Yellow Skinned Taoist Master

Chapter 146: You Dare Mention the Song Family to Me?

One sword.

Silence in every direction.

The ten gods — enthroned on high, levitating above the city — hadn't even managed to retaliate.

They dropped like dumplings into a pot.

Revealing their true forms: clay and wood statues.

Only, these idols — once worshipped and offered incense by the masses — shattered into pieces the moment their divine power failed them.

Everyone stood stupefied, staring blankly at the heaps of broken earth and rotted wood on the ground.

What had just happened?

All Chen Huangpi did was swing his sword once and release a single arc of sword qi.

He was a cultivator, not a god.Attacking gods should have been like an egg smashing against a rock.

So why had the gods died — and not him?

Faint glimmers of spectral light silently flowed into the Soul-Hooking Manual.

"Eleven."

Chen Huangpi murmured. "Counting that cultivator, I've killed eleven. But it's not enough. A Gui was hurt so badly. I need to kill more to wake it up."

He turned his eyes on the remaining Golden Core cultivators.

"Senior, spare us! Spare us!"

"We didn't attack you..."

"Don't kill me! Please, don't kill me!"

Chen Huangpi said, "Would you like to hear my reasoning?"

"Yes! We would! We would!"

"Good. I like reasoning."

Chen Huangpi said calmly. "After I killed that first man, you didn't actually make a move against me. You were afraid. But the moment your mistress ordered my death — every one of you developed killing intent toward me."

"You wanted to kill me. So I have to kill you."

"Is this reasoning fair?"

The Golden Core cultivators shook their heads wildly.

What kind of deranged logic was this? Accepting it meant death.

But would rejecting it keep them alive?

Their refusal only deepened Chen Huangpi's disgust.

So he merely pointed two fingers together like a sword.

He didn't even bother swinging his blade. A few arcs of Grand Sui Demon-Slaying sword qi — and the Golden Core cultivators were cut down where they stood, no room to run.

"Forty-five now."

"Brother Chen, stop!"

Cao Huaying's voice was shrill with terror. "I am a daughter of the Jiangbei Cao family! If you kill me, the Cao family will never let this go. Spare my life — I swear on the heavens, the Cao family will never trouble you."

"We'll even present rich gifts and publicly clear up the misunderstanding."

"Is the Cao family more powerful than the Song family?"

"That... of course not."

Cao Huaying had no idea why Chen Huangpi had brought up the Song family.

The Song family was a true Da Kang great house, its legacy stretching back centuries, its fate entwined with the dynasty itself.

A hundred Cao families — a thousand — couldn't match the Song family.

Chen Huangpi laughed in disbelief. "The Song family owes me money and won't pay it back. Your Cao family isn't even as strong as them — and you're talking about 'rich gifts'? Do you really think I've read all those books for nothing?"

With that, he swung his sword at the carriage.

BOOM.

The carriage exploded on the spot.

But to Chen Huangpi's mild surprise.

Cao Huaying wasn't inside. All that remained was a shattered peach-wood effigy.

And in the distance.

Cao Huaying — transformed into a streak of escape light — was fleeing at top speed.

"A substitute peach puppet."

The Brass Oil Lamp said. "Twelfth Madam used to carry one of those. Didn't expect this woman to have one too."

"She won't escape."

Chen Huangpi said, and gave chase.

Back at the scene.

The kneeling commoners peered at each other.

Someone started it — no one knew who.

Then, furtively, they crept onto the Human Road — the flagstone road that cultivators walked — glanced left and right, snatched up a piece of broken god-statue, and bolted.

But the first man had barely taken a step.

When Chen Huangpi's voice rang out.

"That's mine. You can't take it."

The man's face went white. He collapsed to his knees and knocked his forehead on the ground. "Spare me, child! Spare me, child!"

"All right — you can have the rest now."

The man looked up, but Chen Huangpi was already gone.

Only — from his own wares — every single glutinous-rice-filled hawthorn stick had vanished.

