Chapter 75:
This Venerable One Is Illiterate, Deal With It
THE GATHERED CROWD gawked at Jiangui, then looked at the blazing red willow vines wrapped around the necks of the murdered and grew even more agitated.
“You did it! Just like when you killed Eighteen!”
“How could you be so cruel?”
“Kill him!”
The clamor hurt the Elder Immortal’s head. With a hand pressed against her temples, she said coldly, “Mo Weiyu, I will ask you one last time: Did you or did you not kill them?”
“I did not.”
“Very well.” The Elder Immortal nodded.
Mo Ran let out a breath, thinking she was going to let him go. He was about to express his gratitude for her wisdom and righteousness when she lifted a hand in a gesture of indifference.
“This person has committed myriad transgressions and refuses to admit to his crimes,” she said in an icy tone. “Seize him.”
When Shi Mei came outside after washing up and getting dressed, he saw Mo Ran being restrained with magic by over a dozen high-level members of the feathered tribe while another tied his wrists with immortal-binding rope.
“What are you doing?!” All color drained out of Shi Mei’s face as he hurried to Mo Ran’s side. “What happened?”
No one replied, but the corpses swaying eerily between the peach blossoms were answer enough. Shi Mei drew in a sharp breath and took a step back, bumping into Mo Ran’s chest. “A-Ran…”
“Don’t panic, calm down.” Mo Ran kept his eyes on the Elder Immortal while whispering to Shi Mei. “Go get Uncle and the Xuanji Elder.”
With the situation being what it was, the feathered tribe might not be open to reason. If they decided to rip him apart no matter what he said, he had zero chance of winning, not with his current abilities. He needed Xue Zhengyong and Xuanji to step in as soon as possible.
Shi Mei left, and Mo Ran stood alone against those faces twisted by rage, his gaze steady as he glanced them over one by one.
“Puh!”
A gob of phlegm flew out of the crowd toward him. Mo Ran moved to dodge, but the feathered folk who had spit was too close, and it caught him anyway. He turned around slowly and came face-to-face with a pair of scarlet eyes.
“You killed so many people and you dare to call for help? I’m going to put you down right now!”
With that, a fiery blaze gathered in the feathered tribe folk’s palm and hurtled directly toward Mo Ran.
Mo Ran stepped back and to the side. The scorching fire singed his bangs as it shot past and crashed into the peach tree behind him, snapping the sturdy trunk in half.
Thud. The peach tree fell over, flowers scattering across the ground like snow in the wind.
Mo Ran looked at the tree on the ground, then turned to the attacker. “I already said: I didn’t kill them. The purity pills will be ready in ten days. If you want revenge, you could at least wait till then.”
“Ten days? You’ll have murdered everyone here by then!” his attacker roared furiously and lunged at Mo Ran. “Give me back my zizi!”
Mo Ran dodged the attack once again, and his eyes landed on the Elder Immortal looking on from the side. She had no intention whatsoever of stopping this. Mo Ran felt a flare of rage and raised his voice in a bellow, “Hey! You old bird! Get a grip on your people!”
No response.
“Fucker.” Mo Ran cursed under his breath when she still refused to budge. “Pretending to be deaf-mute at this juncture. You wanna watch me get burned to death or something? If I’d known you shitty birds couldn’t even tell right from wrong, I wouldn’t have come to this shithole to start with! Who wants to get incriminated like this for no reason?!”
The Elder Immortal’s expression twitched slightly, and there was a fierce thwap as she lifted her sleeve in a sweeping flourish—that landed right on Mo Ran’s face.
The feathered tribe looked like humans, but their way of thinking was quite alien. In the cultivation world, not even the head of a small martial hall—much less the leader of an entire tribe—would jump to conclusions without definitive proof. But in the end, the feathered tribe was half-beast, and their blood ran thick with their bestial nature.
The color of the Elder Immortal’s hair changed from black to bright scarlet, and what looked like steam rolled from every strand. Her eyes opened wide in a glare as she said darkly, “Who is your master? Who taught such an uncouth disciple?! Watch your mouth!”
At her words, the rest of the feathered tribe began to shriek, one after another, and closed in on Mo Ran with murder written in their crimson eyes.
Whoosh!
An arrow of flame pierced through the sky, flying directly toward Mo Ran’s heart.
Mo Ran dared not dismiss the threat, and sparks coursed through Jiangui as he dodged while brandishing the willow vine. The shot was only a feint, and when he turned to block, one of the feathered tribe bereaved rushed his back with sword drawn.
Arrow at the fore, sword at the rear—there was no way out. These half-beasts meant to kill him right here. Mo Ran steeled himself, called to mind how Chu Wanning had wielded Tianwen before, and raised his hand with a flick of his wrist.
Jiangui was flung into the air then abruptly pulled taut, the bloodred willow vine whirling into a blur and creating a massive vortex. The leaves on the vine instantly turned knife sharp as the maelstrom pulled in everything in his vicinity, even the air itself, and shredded it all to pieces.
It was one of Chu Wanning’s ultimate techniques: “Wind!”
With his vine as the eye of the storm, everything surrounding Mo Ran was pulled in by powerful spiritual energy—swallowed by the vortex, ground into dust, and swept away by the wind until nothing remained.
“Ahhh!” The attacker screamed. Her arrow had been pulverized by Jiangui, and her longsword was lost in the storm as well, too close to rescue.
Clang!
There came the sharp sound of metal breaking, and before anyone could react, she had also been pulled to the edge of the bloodred storm as she shrieked, “Let me go! You lunatic! You fucking lunatic!”
The Elder Immortal was infuriated by the sight of her own people endangered. Her red robes fluttered as she rose into the air. A brilliantly red crystal of high purity appeared in her hand, and her sleeves billowed as she channeled spiritual energy into it. A frenzied gale roared to life, sweeping clouds along and flattening grass and trees alike.
The image of a fire phoenix blazed into being behind her. Her eyes were a deep, unsettling red, and that originally beautiful face twisted. “Bastard,” she hissed. “Still not standing down?”
“You’ve called out your phoenix. If I stopped now, wouldn’t that just be asking for death?” As Mo Ran spoke, the phoenix cast a massive shadow over him, its fiery reflection dancing across his face. “You stop first, then I will!”
“You—”
The Elder Immortal rose even higher into the air.
“Have—”