Chapter 128 - 101: Liuyun Cloud Swordsmanship
A joke?
Tong Wanli had just lost his son, and now someone was telling him that his self-satisfied act of driving Jiang Ran away was nothing but a joke.
He scanned his surroundings, looking at the dwarfs around him:
"Are they... also part of your joke?"
"They are not."
Jiang Ran shook his head earnestly.
"They are friends I’m introducing to you, Senior. After all, you seem to enjoy making friends with those from evil and heretical paths.
"While these people may not tread the most evil paths, they are certainly practitioners of heterodox arts. I imagine that should meet your standards for friendship.
"So I played a little trick to bring you all together here for a reunion.
"I thought you might hit it off right away, but I never expected... you’d get along so famously. It’s truly admirable."
As soon as he said this, even Ye Jingshuang couldn’t help but shoot him a sideways glance.
’What does he mean, hit it off?’
’How is this getting along famously?’
’They’ve nearly beaten each other’s brains out!’
Tong Wanli felt like he was about to vomit blood, while the dwarfs exchanged glances, realizing something was wrong.
One of them immediately tried to leave.
But the moment he moved, a blade flashed.
A silent blade swept past in an instant. Before the dwarf could even react, the strike had sliced him in two.
Jiang Ran’s blade remained in its sheath.
The strike was so fast that not even Tong Wanli had seen how he drew the blade, let alone how he sheathed it.
Jiang Ran laughed and said:
"Gentlemen, I haven’t finished speaking. Why the rush to leave?
"I heard the Young Manor Lord’s voice here just now and was hoping to meet him.
"A pity. Now that only you are left, it’s quite a disappointment."
Hearing this, one of the dwarfs immediately spoke up:
"In that case, you should let us go. We can inform the Young Manor Lord and ask him to come meet you."
"That does make sense."
Jiang Ran nodded repeatedly. "Go on, then."
The dwarf froze, not daring to turn and leave.
Jiang Ran’s previous strike had been terrifying—a silent, razor-thin line of energy.
It was utterly noiseless, yet its power was astounding. Who would dare turn their back on such a man?
This was no way to die, even if one wished for it.
At that moment, Ye Jingshuang took a step forward and looked at Tong Wanli.
"Uncle Tong... I have to ask, how did the people from Heartless Ghost Mansion know the Jiaowei was hidden in the Ye family’s home?"
The corner of Tong Wanli’s eye twitched. He suddenly looked at Jiang Ran.
"Since you were acting before, does that mean the matter of the Jiaowei being hidden here today is..."
"Senior Tong, your foresight is truly godlike!"
Jiang Ran laughed.
"The Jiaowei was never here. This place is the gravesite I’ve chosen for all of you.
"This place is surrounded by mountains on two sides, a quiet and empty valley. The mountains are shrouded in miasma and fog, so you needn’t worry about your eternal rest being disturbed. After all, no one is willing to set foot around here.
"What do you think, Senior Tong?"
"Good, good, good!!!"
Laughing in extreme anger, Tong Wanli let out three consecutive "Good"s. His figure shot up, eyes bloodshot, and he struck out with his palm.
It was the same Myriad Transformations Sky Net Palm, but Tong Wanli’s palm technique was naturally far superior to Tong Yan’s.
His Inner Energy was profound and his palm force was immense. As he attacked, it was as if he had formed a canopy of palm shadows that threatened to overturn heaven and earth, leaving no room to dodge in any direction.
At the sight of this strike, even the nearby dwarfs’ faces changed color.
They had been fighting Tong Wanli for a while now, but they hadn’t seen him display this level of skill.
They didn’t know that while Tong Wanli appeared simple and honest, he was in fact incredibly shrewd.
The events of the day had been too strange. Before stepping into this Valley of Rebirth, he hadn’t yet grasped the critical point.
But when he saw the bear’s corpse, he knew the situation was bad.
And after the men from Heterodox Manor surrounded them, alarm bells began ringing loudly in his mind.
Therefore, after Jin Sanding had knocked him away, he had used the opportunity to withdraw from the fray and observe the situation.
But as luck would have it, he ran right into the Young Manor Lord.
With no other choice, he had shouted and engaged him in battle.
The Young Manor Lord, perhaps unwilling to get entangled with him or simply looking down on him, was preoccupied with the token and had left after a moment, leaving a group of dwarfs to play with him.
Tong Wanli had been happy to see this happen, so he merely feigned fighting and dragged out the battle for so long.
He never imagined, however, that in the midst of this protracted fight, his own son would be killed.
Seeing Jiang Ran again, he finally understood that he had fallen into the other man’s trap.
His attack now was naturally different from before.
The wind from his palms rose with the force of a thunderbolt.
Jiang Ran looked up, pulling Ye Jingshuang behind him.
He flicked his blade, unleashing three consecutive strikes.
The sky full of palm shadows was instantly shattered to pieces by his slashes.
This wasn’t because Jiang Ran’s blade technique was so exquisite that it perfectly countered Tong Wanli’s move.
Rather, he followed the principle of overwhelming ten skills with one strike of absolute force.
He used brute force to shatter finesse. ’No matter your thousand transformations, I will cut them all down with a single strike!’
Of course, this time he used not one strike, but three... but there was no need to get bogged down in the details.
As the three strikes landed, there was a WHOOSH of wind, as if an incredibly heavy hidden weapon was flying straight toward Jiang Ran.
Jiang Ran frowned slightly and swung his saber horizontally.
In an instant, blood splattered in all directions. What flew at him was no hidden weapon!
It was Tong Yan’s corpse!
When he looked up again, Tong Wanli had already turned to flee.
The scene left Jiang Ran truly stunned.
Even a vicious tiger won’t eat its own cub. Tong Yan was already dead, but what kind of father would use his own son’s corpse to block a blade?
’Was all that profound grief from before just an act?’
In that moment of shock, a streak of Sword Qi shot into the distance. He looked up to see Ye Jingshuang flying in pursuit. Her longsword was like a surging sea of clouds, its energy flowing ceaselessly. Sword Qi coiled around her body as she appeared behind Tong Wanli in the blink of an eye.