"Did you hear all that noise last night?"
"Not only did I hear it, I saw it too!"
"How did it go?" someone asked.
The speaker lowered his voice mysteriously: "You know that stranger who showed up yesterday? He drove off the village guardian!"
"Really?" someone gasped.
"That demon finally fled? No, no—will it come back to settle scores with us?"
This question silenced the others.
"If it blames us for taking in that stranger, it will definitely return to make us pay."
Going back and forth, they shifted the blame to Fang Zhiyi, convinced he had meddled in things he shouldn't have.
"And that kid doesn't seem like a good person either," the same man continued.
"Why?"
"I saw with my own eyes he released black smoke—it was that smoke that drove off the village guardian."
Terror spread across everyone's faces.
Fang Zhiyi watched the troupe members clean up the mess, the pain in his chest making him wince from time to time.
Sure enough, in a world like this, you're dead if you let your guard down even a little.
"Brother Fang, have something to eat." Yue'er ran up to him, holding two flatbreads. Fang Zhiyi didn't stand on ceremony; he grabbed them and started eating. When food was available, you ate it while you could.
The troupe leader's face was sallow, one sleeve hanging empty and limp. He leaned weakly against a trunk, and seeing Yue'er like this, he gritted his teeth and called out, "Yue'er! Come back!"
Learning that the spirit he'd painstakingly raised had been killed by this brat filled him with resentment, but the pain from his severed arm also reminded him that last night's situation had been anything but simple.
No matter what, he couldn't let his daughter get too close to this kind of sorcerer.
Just then, villagers came hurrying over. Seeing them, the troupe members looked wary, but these people were different from those last night. Their expressions varied—some were still catching their breath—which made everyone relax a little.
"Don't let him get away!" someone pointed at Fang Zhiyi.
Fang Zhiyi looked over, puzzled.
"We kindly took you in, and you dared to harm the village guardian! You fiend!"
Fang Zhiyi patted his chest. Well, at least they hadn't called him a freak.
"Seize him and offer him to the village guardian to make amends!"
"Grab him!"
Everyone in the troupe turned to look at Fang Zhiyi. He frowned at the villagers.
The troupe leader gasped for air, wave after wave of pain pounding through his skull.
"Dad..." Yue'er glanced worriedly at her father, then turned to look at Fang Zhiyi not far away. Several villagers surrounded him, clutching clubs and staves. She felt a pang of urgency. Though she didn't understand things like stage spirits or village guardians, she had hidden behind the scenes last night and seen the truth—this big brother had saved them.
"Don't you dare touch Brother Fang!" she shouted.
Fang Zhiyi looked at her in surprise.
Could there still be good people in a world like this?
"And a girl?" someone sneered.
"And them! They can't leave either!" someone else pointed at the troupe.
"That's right! They're accomplices too!"
More eyes shifted to the troupe's luggage.
Old Troupe Leader closed his eyes in despair. This was the worst fear of anyone traveling the roads. That's why he'd raised the stage spirit. But now the stage spirit was gone, and probably...
A scream rang out. His eyes snapped open.
The scream came from Yue'er, who stood beside him, her eyes wide with terror. He followed her gaze. One of the villagers surrounding Fang Zhiyi clutched his neck in panic, but he couldn't stop the blood from spurting out.
"Do you all think with your backsides? I killed your so-called village guardian; why wouldn't I kill you? Did you really take me for some kind of saint?"
"You... you actually killed someone!" someone shouted.
"No kidding." Fang Zhiyi said no more. His short blade slashed swiftly, and the nearest villagers fell one after another.
In the next moment, Fang Zhiyi leaped up and ran. The villagers, snapping out of their shock, grabbed their clubs and gave chase. These last twenty or so households all knew each other, many related by blood. Seeing their own kin killed by this brat, they weren't about to let it slide.
"Truly, a harsh land breeds harsh people..." the martial-arts actor muttered blankly, until Old Troupe Leader gritted his teeth and shouted: "What are you waiting for?! Go!"
The troupe members scrambled to gather their belongings and fled.
Only Yue'er cast a worried glance in the direction Brother Fang had disappeared—the opposite of their own path.
"Host, there's no road this way," Xiaoxiaohei said, keeping close to Fang Zhiyi.
Fang Zhiyi cursed: "You think I don't know that? I was trying to give the good folks an escape route!"
He clutched his chest. To be honest, these villagers weren't easy to deal with, especially wounded as he was.
"What a godforsaken place!" Fang Zhiyi spat. By now, he had plunged into the forest, but the villagers were still on his tail, eyes bloodshot and relentless.
And some villagers familiar with the terrain had already blocked his path ahead. Fang Zhiyi gritted his teeth, jammed his banner into his belt, and called out: "Stop chasing! I give up!"
The pursuing villagers paused. Soon, someone roughly pinned him down.
One man raised his hoe, ready to smash Fang Zhiyi's head in.
Fang Zhiyi closed his eyes. Damn it, there really was no way out now.
Fortunately, a shout stopped the man.
"Kill him, and how do we apologize to the village guardian?" An old man, panting heavily, was helped over by others.
The man with the hoe kicked Fang Zhiyi. "Uncle, he just killed Little Erzi..."
"Killed, so what? Pacifying the village guardian is what matters!" the old man glared. "Do you all want things to go bad for us?"
Fang Zhiyi hadn't expected to keep his life—but it seemed he wouldn't keep it for long. The villagers stuffed him into a wooden cage, then busied themselves setting up what looked like an altar.
Fang Zhiyi paid no attention. He closed his eyes and went to sleep. This whole ordeal had worn him out.
It wasn't until a faint, eerie laugh reached his ears that he opened his eyes again.
The villagers below were all kneeling, the old man at the front, muttering pleas for the village guardian's forgiveness.
A chill wind stirred, and a small, hunched figure slowly materialized. Fang Zhiyi squinted. It was that creature from last night.
When it saw Fang Zhiyi locked in the cage, its eyes nearly overflowed with hatred. It had only wanted to devour a few living people last night, only to find the opponent had some tricks. And at the critical moment, this inexplicable brat had ruined everything.
But remembering last night's danger, the village guardian hesitated.
It squinted at Fang Zhiyi, its amber eyes narrowing. Suddenly, it smiled: "Your magic artifact is gone?"
It remembered well that this man had used some unknown artifact to get the better of it last night.
Just then, the old man stood up and reverently presented Fang Zhiyi's tattered banner with both hands: "Great Immortal, this fiend's belonging is here!"
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
saw a female celebrity tied up and stuffed in the trunk! Little did he know, countless cameras were aimed at him at this moment - this was a new type of reality show. The first randomly selected passerby was caught in less than an hour. But when Xu Moru was selected, things started to take an unexpected turn. "Damn, this isn't how the script goes. This Xu Moru is too bold, he's not following the rules at all." "Crap, is this guy taking it seriously?" "The female celebrity has been scared to tears!"
lity and could only live as an ordinary mortal. He only wished to live a peaceful life. Yet he didn't know— The dog he adopted, because it ate his food, became a legendary demon king. The kitchen knife he casually forged became a peerless divine weapon, causing numerous experts to fight desperately for it. The young disciple he took in became an immortal lord that led an era, due to cultivating the techniques Ye Feng taught him. Even the skeletons he looked down on the most were ominous demon kings that suppressed countless worlds. Many years later, looking at the void shattered with a punch, Ye Feng murmured to himself: It turns out the peerless kings were myself all along...
