Chapter 95: Chapter 3: Fish Bait

With the power and influence of the Celestial Treasure Tower’s Chief Shopkeeper, identifying a person in Huangyuan Marketplace was incredibly simple once he had an image. This was especially true since Yang Jing had also pointed out that the man was a Cultivator from the Huang Family.

A quarter of an hour later, the Chief Shopkeeper walked into the tea room, his face grim.

“This person is named Huang Guanhong. It’s just as you said; he’s a crook who deals in shady business. Wang Tong, your caution this time scared him off, and in doing so, you’ve done a great service for the Celestial Treasure Tower. If we had mistaken this fake Spirit Marrow for a real one and sent it to headquarters, we all would have become laughingstocks!”

He spoke with a look of lingering fear on his face.

“Should we inform the Yushan Huang Clan? After all, that Spirit Marrow was incredibly realistic. If I hadn’t recognized Huang Guanhong, I would have purchased it for the tower.”

Yang Jing didn’t forget to subtly badmouth Si Yuan.

The Chief Shopkeeper hesitated for a moment before shaking his head.

The Yushan Huang Clan was a family founded by a True Disciple who had left the Taixu Sword Sect. It had a four-hundred-year history and was deeply rooted. These families that hadn’t been separated from the Six Great Sects for long were the most troublesome to deal with. Their connections within the Taixu Sword Sect hadn’t been completely severed, so they weren’t easy to move against.

Yang Jing could only cup his hands in a gesture of feigned disappointment.

Si Yuan’s vicious scheme had failed. Realizing that Wang Tong was now on high alert and extremely cautious, he suppressed his desire for revenge, deciding to wait until the chairman’s confinement order was lifted before making another move against Wang Tong.

For the next while, Yang Jing lived a very comfortable life. He spent his days consuming Five Elements Pills to enhance his Magical Power and fabricating rumors about the Wu Family based on whispers and shadows, supplementing them with some genuine intelligence obtained from Zhang Wenchun. In return, he received a considerable amount of Tier Two Spiritual Materials and Medicines from the Iron Art General.

The Tier Two Spiritual Pills he delivered also changed several times, from Profound Essence Pills to Transformation Pills, and then to Dragon Power Pills.

The main ingredient of the Dragon Power Pill was the fruit of a Dragon Blood Tree over eight hundred years old. It could increase one’s physical Qi Power. The first pill taken would increase one’s Qi Power by at least five thousand jin, and its effects would only wear off after the twelfth pill. For a Demon that relied on close-quarters combat, it was a first-rate miraculous pill.

Even this Dragon Power Pill only raised the Iron Armor General’s Affinity for him to forty-five.

Meanwhile, after Yang Jing secretly gave a Profound Essence Pill to the Turtle Demon Wu Cheng and the Mingyi Dog Gou Santong each, their Affinity for him had already been raised to over sixty.

This Golden-eyed White Ape was the complete opposite of his crude and bold exterior. He was deeply cunning and not to be underestimated.

In recent days, he revealed that the Wu Family had once secretly trained Array Masters to investigate the underground water veins of the Huangyuan Marketplace area.

This piqued the Iron Armor General’s interest immensely, as the Flood Dragons of the Qishui Kingdom lineage were all water-aspected, making it highly likely that they would hide in underground water veins.

Only after this incident did his Affinity for Yang Jing rise to fifty-five.

Yang Jing returned to his Cave Mansion in San Yuanli. After more than twenty days of nonstop digging, Yinjiao and Iron Head had finally extended the underground river to the vicinity of the Yushan Huang Clan’s territory. They then used the excavated earth to completely seal off the passage leading back to San Yuanli.

Iron Head had also set up a Qi-guiding Dragon-shaking Array within the underground river, but it would take at least seven days for this array to alter the course of the Spirit Vein.

Yang Jing had already spotted traces of Demons near San Yuanli. If these Demons didn’t transform into their half-human, half-demon forms, their Demon Qi would remain hidden deep within their bodies, making them undetectable even with his Bright Qi Talent.

However, their status as Innate Martial Artists could not be concealed. Furthermore, Yang Jing had previously hidden outside their stronghold and memorized the faces of some of them.

During the battle between the Wu Family and the Taixu Sword Sect’s True Disciple, Song Luoxi, in Huashan County, most people’s attention was drawn to the two Foundation Establishment True Cultivators. But the spies from the Demon Country had clearly fixed their sights on San Yuanli and Yang Jing.

