Even though Chang Lin Town was surrounded by mountains on three sides, there were two roads into the town. One of them was the bigger road. It extended from the nearest city, Bronze Mound. The smaller road was the one that Feng Bujue's group appeared on at the start of the scenario.
The situation on the bigger road was far more urgent. The current Bronze Mound was filled with people from various schools, characters from the martial world, and even people from the government. There were roughly several thousands people. Naturally, not all of them were going to Chang Lin because the small town wouldn't have fitted all of them anyway. So there were conditions to be fulfilled to get to Chang Lin Town through the big road.
After a discussion of the masters from different schools, they set down two rules. First, since every school had innumerable disciples, and they couldn't have brought all of them, so each master could only handpick at most twenty disciples to follow them into the town. The other disciples had to stay at Bronze Mound; Secondly, deviants and followers of wicked doctrines were not allowed entry. But what kind of doctrines were considered wicked? That was decided by the 'people following the accepted doctrines'.
Other than those hunted by both the government and the martial world, characters who were isolated within the martial world were listed under this category as well, and their movement was limited to Bronze Mound. Even though these people would not call themselves agents of justice, they were not evil either. Most of them simply liked to work alone or had eccentric personalities, so they rarely interacted with the orthodox schools. Now, they finally understood the meaning of partisanship.
It was worth mentioning that, in this scenario, the government would not intervene in the matters of the martial world unless the altercation affected the safety of the common people. In return, the martial world would not intervene in matters of the government. Who the emperor was and whether he did a good job had nothing to do with these martial artists. This was a line between these two parties that would never be crossed. Therefore, at least on the surface, the soldiers from the government gathered at Bronze Mound to maintain order. They would only make a move should people from the martial world disturbe the peace of the citizens at Bronze Mound.
Those who traversed along the small road… were naturally those who were barred from using the big road or those who could not show up at Bronze Mound at all. The disciples from various schools guarded Bronze Mound day and night. It would be seeking death to attempt to slip through or force one's way along the big road. Those weaker would be shot into a beehive by arrows while those stronger would die from exhaustion of inner energy after being surrounded by thousands of people.
Therefore, when such people wanted to enter Chang Lin Town, the small road was the only option. As long as there were not many people and they could hide their tracks well, they would arrive at this small road after walking around Bronze Mound for a whole day.
But there was another person guarding there as well.
The blue-robed elder was Blade God Ye Cheng's family butler. His name was Ye Hai. His story was not known on the martial world, and few people had heard of his name before because he had never been a member of the martial world.
Ye Hai had entered the Ye family as servant when he was only twelve, and that was about sixty years ago. Since he became the family butler at age thirty-two, the Ye family had changed three masters, but this butler had remained the same.
Ye Hai's martial prowess came from Ye Cheng's grandfather. Ye Hai was not gifted, and he knew that very well. As a servant, even if he was talented, he did not have the right to become a disciple of the Ye family. But Old Master Ye had kept helping this young man in the dark. When the young master was training his blade skill, he had Ye Hai sweep the yard next to the young master and purposely recited the mantra loudly. When Ye Hai practiced kung fu at night, the members of the Ye family pretended not to notice it.
The Ye family's teachings all involved powerful kung fu, and combined with Ye Hai's hard work, even though he only had minimum talent, when he was thirty, if placed in the martial world, he could have been considered an expert already. Two years later, he was promoted to become the Ye family's butler. He married and had a son. For Ye Hai, this was the happiest period of his life.
Several years later, Old Master Ye passed away, and Ye Cheng's father took over. He allowed Ye Hai's son to join the Ye family as a disciple. Unfortunately, the child was too arrogant for his age, and when he was seventeen, before he mastered the skill, he died in a fight outside. Not long after that, Ye Hai's wife died from illness and a broken heart.
After losing his family, the sense of responsibility toward the Ye family became Ye Hai's only purpose in life. One could say that Ye Hai's whole life was his loyalty and appreciation toward the Ye family.
Today's Ye Hai, in terms of martial prowess, was almost as powerful as, if not more powerful than, the masters of the various schools. There were only two types of people who could beat Ye Hai—the peerless masters that came every few centuries, people like Xie San or Ye Cheng, or the talented individuals who trained for years. This type of person had to fulfil these three conditions. They had to be more talented than Ye Hai, their inner energy had to be about sixty percent of Ye Hai's, and their martial skills had to be comparable to Ye Hai's. Only then did they have a chance to win.
With such a character guarding the small road, the result was expected.
In just this past half a month, bad guys that were named or nameless in the martial world had been killed by Ye Hai. This was a good thing because he helped cleaned up the martial world.
Those who were ambiguous in their stance but failed to beat the elder were all 'persuaded' to return. Only true 'experts', those who had the right to witness the fight, could enter Chang Lin Town via the small road.
With regards to the Jade Scholar, someone who claimed he was a member of the martial world but was working for the government, quite a number like him died as well. The government was the government. Since the beginning of time, they were the one party you could always trust to go against their own word. They promised to not intervene in the matters of the martial world, but that was definitely not the case, and it was something they would never admit. Therefore, when encountering such situation, the members of the martial world would not hesitate to take out government sell-outs. Since the government would never admit that they had sent these people, there was no worry for revenge.
…
On this same night, inside the mountain at the northern part of Chang Lin Town, not far away from the supposed haunted temple…
This place was crawling with vines. The greenery above covered up everything, and the branches formed a thick canopy.
Suddenly, a human figure rushed through, her feet landing soundlessly on the ground. It was a woman wearing a green robe. Her figure was slim, and she could be called pretty. But at that moment, her expression was serious and there was fear in her eyes.
"Your Qinggong is not bad," a cold voice said.
Accompanying the voice was a black shadow. From his stance, he was not armed and had his hands behind his back, appearing like he could win this fight without even using them.
The woman did not stop to chat. She unsheathed her blade and lunged forward using all the might that she could summon.
The black shadow used an impossible move to avoid this blow. He stomped on the blade with his right foot and pressed it to the ground. Even though the woman's face was red as she tried to pull her weapon back, the blade refused to budge.
"Unfortunately, the Qinggong that you're so proud of is nothing more than a mere trick in my eyes," the shadow said darkly. "Miss Lu, I can only say that you're too unlucky to have chanced upon my secret… so you must die."
Before Lu Qingning could answer, their surroundings changed. At that moment, a strange silvery chime appeared in the dark, and at the same time, an indescribable chill swallowed the two characters…