After a dazed moment.

The man cracked a grin. "See that? That young lord likes my hawthorn sticks. From now on, the glutinous rice ones are going up one coin."

...

Cao Huaying was fleeing.

With every means at her disposal, burning Nascent Soul essence to fuel her flight.

It was desperate. It was undignified.

Not a shred of the Cao family's vaunted elegance remained.

"A lunatic — a complete lunatic!"

Cao Huaying shrieked. "How can someone like this exist? How can he kill gods? He's just a cultivator! How can a sword made from a rotten branch be so terrifying?"

For cultivators, Nascent Soul was the ceiling.

No matter how gifted you were — even born at the Nascent Soul level — this was as far as you could go.

The only path beyond was to become a god.

The Cao family was ultimately a minor house.

Even the family they served was merely the local Xuzhou branch of the Song family.

Too shallow a foundation. Too narrow a perspective.

Had she been from the Song family itself — someone like Song Qiuyue — she would have realized immediately that Chen Huangpi was walking an entirely different path of cultivation.

One stronger, and far more extraordinary, than the current mainstream.

And so, the only explanation Cao Huaying could conceive was that Chen Huangpi's power came from the seemingly ordinary wooden sword.

Xuzhou City held millions of people.

And countless cultivators and gods besides.

As Cao Huaying fled, she caught the attention of cultivators who recognized her.

"Isn't that Miss Cao?"

"Save me! Save me!"

Cao Huaying screamed. "A cultivator is trying to kill me! Block him — the Cao family will reward you handsomely!"

"He's not from a noble house. Just some rogue cultivator from the mountains."

"What? Such audacity!"

"Don't worry, Miss Cao. Let's see who dares lay a hand on you in broad daylight!"

Nascent Soul cultivators leapt out one after another. But Cao Huaying didn't stop — she kept fleeing deeper into the city.

The Nascent Soul cultivators shook their heads privately.

Cao Huaying might be a daughter of the Cao family, but she was only early Nascent Soul. Pampered her entire life — she'd likely never faced real danger. One mountain rogue, and she'd shattered like glass.

And then.

A boy appeared before them.

About twelve or thirteen. In one hand, a wooden sword. In the other, a stick of candied hawthorn. A strange-looking dog trotted at his side.

Chen Huangpi took a single step.

And appeared in front of them — as though he'd teleported.

"Kid, have you seen a rogue mountain cultivator pass by?"

"No."

Chen Huangpi bit into a hawthorn, chewing as he spoke. "Have you lot seen a female illiterate?"

"No."

"Only Miss Cao just went through. Are you here for the Cao family's bounty too?"

"No. I'm here to kill her."

"..."

"You scoundrel! How dare you toy with us! Let's take his head and claim the Cao family's reward ourselves!"

A swarm of Nascent Soul cultivators, seething with fury — some forming seals, some commanding artifacts, some unfurling formations — attacked Chen Huangpi from every direction.

And so, the sword flashed once.

And a series of thuds echoed across the ground — the sound of severed heads landing.

There were too few of them.

It hardly counted as a river of blood.

Chen Huangpi spat out a hawthorn pit. "City people are so strange. I don't even know them, and they all want to kill me."

"Are they not afraid of dying?"

The Brass Oil Lamp said dryly, "If you had the Fox Mountain God project its divine form, no cultivator would dare touch you."

"Huang Er, I haven't done anything to offend you..."

The Fox Mountain God said in terror. "His eyes have gone red from killing. If the cultivators stop coming, he'll turn on me next."

Chen Huangpi smiled. "Relax. I don't kill the innocent. I'm a reasonable person."

...

Inside Xuzhou City.

Wang Taiyu sat atop an ox-drawn cart, expressionless, heading toward the city gates.

His heart was utterly numb.

The shouts of street vendors drifted in from outside the carriage. The noise of passing crowds.

Every sound grated on his ears.

Just two days ago, he'd been planning to whip Xuzhou City into shape before he left.

