Chapter 89

"Thousand taels..." Zheng Shiyi smiled as he looked at the large-denomination soul stone ticket in his hand, "Should I say Yu Yan is generous, or should I say I'm worth a lot now? It's actually a thousand taels. This price would rank on the sect's wanted list."

"Good thing I didn't kill Yu Yan..." Zheng Shiyi carefully put away the soul stone ticket, muttering to himself, "I hope Yu Yan can spend money to hire others to kill me after this escape. That would shorten the time I need to gather enough soul stones."

Zheng Shiyi walked up to Li Chong with hope, wishing to find a thousand-tael soul stone ticket on him, just like before.

However, Zheng Shiyi wasn't as lucky this time and only found a hundred-tael soul stone ticket.

"Is the price difference between ninth and seventh place so great?" Zheng Shiyi pouted as he put away the soul stone ticket and calculated, "I have over twenty-three thousand taels of soul stones in my hand. Now I've got another thousand taels, making it over twenty-four thousand taels. I just need to capture Lang Liang and the murderer, and I'll have enough soul stones for my Condensing Spring."

After calculating the remaining soul stones, Zheng Shiyi continued forward to find Lang Liang.

Yu Yan ran wildly, not daring to stop for a moment. He only stopped carefully after running several dozen miles away from Zheng Shiyi, leaning against a tree and clutching his chest, coughing up blood.

Zheng Shiyi was just too strong! Yu Yan had no joy of surviving the ordeal, still immersed in the fear from before.

"Being the fifth on the风云榜 (Fengyun Board), how could you be so weak? To be chased like a stray dog by a new disciple! If your brother knew, he'd probably be so angry he'd die!"

A mocking voice came from the swamp behind Yu Yan.

"Who's there?" Yu Yan straightened up abruptly, looking coldly in the direction of the mocking voice.

A man walked out of the fog in the swamp. He was tall and slender, with a cold but not distant face. However, the superior aura in his eyes made him hard to approach.

"Lin Zhe?" Yu Yan's eyes turned cold. Wasn't this the third-ranked Lin Zhe on the Fengyun Board?

Yu Yan looked at Lin Zhe coldly and said in a chilling tone, "You were following me? Now you show up, thinking I'm injured and easy to bully? Afraid I might threaten your ranking, planning to kill me here?"

Yu Yan's lips curled into a cold smile. Although he had been chased like a stray dog by Zheng Shiyi, facing the third-ranked on the Fengyun Board, he was now easily able to condense a False Spring, which was enough to knock him off the ranking!

"Such a smile, you really look down on me!" Lin Zhe's eyes showed a hint of self-mockery as he slowly spread his arms. "Do you think that just because you can condense a False Spring, you can beat me? You really don't understand what the top three on the Fengyun Board represent..."

A large amount of spiritual energy gathered behind Lin Zhe as he spread his arms, and a real, brilliantly glowing spirit spring appeared behind him!

Rays of spiritual energy, like glass, flowed out from the spirit spring, pouring into his body, rapidly changing the aura of a martial artist.

"Spirit Spring! You've actually reached the Spirit Spring realm!"

Yu Yan looked at this scene in surprise. He had thought that, apart from the guy ranked first, no one else on the Fengyun Board could condense a spirit spring.

Being in the False Spring state, he was already considered one of the top in the Fengyun Board!

But... now...

The third-ranked Lin Zhe... actually has a spirit spring! That means... the top three on the Fengyun Board have all condensed spirit springs! This year's inner sect disciple examination... will probably be more brutal and intense than any other time!

Lin Zhe shrugged indifferently and said, "I heard about your business with that kid. I thought you would be foolish enough to kill him yourself."

"I didn't expect you to find two helpers. After you left, I followed you."

"I just didn't expect to see you in such a sorry state when I arrived. Those two idiots, they must have been killed by that kid, right?"

Chapter 78

Yu Yan nodded silently, "Indeed, they were killed by that kid."

Looking at Lin Zhe, who showed no killing intent, Yu Yan asked tentatively, "You don't seem to be here to kill me. Are you here to help me?"

"Help you?" Lin Zhe smiled and shook his finger. "I just want to do a favor for Yu Wei."

"Even if we are in the top ten of the Fengyun Board and are doing well in the outer sect, we are still at the bottom in the inner sect."

"If your brother Yu Wei, who is in the top five of the inner sect's Mountain and River Board, knows I saved your life here, he might protect me when I enter the inner sect."

"Of course, that's just one reason. The other reason is, I also want to kill him!"

