“Little girl, are you alone? Where are your parents?”
Fenghua ignored the sleazy-looking passerby as she roamed the streets of the capital of the Li Dynasty, Chang’an. If she were to compare the scenery, it would be equal to the Pan Kingdom, a nation that existed in a backwater region of the Heaven Continent in the Huang Realm.
“Hey, are you ignoring me, brat?!”
Even though the Pan Kingdom, which only had one core formation master, its equivalent, the Li Dynasty, was a peak force in the Allfist Realm and had more land. But because it was in a lower realm, the resources probably weren’t even half as good. Like the Pan Kingdom, the capital of the Li Dynasty, cultivators and regular mortals mingled with no sense of differentiation. Not that Fenghua cared.
If Fenghua wanted to accomplish anything, she had confidence that very few people in the Allfist Realm could stop her. She said very few people because Fenghua had reservations on whether or not there were hidden experts beyond her imagination. However, what she did know was that a few people were too annoying for their own good.
Fenghua deliberately walked into a dark alleyway. Even the afternoon sun could not elucidate the creeping darkness of the alley.
“Heh, finally got you trapped.” The speaker was still the sleazy-looking passerby. As he spoke, he smiled, he revealed his yellow rotting teeth. No doubt, his breath was equally as foul as his teeth.
Fenghua ignored him again as she glanced at four spots with seemingly no one. However, to the core formation master’s keen senses, the four hidden people might as well have been standing in broad daylight and shouting, “Look at me!”
“Bitch, you don’t even know what situation you are in!” The sleazy-looking man’s face began to flush with anger at being ignored. “Hehe, I will let you soon know the depths of hell.”
“Ergouzi, remember not to ruin her. Otherwise, we won’t be able to get a good price for her.” A disembodied voice said, seemingly coming from nowhere.
Fenghua rolled her eyes. What’s the use of acting mysterious? Think you’re cool or something?
Her childlike body shifted and disappeared in place. The action was so sudden that the sleazy-looking man had no chance to react when Fenghua appeared next to him. She reached out her hands, and the next thing the man knew, he was on his back facing the sky.
Then came the pain.
“AAHHHHHHH!!!!” The man screamed as the pain assaulted his nerves. What he didn’t know or rather didn’t have the processing power to notice was that his arm was broken at thirteen points and twisted unnaturally, like a tree root.
Tears streamed down his face as if they were endless. The sight of a grown man of poor hygiene crying like a little girl was especially spicy to the eyes, causing Fenghua to avert her gaze. Furthermore, she waved her hand as if to fling something dirty from it.
“Wha-?” The men hidden out of sight only had time to register the sleazy-looking man’s howl of pain before Fenghua disappeared again. Not long after, four more men joined the first man in howling in pain.
“Y-you! You won’t get away with this! T-the Black Dog Gang w-won’t let you off!” One of the men said, managing to suppress his pain enough to think clearly.
“Oh no~ I’m so scared~? Tell me, is your boss, a master or something~?” Fenghua mocked the man. As time passed, the screams died down, not because the men grew resistant but because they fainted from the pain exceeding their limits.
“Hah! Don’t q-quiver when you found out. Boss is the famous Fang Ripper Gou! He’s a half-grandmaster!” As the remaining man began to talk about his boss, he began to speak more rapidly until he began to run out of breath.
Throughout the time the man talked, Fenghua stared at him with a ridiculing smile. If they called a mere acupoint opening master a grandmaster in the Huang Realm, there would be plenty of people to teach that person humility. Unfortunately, this was the Allfist Realm. After ten minutes, the man was huffing. It was unknown whether it was because he was out of breath or he no longer had any more words to praise his boss.
“Are you done?” Fenghua asked, enjoying the look of confusion on the man’s face. “Don’t bother waiting. No one can find you. Don’t you think it’s weird that no one came despite you thugs screaming so much?”
A look of dawning horror appeared on the man’s face. “W-who a-are you?!”
Fenghua gave a harmless smile as if she was an innocent child, but the devastation around her contradicted her smile. The man’s horror grew as Fenghua reached her hand out towards him. He wanted to escape, but he discovered that his legs were unresponsive despite only his arms being broken.
After she finished interrogating the man and disposed of the body, Fenghua returned to the main street of Chang’an with no one the wiser of her deeds. Her destination was one of the two ducal households because Leng Junfeng had told her that he planned to join one of the two in order to investigate the true murderers of his clan.
