Chapter 6

Xilu City, located at a strategic point, was prosperous and bustling, with many cultivators from all over passing through, making it a focal point of the cultivation world within this vast expanse. However, as is often the case in the world, geniuses are few, while ordinary people are abundant. Among the hundreds of thousands of residents in Xilu City, ordinary people still made up the majority.

For the common folk, cultivators, even the most destitute wandering cultivators, were like powerful immortals, to be revered and feared. However, the path of humans and immortals diverged, and almost all cultivators treated ordinary people with disdain and kept their distance. Similarly, ordinary people often kept a respectful distance from cultivators.

After all, while they spoke of cultivating and seeking immortality, some people, in their pursuit, turned into demons and evil spirits. In recent years, there had been numerous tragic incidents where demons and evil spirits brutally slaughtered ordinary people. Even in Yin Prefecture, which was considered a remote area within the vast territory of the Hongmeng Mainland, a city of thousands was completely annihilated by a mad demon thirty years ago.

Therefore, in a city, cultivators and ordinary people usually maintained a relationship where they did not interfere with each other. However, there were always some bold individuals who sought to do business with powerful cultivators, hoping to gain some benefits.

As Shen Shi walked down the long street, he saw many ordinary people without any cultivation, who had simply laid out a piece of cloth on the ground and placed some goods on it, forming small stalls. They then boldly tried to sell to the passing wandering cultivators. Most of the items they sold were herbs they had picked from the mountains or old trinkets they had found. With the keen eye Shen Shi had developed through his rigorous training at Tianyi Tower, he could easily see that most of these items were useless or fake, and he simply smiled and walked past.

The vendors' calls, claiming that this was a certain grade of spirit grass, that was a certain rare stone, or mysteriously holding a broken incense burner and claiming it was a magical treasure unearthed from the tomb of an ancient immortal on a distant mountain, were a unique sight in Xilu City.

After passing through the bustling Horse Hoof Street, where the most cultivators gathered, and turning a few corners, the noise gradually faded behind him, and the surroundings became much quieter. After all, in the world of ordinary people, a peaceful life was the norm.

Shen Shi had grown up in Xilu City and was very familiar with the city, especially the streets around Horse Hoof Street. He could navigate them with his eyes closed. As the warm sun gradually rose higher, the various scenes of daily life played out quietly in front of him on the streets and alleys.

Shen Shi dodged a few children playing and laughing on the road, turned into a small alley, and found a narrow entrance. Inside, a few households lived sparsely, and the alley was rarely visited, making it very quiet. However, Shen Shi seemed very familiar with the place. He walked to the end of the alley and caught a faint whiff of blood.

A somewhat dilapidated door was slightly ajar, and through the gap, he could see a few small rooms surrounding a courtyard. Just as he was about to step forward, a sharp and urgent scream came from behind the door. Moments later, two low "pu pu" sounds were heard, and the scream abruptly stopped, as if all the sounds had been forcibly suppressed.

The smell of blood in the air seemed to intensify.

Shen Shi smiled and pushed open the door. He saw a burly man standing by the courtyard, bare-chested, with muscles like iron, resembling the terrifying beasts in the wilderness outside the city, exuding an endless supply of formidable strength.

The man was bent over, his feet pressing down on a fat pig with its limbs tied, and he held a sharp butcher's knife in his hand, the blade dripping with blood, having just been pulled from the pig's throat. The commotion a moment ago was clearly the result of the man, who looked like a butcher, slaughtering the pig.

Hearing the noise at the door, the butcher straightened up, turned his head, and saw Shen Shi standing there. He showed no surprise, and it didn't seem to bother him that a twelve-year-old boy had seen this bloody scene. He simply nodded slightly.

Shen Shi glanced at the dead pig on the ground, showing no fear or disgust, and greeted the butcher with a smile, "Uncle, you're slaughtering pigs so early today."

The butcher grunted, his voice low and hoarse, and said, "Why are you here?"

Shen Shi walked over to him and said with a smile, "My father sent me to buy some meat."

The butcher's expression suddenly turned cold, and after a moment of silence, he nodded and said, "Today?"

Shen Shi felt his throat tighten, unsure if it was due to nervousness or the intense smell of blood in the air. He replied in a low voice, "Yes."

The butcher looked at him and said, "Come in."

Shen Shi walked over, and though they didn't talk much, they seemed to be somewhat familiar with each other. The butcher didn't idle, either. As he gestured for Shen Shi to come over, he grabbed the fat pig on the ground with one hand, grunted, and lifted the several-hundred-pound pig with ease, tossing it aside.