"You also want to kill him?" Yu Yan looked at Lin Zhe in confusion. Lin Zhe had already condensed a spirit spring, and even if Zheng Shiyi was strong, he couldn't pose a threat to him on the Fengyun Board. There was no need for him to kill Zheng Shiyi.

Lin Zhe narrowed his eyes and looked coldly into the distance, "Yes. This guy has grown too fast."

"How long has it been since he entered the inner sect, and he's already in the top ten of the Fengyun Board."

"He's probably here to capture Lang Liang and get the soul stone reward for capturing him."

"He recently received five thousand taels of soul stones from the Fengyun Hall and won six thousand taels from you. Now he's going to capture a wanted criminal."

"He needs so many soul stones, it must be to condense a spring!" Lin Zhe's eyes suddenly became sharp, a knife-like gaze piercing through his pupils, "From the amount of soul stones he needs, he might have an extremely powerful spring condensing technique."

"If he only relied on his talent, growing so fast in such a short time, I wouldn't take him seriously. After all, who among us in the top ten doesn't have outstanding talent?"

"If he didn't work hard, even with great talent, he couldn't surpass us."

Lin Zhe paused, as if the scene from that day was replaying in his mind.

Yu Yan looked at Lin Zhe thoughtfully and asked, "So you mean he's very hardworking?"

Lin Zhe's cold laugh was full of mockery, a familiar expression to Yu Yan. Every time he faced Zheng Shiyi, that brat had the same expression, and it was often followed by the words 'stupid.'

"Not just hardworking, he's working his ass off, okay?" Lin Zhe ignored Yu Yan's displeased expression from his wild thoughts and continued, "I once went to the place where he used to practice. The ground was sunken by several feet from his constant stomping."

"The stones he touched were stained red from the inside out! You can imagine how much blood he shed during his practice."

"Such cruel and life-risking training! I believe neither you nor I could endure it!"

"This guy has both great talent and such hard work, which is what makes him the most terrifying! So I must kill him, or he might threaten my position as an inner sect disciple."

A cold light flashed in Lin Zhe's eyes, and his clenched fists made a series of "cracking" sounds.

As he learned more about Zheng Shiyi, Yu Yan's killing intent towards him grew stronger. He didn't care if Lin Zhe would take his things after killing Zheng Shiyi.

Yu Yan pointed in the direction of Zheng Shiyi and said, "He's over there. If we chase after him now, we should still be in time."

"Good!"

Lin Zhe nodded, and the two of them ran towards where Zheng Shiyi was.

Zheng Shiyi was searching for places where Lang Liang might be hiding, "The surroundings are all swamps. Where could this guy be hiding?"

Zheng Shiyi didn't know where Lang Liang might be hiding and continued moving forward.

Suddenly, a row of footprints appeared in front of him, "Could Lang Liang be ahead?"

Following the footprints, Zheng Shiy walked forward. Soon, he saw a large number of trees arranged in a semicircle.

Under a tree in the center was a wooden bed, and on the bed lay a woman. The woman... Ding Yue!

Zheng Shiy rubbed his eyes hard, confirming that he wasn't hallucinating...

The woman on the bed was the evil woman, Ding Yue, who had chased him into the death pit after he mistakenly climbed into her bed!

To the left of the bed, in the swamp, was a pile of women's clothes and jewelry.

About twenty meters to the right of the bed, on a tree branch, sat a middle-aged man covered in black mud, including his face, with a foul smell that could kill.

In his arms was a flame tiger cub with all its fur plucked off.

The neck of the flame tiger cub was wrapped in a leather whip, with steel nails piercing through the leather, each nail head pointing at the cub's neck.

Every time the leather whip moved, the steel nails would pierce into the cub's flesh.

At this moment, a row of steel nail marks could be seen on the cub's neck, with fresh blood continuously flowing from the marks.

"Little beauty, if you submit to me, I can play with you for a few more days and let you die more beautifully."

The man showed his uneven teeth, leering at the motionless Ding Yue on the bed.

Ding Yue's expression was still icy cold, almost unchanged from when Zheng Shiyi last met her. The only change was the killing intent in her beautiful eyes, which seemed to be about to burst out of her pupils.

"Pervert! You killed my sisters! If you dare to come closer, I'll kill you!"

"Ha ha..." The man put down the leather whip and propped his chin with one hand, laughing, "Little lady, you're poisoned and can't even move a finger. How can you kill me? Use your body to make me feel good?"

"You say you killed my sisters, who are they? I've played with so many women, how would I know which one is your sister?"