Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Disbelief showed in the eyes of Lin Lan and the elderly lady behind her.
Just like Chen Dandan.
They knew Zhou Donghuang inside out.
Zhou Donghuang had not yet been able to manifest his qi.
But now, he was able to soundly thrash and injure a level-one adept of the gathered qi and dominate him completely.
They simply could not believe it. Could they be dreaming?
Watching as Hong Yue struggled to his feet, Zhou Donghuang bared his teeth in a savage grin. “Another false move and I’ll end your miserable life!”
Under the murderous glare of Zhou Donghuang, Hong Yue quailed in fear and stood there motionless as though his legs were filled with lead.
“Chen Dandan!”
Zhou Donghuang’s gaze found Chen Dandan again, staring daggers at her.
Sensing Zhou Donghuang’s murderous rage towards Chen Dandan, Hong Yue’s pupils contracted and refocused. Turning to Lin Lan, he reminded her in a low voice, “Guild Master Lin, restrain your son, don’t make things worse…”
“Lady Dandan is the esteemed daughter-in-law of the Hong family!”
By saying this, Hong Yue was blatantly threatening Lin Lan.
Lin Lan paled at this but immediately suppressed her anger. “Donghuang, come back here,” she commanded, looking lovingly at him standing with his back to her.
Neither of them were her biological children, but how did he come to be so close to her?
Zhou Donghuang turned slowly. “Mother, are you still protecting her even now?” he asked, his voice betraying a momentary hoarseness.
“This is the last time… from this day forth, I, Lin Lan, and her, Chen Dandan, sever all ties between us!” Lin Lan said, her voice filled with indignation.
“Fine. As a token of respect to you, Mother, I won’t kill her today…”
At these words, Chen Dandan breathed a sigh of relief.
“But if I let you walk away just like this…I would feel that I did something too unfair to myself!” Zhou Donghuang muttered.
The moment Chen Dandan changed her expression, Zhou Donghuang darted forward and landed a savage slap on her face.
Piak!
The sharp, clear sound echoed in the chamber, and Chen Dandan fell down beside Hong Yue. Her face began to swell, and she spat out blood and bits of broken teeth. She looked even worse than Hong Yue.
Chen Dandan glared hatefully at Zhou Donghuang, her delicate features twisting into a savage mask. “Zhou Donghuang, you dare hit me? Do you wish to…”
But Chen Dandan swallowed the rest of her threat upon seeing the cold, murderous look in Zhou Donghuang’s eyes.
“Chen Dandan, each person has to take responsibility for his or her actions… I only hope you won’t end up regretting this.”
Zhou Donghuang kept his cold gaze on Chen Dandan, his voice completely emotionless.
“Of course I won’t regret it!”
Suppressing her murderous rage, Chen Dandan returned his gaze with a humourless smile. As her rage subsided, bewilderment emerged in its wake.
How had this useless piece of trash suddenly come to possess such abilities? Not only had he defeated Hong Yue, but he had managed to close the distance between them and strike her before she could react.
Despite this and the fact that Zhou Donghuang evidently had some ability, Chen Dandan remained nonchalant. The man she, Chen Dandan, was about to marry, was, after all, the first young master of the Hong family of the prefecture capital, a man so blessed that he seemed favored by the gods.
How could he be compared with this piece of trash here?
“Guild Master Hong, let’s take our leave.”
Chen Dandan struggled to her feet and led Hong Yue away. At the door of the receiving chamber, she hesitated and gazed back at Zhou Donghuang with a deep look. “I can only hope that you will be able to withstand the fury that will come down upon the Lin family of the prefecture capital…”
“After all, I do not wish to see the Magnolia Guild that I have grown up in be destroyed just like that.”
A mocking smile pulled at the corners of Chen Dandan’s bloody mouth.
“If you don’t leave now, make no mistake, I will kill you!” Zhou Donghuang roared through gritted teeth as he stepped forward menacingly, his lips drawn back in anger.
