Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
The man before his eyes was just too young.
That man was so young; it seemed ridiculous.
Lu Xuan, who was very young, to begin with, had gotten one or two years younger after making a breakthrough to Level Seven—the National Guardian level—making him look as if he was 17 or 18.
Such an age would have meant that he would have been little more than a student of his student, among the followers of Master Ying, like a novice who had just joined not long ago.
However, Master Ying was unable to see through that young man all the same, so much so that the young man did not even seem to be a cultivator to him.
A warrior who had cultivation training and one who did not would have been very different, even though not every one of them would look tall and imposing, like Yin Tianming the Iron-armed Arhat, who was standing right beside him.
Nonetheless, warriors with cultivation training would have sported a bearing that made them markedly different from the common folk. It was just like how that female police officer had been able to look naturally intimidating even without meaning to.
One could even see their muscles tense up.
Lu Xuan, on the other hand, looked scrawny and hardly had any muscle on him. He didn’t look like a cultivator at all.
While Chen Nian, who stood beside Lu Xuan, was, without a doubt, a solid cultivator and warrior despite looking rather withered from the years of indulging in booze and women.
Nonetheless, Chen Nian’s training was so good that Master Ying found him beneath notice. It was as the man would not have been able to even take a single hit from him.
No matter how he looked at it, Chen Nian was the one who looked like a cultivator, and Lu Xuan, a common folk.
Yet, despite being obviously a cultivator, let alone one who was from a well-to-do family and dressed immaculately, he looked like a lackey when he stood behind Lu Xuan.
Everything just seemed too out of place.
Something was definitely fishy when things got so out of place!
Is he, too, a cultivator or an Awakened? A thought popped up in Master Ying’s mind all of a sudden.
But still, peculiarities of a cultivator or an Awakened would have manifested elsewhere, even if such traits were not seen physically.
Everything just looks too damn off, he thought.
Even Yin Tianming, who was standing beside Master Ying, shared the same thoughts. Everything just looked too weird.
As for the others, they were unable to even tell that something was off.
Even the police officer felt that something was off. However, she nonetheless stood right before Lu Xuan and said, “Best get out of here, buddy. These people are extremely dangerous criminals, and they sure are not people common folks like you can handle. Get out of here with your friend at once and call the police.”
Lu Xuan felt what the officer said to be ridiculous. He, however, somehow realized that the officer was thinking that he was trying to be a hero, trying to save the damsel in distress that was her.
She thought him to be little more than a brat who did not know where he stood.
However, he nonetheless had a good impression of the female officer. While she behaved rather brashly, she had a very strong sense of justice, seen from how she told him to leave first and offered to cover for him, despite knowing that she was vastly outnumbered by really powerful people.
It was due to many people like her, fighting on battlefields, not known to others, that the peace and order of the nation were maintained.
But, she soon felt rather awkward, as she came to realize that nobody was paying any attention to her. Instead, everyone seemed to have their own ideas.
Lu Xuan chuckled and walked up, saying, “I don’t have the habit of using the women standing before me as shields.”
The officer felt rather flustered and replied, “This is not the time for such bullsh*t. None of those people are common people. They’re all warriors, and they are good!”
The officer still thought that Lu Xuan did what he did because he was oblivious to how terrifying the warriors were.
Common folk, in general, were still oblivious to how terrifying cultivators were. The country was still keeping their existence under wraps at the moment.
She had seen too many common folks who ended up injured, and some were even killed because they underestimated just how terrifying the cultivators were.
She knew all too well about the cultivators. Many of them were merely Awakened ones who had little training, yet they thought they had become gods told of in legends.
The mindsets of such people had long gone out of whack, thinking the lives of common folk to be worth little more than that of ants.
“Relax, I’m not kidding here,” Lu Xuan grinned and replied.
Lu Xuan then turned his gaze at those before him and said, “I see that you people have guts of astronomical proportions, seeing how you people dare to smuggle things in this country. Just what the hell have you people been smoking?”
Master Ying continued to lock his gaze at Lu Xuan, as the young man simply felt too dangerous to him.
The young man felt so dangerous that even he did not dare to move haphazardly.
“Who are you, and what do you want? I’d tell you not to stick your nose in business that has nothing to do with you. This is way out of your league,” Yin Tianming said. He felt that Lu Xuan looked rather familiar, yet he was unable to recall where he had seen him before.
However, that out-of-place feeling Lu Xuan emanated caused him to keep his guard up, nonetheless.
He quickly decided to test Lu Xuan out. But, like Master Ying, he did not bother with Chen Nian, who was standing behind Lu Xuan, at all.
“Master Ying. It’s Master Ying!” Chen Nian behaved as if he had just recalled something at the moment, coming to his senses.
He finally recalled who that elder in the Chinese tunic suit had been. The elder was a very famous middleman who was into all sorts of trade—the kind of trade that was not the concern of most people.
There were many people who were too reluctant to place their trust in others and had reservations about doing businesses involving large sums of money, especially the ones under the table.
Those people would have eventually sought Master Ying out.
Precisely put, there was indeed one such industry, and Master Ying was one of the top dogs in this industry.
The Chen Clan, as one of the major forces, had to deal with such people, without a doubt. As an elite member of their clan, Chen Nian definitely knew a lot of things that few others would have known.
He had heard of Master Ying before, but he had never seen the elder in person, only in photographs. It would not have taken him so long to recall who that elder was otherwise.
He sensed a shiver running down his spine as the fact came to light.
Shady middle persons like Master Ying had to deal with all sorts of unsavory people, which meant that he would not have been able to keep his foothold if he were anything less than formidable.
Furthermore, being one of the top people in the business spoke volumes of his immense prowess.
Chen Nian unintentionally heard his father talking about Master Ying before, and it seemed that Master Ying had long been a known Baodan Grandmaster. As the world changed, all his training throughout the years enabled him to make a breakthrough, becoming a Martial Arts Legend.
All of that happened several years ago. That was the time when the world began to see drastic changes. Only those who were truly steeped in cultivation began to change.
With a Martial Arts Legend from the Flying Dragon Sect being present as well, there were then two Martial Arts Legends around at the moment.
Regardless of how highly he thought of Lu Xuan, he was unable to believe that Lu Xuan would be capable of taking out two Martial Arts Legends. Furthermore, none of the two had gotten where they were after ingesting peculiar fruits, like how it had been with Chen Jiashang.
Lu Xuan might have still been able to escape intact due to his formidable training, but the same could not have been said for Chen Nian, who might have actually ended up dead there.
A subordinate of Yin Tianming, who looked big and fierce, pounced at Lu Xuan like a blitzing cheetah while Chen Nian was still reeling from the shock.
