Lu Yan stepped out of the heavy city gates. A hot wind blew against his face, carrying the dry, dusty air of the barren earth outside. He raised his hand and slowly fished out the four newly acquired banknotes from the cloth bag hanging at his side.
The paper was crisp and new, the silver ink gleaming brightly, and each note was clearly printed with a massive denomination of one thousand taels.
Stacked in his palm, the four notes felt substantial, the stiff paper carrying a very real sense of weight.
Lu Yan gently rubbed his thumb over the intricate patterns, then held them up against the glaring sunlight overhead.
He didn't actually know how to tell a counterfeit banknote from a real one, nor could he distinguish the authenticity of the watermark lines, but it was an instinctive reaction. There was no helping it; anyone who got their hands on money liked to do this, haha.
The heavy weight that had pressed down on his chest throughout his journey suddenly lightened by half, and a rare trace of ease appeared in his expression. Cultivation was about the Dao, power, and longevity, but Lu Yan had never been some transcendent immortal who was above worldly concerns.
At the end of the day, he was just an ordinary, vulgar person. And ordinary people couldn't escape worldly desires. With a windfall in hand, the joy in his heart was impossible to hide.
While this sum might seem extravagant to others, to him, it didn't make him wealthy in the slightest. It wasn't even a fraction of what was needed to forge a heart for Jiang Ci.
The massive fortune in the eyes of ordinary people was merely pocket change to help patch up that broken heart.
One thousand taels was enough for an entire family of ordinary mortals to live comfortably and peacefully for three whole years.
If they were in a barren, desolate place like the Northern Border where resources were scarce, they could live like local kings for five full years if they budgeted carefully.
But right now, with refugees lining the roads everywhere, no one cared about the cost of living, and no one cared about a peaceful life.
All they saw were the four blindingly bright banknotes clutched in Lu Yan's hand.
A crowd of starving, desperate people with green-tinged eyes fixed their gazes intently on the bills in his palm, their greed almost spilling over.
To them, that wasn't money; it was life itself. Four banknotes meant four paths to survival.
To stay alive, dignity, reputation, and backbone were all utterly worthless.
Not far away, a woman covered in dirt, her hair matted and her tattered clothes barely covering her skin, watched Lu Yan approach. A sudden flash of ruthlessness crossed her eyes.
She lowered her head, gritted her teeth, and viciously pinched the sleeping child in her arms.
The child was only three or four years old, skin and bones, with sunken cheeks and a sallow complexion. Having passed out from hunger and exhaustion along the way, the child had finally managed to curl up in their mother's arms and fall into a light sleep.
Sudden, sharp pain struck. The child instantly erupted into a heart-wrenching wail, sharp and shrill, piercing through the hot, dry wind outside the city.
The woman immediately seized the opportunity to squat down, hugging the child and breaking into a loud, hysterical sob right then and there. Her earth-shattering cries, filled with literal blood and tears, were deliberately directed toward Lu Yan as she crept closer.
“My husband is dead! Our home is destroyed! We, a lonely mother and child, can't survive anymore!”
“Please, kind Master, show some mercy and give us a path to live!”
Lu Yan didn't stop. His eyes were indifferent as he ignored her completely. However, the woman seemed convinced that he was soft-hearted and that cultivators were easy targets. Seeing him about to leave, she lunged forward with the child in her arms, completely blocking his path.
Her knees slammed heavily onto the scorching sand as she began to kowtow with all her might, her forehead striking the hard ground repeatedly with dull thuds.
Not only did she kowtow herself, but she also pressed down hard on the wailing child in her arms, forcing the young child to kowtow along with her to beg for pity.
She kowtowed with genuine force. After a few strikes against the ground, her forehead instantly became swollen and bruised, breaking the skin and rising into a large purplish-red welt. Dust mingled with thin streaks of blood smeared across her skin, making her look incredibly wretched.
The little bit of good mood Lu Yan had gained from his windfall was instantly wiped clean. Waves of impatience welled up in his chest. It was true that he had money.
But every single coin and resource he possessed was life-saving money reserved for Jiang Ci. Why should he hand it over for no reason to a bunch of strangers he didn't even know?
Furthermore, given this helpless mother and child, even if he did give them a banknote, would they be able to keep it? It would only end up being stolen by someone stronger. Giving it to them was entirely pointless.
“Out of the way,” Lu Yan's voice grew cold. Two simple words, devoid of any warmth.
But the woman ignored him completely, assuming his coldness was merely an act. She kowtowed even more frantically, her head bobbing so fast it left afterimages, her wails becoming increasingly shrill.
“Please save my child! Save us! Just a tiny bit is enough! I beg of you!”
Seeing this, the refugees watching from the roadside instantly understood—this young cultivator was soft-hearted, easy to talk to, and ripe for extortion.
Within a mere dozen seconds, six or seven figures swarmed forward, kneeling in a tight circle around Lu Yan. A dark mass of people surrounded him, kowtowing and begging in unison. The sound of crying, pleading, and clamoring instantly enveloped him, blocking him in completely.
“I will say this one more time: out of the way!”
This time, it was no longer mere impatience, but absolute, freezing coldness.
Jiang Ci was still waiting for him to gather the funds to sustain her life, and he had to rush to the Central Continent. Time was of the essence; he didn't have a single second to waste here.
Lu Yan's eyes turned icy. Unwilling to waste any more time, he took a step forward, preparing to step directly through the gaps in the crowd.
He stepped over the first person. Then the second.
Just as he raised his foot to step over the first woman, a dry, rough hand covered in grime suddenly shot out and clamped onto his calf with a death grip.
The grip was incredibly tight, locking onto him so firmly that he couldn't shake it off.