Chen Dandan cowered in fear and turned away, leading Hong Yue hastily away.
“How did we not realize earlier that this sh*t was such a wretched ingrate?”
After Chen Dandan and Hong Yue had departed, even the elderly lady behind Lin Lan had her face twisted in rage.
“Mother!” Zhou Donghuang turned and dashed to the stunned-looking Lin Lan, swept her into a hug and held her closely for a long time.
Lin Lan only then noticed that her son had grown and was now a little taller than she was.
“Donghuang, I’m fine.”
Lin Lan was under the impression that Zhou Donghuang was feeling sorrowful over this whole disastrous episode and had no idea that Zhou Donghuang was actually emotional because he had not seen her for such a long time.
A thousand years had slipped by, and everything changed.
At this moment, only Zhou Donghuang himself could understand how he felt.
“My Lady, what should we do now? The formula is in the hands of the Sunset Guild and effectively belongs to the Hong family… Even though Chen Dandan has betrayed us, the Lin family will not take that into consideration. They will vent their fury on you and the Magnolia Guild anyway.”
The elderly lady was fidgeting with anxiety.
Lin Lan trembled at the elderly lady’s words and worry clouded her eyes.
She had expected this outcome.
The Lin family, just like the Hong family, was a great family of the prefecture capital. As a scion of the Lin family, Lin Lan had been sent to Qingshan Town early on to set up a guild to conduct business, the result of which was the Magnolia Guild.
The price for enjoying the protection and resources of the Lin family was a tithe of nine-tenths of the Magnolia Guild’s yearly profit.
Only the remaining tenth belonged to the guild master of the Magnolia Guild.
If the Lin family discovered that the formula had been leaked by Lin Lan’s Magnolia Guild, they would be furious.
Zhou Donghuang felt Lin Lan trembling. He released Lin Lan and asked, “Mother, what kind of formula was lost?”
Prior to this, although he knew that Chen Dandan had revealed the formula, he did not know what kind of formula it was. However, he wasn’t worried about whatever formula the Lin family had produced.
He had stood at the figurative peak of the universe. What kind of formula had he not seen before?
In his eyes, a formula made by a small family from a small planet like Ziyun was no different from rough paper.
“It’s a special kind of blood-staunching elixir. Moreover, it was formulated personally by the intermediate-level medicine master who was invited at great cost to practice in the Lin family household. Its blood-staunching effect is 30% greater than that of the usual blood-staunching elixirs commonly available on the market.”
The planet of Ziyun was one where the Martial Way was a part of life and where only the strong earned respect. Fights and disputes between adepts were commonplace; thus, blood-staunching elixirs were always in demand.
Naturally, the more effective the blood-staunching elixir, the higher the demand for it.
“Blood-staunching elixir?”
Zhou Donghuang racked his brain, searching through the accumulated memories of a thousand years. He managed to recall the formula for the lowest grade of blood-staunching elixir very quickly.
Its effectiveness was double that of the widely available blood-staunching elixirs on the market in the country of Yunyang!
If I remove a few of the ingredients, I should be able to reduce its effectiveness a little…
Zhou Donghuang did not intend to use the formula wholesale, but was intending to remove several ingredients to reduce the effectiveness of this blood-staunching elixir. That was the lowest grade of blood-staunching elixir he could recall.
Otherwise, once this blood-staunching elixir was circulated, it would shake the whole country of Yunyang!
In his opinion, this was not a good thing.
He had seen too many cases of innocent men getting into trouble because of their wealth during the thousands of years of trials he had previously experienced.
“Mother, I’m going to the medicine storehouse. If nothing goes wrong, I’ll formulate an even better blood-staunching elixir for you within a quarter of an hour!”
Determined to help, Zhou Donghuang glanced at Lin Lan, whose expression was full of worry, and bluntly told her, “When it is time, take that blood-staunching elixir back to the Lin family, and I believe they will not even consider blaming you. Instead, they will reward you.”
“Young Master, this is not the time for such jokes.”
