Chapter Thirty-Seven: Underestimating the Enemy

"Hiss!"

Chen Xuan swung his right hand, the hairpin dancing in the air to trace a seamless arc of crimson. The heat, capable of melting gold and eroding iron, slashed across the throat of the ascetic monk directly in front of him. A head flew skyward.

The man’s intent to kill was absolute; Chen Xuan could not afford to hold back.

"You seek death!"
"How dare you continue your evil!"

Two glowing fists whistled in from the side like iron hammers. Chen Xuan raised his left arm to intercept them. Both attackers were formidable warriors who had undergone the second transformation. Their combined strike made Chen Xuan grunt, the bone in his forearm nearly shattering.

"Hiss!"

Chen Xuan’s expression turned grave. He gripped the fire hairpin tightly and slashed at the other side with lightning speed. The arc of crimson fire-qi brought with it a spray of blood. Three severed arms flew into the air, their stumps charred black; the blood that surged forth was evaporated instantly by the lingering fire-virtue qi.

"Ahhh!"

Screams erupted as the three ascetic monks stumbled backward in agony. "He practices fire-qi! Everyone, retreat!"

Chen Xuan immediately pressed the attack. The hairpin descended like a torrential downpour, piercing two of the monks. Their bodies, tough as gold and iron, were instantly melted into bloodied craters, leaving them gravely wounded.

The third man, his eyes burning with palpable bloodlust, had his chest laid open by Chen Xuan. His internal organs were scorched black; he was beyond saving.

"Clang! Clang!"

Almost simultaneously, several golden-white fists, striking like thunderbolts, slammed into Chen Xuan from behind. He was sent flying, half of his shoulder caving in, and he spat out a large mouthful of fire-like blood while still in mid-air.

"His body is actually this formidable! Its toughness is no less than our own!"

The ascetic monks clutched their fists, scorched by the intense flames, and shouted in shock. By all logic, white-qi cultivators possessed the strongest physiques, while fire-qi cultivators were physically weak. After taking several of their strikes at close range, the opponent’s entire body should have been blown apart.

Yet, now, Chen Xuan only suffered a collapsed shoulder and fractured bones. He had sustained no fatal injuries. This left them completely stunned, leading some to suspect that he did not practice fire-qi at all, but the same gold-virtue white-qi as them.

"Bang!"

Chen Xuan landed on the ground, rolled, and steadied himself. His gaze was sharp as he glanced at his shoulder, where bone spurs protruded hideously.

"Hoo!"

With a single breath, the fire-qi throughout his body shifted. In an instant, a brilliant, lush green light emerged. A majestic aura of life permeated the air; the granulation tissue on his shoulder wriggled, the broken bones automatically realigned and connected, healing at a rapid pace.

Green-qi!

A faint sound, like the cry of a stag, seemed to emanate from within Chen Xuan’s body—clear and resonant.

"Wood-attribute green-qi! He is a dual-qi cultivator!"

An ascetic monk’s face turned pale with horror. Fire and wood were incompatible; practicing one meant spending several times the effort on the other, resulting in half the success for double the work.

"He is so young; he must have been practicing these tricks since childhood. Could he be from one of the refining clans of Red Crow City?" someone asked, their face full of suspicion.

"Fellow Daoist, there must be some misunderstanding. Please, stop! We of the Hanging Temple believe in reasoning—we are reasonable people!"

A tall ascetic monk shouted hurriedly. Although he had participated in the fight earlier, his intent had been to restrain Chen Xuan and prevent him from doing further harm. Once he realized some of his fellow disciples had acted with lethal intent, he had voluntarily withdrawn from the fray, even ordering a group of monks who had just returned from outside the camp not to intervene.

Most of the ascetic monks who truly adhered to the strict precepts of the Hanging Temple had entered the Southern Wilderness. Those who remained outside were either flawed in character or responsible for overseeing local situations.

"Oh, 'reasoning'?"

Chen Xuan twisted his neck and glared at the tall monk. "Would you kill him for me?"

The tall monk’s face darkened as he replied, "If Senior Brother Kong Xuan has indeed committed crimes, our Hanging Temple will deal with him according to our temple rules. Please, Fellow Daoist, do not commit more murder. Your killing intent is too heavy."

Kong Xuan was the dharma name of the old monk who had been brewing the treasure tea.

"So, that means he won't die, right?"

Chen Xuan flexed his arm, which had already regained half its function, and sneered. "Ha! If he won't die, why are you here talking to me about reason? If I let those who harm me roam free, why did I go through such hellish training to cultivate qi?"

If he had only achieved the first transformation, he might have assessed the situation, tried to explain, or even turned and fled this camp full of powerful monks. But Chen Xuan had already achieved the second transformation; if he still had to act with such hesitation, his cultivation would have been for nothing!

The ascetic monk’s expression turned grim. He said coldly, "You have already killed and injured several people. If you still refuse to stop, do you truly intend to become a mortal enemy of the Hanging Temple?"

The Hanging Temple was a massive, reclusive force. If they were not in a foreign land, they would not need to be so servile. The fact that the other party was relentless, treating them like soft persimmons, was truly intolerable.

In truth, because Chen Xuan had dealt fatal blows, regardless of the justification, an unbreakable knot of enmity had been tied between them.

The tea-brewing monk, having fled behind his disciples, poked his withered head out and screamed, "He has the True Scripture of Qi Cultivation! Who could resist the greed in their hearts? You know about this—can you really hold back? A True Scripture! That is a scripture left behind by the sages and immortals of antiquity!"

The True Scripture!