Lu Yan was taken aback for a moment. He hadn't expected to be grabbed. For a second, he even thought his hem had caught on some loose gravel or a dead branch.
Only when he looked down did he realize it was that mortal woman—the one who had feigned misery, forced her child to cry, and knelt to beg.
She clung desperately to his leg, her entire body pressed against the ground, looking up at him with eyes full of madness and self-righteousness.
An overwhelming wave of absurdity, ridiculousness, and anger instantly rushed into Lu Yan's heart.
He didn't want to hurt anyone. He tugged his leg gently twice, but couldn't break free. His ears were filled with her noisy accusations.
“You have money, so why won't you save us?”
“You cultivators sit high above, wealthy yet completely devoid of mercy!”
“We only want a tiny bit, just a tiny bit is enough for us to survive!”
Lu Yan had no intention of harming mortals. He hadn't released a single shred of spiritual energy and hadn't used any force, constantly tolerating and avoiding conflict.
Yet his restraint did not bring about an end to their behavior; instead, it only made them bolder.
The courage of the surrounding people swelled completely. They reached out one after another, daring to touch his robes and pull at his sleeves in an attempt to snatch the valuables on his person.
A fierce aura suddenly flared in Lu Yan's eyes.
How laughable. When the Ice Spirits breached the city, this crowd hadn't dared to stand in their way. When the Central Continent cultivators patrolled the city, this crowd hadn't dared to pull any of these stunts.
Yet they chose to target him, Lu Yan, to harass, rob, and morally blackmail.
Did he look like the easiest target to bully?
His patience snapped completely. Lu Yan no longer suppressed his spiritual energy.
Buzz—
A powerful shockwave of spiritual energy instantly exploded from his body, sweeping outward in a ring.
The refugees surrounding him let out miserable shrieks as they were all blown back by the majestic spiritual energy, rolling several times in the sand in utter embarrassment.
But the woman had gone completely mad. With disheveled hair, she scrambled up from the ground, her eyes bloodshot, and rushed forward to point directly at the tip of Lu Yan's nose, shrieking fiercely.
“It's you! It's all the fault of you cultivators!”
“The Ice Spirits broke through the city! My husband is dead! My home is gone! It's all because you couldn't defend the city!”
“You owe us! Give us the money! Give me back my husband's life!”
Lu Yan watched her silently, looking at this crowd of hideous, truth-twisting refugees. The emotions in his eyes gradually settled, shifting from his initial disdain, annoyance, and sense of absurdity into utter, profound sorrow.
It felt as though his chest had been filled with yellow sand, leaving him suffocated, stuffed, and aching with a biting bitterness.
So...
So this was the kind of crowd that the hundreds of fellow disciples of the Ten Thousand Formations Sect had died protecting—sacrificing their lives, burning their souls, leaving not a single survivor?
The entire sect had martyred themselves for the city, spilling their blood upon the walls to block the Ice Spirits and protect the common people, only to be met with a single line:
【This is what you owe me.】
How laughably absurd, how chillingly heartbreaking.
To seek reinforcement, he had depleted his cultivation, damaged his spiritual sea, and severely overdrawn his foundation. Every single elder and disciple in the sect had fought to the death, leaving behind not even a corpse.
What on earth did they owe these people?!
He could bear it no longer.
Lu Yan's voice was hoarse as he suppressed the surging anger and chill in his chest, suddenly speaking aloud.
“To resist the Ice Spirit invasion, the Formation Sect martyred themselves, leaving not a single survivor.”
“What right do you have to say we owe you anything?”
As his voice fell, there was not a shred of shame on the woman's face. Instead, she sneered, her eyes sharp and cold.
“So what if they died?!”
“A bunch of useless cultivators who lacked the strength to defend the city. What does their death have to do with us?”
“What does it have to do with my dead husband or my child?!
“If you're incompetent, you deserve to die!”
A portion of the surrounding crowd felt guilty and silently backed away.
Yet two or three others still held onto hope, stubbornly staying with the woman to block his way.
They were certain of one thing—cultivators had rules, and sects had precepts. They wouldn't dare to slaughter mortals at random.
At worst, they would get a beating, but they would definitely not die.
But they had no idea that today, they had kicked a solid steel plate.
The wind outside the city suddenly grew louder.
This region was originally warm and lush year-round due to the geothermal heat of the Molten Heart Tower.
However, after the Ice Spirits marched south and war broke out, countless refugees had fled here.
The fruit trees had lost all their colors, their leaves and branches stripped bare. Even the bark had been scraped off layer by layer to stave off hunger. The roots of the grass and the very topsoil had been dug up completely.
The once-lush green land had long since been gnawed into a desolate wasteland. Yellow sand swirled as the fierce wind whipped fine grains against his face.
The wind blew the stray hairs on Lu Yan's forehead, and his white blindfold fluttered down in the wind.
Revealing a pair of bloodshot, bone-chilling eyes. It was unclear if the blowing sand had gotten into them.
The last trace of kindness and compassion in his eyes was completely extinguished.
Lu Yan stared at the few people before him, his words incredibly soft, yet carrying a deathly silence that pronounced their doom.
“Since that is the case...”
“...then killing you all leaves me with a clear conscience.”
The wind was howling loudly, and with the crowd still shouting, screaming, and complaining, they didn't hear his words at all.
Deep within his dantian, his spiritual energy surged violently. His five-element spiritual root, naturally attuned to the elements of heaven and earth, was now fully awakened.
Earthy yellow, azure wind, and crimson fire—threads of three-colored spiritual energy materialized from the void. They intertwined, wrapped, and spliced together, condensing in the air into a massive, magnificent, geometrically sharp prison of light, instantly trapping the few people inside.
Lu Yan lowered his eyes.
“Vanish.”
“Boundary Stripping Spell.”
Rate on N.U.
