Chapter 90: I’ll Fight You to the Death

Chu Tianfeng abruptly stowed the roasted rabbit into his ring. He had no intention of letting Yu Xianzhe and the others’ blood spatter over the fragrant meat and spoil his appetite.

“The rabbit is ours. It’s useless for you to hide it,” Tong Hanwen shouted from the side.

Chu Tianfeng could not help rolling his eyes.

“Looks like luck is on our side after all. We were the first to catch up to this fellow,” the other middle-aged man laughed as well.

Chu Tianfeng slowly formed hand seals with both hands. “You’re very lucky indeed. Being the first batch to pay a visit to Hell, I’m sure your treatment there won’t be too bad.”

The words had barely fallen when a great volley of flaming arrows howled out.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.

Yu Xianzhe and the others’ expressions changed drastically, and they hastily flew backward.

But Chu Tianfeng’s cultivation had now improved by leaps and bounds, and the power of his fire-arrow technique had risen accordingly, along with both its speed and number.

“Ah! Ah!”

Two screams rang out. Tong Hanwen and the other middle-aged man dropped to the ground one after the other, their bodies riddled with bloody holes as blood poured out in streams.

Only then did Yu Xianzhe realize that things were going badly. The opponent’s hidden attacks were far too ruthless; in one move he had already taken down two of them. If he had not reacted quickly, he would likely have become a heap of mangled flesh as well.

What more was there to say? Run.

Yu Xianzhe made a decisive choice, instantly wheeling around and fleeing madly.

He might be able to abandon Tong Hanwen and the other man, but Chu Tianfeng could not.

Striking a snake without killing it was not his style. Since he had already made a move, he would not show any mercy.

It was broad daylight, so Chu Tianfeng could not conveniently summon Xiyazi. He had no choice but to handle it himself, launching several more flaming arrows to finish Tong Hanwen and the other man completely.

Then he leaped forward and gave chase to Yu Xianzhe.

Yu Xianzhe’s lightness skill was fairly good, but compared with Chu Tianfeng’s wind-riding technique, it was utterly outclassed.

In the blink of an eye, Chu Tianfeng overtook him and firmly cut off his path.

With such astonishing hidden weapons and peerless movement skills, if Yu Xianzhe still could not guess Chu Tianfeng’s background at this point, then he was a pig.

“Who exactly are you?” Yu Xianzhe’s eyes darted about wildly, and anyone could see he was plotting something.

“Do you really need to know so much, when you’re already dead?” A trace of mockery curved Chu Tianfeng’s lips.

“I’ll fight you to the death!” Yu Xianzhe suddenly drew a soft whip from his waist and lashed it toward Chu Tianfeng in a sweeping, all-covering strike.

Chu Tianfeng shifted slightly and avoided it with ease.

Yu Xianzhe’s move was clearly a feint. His attack was false; his escape was real.

Seeing Chu Tianfeng dodge, he assumed the other had been fooled and turned to flee into the woods.

However, trying to outpace Chu Tianfeng was simply foolish.

If he had chosen to fight head-on, it would not have been easy for Chu Tianfeng to bring him down quickly.

Chu Tianfeng simply did not possess any overwhelming trump card for crushing enemies in one blow. The basic spells he used all had fairly limited power.

Unfortunately, Yu Xianzhe was so frightened that he failed to grasp the key point.

He had only fled a dozen meters when Chu Tianfeng was already at his back, his hands flashing again and again as he launched a dense barrage of flaming arrows.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.

Yu Xianzhe whipped his soft whip backward while swiftly dodging to the side.

His idea was not bad: block the enemy while escaping.

But Chu Tianfeng was no pushover.

His spiritual sense had been firmly locked onto Yu Xianzhe the entire time. How could he possibly let him get away so easily?

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.

Another swarm of flaming arrows appeared, shadowing him like a ghost as they lunged toward Yu Xianzhe, who had just landed.

Yu Xianzhe was so terrified his soul nearly flew out of his body. He hurriedly threw himself flat on the ground, then rolled sharply to the side.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.

