“Cough, cough, you’re taking advantage of me!”
Feeling the soft, bouncy sensation on his arm, Jiang Tian coughed awkwardly. Gu Qingcheng’s pretty face flushed red, and she quickly let go of his arm.
Gu Boxian already knew that Jiang Tian was no ordinary man. A flash of pleasant surprise crossed his eyes, and then he asked in a low voice, “Jiang Tian, can you cure my illness?”
“Of course, no problem!”
Jiang Tian knew that someone had placed a cold, yin-infused true qi seal inside Gu Boxian’s body, blocking several acupoints and meridians around his Tanzhong acupoint.
If these seals weren’t removed, he’d have at most three more years to live.
Moreover, this seal had a hint of a spell-like prohibition about it—far more sophisticated than simple acupoint sealing, extremely difficult to break, and could even be triggered from a distance to take his life at any moment.
Just as Jiang Tian was about to begin treatment, Gu Boxian cast a wary glance to the left and lowered his voice. “Jiang Tian, don’t rush. Wait until this archaeological expedition is over, and then I’ll find you!”
“He’s a martial artist, and he knows a bit of spellcraft too…”
Jiang Tian followed his gaze.
Over there, a long-haired young man was sitting on the hood of a Wrangler off-road vehicle, dressed head-to-toe in studded leather. He held an exquisite silver flask and took small sips of highland barley wine.
He had clearly overheard the conversation between Jiang Tian and Gu Boxian, and was now sizing Jiang Tian up with a half-smile, as if to say: if you dare treat him, I’ll slap you dead on the spot.
Jiang Tian was already used to these kinds of oddly dressed cultivators and couldn’t be bothered with him. Instead, he gave a faint smile and said, “Don’t worry. Let me heal you.”
As he spoke, his right hand pressed and massaged Gu Boxian’s chest while several invisible talismanic seals for breaking prohibitions and healing injuries shot into him, directly dispelling the seal.
Gu Boxian instantly felt a wave of relaxation wash over him—warm, comfortable, and indescribably pleasant. He quickly said, “Thank you, Brother Jiang!”
“Dad, you’re better!”
Gu Qingcheng could hardly believe it. She looked at Jiang Tian with admiration and said, “Jiang Tian, you’re amazing! How did you do that?”
The moment Jiang Tian broke the seal, the long-haired young man shuddered violently, his chest churning with nausea. Then, with a dark expression, he jumped off the car and stalked toward Jiang Tian, roaring angrily, “You piece of trash! You want to die? How dare you break my seal!”
“Wu Tiankun, please don’t hurt Brother Jiang! Even though the seal is broken, I’ll still help you find the fragmentary map of the Immortal Ruins!”
Gu Boxian quickly stood up and anxiously blocked his way.
“The fragmentary map of the Immortal Ruins—again!”
Jiang Tian’s heart stirred.
This guy surnamed Wu must have been coercing Gu Boxian for that very map. But Gu Boxian wasn’t a martial artist—how did he know about all this?
There was no time to think it through. Jiang Tian slowly rose to his feet and said with a smile, “My family has practiced medicine for generations. Healing the sick and saving the dying is our duty—how exactly does that offend you? Get lost now, and I’ll let you live.”
He had already seen through this kid’s cultivation level. Though he practiced both martial arts and spellcraft, his martial arts were only at the peak of inner strength, and his spellcraft was barely at the entry level.
That kind of strength could strut around the mundane world, but in Jiang Tian’s eyes, it was nothing at all.
“Hmph, you’ve lost your mind! Not only did you break my seal, but you tell me to get lost? Do you even know that I’m from the Wu family?”
Wu Tiankun laughed arrogantly. “In the Yunnan-Guizhou-Tibet region, the Wu family is the supreme ruler. Cross me, and you’ll die in the most spectacular way possible.”
“He looks like Wu Yingxiong’s grandson!”
Huo Qingtian and the others exchanged glances, then tried to mediate. “Young man, don’t be rash! This is Grandmaster Jiang…”
“I don’t care if he’s Grandmaster Jiang, Grandmaster Scallion, or Grandmaster Garlic—today, he dies!”
