Chapter 114: The Rascals

The flashes of swords and sabers continued, flashing towards Jiaoran's eyes.

Jiaoran grabbed Song Xiaoshan with one hand and flew across the ring as lightly as a swallow.

All kinds of sharp weapons fell into the air. Suddenly, a whip shadow flashed towards them. Jiaoran swung his left hand and grabbed the whip. The other end was actually held by Lin Poyan.

"you……"

Lin Poyan retracted his whip, leaped out from among the crowd, and flew to Jiaoran and Song Xiaoshan. "I'm not your enemy."

"Didn't you Wudang say you wouldn't mind other people's business?" Song Xiaoshan said.

Lin Poyan's whip swept across the area, knocking down many scoundrels who were trying to take advantage of the situation. "If you don't tell me and I don't tell you, who would know which sect I belong to?"

She only heard several sword winds coming at her. Before Jiaoran could say those words of gratitude, she took a step forward and fought side by side with Lin Poyan. She wanted to say a thousand words, but she didn't know what to say. She and Lin Poyan and Song Xiaoshan had only met a few times. They had only said a few words in the past few days and had no in-depth communication. It could almost be regarded as a chance acquaintance, but they were willing to make enemies with everyone to help her.

Song Xiaoshan said, "Untie me, I'll go with you."

Seeing that Jiaoran was unable to speak, Lin Poyan spoke first, "I'm helping you not for any other reason. I don't know a girl named Jiaoran, but I do know a young man named Afeng."

As he spoke, his whip nimbly wrapped around a long sword.

The sword was extremely sharp and cut Lin Poyan's whip in half.

Jiaoran's face changed. Zhou Zhi suddenly came out at this time and said in a loud voice, "You are like a trapped beast fighting. I wonder how long you can continue to show off your strength. Where can you escape this time?" Amidst the wild laughter, the people from Zongxun Sect had also led their people to attack.

With the help of both insiders and outsiders, the disciples hiding in the martial arts sects joined them in the attack.

These people had a tacit understanding in their hearts. They first blocked Jiaoran's way and even surrounded those people from the martial arts world. People from Wudang, Kongtong and other sects who wanted to leave also gradually retreated from the foot of the mountain. It turned out that they had ambushed people outside.

The disciples of these sects couldn't figure out what the Zongxun Sect was trying to do, so they put their swords in their hands and stopped chasing Jiaoran.

Jiaoran felt a chill in her heart. Her intuition told her that things were not that simple. It seemed that she was not the only one being caught in a trap.

It seemed that there was danger all around. At this moment, Jiaoran asked Song Xiaoshan and Lin Poyan to retreat behind her. When she saw Zhou Zhi coming out, she realized that she had been exposed long ago. In front of her, she would always be a child.

Lin Poyan was reluctant to stand behind Jiaoran and be protected by her like a cub. He insisted on standing in front of her and said that he was a man and it was not right for her, a girl, to protect him. Jiaoran was stunned for a moment. The man who said that the person he knew was Afeng, not Miss Jiaoran, seemed to have forgotten what he said an incense stick ago.

Those who were cheering and saying they wanted to kill Jiaoran and cut him into pieces all stopped, because everyone could see that the matter was not that simple. The person surrounded by the Zongxun faction was not Jiaoran, but all of them.

Jiaoran suddenly heard Zhou Zhi say, "Why don't you come over? Do you really want to die with them?"

She took a deep breath, the word "mother" stuck in her throat, grief and grievance blocked her throat, and in the end Jiaoran couldn't even utter a word.

Song Xiaoshan asked, "Master Zhou, what exactly are you going to do?!"

Zhou Zhi didn't answer him. At this moment, Phoenix Chick came out from behind her and said, "Jiao Ran, it's not time for me to kill you yet. You don't have to be afraid of me. I still need your help."

The cunning phoenix chick actually said this.

At this point, Jiaoran slowly figured it out. "You killed those outlaws and pinned the blame on me. First, you wanted to lure me here, trap me, and make me help you fulfill a certain wish. Second, you wanted to gather these people at the gate of the Zongxun Sect. Killing two birds with one stone—very clever."

Phoenix Chick never hesitated to tell the truth in front of someone who was about to die. If blaming her was a means, then he had already done it. "So what? I already got what I wanted."

Only then did these ruffians realize that they had been deceived. No one on the stage or outside dared to look directly at Jiaoran.

"Come here, come to me." said the young phoenix.

Jiao Ran sneered, "Why, are you afraid that if you kill them, I'll be killed by you too?"

After hearing Jiaoran's words, the expressions of these people in the martial arts world changed one by one. Did the Phoenix Young really want to kill them by surrounding them here?

Phoenix Cub spread his hands and said, "If you're looking for death, I don't mind killing you today."

Jiaoran has summoned the thin dragon.

"It seems that you really want to be my enemy."

Jiao Ran said, "So what? I don't understand why you want to kill so many people?"

As Fenghuangchu raised his hand, the disciples of the Zongxun Sect took out a purple jade spindle-shaped magic weapon from their sleeves and held it high above their heads. Under their feet were the Taoist temple's strangely patterned floor tiles, which emitted a bright red light as they raised their hands one by one.

The disciples of the Zongxun Sect seemed to be standing in a magic circle.

Dozens of martial arts sects and thousands of people saw their weapons clattering to the ground. They wanted to struggle against this supernatural power, but their feet seemed to be stuck to the ground. No matter what kind of power they used, they could not control their bodies and were frozen in place.

Jiaoran looked around in panic and found that except for her, everyone else was unable to move and was fixed there like a wooden man.

The magic weapon held high emitted a dazzling purple light in the night. As the purple light appeared, painful cries for help came from the crowd. Bright red blood was drawn from their heads and flew straight into the magic weapon. Half of the people from the Zongxun Sect tilted their magic weapons slightly, and the red light was directed to the top of the mountain.

This can't go on.

Jiaoran looked at the disciples of Zongxun Sect. After a while, she suddenly cut her palm and blood flowed out. She didn't know what would happen, so she gritted her teeth and wiped the blood on the back of Song Xiaoshan's hand.

Song Xiaoshan immediately collapsed to the ground, and the blood and essence that was being sucked out of his head was blocked and could no longer be taken.

When Jiaoran saw that it worked, he followed suit, casually raised his hand, and wiped the blood on Lin Poyan's face without even looking.

In this way, he broke the shackles of several people one after another.

The Phoenix Cub stepped forward, drew out the magic weapon, and rushed into the crowd, fighting with Jiaoran.

The collision of the two divine weapons unleashed a force that was incomparable to that of ordinary weapons. Every time they clashed, the person next to them would be bounced away.

He was afraid that Jiaoran would continue to ruin his plans. Now the blood and essence of these people were gathered in one place, and a strange red halo was emitted from the top of the mountain, which looked like a blood-red eye of a beast in the night.

As Jiaoran fought him, she looked at the formation. Purple jade? She had also seen Zhu Su using a purple jade fishing rod in the Fish and Dragon Wonderland.

The phoenix chick also comes from the Wonderland of Fish and Dragons, so this formation must also be related to the Wonderland of Fish and Dragons.

Jiaoran was distracted fighting him and was nearly stabbed by him several times, but he really only wanted to catch her and didn't want to kill her, which gave Jiaoran an opportunity.

The more Jiaoran looked at the positions of those people, the more familiar they looked to him.

The winding direction seems to be very regular.

She seemed to have seen this formation there.

Yes, it was the bamboo forest. Zhu Su had often taken her there to practice martial arts. It was also in the bamboo forest that she overcame some of her inner demons and understood some truths.

The positions of these people are very similar to the direction of some bamboos in the center of the bamboo forest.

There are two bamboos standing side by side, and at a certain point, they become one bamboo, followed by an open space, and going forward, there are three or four bamboos standing side by side.

In the bamboo forest, all the bamboos are almost the same thickness, even the joints.

Therefore, their magic formation is actually imitating the position of bamboos in the bamboo forest.

The sword in the Phoenix Cub's hand shone like a white silk thread, passing behind Jiaoran, and Jiaoran's thin dragon shook it away.

"Stop it!"

Phoenix Chick asked, "Why should I stop?"

"You and I both understand that those who come from there should not be killed, and our weapons should not be stained with mortal blood."

"It's best if they all die!"

Zhou Zhi's eyes flashed with anger, "I wish I could kill them with my own hands!"

Jiaoran looked at her in confusion and stopped fighting with the Phoenix Chick for a moment. At this moment, several more corpses appeared on the ground. The people whose skills were not good enough and who were unable to resist fell to the ground after being drained of their blood and turned into shriveled corpses with golden faces.

Zhou Zhi watched them being tortured, a sinister grin spreading across his face. "For over twenty years, I've been waiting for this day, but it's not enough, not even close to enough."

Jiaoran didn't want to watch these people die innocently anymore, so he swung his sword and smashed the magic weapon held high by one of the Zongxun Sect disciples, and a corner of the formation was immediately missing.

