Time flew by swiftly. Four months had passed since Ye Fan and Pang Bo came to Spirit Void Cliff to learn the Dharma, and on this very day the transmitting elder once again bestowed the medicinal fluid.
The small jade vials, crystal-clear and smooth, stood no taller than two inches, their round bottoms no wider than an inch across, and the fluid within them was quite limited in quantity.
This medicinal fluid was emerald green, carrying a particular herbal fragrance, and it had an extraordinary efficacy in opening the Bitter Sea — saving cultivators a great deal of time and effort. It was said to be extracted from the essence of a hundred kinds of medicinal herbs, equivalent to the Life Essence stored within the human body’s Wheel of Life, and was known as the Hundred Herb Fluid.
Whoosh!
The transmitting elder atop the stone cliff transformed into a divine rainbow, soared into the sky, and in the blink of an eye vanished deep into Spirit Void Cave Heaven.
Ye Fan and Pang Bo had put away their jade vials and were about to leave when, at that very moment, a youth of fifteen or sixteen years of age swaggered over and planted himself squarely in their path. “Lend me two vials of Hundred Herb Fluid,” he said, and without so much as giving the two of them a chance to refuse, he reached out to snatch them.
“Who do you think you are? Why should we give them to you?” Pang Bo swept his hand away and stood there with a sidelong glance at him.
Ye Fan noticed that those around them all showed a flicker of fear, every one of them backing away. He then saw that this youth was already gripping five or six vials of Hundred Herb Fluid in his hand. It became immediately clear — this was outright, undisguised robbery.
The youth of fifteen or sixteen, having had his hand swatted aside by Pang Bo, instantly darkened his expression. “You dare look at me like that?”
Neither Ye Fan nor Pang Bo wanted any trouble. After all, everyone here was a cultivator, and they had not been with Spirit Void Cave Heaven for very long — they had no wish to get into a conflict with anyone. At once they stepped back a few paces, intending to leave quietly.
“Do you think you can walk away without a word from me?” The youth sneered, seizing Pang Bo’s wrist with one hand while reaching for the Hundred Herb Fluid with the other.
Pang Bo may not have had as much raw strength as Ye Fan yet, but compared to cultivators who had not yet developed any mystical divine powers, he was more than capable of being called supernaturally strong. He shook his arm and sent the youth stumbling away, barely keeping him from crashing to the ground.
The youth of fifteen or sixteen flushed with shame and fury. “How dare you raise a hand against me?! I’ll make sure neither of you gets out of bed for three months!”
At that moment, several more youths of a similar age pushed through the crowd. Those nearby immediately tensed and quickly retreated — they seemed to recognize these newcomers. Each of them had six or seven vials of Hundred Herb Fluid in their hands — clearly seized from others.
These several individuals quickly encircled Ye Fan and Pang Bo. The youth whose pride had been wounded by Pang Bo sneered coldly. “Teach them a lesson. Make sure they can’t get out of bed for three months.”
“Truly, wherever there are people, there are grudges and grievances — even cultivators are no exception,” Ye Fan said, and said nothing more. He walked straight forward. One of the youths leaped at him, only to be kicked aside.
Pang Bo also sneered coldly. “You’d rob your fellow sect members — what astonishing audacity. If I don’t teach you a lesson now, heaven knows what rotten things you’ll do in the future.” He struck even harder, nearly slapping them one by one, sending all the youths around him flying through the air, turning them into a rolling heap on the ground.
“You dare hit me?” The youth who had started the trouble pressed his swollen cheek, glaring hatefully at Ye Fan and Pang Bo. He scrambled to his feet and bolted away into the distance. “Just you wait.”
Without being able to draw on the divine power source of their Wheel of Life, cultivators were only somewhat stronger than ordinary people. But compared to Ye Fan and Pang Bo, they were no different from common folk.
Just then, in the distance, a youth of fourteen or fifteen said to a young man in his early twenties beside him: “Your little brother is a truly useless thing. I sent him over to take their measure, and this is the embarrassing result.”
The young man in his twenties looked somewhat uncomfortable, but toward this boy who was somewhat younger than him, he showed a slight wariness, and replied with a hint of deference, “These two don’t look like anything special. Is it really worth probing them like this?”
“It’s my great-uncle who wanted to probe them. I heard these two seemed to have consumed some kind of divine medicine…” The youth of fourteen or fifteen revealed a disdainful cold smile. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t have the slightest interest in them!”
The young man in his twenties felt a chill run through him upon hearing this. He seemed very much afraid of the boy’s great-uncle and said, “Even if it truly was divine medicine, it’s all been consumed by these two already. What does your great-uncle intend to do?”
“My great-uncle believes that a very strong medicinal potency should still be lingering within their bodies. It’s a pity he only learned of these two recently — he’s been quite vexed about it.”
