Chapter 186 - 185: A Small Contribution
Chapter 186: Chapter 185: A Small Contribution
"I’ll handle things from here."
"Just wait here peacefully."
After leaving them with those faint words, Wu Chen didn’t linger, his figure darting toward the most intense fighting in the Zhuangzi.
This scene left the few Guards beside Xu Le dumbfounded.
They ate, drank, and lived off the manor. Their martial arts training had cost the manor an untold amount of silver coins.
Even so, none of them could say they would lay down their lives for the manor.
’How much is the manor paying you to risk your life like this?’
So, faced with Wu Chen’s dauntless momentum, aside from Young Mistress Xu Le, who was grateful, the others all stared at his back as if he were an idiot.
Even though Wu Chen had already demonstrated strength far beyond that of an ordinary Martial Artist in front of everyone.
But in the Guards’ eyes, facing one person and facing a horde of vicious bandits were two completely different things!
Charging in to fight the enemy alone was just courting death!
Besides, with that kind of strength, couldn’t he just do what the bandits did and find the storehouse to plunder its gold and treasures?
Did he have to be so stubborn and guard the Zhuangzi?
"..."
Wu Chen’s figure shot toward the area with the most bandits.
Since he had chosen to kill the bandits, he naturally didn’t care about others’ opinions.
These bandits attending the "Hero Assembly" might be formidable in others’ eyes, but to him, very few were worth a second glance.
The only thing that Wu Chen found troublesome was their sheer number.
But that was all it was—a number.
Wu Chen’s figure crisscrossed throughout the Zhuangzi, moving at top speed. In the blink of an eye, he covered over a hundred feet.
But as he sprinted at full power and continuously swung his saber to cut down bandits, the eight origin sources within his body shriveled at a visible rate.
The origin sources, once as round and smooth as blood jade, turned into dried grapes in the time it takes for an incense stick to burn.
Wu Chen wasn’t flustered. He reached into his storage pouch, pulled out several recovery pills the size of ox eyes, and stuffed them into his mouth.
GULP GULP!
As the pills entered his stomach, the flood dragon-like aura in his body began to circulate madly.
With just one sweep, the condensed aura mobilized and digested seventy to eighty percent of the pills’ medicinal power. His shriveled origin sources began to replenish at a visible rate.
’If I had another ten or twenty different Organ Refining Realm Cultivation Techniques to make my five-organ aura even stronger, these pills would probably melt the instant they entered my mouth!’
After catching his breath and downing a few more pills, his five-organ aura circulated continuously, and Wu Chen’s origin sources soon returned to their original state.
Then, he raised his eyes, looked toward the next group of bandits, and charged over, saber in hand.
......
......
The morning light pierced the mountains, scattering the early mist and illuminating the scene within the Zhuangzi nestled among the peaks.
After just one night, the tranquil Qingfeng Manor, surrounded by mountains, was a changed place. Apart from the four main walls, which were still relatively intact, countless buildings within had been burned into a stretch of ruins, with faint smoke still rising.
Mutilated bodies were scattered among the ruins. Some belonged to the people of the Zhuangzi, but most were the bandits who had come for the "Hero Assembly."
A closer look at the bandits’ corpses would reveal that they died clean deaths, most from a single, fatal strike, without much suffering.
Naturally, this was all Wu Chen’s handiwork.
WHOOSH!
In a relatively intact side room, Wu Chen took a sip of the tea brought by a Zhuangzi servant and slowly exhaled a breath of turbid air.
His face was currently deathly pale, his aura somewhat chaotic.
It wasn’t that he was injured. It was just that the half-night of continuous, low-difficulty slaughter, even with a constant supply of pills for recovery, had left him thoroughly exhausted from all the running around.
After all, Qingfeng Manor was truly massive, and even with his powerful physique, sprinting across it was draining.
’It’s a good thing it was me. Anyone else would have definitely collapsed.’
Wu Chen wouldn’t dare take all the credit for the bandits’ eventual defeat and retreat, but he felt he had at least made a small contribution.
After drinking the tea and eating the meal a maidservant brought, Wu Chen sat in his chair and closed his eyes for a short rest.
About half an hour later, the sound of hurried footsteps came from outside the room.
He opened his eyes to see the Young Mistress of Qingfeng Manor rushing in from outside.