Behind the courtyard, a series of "huffing" sounds began, rising and falling.

The butcher turned to face Shen Shi. In terms of physique, he was much stronger than the young Shen Shi, at least three heads taller, with arms as thick as Shen Shi's thighs. Holding a blood-stained butcher's knife, he exuded a formidable aura.

However, Shen Shi remained calm, his gaze sweeping over the blood-stained knife in the butcher's hand, and he even seemed to have a hint of familiarity with the intimidating butcher.

The butcher looked Shen Shi up and down and suddenly said, "Take off your clothes."

Shen Shi was taken aback and asked, "What?"

The butcher's hand flicked, and the sharp, gleaming butcher's knife spun smoothly in his fingers, flipping over and pointing the handle toward Shen Shi. In a low, calm voice, he said, "Two?"

Shen Shi looked up at the butcher, who was expressionless. After a moment, Shen Shi smiled, took the blood-stained knife, and began to unbutton his shirt, saying with a smile, "Sure."

The spring breeze blew over Xilu City, through the streets and alleys, and the warm sunlight shone down on this quiet place. The alley remained peaceful as usual, the dilapidated door still slightly ajar. After a while, a sharp scream suddenly echoed again, followed by a low, cold sound, cutting off the scream mercilessly.

The wind blew, and the smell of blood in the alley seemed to intensify slightly.

※※※

"I've thought about living a life of compromise, protecting Little Stone, and enduring everything for the rest of my life," Shen Tai said softly, standing alone in front of the incense altar in the quiet room where his late wife's spirit tablet was enshrined. "I really did think about it."

Shen Tai glanced at the spirit tablet, a trace of sorrow and bitterness crossing his face. He said in a low voice, "Am I useless? Am I not even a real man? Li Xinghuai coveted your beauty and had evil intentions. You resisted and managed to escape, but you were left with a serious illness from the ordeal. After giving birth to Little Stone, you passed away. I knew everything from the beginning, but I couldn't avenge you. I couldn't do anything and had to work hard for the Xuan Yin Sect, making Tianyi Tower flourish..."

The incense was almost burned out, and a few ashes fell, like a woman's tears.

"He is from a noble family, with great talent, and at a young age, he reached the Condensation Realm. He has a grandmaster at the Core Formation Realm, Li Laoguai, who is a powerful figure in the entire Yin Prefecture. We, on the other hand, are just ordinary people who can't even reach the lowest Cultivation Realm. What can we do? What can we do... After you left, I often couldn't sleep, and every time I woke up, I thought of you."

"I want to avenge you, I really do, so much that I almost went mad. But every morning, I have to put on a smile and walk around Tianyi Tower, smiling for others..."

"I know that when you left, you advised me not to think about revenge. They are like the sky, and we are like ants. With Little Stone, we just need to take care of him."

"Little Stone is very obedient and sensible. I never hid anything from him and told him everything. From a young age, I pushed him to do things that other children would never do, and he never complained. Little White, will you blame me? I know I am useless, but I couldn't protect him. To give him a better future, I had to be harsh."

Unconsciously, a drop of water fell onto the incense altar. Shen Tai looked down, gently wiped it away, and said, "I wanted to work hard at Tianyi Tower to build a foundation for Little Stone. I thought there was hope, and they even agreed to let Little Stone join the sect. But... we are still ants. A word from the Li family took away Little Stone's disciple status. I know they have long coveted Tianyi Tower, this treasure trove that earns countless spirit crystals every day. The disaster is just a moment away, isn't it?"

"We are both ants, but I thought, even as ants, if they force us to the brink and leave no way out for me and Little Stone, I will fight to the death and take a bite out of them. I won't have lived in vain, right?"

"Little White, if you can hear me, please protect me and Little Stone."

The short, plump man wiped his eyes and then showed his usual gentle smile, chuckling at the spirit tablet.

The incense smoke dissipated, and a faint red glow quietly faded away as the three incense sticks in the incense burner finally burned out.

Shen Tai took a step forward, picked up three new incense sticks from a box on the other side of the altar, lit them, and placed them in the incense burner again. Through the rising smoke, he took a deep look at the spirit tablet and then turned and walked out, not looking back.

In his hand, he tightly clenched a small, old hourglass, the fine sand flowing silently, like the bygone years.

(To have an alliance leader on the second day... I am very grateful to the book friend "Caogen Shiyi." This is my first time experiencing such support, thank you to all the book friends who supported me, thank you all ==! Also, I will update at 10 AM tomorrow, and if there are no unexpected events, I will try to maintain this schedule.)

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