A third wave of flaming arrows appeared, swarming toward him like locusts.

Yu Xianzhe had no time to rise and could only roll away again.

But the speed at which he rolled on the ground was simply too slow.

With a series of sizzling sounds, several flaming arrows struck his body one after another.

“Ah!”

Yu Xianzhe flung away the soft whip and clutched his abdomen, letting out a long, miserable howl.

Chu Tianfeng did not hesitate. Another few flaming arrows shot out at high speed.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.

Yu Xianzhe stared hopelessly at the brilliant arrows before him and slowly closed his eyes.

His injuries were severe. He could not possibly evade.

With crackling hisses, Yu Xianzhe too was battered into a blood-soaked ruin, dead beyond any doubt.

Chu Tianfeng took his bundle, then released a fireball and reduced Yu Xianzhe to flying ash.

Inside the bundle, he found several tens of thousands in cash, a few withered spiritual herbs, and several cultivation manuals. Aside from those, there were also some clothes, identification papers, and the like.

Chu Tianfeng kept only the spiritual herbs and burned everything else to cinders.

After that, he returned to the original spot and also turned Tong Hanwen and the other man’s corpses into ash.

After finishing the wild rabbit, Chu Tianfeng set out once more in the role of a herb gatherer, searching the mountains far and wide for spiritual herbs.

Unfortunately, his luck that afternoon was not very good. He spent four or five hours before finding a single spiritual herb.

Toward evening, Chu Tianfeng arrived at the foot of a mountain peak.

Most of the peaks in the Li Family Scenic Region were extremely steep, sheer as if cut by a blade, stabbing straight into the clouds. Compared with them, this peak was much gentler. Its slope was less than eighty degrees, and many trees grew upon its cliff face.

The trees were lush and green, and among the leaves one could see more than a dozen monkeys frolicking and playing.

One of the monkeys seemed to take a dislike to Chu Tianfeng and, with a whoosh, hurled a stone at him.

Chu Tianfeng could not help feeling playfully childlike. Using his spiritual sense, he caught the stone, then flicked it back the way it had come.

Screech!

The monkey let out a sharp cry. Clearly, Chu Tianfeng had hit it hard.

Chu Tianfeng laughed aloud.

Who would have thought that before his laughter had even faded, a burst of rustling sounds erupted from the forest.

More than a dozen stones came flying toward him from all directions.

Chu Tianfeng cursed under his breath. His true essence surged violently, sweeping all the stones back.

At once, a flurry of shrill cries rose from the cliff face.

Chu Tianfeng nearly laughed himself breathless.

Seeing that they could not win, the monkeys cried out for a while, then fled upward.

On a whim, Chu Tianfeng chased after them, shouting loudly as he ran.

The monkeys were chased so hard they were practically fleeing with their tails between their legs, scrambling desperately up the mountain.

The higher he went, the more monkeys he saw, and Chu Tianfeng realized that he had stumbled into a monkey den.

Before long, he came to a stone wall.

The terrain here was relatively gentle, with a large open clearing full of stones of all sizes and hundreds upon hundreds of monkeys.

They stood in twos and threes, some on the stones, some hidden in the thickets, baring their teeth and shrieking at Chu Tianfeng.

Of course, some of them were not content merely to shout; they also picked up stones and threw them at him.

Chu Tianfeng had no intention of quarreling with these monkeys. What drew his attention was a stone wall at the far end of the clearing.

There were many caves in that wall, though that was not the point. The point was that wisps of wine fragrance were drifting out from within them.

Monkey wine.

Chu Tianfeng was overjoyed. He quickly drove away the monkey horde in front of the wall and climbed up regardless of everything.

As expected, he discovered that several of the caves were hiding monkey wine.

Chu Tianfeng was not polite. He hurriedly took out many plastic water buckets, poured out the water inside, then used true essence to dry them slightly. After that, he guided the monkey wine out of the caves one by one and filled the buckets with it.

He spent more than half an hour on it, filling twenty-one buckets, about four hundred liters in all, and finally emptied every drop of monkey wine from the caves. Only then did he leap down from the cliff face with satisfaction.

