Chapter 1177: Sudden Changes
The audience was extremely disappointed with Pill King Hong. He was fumbling for words and no longer showing the same charisma he had during the lecture. The discrepancy between then and now was simply too big. The small group that defended him previously finally began to waver.
Jiang Chen flashed a piercing glare at Pill King Hong. “You’re making the audience wait. Can’t you be a little more straightforward?”
His aura was incredibly domineering, making Pill King Hong cower in defeat. The audience grew more and more disappointed with the pill king as time went on.
“Either you know or you don’t! Why are you stalling for time?”
“He probably doesn’t know the answer! If he did, he would’ve answered already!”
“Hmph! It seems he’s really just a fame seeker!”
“Does he really think that he’s qualified to give us lectures? Piss off!”
The audience was easily swayed. Most of them began to side with Jiang Chen and booed Pill King Hong after seeing the great contrast between the two.
Color had drained from the pill king’s face, making him as as white as a ghost. How was he supposed to answer when he hadn’t even heard of the pill? Guess blindly again? The odds for the previous question was much higher because it was related to color, but this one really would be a shot in the dark.
Jiang Chen suddenly turned when the pill king was incapable of producing an answer. “You lose by default if you don’t answer my question. Stop wasting time and tell me who’s the perpetrator behind all of this.”
Pill King Hong made one last desperate attempt. “Who says that I’m going to lose by default? The pill has seventy two runes in total!”
A mocking look appeared on Jiang Chen’s face. “As expected, you’re guessing blindly again. Brat, the Connation Fireflow Pill has eight hundred runes in total! How can it be a mere seventy two runes?”
Pill King Hong was aghast. He knew that he’d lost.
“I’m not going to force you. You may choose to lie or hold your tongue. That is, if you don’t mind being consumed by your inner demons.” Jiang Chen was calm and composed. Everything was going according to his calculations.
“Tell us! Tell us!”
“Don’t be a sore loser!”
“You must be hesitating because you have a guilty conscience!”
Cultivators in the martial dao world were blind followers of the strong. Many of them had stood on Pill King Hong’s side just moments ago. They were so impressed by the contents of his lecture and believed that Taiyuan Tower was afraid to confront him even though he was conducting a lecture right in front of their doorstep.
This gave rise to a misunderstanding that Pill King Hong was superior to Taiyuan Tower. But now, reality dawned when Jiang Chen confronted Pill King Hong. The pill king was nothing but a fluke/ Their respect and admiration for the pill king instantly turned into rage and anger. It felt that they’d been betrayed.
“Liar!”
“An outside faction must’ve sent him!”
“Hmph! Taiyuan Tower isn’t afraid of them! They just can’t be bothered to deal with these clowns!”
“That’s what I believe too! Taiyuan Tower is Pill King Zhen’s legacy! A man of his noble stature would never stoop to confront a minor character like this pill king!”
“He must’ve gone overboard with his arrogance, so much so that Taiyuan Tower could no longer stand it and randomly chose a pill dao expert to confront him!”
Pill King Hong was awash with regret. He’d always been a careful and meticulous person, but he caved and fallen prey to Jiang Chen’s provocation. Since he’d lost the bet, his inner demons would consume him whole if he didn’t disclose his background and the person giving him orders.
He was aware that he was merely a chess piece. If he erred, the entire plan would come tumbling down and he’d be condemned. Even if he escaped his inner demons, nothing good could possibly await him in the future. He was stuck in between a rock and a hard place. He wanted to run away, but his inner demons could consume him at any moment if he escaped without saying anything.
Jiang Chen seemed to have read Pill King Hong’s mind. He stared at the pill king deeply, as though he was scouring the pill king’s very soul.
“Regardless of your choice, I’ll find out the truth in the end. If you choose not to speak, your inner demons will surely consume you whole. If you tell me everything, you’ll at least have some breathing room for now.” Jiang Chen urged the pill king on patiently. He knew exactly what the latter was worried about.
“If I say anything, I’ll surely die...” the pill king murmured.
“Hmph! The choice is in your hands. If you reveal everything, Veluriyam Capital might actually protect you. After all, we have so much more intelligence to extract from you.”
