Chapter 226: Teaching a Lesson

Bai Yunxian’s voice drifted from the rear, cool and sharp as a winter wind. “Talking less and sensing more would serve you better. There are rats in the tall grass.”

Yun Shu’s smile didn’t falter, but her eyes sharpened. She had felt them, too. Two groups, moving with the practiced stealth of hunters who preferred human prey over beasts.

They emerged from the thicket at a clearing near a crystalline stream.

Two distinct groups of cultivators blocked their path. On the left were the “Viper Pavilion” disciples, identifiable by their sickly green robes and the faint scent of poison that clung to them.

On the right was a group of rogue cultivators led by three men who looked more like bandits than seekers of the Dao.

The leader of the rogues, a man with a scarred face and a greedy glint in his eyes, stepped forward. His gaze swept over the bags of loot hanging from the disciples’ waists—bags that were bursting with high-grade cores and rare herbs collected under Yun Shu’s guidance.

“Well, well,” the scarred man sneered, “look at this. A bunch of Azure Sect brats playing house in the woods. And they’ve brought some pretty company.”

The Viper Pavilion leader, a thin man with eyes like a cold-blooded reptile, didn’t look at the disciples. His gaze was fixed entirely on Bai Yunxian.

Even in a simple traveling robe, Bai Yunxian’s ethereal beauty was impossible to mask. His features were a masterpiece of jade-like perfection, and his aura, though suppressed, commanded the air around him.

The thin man licked his lips, a slow, perverse grin spreading across his face. “Forget the herbs. I haven’t seen a ’woman’ of that caliber in all my years of cultivation. That one… I want that one for my private collection. The rest of you can have the loot.”

The rogue leaders began to chuckle, their eyes turning toward Bai Yunxian with disgusting, leering intent.

To them, what Bai Yunxian looked like now wasn’t some Peerless Sword Immortal; they saw a ’Female cultivator’ who looked like a goddess fallen into the mud.

The air around the group suddenly dropped by twenty degrees.

Bai Yunxian’s hand moved toward the hilt of his sword, his expression as calm as a frozen lake, but his eyes promised a slow and agonizing death.

However, before he could unsheathe his blade, a figure stepped in front of him.

Yun Shu’s aura had changed. The playful, pastry-eating “Senior Sister Li” was gone. In her place stood a woman whose very presence seemed to darken the sunlight.

[Ding~ Warning! Host’s ’Protect the Property’ instinct has reached 100%. Host, please remember you are supposed to be a ’frail’ mistress!]

’Frail? My ass,’ Yun Shu thought, her inner voice cold enough to shatter bone. ’They are looking at my husband, contracted or not, like he’s a piece of meat. I’m going to peel their skin off!’

“How dare you?” Yun Shu said, her voice low and melodic, yet it carried to every corner of the clearing. “Did you guys lose your damn minds? Or did you just decide today was a good day to stop breathing?”

The Azure Sect disciples, sensing the shift in their Senior Sister, didn’t wait for an order. They had been treated with kindness and taught with patience by Yun Shu. Seeing these thugs insult her and her companion ignited a fire in their young hearts.

“Protect Senior Sister Li and the Palace Lord!” A-Zheng yelled, drawing his wooden-handled sword.

The disciples moved with a precision that shocked the attackers. They didn’t break formation; instead, they enacted the “Triple-Star Flow” that Yun Shu had “casually” suggested they practice during lunch breaks.

“You little shits!” the scarred man roared, swinging a heavy claymore. “Kill them!”

The clearing erupted into chaos. The Azure Sect kids took on the lower-level thugs. They fought with a ferocity and technique that far outstripped their official cultivation levels.

Whenever a blade got too close to a disciple’s throat, a pebble or a stray gust of wind, sent by Yun Shu’s flicking fingers, would knock the attacker off balance.

But Yun Shu’s main focus wasn’t the kids. Her eyes were locked on the three leaders who were still staring at Bai Yunxian.

“He is mine,” Yun Shu whispered, though it sounded like a thunderclap in the ears of the three men.

She moved.

She didn’t use a sword. She didn’t use a flashy technique, just simply became a blur of silver and white. She appeared in front of the Viper Pavilion leader before he could even raise his poisoned fan.

Slap!

The sound echoed through the forest. The man was sent spinning through the air, his teeth spraying out like morbid confetti.

Before he could hit the ground, Yun Shu appeared above him, her heel slamming into his chest, pinning him to the earth with enough force to create a crater.

“Your eyes,” Yun Shu said, leaning down, her face inches from his. “I don’t like where they were looking.”

How dare they covet what’s mine?

With a flick of her wrist, two needles made of pure Qi pierced the man’s eyes. He didn’t even have time to scream before his vocal cords were severed by a third needle.

The other two rogue leaders stared in horror. They tried to retreat, but the shadows around them seemed to come alive. Dark, ethereal hands rose from the ground, grabbing their ankles.

“Where are you going?” Yun Shu asked, her voice sweet and terrifying. “The show is just starting.”

Bai Yunxian stood perfectly still, his hand still resting on his sword hilt. He hadn’t needed to move.

He watched the woman in front of him, this “Senior Sister Li” who claimed to be a mere suitor, who pretended to be a scatterbrained girl obsessed with food.

He watched her move with a ruthlessness that would make a demon king blush. She wasn’t just fighting; she was systematic. She was protecting him with a possessiveness that was both arrogant and… strangely intoxicating.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep