Those blazing streaks of cyan sword-light drifted through the sky above Hundred Forging Peak...
Making absolutely no effort to conceal their arrogant intent.
Hundred Forging Peak was remote, but the commotion today was impossible to ignore.
Within minutes, seven or eight disciples had trickled out from wherever they'd been hiding in their mine shafts and gathered outside Mo Fan's courtyard to watch.
These were people who normally kept to themselves—but crowded together now, they were a spectacle in their own right.
Mismatched robes, wild eyes, every one of them radiating the specific energy of someone who had long since stopped caring what anyone thought of them.
Mo Fan stood inside the courtyard, his eyes slightly narrowed.
Through the gaps in the crowd, he spotted Xiao Hai lurking near the back...
Eyes gleaming with barely-concealed glee, practically vibrating with the anticipation of dropping stones on a man in a well.
Of course he's here.
The only thing keeping Xiao Hai from pushing to the front was the immovable wall of Eldest Senior Brother Wu Mang standing between them.
So he stayed in the back, not even daring to breathe too loudly.
"Xiaoqi! Let go of me!"
Beside Mo Fan, Zhao Ziwei was practically hopping with fury.
"These little bastards are bullying people too much! Let your Senior Brother go out and give them some color to see first!"
"Senior Brother Ziwei. Calm down."
Mo Fan grabbed Zhao Ziwei's arm and pulled him firmly behind him, his own expression completely steady.
"This is the karma I provoked. I'll deal with it myself. I'm not dragging you into it."
While they were talking, the dust outside settled.
Huang Yun stepped out of the fading sword-light with a handful of lackeys at his back, wearing his arrogance like a second skin.
He was dressed in a magnificent Inner Sect brocade robe.
The flying sword beneath his feet hummed with a faint, unsettling resonance—clearly a magical artifact of high grade.
His features were sharp and handsome enough...
But the narrow eyes beneath them carried the cold, calculating gleam of a venomous snake watching something it intended to swallow.
He landed and immediately registered the crowd. For just a moment, he looked thrown.
He'd expected to show up with a few people, make a scene, and watch a lone body cultivator crumble in fear.
He hadn't anticipated this kid actually having a decent popularity here.
But Huang Yun was a creature of the Vice Sect Master's inner circle. He recovered quickly.
"Where is Lu Xiaoqi?!"
He stepped forward, chin raised high, sweeping the crowd with a contemptuous gaze.
"This Young Master has business with him today. Everyone else—scatter! Unless you want to be caught up in a disaster that doesn't concern you."
Mo Fan was about to step forward when a gray blur cut across his path.
Wu Mang planted himself squarely in front of Mo Fan...
Took two unhurried steps toward Huang Yun, and dug a finger into his ear.
Then he laughed. Loud, unrestrained, and completely without mercy.
"Well, well! I was wondering what wild dog was out here barking its head off. Turns out it's the Yellow Dog himself!"
(Note: "Huang" means yellow).
He grinned viciously.
"What's the matter? Last time I beat you so thoroughly you couldn't recognize your own birth mother—and now that your teeth have grown back, you've come crawling around here looking for more discomfort?"
The crowd erupted.
Hundred Forging Peak's disciples were not known for their restraint, and they had absolutely no intention of exercising any now.
Laughter rolled through the gathered onlookers like a chaotic wave.
Having his dark history publicly exposed, Huang Yun's handsome face went the color of old iron. A vein pulsed visibly at his temple.
"Wu Mang!"
He bit the name out through clenched teeth, his voice shaking with fury.
"I see the impoverished filth of this wretched mountain still hasn't burned that foul mouth of yours clean!"
"Burned clean?" Wu Mang's smile turned cold and sharp.
"Hundred Forging Peak is built on the principle of tempering through fire. So what—you want to come over here and get hammered into shape too, Yellow Dog?"
He leaned forward slightly, his eyes dropping to half-mast...
Giving the look of a tiger that had already decided this prey was beneath it.
"Just worried your fragile body might not survive the process. I'd hate to see you hammered into a broken-backed dog."
"You're courting death!"
Poked in his sore spot and repeatedly humiliated, Huang Yun trembled all over.
His two lackeys, loyal to the last, heard the fury in their master's voice and drew their weapons with a sharp metallic CLANG, surging forward.
Wu Mang snorted coldly. His fists closed, and Foundation Establishment qi-blood detonated outward from him in a violent wave.
Both sides locked eyes.
The air between them went as taut as a bowstring, conflict on the verge of breaking out.
Right at this hair-raising moment—
"Eldest Senior Brother. Calm down for a moment."
A mild, unhurried voice came from behind Wu Mang.
Mo Fan bypassed his Eldest Senior Brother's broad back and slowly walked out.
Half a month of the [ Pale Wood Body Forging Art ] had changed him in ways that were difficult to immediately place.
The rough, iron-dark quality his skin had taken on from months of brutal tempering had faded.
What remained was something smoother—fair and faintly luminous, like cold jade.
On the surface, he looked almost like the old Lu Xiaoqi again. Quiet. Understated. Unremarkable.
But beneath that understated surface, something incomparably terrifying coiled and waited.
Mo Fan stopped in front of Huang Yun and clasped his hands in a polite bow.
He kept his posture deliberately deferential. His voice, however, carried clearly across the entire courtyard.
"Senior Brother Huang. Your junior brother is here."
He paused just a beat.
"I'm curious—what brings a senior of your standing all the way out here, with so many people in tow, just to blockade one 'Junior' like me?"
He put just enough weight on the word junior to make it land.
The implication was unmistakable: You're a Mid-Stage Foundation Establishment cultivator from the Main Peak. I'm a body cultivator with a Waste Spirit Root. Exactly how thick is your face?
Huang Yun caught every syllable of it. His eyes narrowed.
"Drop the posturing. You're a disgrace to this Sect. A shameless philanderer!"
Mo Fan blinked with perfect innocence, his face full of bewilderment.
"I'm sorry? Senior Brother Huang, you can't just speak nonsense like that. I've been here in the back mountains doing nothing but reflecting on my conduct. What exactly have I done to disgrace anyone?"
Seeing Mo Fan take the bait, a thin, insidious smile of success crossed Huang Yun's face.
"During the Outer Sect Tournament, you publicly harassed Junior Sister Shen Qiu with your words."
"You dragged the name of Azure Cloud Sect through the mud. Every pair of eyes in that arena witnessed it!"
He drew himself up to his full height, the picture of self-righteous indignation.
"I am here today to enforce justice on behalf of Heaven! I formally challenge you to a Sect Wager Battle, philanderer! Do you dare accept?!"
Smack!
Before the last word had fully left his mouth...
Huang Yun reached into his storage bag, produced a carved cyan wooden token, and flicked it into the dirt at Mo Fan's feet with casual arrogance.
Within Azure Cloud Sect, when an irreconcilable dispute arose between disciples, a formal Wager Battle could be issued.
If the challenged party refused to pick up the token—that was a public admission of cowardice.
And cowardice, once acknowledged, followed a disciple for the rest of their time in the Sect. No respect. No standing. Their head permanently bowed.
The Hundred Forging Peak crowd looked at the token in the dirt. Then they looked at each other. Then they absolutely lost it.
"Youngest Junior Brother! Don't you dare back down! Fuck him up! This Yellow Dog is disgusting!"
"Don't worry, Junior Brother! Let me teach you a move I invented myself—the Monkey Steals the Peach! Even if you lose today, make sure Huang Yun can never perform as a man again!"
"Yellow old dog! You shameless bully! Come fight ME if you've got the guts!"
Listening to the continuous mockery, Huang Yun and his lackeys went green.
They were outnumbered and outmatched in terms of sheer chaotic energy, and they knew it. All they could do was glare viciously at Mo Fan.
Mo Fan turned briefly toward Zhao Ziwei and the others and gave a small nod of thanks.
Then he looked back at Huang Yun. His eyes dropped to the token on the ground.
"Senior Brother Huang."
His voice was even.
"I cannot bear this hat of a 'philanderer,' nor will I admit to it. But since it's a Wager Battle, there must be stakes."
He looked up.
"What are the terms?"
Huang Yun's heart leapt with joy.
He'd been half-afraid Mo Fan would act like a shrinking turtle and stall or dodge entirely.
But the idiot was actually engaging. He'd walked straight into the trap!
Perfect.
Huang Yun's chin went up. He announced his terms like a man reading a verdict.
"If you lose! You must be tied up securely by me, bound like a sinner to Sunset Peak."
"In front of everyone, you will kneel and kowtow, bearing thorny branches to beg forgiveness from Junior Sister Shen Qiu!"
"And then, you will get the hell out of the Inner Sect. Permanently."
He let that land.
"How about it?!"
It was a vicious set of conditions.
Not just a beating—a complete and public destruction of Mo Fan's dignity, meant to sever his immortal path entirely.
However.
Mo Fan didn't even blink, agreeing extremely crisply:
"Fine. Agreed."
He took one step forward and held Huang Yun's cold gaze without flinching.
"But what if... Senior Brother, you lose?"
"Me? Lose?"
Huang Yun stared at him for a moment, then burst out laughing...
The genuine, unguarded laugh of someone who had just heard the funniest joke in the world.
He waved a hand with theatrical magnanimity, playing to the crowd.
"Since you let me set the conditions for your loss—fine! If I lose, naturally, the conditions will be set by you, Junior Brother! Whatever you wish!"
"Good."
That's exactly what I was waiting for.
The corner of Mo Fan's mouth hooked upward—slow, unhurried, and just a little dangerous.
He raised one hand and pointed directly at Huang Yun. His clear voice rang out across the entire canyon.
"The way Senior Brother came riding in on that sword just now—cutting through the sky like that—was truly heroic and valiant. I have to say, your junior brother was quite envious."
He paused. A trace of playful teasing flashed in his eyes.
"So. If Senior Brother loses..."
"I'd ask that Senior Brother put on a 'Big Yellow Dog' headgear."
"High in the sky above the Main Peak of our Azure Cloud Sect, bark like a dog while taking a full lap around on your flying sword."
He tilted his head slightly.
"How does that sound?"