Three days. That was all he'd needed. The commoners would have harvested and sown.

And then he would have executed every last official who treated the people like livestock.

But the imperial envoy's verbal decree from His Majesty had shattered every plan.

Xuzhou City was done for.

After nightfall, the Song family's City God of Xuzhou would transform into an evil spirit.

The entire city would become its nourishment.

Wang Taiyu had managed to drive out as many commoners as possible under various pretexts. But there were too many people in Xuzhou City.

He'd evacuated a tenth.

Could he evacuate the remaining nine-tenths?

The Song family had made no moves at all.

They couldn't possibly be ignorant. Their inaction was a tacit approval.

One branch of the Song family was being sacrificed in Xuzhou City.

Why should common rabble be permitted to survive?

And the imperial envoy was watching.

Wang Taiyu didn't dare do any more.

Inside the ox-cart's carriage.

Wang Taiyu's shadow — the shadow evil spirit — murmured, "Will you not take one last look at the people before you leave?"

"I can't see the people."

Wang Taiyu said hollowly. "All I see are mountains of white bone and rivers of flesh. No — there won't even be bones or flesh. In the end, this place will become a ghost city. So what is there to look at?"

"I just can't understand why His Majesty let it come to this."

The shadow evil spirit didn't respond.

Because it had already learned the reason when the imperial envoy arrived.

The envoy and the shadow were both of the same kind — agents serving the Emperor.

There were no secrets between them.

Besides, it was only a minor matter.

Hmm...

His Majesty wanted to experiment — to see whether a god cultivating ancient methods and transforming into an evil spirit could be controlled by that nail.

Success or failure, it didn't matter.

How could something of so little consequence not be called a minor matter?

Just then.

A woman's voice, wild with terror, cried out: "Grand Tutor, save me! I am Cao Huaying, daughter of the Cao family! I beg the Grand Tutor to save me!"

"The Cao family. Let's go — have a look."

Wang Taiyu let out a cold laugh. He pulled aside the ox-cart's curtain and stepped out.

His guards were already blocking the bedraggled Cao Huaying's path.

Seeing Wang Taiyu, Cao Huaying's heart steadied at once.

The Grand Tutor — that "lackey" — had many tricks up his sleeve. He was surrounded by gods, and rumor had it an imperial envoy was guarding him in the shadows.

No matter how savage Chen Huangpi was, he couldn't possibly kill her right in front of the Grand Tutor.

But the moment that thought formed.

Every hair on the back of her neck stood on end.

She turned around.

And there was Chen Huangpi — sword in hand, hawthorn stick in the other — strolling toward her like he was out for a walk.

Cao Huaying's face drained of color. She begged desperately, "Grand Tutor — it's him! He wants me dead. He killed every cultivator escorting me out of the city, and all ten of my family's gods."

"He's a rogue mountain cultivator. He has no respect for law or order. He must not be allowed to live!"

Chen Huangpi looked at Wang Taiyu and tilted his head. "Are you going to try to kill me too?"

Wang Taiyu chuckled. "We have no old grudge and no new grievance between us. Why would I kill you? The real question is — at your age, with such remarkable cultivation — why did you kill those people?"

Chen Huangpi said, "Because they tried to kill me. So I killed them."

"Good."

Wang Taiyu nodded. Then he turned to Cao Huaying. "Cao girl — I just heard you say you were leaving the city?"

"That's right."

"Mm. I see."

Wang Taiyu nodded. Then he said to Chen Huangpi, "This Cao girl has no respect for the law. She twists right and wrong. And she has the audacity to shriek in my presence. Truly, she deserves death. Go on, child — give her a quick end."

"What?"

Cao Huaying's eyes went wide with horror.

But before she could utter another word, an arc of sword qi filled her vision, growing larger and larger.

After killing Cao Huaying, Chen Huangpi said to Wang Taiyu with surprise, "Old Grand Tutor — you're a reasonable person, just like me?"