“What benefit does it have? From what I know, it is precisely because Divine Wind Palace’s lack of loyalty to their belief that the tracks of Azure Heaven of the 33 Heavens were lost. Plus, the Divine Wind Palace also tried to capture Taiyuan Heaven the last time. The benefits of these two incidents are seriously too significant. I can’t think of anything else in this world that is more valuable than the sum of both the Taiyuan Heaven and the Azure Heaven!” A black-clothed man was sitting on a chair. This man was the manager of the Qin Family, Family Head Qin Zheng.
“Hmph. The things you are ignorant about in this world far exceeds that! Although the 33 Heavens are valuable, they are not unique!”
“Do you mean that they have found one of the 33 Heavens?!”
“Not sure!” The Elder spoke, “After all we are only a well-known family in the Jin Dynasty. From the time this family was established, there has only been about a history of three thousand years. Although it seems that we have a longer history when compared to other well-known families, but in fact, it’s insignificant when compared to these powerful families. There are so many secrets in this world that we don’t know!”
“Then are we really going to let this go? We have really broken relations with the Yan Family this time round!” an Elder grumbled.
…
Black ragged mountains stood amidst the leisurely drifting clouds.
The Mountain City of the Qin Family stood at the foot of the South Mountains and in the heart of Leizhou. The whole mountain city was built along the mountains and winds up from the bottom of the mountains to the very peak.
3000 years ago, these mountains were called Toutuo Ridge. Each ridge was 5780 feet tall. At present, it has long been concentrated with buildings. For a mountain city to emerge from such an uncivilized place was indeed shocking.
3000 years, hehe, a well-known family with a history of 3000 years! Based on the average man’s capabilities, this seemed like the furthest it could go to have such a strong foundation and to build such a sprawling big mountain city!”
Today, a cyan-clothed man appeared in front of the ten feet tall city gate of the Mountain City of the Qin Family. This cyan-clothed man was about eighteen or nineteen years old. He had a pleasant and refined look. If he had held a folding fan or a book in his hand, he would surely have been perceived as a scholar on his way to take his exam in the Western Capital. However, for a man poor in the humanities, it was doubtful whether he would be able to make it to the Western Capital.
As he ambled his way to that city gate, he saw that along the fringes of the gate stood a line of soldiers. Two of them stood by the two sides of the city gate, each holding a gun looking powerful. There was another team of about ten soldiers that was patrolling around the city gate. One of the soldiers among them was of a Level Three cultivation even though he was rather young. Plus, he looked like he was about to transcend Level Three to become a Level Four master of martial arts already.
Originally, they did not care about this cyan-clothed scholar. It was only that soldier who, after laying his eyes on the scholar, immediately froze and grew suspicious of this scholar.
“Freeze!” The cyan-clothed scholar stopped in his tracks obediently and looked at that soldier.
“Who are you? Why are you trying to enter the city?!”
The cyan-clothed scholar smiled faintly. “I am only a passer-by. I have heard that the Mountain City of the Qin Family is incomparably majestic. I was curious so I dropped by to take a look. Is there something wrong with that?”
After hearing those hearing those words, the soldier furrowed his eyebrows.
This was the Mountain City of the Qin Family. It was the center of politics and governance in the South Mountains. There has never been anyone who dared to create trouble here. This soldier could be considered experienced. He had been around for about seven or eight years. He had definitely seen many types of people and never once had he come across someone who answered in the same way as the cyan-clothed man. He immediately felt that something was amiss. As he was getting ready to shoot him, he suddenly came into eye contact with the man and immediately panicked.
On the other hand, the cyan-clothed man only smiled. He nodded politely and walked past him. The surrounding soldiers thought the situation was a little odd and cast their gaze on that particular soldier. However, that soldier only looked apprehensively at that cyan-clothed man. It was only until he lost sight of the cyan-clothed man among the officers and soldiers that he regained his composure.
“Leader Lin, what’s wrong? Just now that cyan-clothed guy…!”
“What cyan-clothed man? What are you guys lazing around here doing, stand straight immediately!” After Leader Lin regained his composure, he saw that the subordinates around him had all surrounded him. With a change of his expression and his shout, he immediately scared the crowd of people back to their stations, scurrying back fearfully as mice would.
“This Mountain City of the Qin Family is indeed solid!” Walking along a spacious road in the mountain city, an eccentric smile spread across the cyan-clothed scholar’s face. In his spiritual mind, he already had some telepathic sensing of strong messages that were hidden in numerous obscure corners of this city.
“Six experts. This is much more than the average millennium families! Seems like this Qin Family of the South Mountains is well-armed. I just don’t know what kind of men they are hiding as back-up. They even had the audacity to mess with the north-west!”
This cyan-clothed scholar was actually Zhou Bao. This time round, he left his home in the northwest precisely because he wanted to take revenge on the Qin Family. However, he was no savage man. Since the Qin Family dared to mess with the northwest region, they must have a plan. Hence, he did not directly knock on their door like the previous time. Instead, he took his time to understand.
