Yan Guilai might be a smart person, but this time he was suffering for it. It was infuriating how he got things the wrong way.
If not for his friendship with Yan Wushuang, Chu Xun would have given the master of the House of Yan a great beating already.
“You’re really not swooning for Yao Baiyue?!” Yan Guilai said again, still unable to believe what he had just heard, “Then why would you help the Chamber of Lead-Glass? And on top of that, what a coincidence that you’re just nearby?!”
The corners of Chu Xun’s lips twitched with intense irritation. “I was only passing by because Qingcheng is near your house and I was on my way here. I only offered help because of that bratty son of yours.”
“Really?” Yan Guilai said skeptically.
Chu Xun clenched his fists tightly, willing himself to calm down, only to find his resolve crumbling, “Pipe down… Pipe down… Pipe down… NO, THAT’S ENOUGH!”
Bang!
Chu Xun’s fist came suddenly and blasted Yan Guilai into a distance. He just could not hold back anymore.
“You insolent pup! How dare you lift a hand against an elder?!” Yan Guilai glowered, rolling up his sleeves as he rushed back, his eyes blazing with anger.
Winds and thunders roared and thrashed around them in resonance with their burgeoning auras.
Bang!
Once again, Yan Guilai crashed to the ground with purplish-green bruises on his face and a pair of black eyes.
“Do you seriously believe I can’t beat you?!” snarled Yan Guilai through gritted teeth.
“You were never a match for me,” scoffed Chu Xun.
“How dare you sprout such insolent words! All right, no leniency this time!” Yan Guilai rubbed his hands.
Swoosh!
Chu Xun vanished in the blink of an eye and reappeared right before him, his fists raised and imbued with his magic.
Bang! Bang!
Yelps of pain and agony rang out every time his knuckles pounded into Yan Guilai’s flesh in what seemed like a one-sided fistfight.
The Yan elders and acolytes around them could only stare in silence. “Should we help or what?!”
“Wait. If we get involved, we’d sure be beaten into a pulp. Stay, and we’d only be given an earful at most.”
“Hmmm… Perhaps it’s better we just stay back for now. And they cleverly chose to just remain as witnesses to this drama.”
“That’s enough, Chu Xun! Let go!” Yan Guilai snarled again as Chu Xun used an arm to keep him pinned down while the beating continued.
Bang! Bang!
Two powerful blows into him were the only responses he received.
Chu Xun was burning with uncontrollable rage. “You’re a few hundred years old for crying out loud! What on earth did you think you’re doing?!” And he gave another two punches for good measure.
“I’m only trying to help my son win a wife! How is that wrong now!?”
Bang! Bang!
Two more punches elicited more howls of pain from Yan Guilai.
“You can find all the wives in the world for your son for all I care, but why did you involve me into your sordid affair!? I could have been a revered guest of the Chamber, and now I’m out here, driven out the doors like a beggar!”
Chu Xun’s anger mounted with every word. Yan Guilai really needed a good beating for his nasty mind and even-worse plan!
“I’m father to Wushuang, your brother-at-arms, Chu Xun! How dare you struck me! You’d be cursed!” Yan Guilai yelled desperately, feeling ashamed that a man of a few hundred years could be beaten like a punching bag while being pinned down by him.
“I’ll just have to kill you first before the curse strikes me,” said Chu Xun, giving him another punch.
“Let me go! A fair fight if you dare!” Yan Guilai challenged him.
Chu Xun let him go at once.
Whoosh!
Gusts of gales swept around, lashing furiously like invisible whips as Yan Guilai’s aura burgeoned when he summoned his powers.
Bang!
It was no use; Chu Xun easily struck him down with another blow and went back to pinning him down while bludgeoning him ceaselessly.
Moments later, when the drubbing finally ended, Yan Guilai emerged with a face so heavily bruised, decked out with a pair of black eyes that made him look like panda bears.