Wu Tiankun laughed smugly, pointing at Jiang Tian with an arrogant swagger.
Before he even finished speaking, Jiang Tian’s palm shot out.
Smack!
The sound rang out sharp and clear.
Wu Tiankun was sent flying several meters away, landing flat on his face and spitting out blood mixed with broken teeth.
“On this earth, the person who can threaten me hasn’t even been born yet!”
Jiang Tian said calmly, “And you, a piece of trash like you, dare point at me? Even if your grandfather came, he wouldn’t dare!”
Wu Tiankun lay on the ground, clutching his head and shaking it dizzily for a long while before realizing he’d been hit. Fury and shock surged within him.
He scrambled to his feet, pointed at Jiang Tian, and screamed wildly, “You dare hit me! Brothers, kill him!”
Immediately, five or six men scrambled out of the vehicles with pistols in hand. All the guns were cocked, aimed at Jiang Tian, surrounding him like vicious fiends.
“Guns!”
“Something’s about to go down!”
“Run!”
At the sight, the surrounding hikers scattered in terror, scrambling away like their lives depended on it, afraid of getting caught in the crossfire.
“Young Master Wu, please don’t be angry. If you’re still worried, just place another seal on me—I promise I won’t have anyone remove it! Please don’t kill him; he didn’t mean any harm!”
Seeing this, Gu Boxian nearly fainted from shock. He hurried forward and pleaded desperately.
“If you want to kill Jiang Tian, then kill me first! Without me, you’ll never find the fragmentary map of the Immortal Ruins!”
Gu Qingcheng was terrified too.
She hadn’t expected Jiang Tian to actually strike Wu Tiankun. Sure, Jiang Tian was from the Jiang family in Jinling, but a mundane family like that couldn’t compare to the Wu family, the behemoth of the southwest. After all, the Wus were a martial arts clan.
Though she was trembling uncontrollably, she still used her fragile body to shield Jiang Tian.
Seeing this, Jiang Tian felt a faint warmth in his heart.
This world wasn’t entirely cold and indifferent. Not everyone looked down on others based on status or fawned over the powerful.
People like Gu Boxian and his daughter repaid kindness with gratitude, even willing to risk their lives to protect him.
“Wu Tiankun, stop right there. He is Jiang Taichu. If you show any more disrespect, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life!”
Wei Feilong shouted to stop him.
He had always been a peacemaker and disliked bloodshed within the martial arts world.
If the Wu family went up against Jiang Tian, they’d be utterly destroyed—it would be nothing short of a catastrophe for the martial arts community.
“Who cares? Let him die!”
“Exactly! How dare he offend Grandmaster Jiang!”
Huo Qingtian and Zhao Yuankun, however, looked thoroughly amused.
The martial arts world had never been short of conflicts.
As fellow veteran grandmasters, Zhao Yuankun and Huo Qingtian had their fair share of rivalries with Wu Yingxiong over territory and status.
Besides, Wu Yingxiong was known for his arrogance—he looked down on everyone, thought the world of himself, and dismissed the martial arts circles of the central plains. His personality rubbed people the wrong way.
Last year, when the Martial Arts Federation held its conference in Jiangxi Province, Wu Yingxiong didn’t even bother to attend—a clear sign of how strained their relationships were.
“I don’t care if he’s Grandmaster Too-Spicy, Too-Long, or Too-Stinky—if he crosses me, he dies!”
Wu Tiankun pointed at Jiang Tian with utter arrogance and yelled, “Kneel and kowtow to me right now, and I’ll let you keep your corpse intact!”
“Oh, is everyone gone now?”
Jiang Tian glanced around leisurely and said slowly, “Then I can go all out, can’t I?”
“What?”
Wu Tiankun was momentarily stunned, not grasping what Jiang Tian meant, but Jiang Tian had already made his move.
Crack! Swoosh swoosh swoosh!
Jiang Tian slashed out a demonic flame energy blade, flowing like molten silver pouring across the ground, and struck straight at the gunmen.