As the largest city of the South Mountains and Leizhou, this Mountain City of the Qin Family is not any smaller than the metropolis in his previous time. Numerous roads intersected with one another and along the streets were stalls of all different kinds that drank and laughed ceaselessly.
Zhou Bao walked along the road. A smile was plastered on his face and he seemed to be meandering aimlessly around. He had strolled for about two to three hours before finding a suitable inn to live in.
“This guest officer, from your accent it seems that you’re not local?”
After giving the staff five ounces of silver, the staff’s attitude completely shifted to an affectionate tone that one would use with one’s grandfather.
“That’s right. I am indeed from a foreign land. Why, is there something wrong?!” Zhou Bao glared at the waiter with a trace of coldness in his eyes. “No, no, guest officer, please don’t misunderstand. I was only curious!”
“Curious? What is there to be curious about!”
“Hehe… nothing, nothing!” After meeting Zhou Bao’s sharp gaze, the waiter immediately muttered.
“Nothing?” Zhou Bao’s eyes twinkled. Once the waiter’s eyes met his, the waiter felt his mind go completely blank. After a while, he finally regained his composure. He wore a perplexed expression on his face. Thereafter, he bowed politely to Zhou Bao and left.
For Zhou Bao, an eccentric expression was on his face, “Too careless, I’ve been too careless. Even the waiter could see through me! It seems like the entire Mountain City of the Qin Family is filled with spies. They must have detected that I’m rather out of place!”
Just now, he had used his spirit to shock the waiter. After being shocked by Zhou Bao, the waiter naturally did not say anything more and did as Zhou Bao ordered. Now Zhou Bao understood that he had lost his facade. It made sense now that he thought about it. A weak scholar with a foreign accent trying to stay in an inn without even one backpack and with a huge bag of silvers too. Anyone would have found that weird. This waiter had been working in the inn for so many years. He naturally would have been able to sense something was flawed with Zhou Bao at one glance.
If he saw something suspicious about Zhou Bao, others would have naturally detected something suspicious about him.
“No wonder so many eccentric fellas had been eyeing me during my entire journey! It’s because I’m such an inexperienced person!” Zhou Bao laughed awkwardly. He was catapulted to fame when he was very young and strictly speaking, he had never walked on Jianghu before. Therefore, he was not familiar with concealing his identity successfully when he was at Jianghu. However, he also did not want to intentionally conceal his identity. He did not think that this slip would be significant.
“I heard from a long time ago that all the nine well-known families all have a portrait of me. Seems like the Qin Family is no exception. Not sure if the Qin Family can identify me. If they could, what kind of reaction would they have? Hehe, how interesting!”
Zhou Bao laughed heinously to himself, secretly calculating his moves.
At this point, at the house of the Qin Family Elder, the Qin Family’s Qin Zheng and a few queasy elders of the Qin Family who had dispersed not long ago had reconvened again. On the table in front of them stood a portrait of Zhou Bao.
“Family Head, are you sure this cyan-clothed man is Zhou Bao?!” The atmosphere was extremely solemn in the room. The oppressive mood was very uncomfortable.
Time passed without awareness. It was then that a wrinkled old man beside Qin Zheng sighed.
“I’ve already shown this portrait to Intelligence. They have all confirmed that Zhou Bao looks exactly like the man drawn in this portrait.” Qin Zheng looked extremely uneasy, as if he had lost a loved one.
“Didn’t Zhi IX promise us the previous time that he had already found out Zhou Bao’s weakness and guaranteed that he would never leave the Wuyang Region? Why did he run all the way from the northwest region to the East Sea?!”
“Hmph. What kind of a question is that? Obviously, he is looking to create trouble here by coming to the East Sea!” Another Elder said brusquely. “I’ve already told you all the previous times that we should not provoke this guy without reason. None of you wanted to listen and even said that with the Divine Wind Palace’s guarantee, nothing would happen. Look at where we are now. He has come to look for us directly! Let’s see how you can deal with him!”
“So what if he had come to find us directly? Zhou Bao indeed has a big name, but we the Qin Family do not go gently either. Would he really obliterate our entire family just because of such a trifling matter?!” shouted another Elder.
“Why not? Think about the fate of the Master of Golden Lights and the Mingyi School. If it wasn’t for his envy for the Individual Immortals in those schools, Mingyi School would never have to wait for their natural death. Now that he has the ability to kill Venerables, why would he not attack the Qin Family?!”
“So what if he can kill Venerables? My Qin Family is not easy to bully!” The stubborn Elder asserted. It was as if he was showing off his loyalty and confidence to his own family and was unwilling to cool his anger.
“Do you mean that you really want to invite the ancestors? Don’t forget that the ancestors are also exception Immortals. They would not deal their hand easily!”