Along the way, Fenghua’s keen senses took in the idle chatter between citizens of the empire and attained the information available to the general public. If you were to ask the common citizens what the most talked about topic was in the Li Dynasty, then it would be the upcoming war with the Gu Dynasty.
The Gu Dynasty was a nation with a fraction of the Li Dynasty’s history, but their strength had already shown signs of surpassing the Li Dynasty. As the saying goes, two tigers cannot coexist on one mountain. In the Allfirst Realm, only one of these two peak powers will exist.
If the upcoming war with the Gu Dynasty were the most talked about topic, then the second topic would be the marriage of Prime Minister Teng’s grandson.
The Teng Family was the second most powerful family in the Li Dynasty, aside from the Li Imperial Family. Some people might even think that the Teng Family was the most powerful and would become the new Imperial Family with time. For such a family, many eyes were gathered on Prime Minister Teng’s most talented grandson, Teng Wuba.
Teng Wuba, who was only thirty years old, was already at the peak of the Marrow Enhancement Stage and was only one step away from entering the Organ Fortification Stage. For such a talented descendant and cultivator, the Li Emperor bestowed a marriage decree onto him with the most favored princess, but Prime Minister Teng rejected it with no repercussions, to the shock of many.
So who was the proud genius who could reject a daughter of the son of heaven, Teng Wuba, going to marry?
To the shock of many, it was the daughter of a loose cultivator. If the loose cultivator was a martial grandmaster, many people could at least accept it, but the loose cultivator was only a peak martial master at best. And rumors said that Teng Wuba could defeat his future father-in-law despite being at a lower stage.
Many people scratched their heads, wondering why the Teng Family would make such a choice. Many forces and families even sent marriage in light of this information, but the Teng Family was adamant in their decision, causing the forces to sigh in defeat.
To Fenghua, this was nothing more than gossip and some entertainment along the way. Although each step Fenghua took seemed short, in reality, each step moved her a hundred meters. It didn’t take long for Fenghua to arrive at the Gong Ducal Establishment with her speed.
“Halt, who goes there!” The two peak martial warriors stopped Fenghua from entering. Even though Fenghua appeared to be a child, the two guards, who had experienced numerous battles and sharpened their instincts, could sense a terrifying pressure from Fenghua, like that of prey facing its predator.
“Go tell your master that I’m here to visit my student.” Fenghua calmly said. She knew that Leng Junfeng was inside due to scanning the estate with her spiritual sense. Of the two ducal households, the Gong Ducal Establishment was weaker, so it tickled Fenghua’s heart as to why Leng Junfeng would join them.
“Student. Can we inquire who is Miss’s student?” One of the two guards asked, showing no fear of Fenghua despite the bells ringing in the back of his mind.
“Mmm, you should know him. His name is Fengjun.” Fenghua’s words were light and airy, but her answer caused the hearts of the two guards to skip a beat.
Both of them stared at Fenghua with suspicion. “Miss should spout lies.”
Fenghua spared the guard, who spoke a glance, almost causing the guard’s heart to stop despite Fenghua not taking any overt action. “Just tell Fengjun that his teacher, Fenghua, is here.”
Sweat dripped down the guard who Fenghua glanced at. Even if he didn’t believe her, he didn’t dare contradict her anymore. After thinking it through thoroughly, he judged her strength to be at least at the peak of the martial master despite her young appearance. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have been able to give him a sense of danger with a glance. “Please wait a moment while I ask Mister Fengjun.”
In the end, the guard took a step back and did as Fenghua wished. Not long after, a teenager around fifteen rushed out with an excited expression, only to pause when he couldn’t find the familiar scarlet-furred fox.
In his rush, he ignored his instincts and thought that the girl of around ten years of age was a guest of the ducal household. She certainly had a noble enough air to her. “Teacher, where are you? You suddenly disappeared for six months after I arrived in Chang’an, so I’d thought something had happened to you.” He spoke aloud, hoping to make his teacher appear.
“…or that you abandoned me.” was left unsaid in Leng Junfeng’s lips. After being separated by life and death from his family, Leng Junfeng’s fear was abandonment, so his heart had always been fearful during the past six months.
After not seeing Fenghua’s fox form in the vicinity, Leng Junfeng glared at the two guards. He thought that Fenghua had really come because he never mentioned his teacher’s name to anyone in Chang’an, but he started to suspect that someone had dug up his history.