“This…” The young man beside him felt a wave of cold wash over him, and he asked hesitantly: “Even if their bodies still carry some medicinal potency, can it actually be extracted?”
“If it can’t be extracted directly, can’t you just bleed it out of them?” The smile of the fourteen or fifteen-year-old youth was icy and unsettling, ill-matched with his age. “Failing that, you could simply refine their bodies entirely. I believe… that is what my great-uncle intends.”
The young man beside him felt a cold knot in his chest. That old medicine refiner was always ruthless and merciless. As an elder of Spirit Void Cave Heaven, very few people dared cross him. Those two young boys had been marked by him as medicinal ingredients — surviving that would be no easy matter.
The youth of fourteen or fifteen spoke as though issuing orders to a subordinate. “Your useless brother is coming over. Go with him and get a proper sense of those two — see what their constitution is really like, whether they’re worth my great-uncle using as ingredients for his refining.”
“Understood. I’ll go right away.”
Ye Fan and Pang Bo had kept a very low profile, yet they had still been targeted — though they had no idea of it yet.
As the two of them squeezed through the crowd and were about to leave, they were blocked again. This was a young man in his mid-twenties, with faint points of radiance flowing across the surface of his body — clearly, he had already cultivated some mystical techniques and could wield a portion of divine powers.
“Brother, help me teach them a proper lesson!” The youth who had started the trouble earlier glared venomously at Ye Fan and Pang Bo, and several of the other youths nearby, seeing that reinforcements had arrived, began shouting loudly as well.
“Break their arms and legs and throw them in the lotus pond ahead to feed the fish.”
“Make those two kneel down and kowtow a thousand times.”
…
The several youths kept clamoring, relying on their backing to endlessly humiliate and curse Ye Fan and Pang Bo.
Ye Fan frowned at this. He was not angered by a few raucous youths, of course — he simply felt that something about the situation was off, as though someone was deliberately targeting them.
“Why did you viciously beat my little brother?” The young man’s face darkened like deep water as he bore down on Ye Fan and Pang Bo.
“Which eye of yours saw me viciously beating him?” Pang Bo’s brow shot up at once. Things had reached a point where there was no use enduring it any further. Even if they backed down and submitted, the other side would still come down hard on them — he could plainly see that they were looking for a pretext.
“What exactly do you want?” Ye Fan asked directly.
“You viciously beat my brother, so naturally I must settle this score for him.” The young man sneered and advanced step by step.
By now, quite a few people had gathered around, all watching from a distance. Not one dared step forward to intervene. Nearly every disciple at this cliff face had only recently joined, and they all harbored a deep wariness toward this young man whose body could radiate flowing light.
“Break their legs and make them kneel right there!”
“Throw them in the lake to feed the fish!”
The several youths started clamoring again.
Whoosh!
A flash of radiance, and the young man lunged forward like a phantom — lightning fast. His palm and fingers gleamed like jade and hacked toward Ye Fan’s neck like a blade.
He had not used his full strength. In his estimation, this palm strike was more than enough to send Ye Fan crumpling to the ground. But what he had not anticipated was that Ye Fan reacted instantly — sidestepping two paces with complete natural ease to avoid the blow — and then reached out his hand with a resounding smack, catching that palm in his grip.
“Let go!”
Though surprised, the young man did not believe Ye Fan could truly threaten him. He tried to fling Ye Fan away with force. But things unfolded contrary to his expectations once again — his fingers felt as though clamped in iron pincers, the pain excruciating, and he could not break free no matter what.
Thud!
At that moment, Pang Bo moved from the side. A single punch drove hard into the young man’s back with a strength that left onlookers slack-jawed. The young man’s body shuddered violently, and a trickle of blood instantly seeped from the corner of his mouth.
And Ye Fan, having seized that hand, swung the young man around as easily as flinging a scarecrow, then smashed him forcefully into the ground.
Boom!
Dust billowed up, and the ground trembled violently. The faint points of radiance across the young man’s body scattered entirely. He let out a miserable cry, and coughed up several great mouthfuls of blood in rapid succession, his body convulsing.
Everyone around them stood completely dumbfounded. Not one of them had imagined that it would be Ye Fan who knocked the young man flat on his back — and in such a clean, decisive manner.
It was not that the young man lacked ability — he had, after all, cultivated some mystical techniques. But he never had the chance to use them. By this point, Ye Fan could effortlessly lift boulders weighing several thousand catties with a single arm, possessing what could be called the strength of a flood dragon and a great elephant. Raw power of that magnitude was something even ordinary divine mystical techniques might not withstand.