"Sorry to have kept you waiting, Young Master!"
Xu Le knew Wu Chen was not a man of many words, so she didn’t waste any after entering the room, immediately offering up the items in her hand respectfully.
Three crimson silver banknotes.
Thirty thousand silver taels!
"Young Master, this is all the silver the Zhuangzi has left..."
A troubled look appeared on Xu Le’s face. She was about to ask Wu Chen to grant them some time to present another thirty thousand taels, for a total of sixty thousand silver taels as payment for defending the Zhuangzi.
The amount was not an exaggeration; Wu Chen’s contribution absolutely qualified him to receive it.
After all, she had seen Wu Chen’s methods last night with her own eyes. She knew very well that the retreat of the bandits gathered for the "Hero Assembly" was largely due to the young man before her.
But before she could finish, Wu Chen waved his hand and said:
"No need. Thirty thousand is thirty thousand."
Wu Chen didn’t want to waste time by coming back to Qingfeng Manor. Besides, by the time the manor gathered another thirty thousand silver taels, it would probably take at least a month.
Silver was already becoming of little value to him now. He was afraid that in a month, thirty thousand silver taels would be like a drop in the bucket, not of much use at all.
"However..."
Wu Chen suddenly remembered something. He looked at the Young Mistress before him, who was also looking somewhat disheveled after a busy night, and asked:
"Young Mistress, do you know of a treasure called a Soul-Storage Pearl?"
Xu Le nodded. "I’ve heard my grandfather speak of it. That item is of immense benefit to one’s spiritual soul and is an indispensable item for experts of the Dragon Transformation Realm."
Wu Chen nodded.
’She knows it benefits the spiritual soul and is needed for the Dragon Transformation Realm. It seems she really does know something about the Soul-Storage Pearl.’
This also showed from the side that these families with heritage and legacy knew far, far more than rogue Martial Artists.
"Then do you know, Young Mistress, where news of this Soul-Storage Pearl has ever appeared?" he continued to ask.
He dared to ask so directly because Qingfeng Manor’s strength was nothing special. Even if he let something slip, Wu Chen was confident he could suppress them with ease.
But Xu Le didn’t think that far. Hearing his question, her expression froze for a moment.
’Where has it appeared?’
’You’re asking me, someone in the Organ Refining Realm, about something for the Dragon Transformation Realm?’
But she still quickly gave an answer, saying respectfully, "The royal palace."
’Great. A wasted question.’
Hearing the answer, Wu Chen sighed inwardly.
He knew, of course, that the royal palace would certainly have a treasure like the Soul-Storage Pearl. The existence sitting on the dragon throne was, without a doubt, a Dragon Transformation Realm figure.
Otherwise, how could he command awe across the entire nation of Great Yun and prevent his throne from being usurped for several hundred years?
After all, in this world, ultimate power could be attained by an individual, so the throne naturally went to the strongest.
Therefore, the one on the dragon throne had to be a Dragon Transformation Realm expert to be able to intimidate the world.
The problem was, he was only in the Blood Coagulation Realm.
How could he possibly have the strength to go to the royal palace and peek at the monarch’s great treasure!
’Going there would be a one-way trip to death.’
Wu Chen vaguely remembered that the current year was 404 of the Great Yun era.
He didn’t know if a Dragon Transformation Realm expert could live for 404 years.
But even if this Dragon Transformation Realm expert was old and decrepit, he could probably still kill a Blood Coagulation Realm cultivator with Leakless Realm-level strength as easily as flipping his hand.
So the royal palace was definitely not a place he could go to right now.
Hearing such a concise and clear answer, Wu Chen knew that even if the Soul-Storage Pearl might exist elsewhere, it wasn’t something the Young Mistress before him would know.
He stood up, patted his rear, and was about to end this trip and leave to hand over the evil bandits’ heads at the Demon Suppression Bureau.
But then he heard Xu Le ponder for a moment before saying:
"Are you looking for the Soul-Storage Pearl, Young Master?"
Wu Chen nodded, and Xu Le continued:
"In that case, Young Master, why not stay at the Zhuangzi for two or three days and wait for my grandfather to emerge from his breakthrough seclusion."
"My grandfather should know some more information about the whereabouts of the Soul-Storage Pearl."