Thinking he was joking, the elderly lady behind Lin Lan replied with a rueful smile before Lin Lan could speak.
The elderly lady had served Lin Lan since she was very young. Such was her loyalty to Lin Lan that she even left the Lin family and the prefecture capital together with Lin Lan and followed her out to Qingshan Town. Because of this, Zhou Donghuang did not keep his plan from her that he was going to formulate a better blood-staunching elixir.
“Donghuang, there is no need to console me.”
Lin Lan was shaking her head, evidently not taking Zhou Donghuang’s claim seriously. Although this was not her own biological son, she had watched him grow up. What abilities could he possibly have that she was not aware of?
“Mother, Granny Lian, I really am not joking. Wait here, and I’ll be back within 15 minutes with the formula!”
As soon as he had spoken, Zhou Donghuang left the receiving chamber briskly and went to the medicine storehouse.
He arrived at the medicine storehouse very shortly since it was less than two hundred meters away from the receiving chamber.
The guards of the Magnolia Guild who were guarding the medicine storehouse naturally did not dare prevent the entry of Zhou Donghuang, the Young Master of the Magnolia Guild, and allowed him to pass unhindered.
Once he entered the medicine storehouse, Zhou Donghuang began to gather the necessary ingredients and prepare the blood-staunching elixir all from memory.
The preparation of the formula only required the ingredients to be ground into powder, so Zhou Donghuang was able to prepare the blood-staunching elixir very quickly given the availability of the required apparatus in the medicine storehouse.
“Done!”
In less than 15 minutes, he had further suppressed the effectiveness of the lowest grade of blood-staunching elixir from his memory by 60%.
He had created a formula for a blood-staunching elixir that was 40% more effective than those available on the market.
After he returned so quickly to the receiving chamber and handed the formula over, both Lin Lan and granny Lian were naturally skeptical.
However, as soon as Lin Lan personally tested the blood-staunching elixir made by Zhou Donghuang, she could not help but be convinced!
“Could it be true?”
Lin Lan and granny Lian exchanged a glance, and saw the look of incredulity in each other’s eyes.
“Donghuang!”
Lin Lan looked solemnly at Zhou Donghuang. “Tell your mother honestly… where did you obtain the formula for this blood-staunching elixir?”
The value of the formula for a blood-staunching elixir of this kind would greatly exceed that of the formula for the blood-staunching elixir leaked by Chen Dandan.
After all, this was 40% more effective, compared with the leaked formula of 30% more effectiveness.
“Also, you have not managed to manifest your qi, so how did you manage to defeat Hong Yue, the guild master of the Sunset Guild?”
For the first time, Lin Lan felt that she might not understand her son completely.
“Mother, I created this blood-staunching elixir. As for the origins of the formula and how I defeated Hong Yue, it’s a long story.”
Zhou Donghuang said impatiently, “Why don’t you send the formula to the Lin family in the prefecture capital to make up for this whole debacle?”
“I’ll tell you all about it when you return. How’s that?”
At this moment, Zhou Donghuang’s goal was to get his mother out of this sticky situation so that she could avoid a similar fate to what she had suffered before.
“Agreed! I will ask you about it when I return.”
Lin Lan understood the gravity of the situation, and after delegating some minor tasks to granny Lian who had remained by her side, she departed for the prefecture capital on a fast horse.
Lin Lan herself was a level-one adept of the gathered qi; moreover, since no one knew that she was carrying such a valuable formula on her, Zhou Donghuang was not worried that something might happen to her on her journey.
“When Chen Dandan learns that the Young Master has produced an even better formula, I fear that she will vomit blood in anger,” granny Lian chuckled after Lin Lan had left.
Upon hearing granny Lian mention Chen Dandan, a frosty look flashed across Zhou Donghuang’s eyes and the corners of his mouth pulled upwards in a cold smile.
“There’s no rush, let’s play with her slowly… We’ll crush her beneath our feet when she is least expecting it to inflict even greater despair upon her.”