While he was stealing the wine, the monkeys had just stood there staring stupidly from a distance.

They had already witnessed Chu Tianfeng’s methods and dared not throw stones at him again, but they were unwilling to leave just like that. So they crowded together in a large mass, chattering incessantly at him.

Chu Tianfeng ignored them entirely. After emptying the wine, he did not even thank the monkeys. On the contrary, he even put on a show as if he were about to catch them, frightening the monkeys badly.

That night, Chu Tianfeng found a nearby peak, caught a wild chicken, and drank to his heart’s content with the monkey wine.

The next day, he rose as usual and continued searching for spiritual herbs.

He was so focused on finding herbs that he did not bother to keep track of direction. The result was that after wandering the entire day, he somehow found himself near the Unintentional Academy again.

By then it was already nearly sunset. Chu Tianfeng had just caught a wild deer, so he found a relatively open valley and prepared to wash it clean and feast heartily.

Far away, two or three miles from Chu Tianfeng, there was a mountain peak with two groups of martial artists.

One group was the team from Mount Hua and Qingcheng, led by Huang Zonghan and Qian Sifang, who were resting on the summit.

The other group was the small teams from Mount Huang and Mount Heng, led by Duan Rui and Ge Huawen, who were still roaming around halfway up the mountain.

“Damn it. We’ve been looking for nearly two days and haven’t seen a single shadow,” Duan Rui said. “Could that fellow have escaped from the Li Family Scenic Region?”

Ever since Chu Tianfeng disappeared after diving into the lavatory that night, Duan Rui and the others had been quite puzzled.

What was more, they had no idea in which direction Chu Tianfeng had fled. They could only search aimlessly like headless flies.

“He probably didn’t. Our sect disciples are also stationed around the perimeter. If they discover One Hundred Nine, they’ll definitely report it to us,” Ge Huawen said, shaking his head.

“That bastard doesn’t take any of the major sects seriously at all. He dares to offend anyone,” Duan Rui said, then paused before asking, “Brother Ge, which family do you think this fellow might belong to?”

Ge Huawen thought for a moment. “I suspect he’s most likely an honored retainer of the Long family.”

“No way. What benefit would the Long family get from openly making enemies of every sect?” Duan Rui frowned. “I’ve heard that the Wang family has recently recruited a lot of unaffiliated martial artists. I wonder what they’re planning.”

“These three families have always been mysterious. Who knows what schemes they’re up to? It has nothing to do with us. As long as they don’t provoke us, there’s no need for us to meddle in their affairs.” Ge Huawen turned around, his gaze drifting into the distance.

Duan Rui sighed. “A man may lack the heart to slay a tiger, but a tiger may have the intent to wound a man. I’m worried these families are planning something against us. With the Peach Blossom Valley secret realm about to open, they surely must be...”

At that moment, Ge Huawen suddenly raised a hand to cut him off and pointed toward a valley in the northeast. “Strange. It looks like there’s smoke from cooking fires over there.”

“Really?” Duan Rui followed his pointing finger with his eyes, and his face immediately lit up with delight. “It’s probably that bastard. None of our sects would be foolish enough to light a fire in a place like this.”

“Let’s go!” Ge Huawen waved at once, leading the way as he sprang down the mountain.

From the mountainside, Duan Rui and Ge Huawen could see the smoke, and naturally Qian Sifang and Huang Zonghan on the summit could see it even more clearly.

“Which idiot is that? He actually dares to be this brazen and make a fire here?” Huang Zonghan frowned at the distant smoke, full of suspicion.

“Whoever it is, I’m not interested. I only want to find One Hundred Nine,” Qian Sifang said, deeply preoccupied with Chu Tianfeng.

That day, in front of a crowd of martial artists, he had declared that if he failed to capture Chu Tianfeng, he would write the three characters of his own name backward.

“I’m just afraid some other sect will get there first,” Huang Zonghan said, also somewhat concerned about Chu Tianfeng, though what he cared about was the great haul of treasures Chu Tianfeng had taken away. “Come on, let’s go take a look.”