After all, Yang Jing was one of only two survivors of the battle in Huashan County.

This gave Yang Jing a sense of urgency.

—————–

Ever since following his ancestor’s orders to go to Huangyuan Marketplace and set a trap for that Wang Tong, things had not been going well for Huang Guanhong. Recently, a rumor had started spreading from some unknown source that he was in possession of Spirit Marrow.

Heaven have mercy, that Spirit Marrow was clearly a fake.

Fortunately, as a member of the Yushan Huang Clan with a Cultivation at the Late Stage of Qi Cultivation, few dared to move against him directly.

But three days ago, a Tribulation Cultivator he worked with sent a Communication Talisman, saying he had six Magical Artifacts of dubious origin to offload. If he didn’t take them, they would be offered to someone else.

Huang Guanhong gritted his teeth and decided to go and acquire the batch of Magical Artifacts anyway.

He knew the nature of these Tribulation Cultivators. If he didn’t take the artifacts this time, they’d start thinking about finding someone else to fence their goods to.

The arranged meeting spot was at the foot of the Huangyuan Mountain Range, which gave Huang Guanhong a slight sense of security. He knew it wasn’t far from the Huang Family’s ancestral lands. As long as he remained vigilant and wasn’t ambushed, the commotion from any Magical Combat would surely alert his clansmen.

If these Tribulation Cultivators he had worked with for so long wanted to make a move on him, they definitely wouldn’t have chosen the foot of the mountain.

Huang Guanhong’s Power of Magical Combat ranked in the upper-middle among his peers. He refused to believe that anyone could defeat him without a sound.

When he arrived at the designated spot in the Huangyuan Mountain Range, he saw a Cultivator wearing a conical hat, fishing in a stream.

Huang Guanhong walked up and said,

“What kind of big fish could you possibly catch in a mountain stream like this? Where are your goods?”

The Cultivator turned his head and smiled at Huang Guanhong.

“’Men die in pursuit of wealth as birds die in pursuit of food.’ The fish I was angling for has already arrived, hasn’t it?”

When Huang Guanhong saw the Cultivator’s face, he turned pale with shock.

“Wang Tong! It’s you!”

“You tried to bait me with Spirit Marrow before, and I didn’t take the hook. I never thought that today, all it would take is six Magical Artifacts for you to bite down hard and not let go.”

Yang Jing said with a smile.

With a mere flick of his finger, a flash of jade Sword Gang erupted from his waist. The Sword Gang shot out, circled Huang Guanhong, and, before he could even react, sliced off both his arms.

He had made two moves against Yang Jing, so Yang Jing cut off his two arms in return.

Huang Guanhong writhed on the ground in agony. ’It was like an absurd nightmare. How could Wang Tong, that pampered, damn fatty, suddenly transform into a Sword Cultivator renowned for his combat prowess?’

He knew that his Yushan Huang Clan had produced very few Sword Cultivators since leaving the Taixu Sword Sect. In his generation, the Ancestor was the only one.

Terrified, he was about to scream when Yang Jing sealed his mouth shut before he could make a sound.

Yang Jing first tapped his shoulders, sealing the bleeding wounds. Then he patted down Huang Guanhong’s entire body, taking his Storage Bag and various other items, leaving him with only a single layer of clothing.

“Sorry, but you can’t die just yet.”

As he spoke, he grabbed the agonized Huang Guanhong, activated his Cloud Escape, and returned to Wang Tong’s residence. He threw Huang Guanhong into the cellar as well, tying him up next to Wang Tong.

The two were only a zhang apart.

Although Wang Tong didn’t recognize Huang Guanhong, seeing that the man had lost both arms and was in an even more miserable state than himself, he actually chuckled with schadenfreude.

Huang Guanhong looked at the other man—who looked like a version of Wang Tong that had lost over fifty jin—then turned his head to stare, dumbfounded, at the Wang Tong in front of him.

Right before his eyes, “Wang Tong” silently transformed into his own likeness.

“You… You’re from a Demon Sect! What are you going to do wearing my face?!”

Huang Guanhong wasn’t a complete fool. In his memory, only Demon Cultivators from the Demon Sects could change their appearance so flawlessly.

“I’m just going to borrow your identity for a bit to sell some inconspicuous Spirit Liquid.”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep