“How dare you kill me!”
Chiba Shoichi roared as he dropped into a low stance, his feet cracking the mountain rock and sinking three inches deep. His katana slashed out wildly, sending several sharp, razor-edged blade lights forward to block the attack.
These blade lights were almost solid and could cut through gold and iron, but before the overwhelming power of the Stainless Phoenix Maiden Immortal Body, everything was useless.
Bang! With a sound like being smashed by a high-speed train, the blade lights and the katana shattered instantly.
Boom! Chiba Shoichi was struck in the chest by a finger beam, coughed up blood, and was sent flying backward. He fell to the ground like a dead dog, his chest shattered, white bone exposed, completely losing the ability to resist.
“Uncle Cheng, Cheng Yi, don’t you hate him? Now the time for revenge has come. Go on!” Jiang Tian said calmly.
Cheng Yi picked up a machete and stepped forward, glaring fiercely. “Damn you, you little Japanese bastard, didn’t you say you’d cut me into a human stick? Come on!”
“Cheng-san, I know I was wrong. Spare me, just this once!” Chiba Shoichi begged pitifully.
“Damn, so you Japanese bastards do know how to beg for mercy too! Where’s your bushido spirit!”
Cheng Yi roared viciously and brought the blade down.
With a shriek, one of Chiba Shoichi’s legs was severed. Amid his miserable screams, blood gushed out like a spring.
“This cut is payback for killing my mom!” Cheng Yi, covered in blood, slashed down again.
Shriek! Chiba Shoichi’s other leg was also cut off.
“Don’t kill me! Spare me! I’m begging you!”
He let out ghostly, wolf-like howls of agony. His cheeks trembled from the pain, but his arms and hands still clawed at the ground as he tried to crawl away. The gushing blood left striking red trails on the snow.
“Aren’t you tough? Isn’t your Yamaguchi-gumi impressive? Don’t beg for mercy—stand up and fight me!”
Cheng Yi was like a mad tiger, his eyes red with killing intent. He chased after him and viciously chopped off his right arm.
“Aaagh—!” Chiba Shoichi screamed, his eyes rolling back again and again until he passed out from the pain.
“Coward, you’re done already!”
Cheng Yi held the blade and stabbed Chiba Shoichi viciously in the chest again and again, almost reducing him to a pile of minced meat. Only then did he drop to his knees with a thud, bow toward the northwest, and wail, “Mom, I’ve finally avenged you!”
“Kids’ mom, if you know this down in the underworld, you can rest in peace too!” Cheng Ming also knelt on the ground, tears streaming down.
Whoosh!
Once the two had more or less finished venting their emotions, Jiang Tian casually threw out several fireball talismans, burning each corpse to ashes.
“Uncle Cheng, do you dare stay in a hotel now?”
Jiang Tian looked at the dumbfounded Cheng father and son and smiled calmly.
“With you here, what do we have to fear?” Cheng Yi stood up, grinned, and showed a mouthful of white teeth.
Cheng Ming, meanwhile, asked with a shocked expression, “Jiang Tian, he just called you Jiang Taichu. You’re… Master Jiang!”
“That’s right, it’s me!” Jiang Tian said with a faint smile.
“So it really is Master Jiang. This humble one failed to recognize your true face. Please forgive me!”
Hearing this, Cheng Ming nearly broke out in cold sweat. He became even more respectful and pulled Cheng Yi down to kneel before Jiang Tian.
He was only a martial artist with minor internal strength. Compared with someone like Jiang Tian, who could sweep across China unmatched, he had no ability to fight back at all.
How powerful was Chiba Shoichi? He was equivalent to a martial arts grandmaster in China, far stronger than himself, yet Jiang Tian’s wife had blasted him to death with one finger. How much more terrifying, then, was Jiang Tian, who had taught Zhao Xueqing her cultivation? He did not even dare imagine it.
Especially since he had just shown Jiang Tian considerable disrespect in both direct and indirect words. It was said that grandmasters cannot be insulted. If Jiang Tian took offense, one slap would be enough to kill him.
Thinking of this, he became even more terrified. His head pressed against the ground, and he did not dare look Jiang Tian in the eye.
“Ah, Uncle Cheng, please get up. You’re overwhelming me!”
Jiang Tian quickly pulled the two to their feet and smiled gently. “I’ve known Cheng Yi since we were kids, and Cheng Yi even took a blade for me! In my heart, Cheng Yi is my brother, and you are my elder!”
“Master Jiang, how can this be? Just now I looked down on you and said all sorts of ugly things. Please don’t take it to heart. Just treat it as… as my foul mouth eating dung and farting!”
Hearing Jiang Tian’s words, the Cheng father and son were so moved they nearly burst into tears. Cheng Ming could not even speak properly.
“Damn, empty spirit stone. My luck can’t really be this good!”
Jiang Tian smiled. His spiritual sense swept across the ground, and he was immediately startled. He had found five crystals.
Of these five stones, four were jade marrow, which could be used to refine some offensive or defensive magical tools. One of them, however, was an empty spirit stone used in the cultivation world to make storage rings!
Moreover, this empty spirit stone was about the size of a child’s fist. It could be refined into at least two storage rings. One for himself and one for Qing’er—just perfect.
However, Jiang Tian was not the kind of person to take advantage of others, especially not his friends.
He gathered all the crystals and said with a smile, “Uncle Cheng, which ones are yours? Take them!”
“These four are ours. But Master Jiang, if you need them for cultivation, please just take them!” Cheng Ming said quickly.
It could be said that Jiang Tian had saved their lives and also helped him take revenge for the destruction of his entire family. How could four pieces of jade marrow ever repay Jiang Tian’s kindness?
“This empty spirit stone isn’t yours?” Jiang Tian picked up the empty spirit stone and asked.