The entire camp fell into a deathly silence. It was terrifyingly quiet. Not only did the present ascetic monks hold their breath, but even the other qi cultivators watching from afar widened their eyes in shock.

The old monk continued to shout, as if desperate for everyone to hear the news.

"Is this true? Did you see it with your own eyes?" someone immediately demanded.

"The ancient seal characters he asked me about—many were about human meridians and secret techniques of immortal qi. If they didn't come from an ancient scripture, where else could they have come from!"

The old monk spoke with absolute certainty, attempting to incite the others and muddy the waters.

This was merely a guess, and its credibility was clearly low. Only by practicing the True Scriptures of the Immortals could one break through the transformation stage and enter a higher realm. How could a mere rogue cultivator at the transformation stage possess such a thing? It was a fantasy!

In the entire territory of Red Crow City, only the Green Deer Mountain and a few qi-cultivating families possessed such treasures, and even then, their versions were incomplete. They were not the full versions at all.

But what if?

In an instant, the eyes of everyone present turned strange. A portion of them stared fixedly at Chen Xuan, their breathing becoming ragged.

So that was the issue!

Chen Xuan’s face darkened. He immediately reflected on his own negligence in his heart. He had been too careless; like Wang Chan, he had underestimated the people of the world!

Fortunately, the old monk was only guessing and had not truly discovered the *Huangliang True Scripture* in his mind. Still, it was entirely unexpected that the man would take such a desperate risk in the middle of the night just because he had asked about a few ancient characters.

The path of qi cultivation was filled with such vicious surprises; the unpredictability of the human heart was truly impossible to guard against!

"Ha, as they say, it is hard to question the will of Heaven!"

Chen Xuan sneered. His shoulder was already more than half healed. He summoned his fire-virtue qi once more, soared into the air, and with the momentum of a bull charging, crashed into the ranks of the ascetic monks.

He would not waste his breath explaining to the others. Those who were clear-headed would not believe such nonsense, and those who wanted to believe it would cling to their own views no matter how many reasons he gave.

"He wants to kill us to silence us! Save me!"

The old monk’s face turned white with terror, and he turned to flee in a blind panic. But the surrounding brothers were still lost in thought over the shocking secret. Their minds were in chaos, and they had not expected Chen Xuan to strike without warning; their reactions were a beat too slow.

"Ha! I *do* intend to kill you to silence you!"

Chen Xuan dove into the formation like a tiger. A crimson arc of fire slashed across the old monk’s back. The old monk stumbled with a howl, only for Chen Xuan to grab him by the head and pull him back. He thrust the hairpin into the monk's neck repeatedly, melting several thumb-wide holes that pierced clear through.

He reached into the monk’s robes and quickly fished out a golden tea cake wrapped in oil paper: the [Buddha Heart Tea Tree].

"Put that down! How dare you!"

The ascetic monks were instantly driven to the brink of madness. Their eyes turned bloodshot and swelled with rage. With roars like apes and elephants, more than twenty figures converged on Chen Xuan.

A land-bound treasure was worth a fortune and concerned the survival of this entire camp. If Chen Xuan took it, the consequences would be catastrophic!

"What is it that I dare not do!"

Chen Xuan laughed loudly. He threw a punch that manifested a fire bird, knocking a second-transformation monk flying. He spun around and hurled the old monk's corpse, causing the crowd to scatter in confusion. Chen Xuan pursued them, sweeping through them like autumn leaves, charging directly into the densest part of the formation. He had realized that the killing intent some of these monks held toward him was baseless and inexplicably massive; these people had to be dealt with. Moreover, just like the old monk, they had seen, and Chen Xuan had seen *them*!

In the distance, the qi cultivators of Red Crow City were all horrified. Watching Chen Xuan, whose unmasked violence and heroic spirit seemed to pierce the sky, everyone felt their hearts tremble and their legs shake.

The evil thoughts that had risen in some of their hearts vanished in an instant. Even if Chen Xuan truly possessed a True Scripture, was it something they could ever hope to covet?

"Clang!"

Chen Xuan’s attacks were wide and powerful. He grabbed the arm of a murderous second-transformation monk and delivered three rapid, brutal punches, sending the man flying into the air as a mist of blood sprayed from his back.

Another attacker lunged from the side. Chen Xuan did not dodge; he traded injury for a kill, driving his hairpin repeatedly into the man’s heart...

Qi-cultivation tricks were also techniques of murder, and that was exactly what Chen Xuan excelled at!

"Stop fighting! We stop!"

The remaining monks were finally chilled to the bone. They broke and scattered, retreating in all directions, no longer daring to fight. The opponent was far too skilled in combat. Fire-virtue qi naturally countered gold-virtue qi, and he relied on wood-virtue qi to heal himself. Chen Xuan was fighting with a "death-defying" style—who would dare trade blows with him? Chen Xuan only sustained injuries, but they were losing their lives!

In this short time, at least three monks had died by his hand, and those injured were too numerous to count. Even if they threw everything they had into keeping Chen Xuan there, at least half of them would die.

Besides, they weren't even sure they could keep him there!

Chen Xuan, covered in blood, scanned his surroundings. The monks who had directed killing intent toward him had all been dealt with. He turned around, waved to the stunned crowd of Red Crow City cultivators in the distance, and laughed as he departed:

"No temple is a good temple, and no shrine is a good shrine. Everyone, I shall take my leave first. We shall meet again!"

Something was wrong with the monks of this Hanging Temple—and it wasn't just the old monk and his two companions. His intuition told him he could not stay here any longer!