She said to Song Xiaoshan, "Run away quickly, rush out from there!"

Song Xiaoshan picked up a long sword on the ground and tried to smash the magic weapon of the disciple in front of his master, just like Jiaoran did. However, his weapon was just a mortal weapon and was bounced away before it reached the magic weapon.

Song Xiaoshan's eyes darkened. He picked up another weapon, turned around and looked at Lin Poyan. Both of them understood what the other meant.

They each killed a disciple who had lifted up the jade with one sword from the position where Jiaoran had broken through.

After killing one person, the several gangsters around that person were freed, and they were so weak that they only had one breath left.

Even if they only had one breath left, they would struggle, pick up their weapons and continue killing.

The man holding the jade had no time to absorb the essence and blood, and drew his weapon to fight with these people from the martial arts world.

Seeing that his conspiracy was exposed, Fenghuangchi was furious and wanted to kill Jiaoran immediately.

But the one who was even angrier than the Phoenix Chick was Zhou Zhi.

She actually went down herself, drew her sword, and slashed at those weak and powerless people in the martial arts world who had their blood and essence taken away, with extremely cruel methods.

Jiaoran stood there in a daze.

Phoenix Young also put away his weapon and said, "That blood essence is enough."

There were two or three hundred people on the ground who had been drained of their blood. These two or three hundred people were more than enough for one use.

He said, "It doesn't matter to me whether these people are dead or alive."

He then approached Jiaoran and whispered in her ear, "But what about you? Is their life or death important to you?"

Jiao Ran was about to rush into the crowd to stop Zhou Zhi, but he heard Feng Huangchi say behind him, "She has been holding back her vengeance for over twenty years. How many more twenty years do you want her to hold back?"

Jiao Ran was puzzled. "Her revenge?"

Phoenix Chick smiled helplessly, "Mortals, love, hate, and vengeance, the part that is remembered too clearly is too painful. More than 20 years ago, when she was still a young girl like you, she was happier than you have ever been."

Fenghuangchu talked about those three days and three nights, about how the Qingfeng Sect was massacred and the entire family was killed, about the scar on her face, about the knife wound from her shoulder to her abdomen that almost cut her in half, about how she knelt on the ground and knocked her head against the ground, begging those people to spare her mother and her brothers and sisters.

Speaking of the blood-stained ground, no one could clean it up. The small town where the Qingfeng Sect was located turned into a ghost town. Every night, the wronged souls cried out and struggled in the night wind, and their cries for help were even more miserable than those of the people just now.

He asked, "How many of the sects that arrived today do you think were involved in the massacre?"

Jiaoran stopped where she was, and after a moment, she held her sword in front of Zhou Zhi in the crowd.

"If you stop me, I will kill you." Zhou Zhi's eyes were bloodshot.

Jiao Ran said, "These sects were all your enemies in the past, but it's been over twenty years now. Look at them. These people are only in their twenties. Twenty years ago, they were still children. Those in their thirties and forties were still teenagers when they exterminated their sects. How could they have done such cruel things? As for those elders, if they were worse than beasts when they committed crimes, they couldn't withstand the absorption of their essence and blood and died on the spot. Look at their corpses. They paid the price with their lives."

"Not enough, not enough, not enough! Never enough! I want them to be wiped out like my Qingfeng Sect. You're saying these twenty-something young men have nothing to do with the annihilation of my Qingfeng Sect? Are you saying they're innocent?"

"When it happened, some of them were not even born yet, or were just infants. How innocent are these children!"

"Okay, you say these scoundrels are pure and innocent, but I want to ask you, what did those little brothers and sisters in my sect do wrong? They are so young, they can't even stand firmly on horseback, aren't they innocent? What evil things have they done? Let me ask you again, my father is kind and charitable, he has never done a bad thing in his life, he is kind to everyone. When the court did nothing during the disaster, he emptied his family's coffers to provide relief to the victims. Does a person like him deserve to die?!"

Jiaoran was speechless. She admitted that from Zhou Zhi's perspective, everything she said was right.

But how could she watch Lin Poyan and Song Xiaoshan, people who had helped her, die?

"You have your reasons and I have my decision. Since we can't make peace, let's each stand on our side." Jiaoran drew his sword.

Zhou Zhi asked, "Do you really have to help them?"

"Yes. Song Xiaoshan helped me when everyone wanted to kill me, and Lin Poyan couldn't bear to see the two of us fighting alone. I couldn't watch them die in vain."

"If you insist on helping them, you will be my enemy."

Jiao Ran was silent for a moment, his throat aching, and then he said, "Haven't we been enemies for a long time?"