Chapter Forty-Six: Strange

“You wretched creature, stop right there!”

Suddenly finding his path blocked, Qi Muan halted in surprise when he saw that it was his own mother.

“Mother?”

“Shut up. Don’t call me that. Take off the padded coat you’re wearing. A wretch like you doesn’t deserve such fine clothes.”

So she had come for the clothes on his back.

The surprise that had just risen in Qi Muan’s eyes vanished at once. His thin lips pressed tightly together as he clutched the firewood protectively against his chest.

“Mother wants the coat I’m wearing, but I can’t—”

“Then how can we obtain a Primordial Crystal?” Du Qianjie suddenly thought of what the Ferocious-Scaled Demon Ape had once done on Tuchen Star, as well as the crystals embedded in those horn-and-sinew shields that could release Primordial Slaughter. Could those be Primordial Crystals?

“But how did you come up with the idea of entering show business? And how did you become such a popular star?” Although he knew that celebrities’ glamorous appearances concealed many hardships unknown to others—

Casting those thoughts aside, Du Qianjie fled in another direction. His senior brother seemed intent only on preventing him from returning to the Blackflow River, following unhurriedly behind him with a massive sword in hand.

“Why did your sister Lingbo place a Soul-Calming Star inside my soul?” Du Qianjie asked again.

I focused my eyes on the person in the photograph. My whole body went limp, and I collapsed onto the floor, my body striking the Eight-Immortals table. The pain meant nothing compared with the horror of what lay before me.

Just then, a burst of footsteps rang out. More than twenty security guards came running upstairs. Along with them were several men in suits—plainly several of the other managers of Listening Rain Tower. They had heard that something had happened here and hurried over.

But without evidence, I could not bring myself to question my mother. To do so would be like tearing open, brutally and bloodily, the scars that had finally healed. I could not do that. I did not want to make my mother sad or cause her pain.

“Do you know who Luo Ming is? He’s the biggest and most vicious drug lord in the borderlands. His men include an elite guard force equipped and trained on a level comparable to special forces. Without reinforcements, we would certainly have been doomed today.” Ling Li gave a bitter smile.

“That’s precisely what makes the Nine-Thousand-Year Lord so admirable. From what they were saying, he collected taxes from those people and then used them to provide relief for disaster victims,” the man from earlier said.

Seeing that Mayumi did not believe her, Kyoko was both amused and exasperated. Was sneaking out a few times really enough to warrant this kind of distrust?

“I…” The old man was rendered speechless. Although White River’s dragon face was mere inches away, hesitation still showed in his expression.

“Thank you for your praise, Master!” I answered modestly, my eyes fixed on the dried chicken on the table as I swallowed. Why did I, a mouse, love chicken so much?

He needed to do something. Over the years, Konoha’s situation had grown better and better. Once they no longer needed him, it would be very difficult for him to find another chance to strike. Konoha’s military strength was formidable—strong enough to defeat the other great ninja villages even when fighting several opponents at once. There was no doubting its power.

Susu glanced at the snake man watching her with covetous eyes, then calmly looked away. She might as well continue pursuing her ultimate goal. Rescuing a damsel in distress was simply not suited to her.

Another sixth-rank member of the Hong family, Hongling River, had entered Longzhou together with the Blood Skull King, and Yun Shaolong’s facial-recognition system had captured them on camera.

Leaving aside what happened to Zhu’er, Fourth Madam Liang was so enraged by Gu Zheng’s forcefulness that she decided to take the initiative and blunt Gu Zheng’s edge. After turning the matter over in her mind, she concluded that Xiao Yurou could become her ally, and sent someone to invite her over.

When Liu Jingye shouted for the main army to advance, he did not see the astonished gazes of the people on the mountaintop directed at him. Those looks belonged instead to the man already standing on the second line of defense—the young master, Li Ji.