Under everyone’s incredulous gazes, the gunmen’s bodies exploded on the spot, engulfed in towering flames. In the next instant, they turned into streams of red ash, scattered by the wind, and vanished without a trace.
“What?!”
Wu Tiankun jolted with terror and nearly collapsed to the ground.
Flame energy blades—condensing qi into form—peak-level transformation realm cultivation!
“Jiang Taichu… it’s him!”
By now, he had finally realized Jiang Tian’s identity. He stared at Jiang Tian in utter horror, as if staring at a demon.
Before he could decide whether to resist to the death or kneel and beg for mercy, Jiang Tian’s voice drifted over, cool and unhurried—
“You dared show me disrespect. I’ll cripple your cultivation as punishment.”
No sooner had he spoken than Jiang Tian flicked his right index finger, sending a beam of finger-light slicing through the air.
Smack!
The sound echoed as Wu Tiankun was hurled seven or eight meters away, landing like a dead dog on the ground.
His sternum was caved in, and blood spurted from his mouth. The finger-light had damaged all his acupoints and meridians—he would never have any hope of cultivating again in this lifetime.
But at this moment, he dared not cause any more trouble. Instead, his face was filled with terror as he said, “Thank you, Grandmaster Jiang, for sparing my life. I deserved this punishment. I—I swear I will never seek revenge!”
“He’s a martial artist? And strong enough to overpower Wu Tiankun so completely that he doesn’t even dare think of retaliation?”
Gu Boxian’s heart pounded wildly, his eyes filled with shock as he stared at Jiang Tian in disbelief.
Though he wasn’t well-versed in martial arts, he had some knowledge. That demonic flame energy blade, that finger-light that struck from a distance—it was like something out of a divine legend. Jiang Tian was undoubtedly a top-tier expert.
“Jiang Tian, how… how can you be this formidable?” Gu Qingcheng was equally stunned and could hardly believe it.
To her, Wu Tiankun had always been like a demon—someone she both hated and feared, though fear always won out.
Just two years ago, when she went to visit Jiang Tian, he had still been alternating between moments of sanity and madness. When he was out of his mind, it was one thing, but even when he was lucid, he had seemed utterly mediocre and inept.
But now, with a single move, Jiang Tian had brought Wu Tiankun to his knees in submission. Her admiration for Jiang Tian only grew deeper.
“Scram!”
Jiang Tian waved his hand dismissively. He had no interest in such insignificant insects, as long as they didn’t offend him.
Wu Tiankun scrambled back into the off-road vehicle and sped away in a panic.
Only after he had driven far off did the hikers slowly return to the tent camp.
But their gazes toward Jiang Tian had shifted—now filled with wariness and fear, giving him a wide berth.
They had been too far away to see exactly how Jiang Tian had killed those men, but the fact that guns had been drawn and Jiang Tian had still subdued them was more than enough proof of his terrifying capability.
“Professor Gu, why is the Wu family targeting you?”
Jiang Tian asked with a frown.
Then, he quickly added with a smile, “If you’d rather not say, that’s fine too.”
After all, this involved the fragmentary map of the Immortal Ruins. If Gu Boxian didn’t want to talk, Jiang Tian wouldn’t force him.
“Benefactor, you saved my life. How could I keep anything from you?”
Gu Boxian clasped his fists deeply, his tone grateful and respectful. “As you know, the Gu family is a small martial arts clan—nothing noteworthy in China, and certainly incomparable to powerful behemoths like the Wu family. However, my father once learned by chance that there is an Immortal Ruins site in China—an ancient cultivation relic. They say that within it, spiritual medicines are as vast as the sea and spiritual energy flows in abundance. If one could enter, they could easily step beyond the Divine Realm and become immortal or divine.”
“My father was eager to lead the family into that secret realm. So, he arranged for my elder brother to train in martial arts, while I applied to the Archaeology Department at Peking University, dedicating my life to scholarship and the pursuit of the Immortal Ruins’ secrets.”
He sighed deeply and said, “You could say that over the decades, I’ve pored over mountains of materials—papers stacked higher than the sky. Through all kinds of ancient records, I have come to believe that the Immortal Ruins site truly exists.”