The two guards were helpless as well, especially the one who informed Leng Junfeng. Right now, he was being glared at the ducal household’s esteemed guest, so he could only grit his teeth and point at the childlike Fenghua. “Mister Fengjun, that’s Miss Fenghua.”
Leng Junfeng blinked and then observed Fenghua, who had an increasingly irate expression on her face. After giving a few more glances, Leng Junfeng thought the guard and glared at him. “How could this little girl be my teacher? My teacher is-“
He never got to finish as Fenghua finally got annoyed by him and jumped up to slap him on the back of the head. Feeling the familiar whacking sensation, Leng Junfeng turned towards Fenghua with an expression of disbelief. “T-Teacher?!”
“Who else, you halfwit!” Feeling that her anger hadn’t subsided, Fenghua whacked him one more time. And then she wacked him a third time for good measure. Only then did she feel her anger be quenched.
“Ah!” Leng Junfeng reactively shielded his head and pleaded for forgiveness with a tragic voice. “Teacher, I was wrong!”
“Hmpf!” Fenghua crossed her arms and turned her head sideways as if to ignore Leng Junfeng.
“Teacher, you can’t really blame me for this. I’ve never seen you in this form before.” Leng Junfeng reasoned.
Fenghua spared him a glance, annoyance in her eyes. “Tch, you can’t even recognize my aura. When you go out, don’t tell others you are my student.”
Leng Junfeng bowed even lower. “I was wrong. But Teacher, I was just too excited to see Teacher after six months, so I forgot.”
After much pleading, Fenghua finally stopped ignoring Leng Junfeng, much to Leng Junfeng’s happiness.
Off to the side, the two guards were shocked. Who was this groveling martial master? Wasn’t Distinguished Guest Fengjun cold and aloof? Where did this fool, who was all smiles, come from? Unless someone had replaced him while they were unaware?
Leng Junfeng ignored them and quickly ushered Fenghua into the Gong Ducal Establishment and guided her towards his quarters. He had been granted a whole building and yard to himself due to the ducal household favoring him.
Along the way, Leng Junfeng was full of questions. “Teacher, why are you like this?”
“Didn’t I say I was injured?” Fenghua said, using her spiritual sense, not wanting others to know of her injured state. “I managed to recover some, so I could finally take human form, but this is my current limit.”
Leng Junfeng nodded in dawning realization. After receiving most of the answers to his questions, the duo walked into the yard granted to him. However, Leng Junfeng stopped when he saw two familiar figures.
One was a middle-aged man that exuded vitality and had hair darker than most men in his prime. He wore a dark blue brocade robe, and next to him was a teenage-looking girl. They looked nothing alike. While the man looked rough, the girl looked like she had been sculpted out of frozen milk and appeared softer than cotton. She wore a pale yellow dress.
“Duke Gong, Young Miss.” Leng Junfeng cupped his hand and greeted the two. The two were the master of the estate and his daughter. Off at the side, Fenghua raised an eye at this ‘pair’ of father and daughter.
“Haven’t I told you? You don’t need to be so stiff with us.” Duke Gong said. Despite his rough appearance, he gave off a rather mellow air. He and his daughter turned his gaze towards Fenghua with curiosity. “So this is your esteemed teacher than you’ve praised to heaven and back.”
“Yes,” Leng Junfeng said, his face full of happiness. The duke’s daughter twisted her lips as she secretly glanced at Leng Junfeng with a look of longing. “This is my Teacher, Juedai Fenghua.”
However, against Leng Junfeng’s expectations, his teacher ignored Duke Gong and was staring far off into the distance with a severe expression. “Teacher?”
“Guest from afar, why don’t you stop hiding in the dark and show yourself?” Fenghua’s voice wasn’t loud, but it seemed to ring in everyone’s ears, unable to be ignored.
Fenghua slightly furrowed her brows since there was no response. “Hmpf, since you don’t have any manners, don’t blame me for not being polite!”
Waving her sleeve, three floating balls of flame appeared and shot toward the roof of a building two hundred meters away like an arrow shot from a master archer. A moment later, a figure in black appeared on the rood and vomited a mouthful of blood for fleeing.
Duke Gong’s and Leng Junfeng’s expressions turned severe. Neither of them had noticed the intruder until Fenghua had taken action. Fenghua, who had sensed all this from her spiritual sense inwardly, nodded in appreciation.
I was so awesome. ‘Guest from afar,’ I’ve always wanted to use that phrase!
