to beg for mercy, and in a single encounter, had been torn to shreds by the golden-robed man, who was laughing heartily.

The golden-robed man shook his hand, casually picked up Lu Pingyuan’s storage bag, and probed it with his spiritual sense, examining it carefully. He immediately frowned and cursed softly:

“Pauper.”

Turning his head, he looked at the gleaming Earth-Locking Profound Array. The golden-robed man produced a long blade wreathed in crimson flames from his hand and chuckled:

“Let me try out Wan Huaqian’s craft.”

****

Li Xiangping had only run for a short while when he felt a series of ill winds around him. An old man in a Daoist robe, riding a flying shuttle, had slowly stopped in front of him. He lightly flicked the whisk in his hand and said with a smile:

“Friend, where are you rushing off to so fast?”

Lu Jiangxian, in the mirror, suddenly felt a chill. Feeling waves of attraction emanating from the old man, as if an invisible thread connected them, his heart stirred, and he thought to himself:

“This person is already in the mid-stage of Qi Cultivation. They appear to be at the fifth or sixth level of Qi Cultivation. This is trouble now.”

Li Xiangping gritted his teeth and said softly:

“And who might you be, blocking my path?”

The old man laughed heartily and slowly said:

“This old Daoist has been guarding above Moon Lake for nearly thirty years. I’ve finally waited for a fellow Daoist like you.”

After speaking, he gently flicked his hand and produced a completely snow-white jade pendant. The jade pendant faintly emitted a white glow, and its tail seemed to be pulled by an invisible thread, pointing directly at Li Xiangping.

“Fellow Daoist, if you hand over the item, this old Daoist can still leave you a complete corpse.”