“Give it back here, you brutish whelp,” Yan Guilai growled.
“What do you mean?” Chu Xun’s face was full of incredulity.
“Enough pretending, my Storage Ring!” Yan Guilai muttered, breathing heavily through his nostrils that his beard and mustache were billowing.
He wanted to retrieve from his Storage Rings something to dab on his wounds, only to realize that the ring on his finger was gone.
Chu Xun grumbled, intensely annoyed, “You accused me of taking an interest in Yao Baiyue just now and I swallowed it. And now you’re accusing me of stealing your ring? That does it!”
“Swallowed it?! You swallowed nothing! You gave me a huge beating in front of my men! And the Storage Ring had been on my finger, how else could it have vanished?!” Yan Guilai nearly cried out loud.
“I know it was you, Chu Xun. Now give it back here!” demanded Yan Guilai.
“I think you’re itching for another beating. Since when did I take your ring!” Chu Xun rubbed his palms together, readying for another fight.
“Then how did it disappear?” Yan Guilai said as he realized how Chu Xun had avoided causing injury to him while only inflicting pain just now.
“You’re asking me? I’m not your nanny,” growled Chu Xun sourly.
Yan Guilai observed Chu Xun’s resentful look that looked as if he was indeed the innocent party here and began to wonder himself, “Is he really innocent?!”
“Could it have dropped during our fight?” asked Chu Xun.
Yan Guilai seethed like a bull seeing red, glowering at Chu Xun. There was no way he would not notice the ring being slipped off his finger as a Ninth-grade Human King. But when he thought about it again, it seemed possible after all.
Chu Xun produced a jade-white vial and tossed it to Yan Guilai. “That’s medicine concocted by the Lord of Healing himself. It works wonders on bruises and swelling.”
Yan Guilai accepted it grudgingly before calling an acolyte to come over to help administer the medicine to him
“Deplorable manners,” Chu Xun observed dryly.
Yan Guilai pretended to not hear him.
The Yans searched the area where they fought but still, the Ring was nowhere to be found.
Yan Guilai could not resist peering at Chu Xun with doubt again. The feeling that Chu Xun had taken the ring somehow was like an itch that he could not satisfy, a lingering thought that never stopped tormenting him. After all, this was the same unscrupulous young man who had conned a priceless pair of Fire-amber Bamboos off him. That incident had impressed upon him what a thieve and marauder Chu Xun could be.
Yan Guilai nearly erupted. No one had ever spoken to him like that before. Ever since he met Chu Xun, he felt himself getting undermined as master of the Yan Family.
Yan Guilai nearly erupted. No one had ever spoken to him like that before. Ever since he met Chu Xun, he felt himself getting undermined as master of the Yan Family.
“Think properly. You might have left it at home,” urged Chu Xun again nicely.
But Yan Guilai was nowhere near the mood to think. If anything, he felt insulted. “I’m not demented and I would never forget something so personal and important!”
His eyes scanned Chu Xun’s face closely, hoping to find the tiniest hint of reaction that could betray his guilt.
“Well, in that case, there’s nothing to worry about! No harm then in losing an empty Storage Ring,” said Chu Xun rather cheerfully.
But Yan Guilai could only grimace quietly to himself at the loss. It was only a lie to see if Chu Xun would react to have stolen an empty Storage Ring. Yet instead of finding any trace of disappointment or frustration, Chu Xun appeared to be genuinely relieved for him.
“Does this mean that this phony brat is really innocent this time?!”
“Search the area properly!” Yan Guilai barked at his acolytes.
“Why are you so worried about an empty Storage Ring?” Chu Xun cast him a derisive look, “You’re the master of the great House of Yan. Should you be expending your men and resources to hunt down one Storage Ring that carries nothing inside? What a joke. Come on, call off the search. If you want a ring, I can give you another.”
Yan Guilai was practically shaking with grief. “Who says it’s empty?! There might not be anything important inside, but there are still loads of magical supplies inside!”