“It was clearly you who came looking for trouble and started all this, yet you had the nerve to say we viciously beat you. Very well — let’s make that claim ring true.” Pang Bo was furious. He charged forward swiftly. The several youths tried to flee, but the watching crowd blocked their way, and there was no quick escape.
Thud — thud — thud!
Pang Bo struck again and again, booting them back one by one, then pinned them to the ground and began laying into them with open-handed slaps, each one louder than the last.
“What was it you lot said just now? Break our arms and legs, throw us in the lotus pond ahead to feed the fish? And what else — have us kneel down and kowtow a thousand times? Are you tired of living?!”
Pang Bo kept at it, flinging slap after slap, until all the faces on the ground were black and blue and swollen like pig heads, their cries of agony ringing out without end.
“You haven’t even cultivated a single scrap of divine power yet, and you’re already playing the tyrant and bullying people? Truly, you don’t know the height of the sky or the depth of the earth. If I don’t give you a proper lesson today, you’d really think yourselves immortals!”
Pang Bo rose and unleashed a storm of kicks, the people on the ground shrieking without cease, while Pang Bo himself felt increasingly refreshed — the more he hit, the better he felt.
“Tell me — why were you specifically targeting the two of us?” On the other side, Ye Fan was not idle either. He stomped down repeatedly, sending the young man rolling across the ground, his entire body convulsing, blood seeping from the corner of his mouth.
“If you won’t say, I’ll throw you into the pond over there and plant you in headfirst.” Another forceful kick from Ye Fan sent the young man soaring into the air and skidding horizontally a full eight or nine meters away.
Pang Bo heard this and his face lit up. “Excellent idea!” With that, he crouched down, hoisted five or six of the youths simultaneously with his tremendous strength, and began walking toward the lotus pond ahead.
“No — please, put us down!”
“Help! Murder!”
“Please, we’re begging you, just put us down!”
Pang Bo paid them no mind whatsoever. He picked them up one by one and hurled them with full force toward the lotus pond. There was thick mud within it, and driven by Pang Bo’s enormous strength, every single one of them went in head-down and feet-up, planted headfirst into the mud.
“Don’t cause any deaths…” Ye Fan reminded him.
“It’ll be fine. These useless wretches have, after all, already set foot on the immortal path. Even though they haven’t cultivated any mystical divine powers yet, their constitutions are far stronger than ordinary people — at the very least they can hold their breath for half an hour.”
“Are you going to talk or not? Do you want to be planted headfirst too?!” Ye Fan kicked the young man on the ground into the air once more.
Pang Bo walked over in long strides. “Just plant him headfirst. Stop wasting words on him. Let’s see if he talks in the end.”
Seeing that the young man still refused to say a word, Ye Fan said no more. He picked him up and hurled him forward with great force.
The onlookers were absolutely stunned. What an incredible display of strength — the lotus pond was still a good forty or fifty meters away, yet Ye Fan sent a grown man flying through the air like a thrown spear.
Splash!
Indeed, the young man flew like a spear and plunged headfirst into the mud in a straight line, more than half his body buried. Only his two legs remained above the surface, kicking and struggling.
“That’s insane!”
“What kind of monster is this? He looks refined and gentle, can’t be more than eleven or twelve — how can he possibly have such terrifying strength?!”
…
The onlookers were utterly agape. Then the murmuring and discussion began — though everyone felt a considerable sense of satisfaction. Those people had been insufferably arrogant and high-handed, and they had deserved exactly this.
Suddenly, the crowd parted swiftly in the distance to make way for a group of strangers. A youth of fourteen or fifteen strode slowly toward them, his expression dark as stagnant water. Flanking him were several young men in their early twenties, radiance flowing across the surface of their bodies.
“That’s Elder Han’s youngest grandson — his name is Han Feiyu…”
“His great-uncle is also an elder, and reportedly a master of medicinal refining.”
“Quiet — don’t talk about him. Watch what you say, or trouble will find you!”
…
The fourteen or fifteen-year-old Han Feiyu approached with a darkened expression, and addressed Ye Fan and Pang Bo: “Do you think Spirit Void Cave Heaven is some kind of place where you can assault people in broad daylight without a care? Who do you think you are — Law Enforcement Elders?”
Ye Fan and Pang Bo paid him no attention at all — ignoring him almost completely — and turned to look toward the lotus pond.
Han Feiyu’s expression darkened further still. He turned to the four beside him. “Don’t let them keep standing in front of me.”
Ye Fan heard this and turned around. “You certainly have a lot of nerve. It seems you’ve been pulling the strings behind the scenes all along. There’s nothing more to say — today, I’ll plant you headfirst too.”
Han Feiyu’s eyes shot out two beams of cold light, and he murmured in a voice barely audible: “It seems the only thing to do is send my great-uncle two corpses…”