“No! It was probably snatched by this little Japanese bastard from some other family. It might even have originally belonged to their Eastern Ocean people!” The Cheng father and son shook their heads together.
“Alright, I’ll keep this empty spirit stone. I’ll help you carve the remaining four into magical tools and give them to you tomorrow. Let’s go!”
Jiang Tian said with a smile.
…
Soon, Qing’er drove and took the two to stay at the Emperor International. Jiang Tian said goodbye and left, agreeing to meet again the next day.
Cheng Ming respectfully escorted Jiang Tian all the way to the parking lot and watched Jiang Tian’s car drive out more than a hundred meters before he finally let out a long breath and said, “My god, today we really walked right past the gates of hell!”
He turned his head, looked at the dazed Cheng Yi, patted his shoulder, and sighed, “Son, you have to understand. Master Jiang and we are not people on the same level at all. Even at our family’s peak, compared with Master Jiang, we were no more than ants and dust!”
“Is he really that powerful?” Cheng Yi asked with a complicated expression.
“The number one grandmaster on China’s Divine List, leader of the Heaven Alliance, suppressing many powerhouses across Southeast Asia, forcing even the strong of the dark world to retreat, and making the Big Circle shrink all the way to Big Turtle Island. In today’s China, how many people can stand shoulder to shoulder with Master Jiang?”
Cheng Ming sighed deeply and said meaningfully, “From now on, when you meet Master Jiang again, you must never call him brother. That you could know him in your youth is already your great fortune and our family’s blessing. Looking across China, who knows how many people would find it difficult just to meet Master Jiang once!”
“What is the Heaven Alliance?” Cheng Yi asked, puzzled.
Cheng Ming stepped through the accumulated snow, pulling his son toward the hotel lobby, and said, “With Master Jiang as its head, there is a Heaven Alliance. Its members are all Transformation Realm grandmasters. Even Huo Qingtian, Wei Feilong, and Zhao Yuankun are under his command!”
“What about the Yamaguchi-gumi then?” Cheng Yi asked with a bit of worry.
“The Yamaguchi-gumi is nothing!”
Cheng Ming curled his lip disdainfully. “With Master Jiang’s strength, if he does not move against them, fine. But once he does, he’ll beat them until they’re crawling on the ground looking for their teeth, utterly routed! If the Yamaguchi-gumi knew that our Cheng family now belongs to Master Jiang, they’d be scared to death. Master Jiang is now number one on the Divine List!”
At this moment, Jiang Tian had already returned to his own villa, smiling so widely it almost reached his ears.
“Why are you grinning foolishly like that?” Qing’er asked curiously.
“Wife, this is a treasure!” Jiang Tian smiled and explained it once.
“This stone is that magical?”
Qing’er could hardly believe it, then beamed. “That’s great! From now on, it’ll be so convenient for you to carry your flying sword!”
Jiang Tian immediately began refining it together with Qing’er. Speaking of it, Jiang Tian’s Demon Flame Fire had very strong attack power, but when it came to refining tools, it was actually inferior to the Li Fire that shot from Qing’er’s eyes.
Li Fire was comparable to Samadhi True Fire. Whether for lethal attacks or for refining tools and pills, it was extremely powerful.
There was no other way. He could only pull Qing’er in and have her spray Li Fire to help.
First, they used Li Fire to melt the stone, remove impurities, and further purify it. Then, under the control of spiritual sense, they cooled it into a ring blank, and then engraved various concealment and spatial formations. By the time the sky began to turn fish-belly white, it was finally completed.
“How big is the space inside?” Zhao Xueqing asked curiously.
Jiang Tian swept it with his spiritual sense and said, “Yours is more than 300 cubic meters. Mine is probably a few dozen cubic meters!”
“Wow, 300 cubic meters? Isn’t that as big as a house?” Qing’er’s eyes went wide.
Jiang Tian nodded and thought to himself that this was not even considered large. Out in the starry domains beyond, some cultivation experts’ storage pouches and universe rings could even hold an entire mountain.
“That won’t do. Husband, that won’t do!”
Qing’er said, “You wear the big one!”
Jiang Tian quickly shook his head. “A few dozen cubic meters is enough for me. I only need to store pills and magical treasures. You can also store some clothes, cosmetics, and such! Girls have so many things!”
“Besides, this style doesn’t suit me. If I wore it out, people would laugh themselves to death!”
Following Qing’er’s suggestion, Jiang Tian had made Qing’er’s storage ring into a little white rabbit, because Qing’er was born in the Year of the Rabbit. But if Jiang Tian wore a design like that, it would be far too effeminate.
“Then let me try whether I can put the White Ape Bone Zither inside!”
Qing’er silently recited the incantation. With a movement of her spiritual sense, there was a shriek, and the White Ape Bone Zither disappeared.
“Wow! Fun! So fun! Can it make a living person appear and disappear?” Qing’er laughed.
“That won’t work. Storage spaces cannot hold living things, otherwise their vitality would be cut off!” Jiang Tian laughed.
“Husband, I’m going to try putting the Rolls-Royce in!” Qing’er ran happily into the courtyard to play.
Although refining the storage rings had consumed a lot of true essence and spiritual sense and Jiang Tian was a bit exhausted, since he had promised the Cheng father and son, he still kept his word. He forced himself to stay alert and continued engraving those pieces of jade marrow.
By noon, the engraving was finally finished.
Jiang Tian swallowed a pill, sat in meditation for a while, and tried to recover as much true essence and spiritual sense as possible.
At dinner time, Jiang Tian went to the Emperor Club where the Cheng father and son were staying, planning to give them the four jade talisman magical tools.
These four jade talismans had defensive, anti-poison, and body-protecting functions, as well as small spirit-gathering formations. Worn daily, they could invisibly help them cultivate.