The pill king began to waver. His struggle was written all over his face. Jiang Chen’s suggestion had truly struck him in the heart. With the capital’s protection, revealing the truth might not actually be a bad idea after all.
“Speak. I guarantee, as long as you speak the tru-...” Halfway through his sentence, Jiang Chen suddenly felt an indescribable sense of danger and instinctively executed the Kunpeng Meteoric Escape. He turned into a beam of light and flung himself away from the stage.
In the next instant, a hail of arrows descended like a swarm of locusts on the stage from all four directions. These were no ordinary arrows. The barrage of arrows had a strong piercing ability covered every inch of air in the surroundings. An explosion was accompanied by a blood-curdling scream.
Countless arrows pierced through the pill king’s flesh, instantly pulverizing his body into bloody mist. Not a single piece of his body remained after the attack ceased. He’d been erased in a gory mist.
Dead man tell no tales!
The audience was in a frenzy. Nobody knew where the arrows had come from, but all of them instantly realized that the pill king had been silenced! There was no other explanation. Since the pill king was about to reveal everything, the assassin had no choice but to unleash a frightening attack on him before the damage was done. He didn’t just plan on killing Pill King Hong. He was aiming for Jiang Chen too.
Fortunately, Jiang Chen’s reaction was almost instant. He was extremely sensitive to danger after cultivating the Psychic’s Head. Despite his lightning quick reaction, he barely evaded the barrage of arrows in time. There had been simply no way he could take Pill King Hong with him.
Landing at a corner of the street, Jiang Chen immediately brought his consciousness and Kunpeng Meteoric Escape to bear and searched the area for the sign of the assassin.
Unfortunately, no matter how hard he searched, he couldn’t locate the source of the attack.
It seemed like it’d appeared out of thin air and immediately disappeared without a trace after a singular hit.
It was a frighteningly powerful assassination method. The assassin was extremely skilled and blended into the crowd immediately afterward. The audience numbered in the tens of thousands, so any one of them could be the culprit. In fact, the assassin may not even be present anymore.
No ordinary person could launch such a powerful attack in such a short time. It wasn’t just incredibly powerful, but stealthy as well.
Jiang Chen couldn’t find any leads after scouring the area. He returned to the stage and stared at the bloody stains with furrowed his brows. He’d returned to the scene of the death to find some clues, but there was nothing there. Pill King Hong hadn’t even left behind a storage ring. The enemy had been incredibly meticulous.
“Damn it!” Having acquired nothing after the search, Jiang Chen realized that he’d gotten entangled with a frighteningly powerful enemy.
Pill King Hong’s background was still unknown, but his abilities and knowledge weren’t faked. Even though he couldn’t possibly compete with Jiang Chen, his pill dao knowledge definitely rivalled Pill King Lu Feng and Pill King Bu’s.
With his talent, he should be a very highly regarded individual, or he would never have been chosen as the lecturer to rival Taiyuan Tower. However, even a character like him was sacrificed without second thought!
The enemy was extremely ruthless, which made Jiang Chen very wary. Enemies that remain hidden in the shadows were incredibly frightening. This one was very well hidden and was incredibly ruthless as well. They didn’t even hesitate before killing someone as great as a pill king. They were willing to sacrifice any chess piece if the situation called for it.
Jiang Chen swept his gaze across the audience. He was sure that Pill King Hong’s accomplices were amongst them. Unfortunately, no matter how astute his vision was, he couldn’t immediately identify them under such conditions.
The dead couldn’t speak.
The pill king’s death had left him at a dead end.
He leapt off the stage and immediately headed to the pill shop that was erected beside Taiyuan Tower. No matter what, the pill king represented this pill shop. In order to learn more about his enemy, confronting the shop directly wasn’t exactly a bad idea. Since he hadn’t reverted to his original identity yet, he had no reason to hesitate.
“Get your boss out here! I want to see him!” He yelled as soon as he marched into the shop.
He had no reason to be courteous. If he was Pill King Zhen, he probably couldn’t act as brazenly as this. But since he was currently disguised, nobody knew who he was. If that was the case, he might as well over do it. He could be as brazen as he wished!