“All right, that’s enough. Call it off! It’s only an empty Storage Ring,” said Yan Guilai bitterly and reluctantly at last. The hoard of supplies inside his ring could easily equate to a century-old stockpile of supplies by any mid-level organizations.
“All right, let’s go!” called Yan Guilai as he got up. The medicine produced by Yu Cheng himself really was helpful; much of Yan Guilai’s bruises were already subsiding.
“Where to?” asked Chu Xun.
“To my house, of course. Unless you wish to camp here for the night?” muttered an exasperated Yan Guilai, still grimacing at the loss of his ring.
Chu Xun pointed at the fallen gates of the Chamber of Lead-Glass. “Wait. The ladies here don’t even have a gate to keep anyone out. What if the Zangs come back? That bratty son of yours would surely be hounding you the rest of your life if anything happens to his sweetheart.”
“As if he would dare,” hissed Yan Guilai, although Chu Xun’s reasoning made sense. He turned to a few of his acolytes and barked, “What are you waiting for? Go and get some tents!”
The acolytes looked hardly amused at the notion of spending the night out in the wilderness, but they knew better than to object or refuse. Quickly, they scarpered off obediently.
“Long Yi, Long Er! We’re leaving, “called Chu Xun.
“Wait a second. Where are you going to?”
“Your house, of course. Yao Baiyue’s your future daughter-in-law, not mine. Surely you don’t expect me to sit out here in the wild for nothing?”
“NO!” Yan Guilai erupted suddenly, shocking everyone. “What a bloody joke?! If he goes back to my house, he’d have a good time plundering my whole house! By the time I reach home, I’d be lucky if I can still find any coins to rub together!”
“What are you talking about, you old thing?” Chu Xun muttered with annoyance, “I’m a guest and you’re my host. Are you going to shut your door in my face? Is this how you treat guests?”
“Ummm…” Yan Guilai raked his mind desperately for pretenses, knowing that he could never allow Chu Xun to step into his house unchaperoned. With a spurious grin, he said, “How about you stay here? The views a beauty here with all that pleasant sceneries, flora and fauna, and that bubbling little brook there. We can sit here and have tea all day. What a treat it would be!”
Everyone stared skeptically at him. “What pleasant scenery?! The nearest hill’s more than a few kilometers away and the so-called brook was nothing but a sad and dismal creek with barely a trickle of water inching so perilously close to drying up!”
“You might love it here, but I don’t. You go on and enjoy yourselves here, boys. I’m taking off,” refused Chu Xun.
“Wait a minute, Chu Xun. You can’t go. What if the Zangs and the Macro-primates come back?”
“Then deal with them yourselves. I helped the Chamber because I didn’t know you were coming. But now that you’re here, what do you take me for? Free labor?”
“All right. I’m offering a reward of ten middle-grade magical shrubs. Stay here and they shall be yours,” Yan Guilai put up a facetious grin to mask his true intent.
“‘Stay here and they shall be yours’. As if I would give a tinker’s cuss about ten magical shrubs! That amounts just nice if you’re dealing with a beggar, not me!” scowled Chu Xun irately. “What a stingy miser,” he gasped quietly.
“All right, name your price.”
“One thousand. One thousand middle-grade magical shrubs. Not one shrub less.”
“One thousand?! Is this a rip-off, boy!?”
“Taking from you is certainly faster than a rip-off.”
“Y-You! H-how could you! You vampire!” Yan Guilai stammered with disbelief and rage.
“Whatever. Long Yi, Long Er, let’s go,” said Chu Xun, turning around to leave.
“Wait—” before Yan Guilai could finish, his cell phone began ringing. He strode off to answer it.
He came back not long later. By the time, Chu Xun was already a dozen meters away. He calmly said to his acolytes, barking loud enough for Chu Xun’s benefit, and said, “Get two more tents. My son is on his way here with a lady companion called Jing Hong.”
