The slow-speeched middle-aged man wasn"t actually slow. When he saw that the green flames released by the extinguished lanterns didn"t seem to affect An Keyi at all, he immediately understood many things.
Under extreme confusion and shock, his ordinary cloth sleeves swelled, more than ten black porcelain spheres flew out. With a pa noise, when they were still ten or so steps from An Keyi, these back spheres all exploded. Waves of chi chi sounds and a pink-colored steam formed a blast of dense miasma, engulfing several houses.
When the originally thriving wormwood on the house made contact with the pink miasma, it quickly turned black and withered.
The slow-speeched middle-aged man immediately wanted to retreat backwards, but what made his breathing completely stop was that the bookish beautiful woman directly made her way through the pink miasma. Meanwhile, the door behind him suddenly became a deathly pale green, as if there was a layer of moss that suddenly grew, but then immediately dried up under the sun.
When he realized that regardless of whether it was in cultivation or methods in using poison, he couldn"t compare to this bookish beautiful woman at all, the slow looking man didn"t hesitate in the slightest. With a roar, he directly shattered a wax pill he had long swallowed with soul force. Then, his soul force turned into countless streams, instantly sending the medicinal force into various parts of his body.
His face immediately became black, two streaks of blood rus.h.i.+ng out from his nose.
These two waves of blood weren"t red, but rather multi-colored and mottled, extremely alarming. It was as if this was the result of countless bugs being crushed together.
However, this slow looking middle-aged man didn"t see the color of the blood that rushed out of his nose, because in that instant, his eyes lost radiance, long losing consciousness and dying.
An Keyi didn"t immediately rush at this slow looking middle-aged man. When she landed, she first watched him fall and die. It was because even if it was someone who had twice her medicinal knowledge, they still couldn"t stop this middle-aged man from committing suicide with soul force and poison. This speed of death was even faster than directly crus.h.i.+ng the heart.
…
Lin Xi stood by a riverside not far away. He didn"t witness the clash between An Keyi and this slow middle-aged man, instead feeling extremely satisfied with the arrow he just shot out.
That arrow just now was fired with "Little Black". For the sake of increasing the noise of the arrow blasting through the air, he used the knowledge he learned from Tong Wei in the academy, carving several notches.
Ordinary Yunqin black arrows were made of hardwood. However, what he didn"t expect was that perhaps because there were some extremely fine wood splinters left after he made those grooves, together with the consumption of a small half of his soul force being too astonis.h.i.+ng, the speed of the arrow shot by "Little Black" also too terrifying, after this arrow flew through the air, releasing an extremely loud screaming noise, it began to burn, turning into a fiery red comet.
Lin Xi sighed with admiration, feeling astonished that this type of ordinary arrow already had such speed and power. Then, he saw several streaks of heaven rus.h.i.+ng fiery light suddenly appear in Chaste and Undefiled Inn"s direction, lighting up the skies red.
“They actually burned down the entire Chaste and Undefiled Inn… women truly are terrifying…”
Lin Xi said this quietly, unable to hold back a laugh. He understood the natures of his good friends extremely well. Jiagn Xiaoyi"s nature was gentle and Meng Bai was cowardly, it was instead the soft looking Bian Linghan whose nature was the most fierce. When Gao Yanan taught those Thunder Academy students a lesson at Half Snow Gray Plains, he already knew that Gao Yanan liked simple and decisive actions.
When he saw the sky reaching flames, he knew that Gao Yanan and the others definitely directly burned Chaste and Undefiled Inn to force everyone there to leave. This type of method should have come from Gao Yanan and Bian Linghan"s hands.
…
On Star Seizing Restaurant, the expression of that meager middle-aged man who was already solemnly drinking in toast, preparing to watch a great scene of slaughter, suddenly became cold, cold to the point where even his brows seemed to have produced a layer of cold frost.
He didn"t see the green lanterns move through the sky like he expected, instead seeing fiery light in the air.
Then, he saw many courtyards in Chaste and Undefiled Inn also erupting into flames in twos and threes.
This night was destined to not be peaceful for Sparrow Lord City, especially for many people who were watching the scene from above. The scene of Chaste and Undefiled Inn burning was also extremely shocking, extremely brilliant.
However, this wasn"t his brilliance.
How was this possible?
Apart from his disciple in that small alley, everyone that knew about his ident.i.ty and plans had already been completely killed.
It was unknown just how many people he killed for the sake of this battle. Even this entire world and himself were separated.
Only he and his disciple knew about tonight"s arrangements. However, there was no way his disciple would betray him. Judging from that arrow that was released, he knew that the other party already found his disciple"s whereabouts.
How did the other party do this?
This middle-aged meager scholar looked at the burning Chaste and Undefiled Inn, the shock he felt inside impossible to describe with words.
…
An Keyi walked into the low house the slow looking middle-aged man was in. When she saw Lin Xi jump into the courtyard, she seriously warned him, “You can only remain outside the door… and don"t touch anything. Otherwise, not even I can promise that I can save you.”
Lin Xi knew that An Keyi was definitely going to carry out a search, understanding clearly that this type of poison master was just as dangerous dead or alive, so he didn"t say anything, only carefully walking over to the wooden door that was covered in dry moss.
“Is this the right arm of Wenren Cangyuan, Gongsun Quan who made even Green Luan Academy feel a bit of apprehension towards himself?”
He used a curious gaze to size up this middle-aged slow man"s corpse, inwardly thinking to himself.
Sparrow Lord City had a population of six to seven hundred thousand, extremely large. In the city"s northern corner, there was an abandoned bell tower. In the topmost point of the bell tower, there was a ruined half of a bell left. Right now, a large large group of white pigeons was gathering at the ruined bell"s side. These pigeons were gathered in one area, their bodies shaking a bit during this summer night. They were waiting for a chance to fly again just like during the daytime.
They could feel that their entire bodies were uncomfortable. Normally, only when they saw the light star burning, flying over to eat the grains that were scattered, would the uncomfortable feeling disappear.
However today, they were waiting here, but didn"t see the light that summoned them light up.
Suddenly, they couldn"t fly even if they wanted to. By this abandoned bell tower"s ruined building, their feathers completely fell off, their bodies quickly turning pitch-black and rotten, the black ooze reaching into the dry and splitting pinewood below.
Chaste and Undefiled Inn"s shopkeepers and staff were all shouting and screaming. They didn"t know who they ended up provoking that resulted in so many people starting fires at the same time in Chaste and Undefiled Inn. In an instant, this inn already became a huge fire scene.
Even some of the wine shops and homes near Chaste and Undefiled Inn were caught up in the chaos.
Many people shouted for help in putting out the fire. However, at this time, what made even more people shocked, was that countless cats and dogs with completely red eyes ran out from who knew where.
These dogs and cats didn"t seem to have seen the flames at all, all them running into the fire headfirst.
…
An Keyi"s investigation was extremely careful, searching every corner of the slow looking middle-aged man"s clothes, every corner of this room, to the extent where she even dug up the ground.
“This person might not be Gongsun Quan, just someone who is helping him defeat us. This way, even if we find him and rush here… we"ll at most find this person through some traces, unable to find Gongsun Quan.”
When hurried footsteps and hooves sounded, she said this quietly to Lin Xi.
“He isn"t Gongsun Quan?” Lin Xi was a bit stunned. “Why?”
“Quicksand poison is extremely precious, as well as what he is most proud of… Previously, not even the academy developed an antidote, and the antidote I have researched is something only Vice Princ.i.p.al Xia knows about… That is why for him, Quicksand is what he can rely on to protect himself when he faces me. If it was me, I would keep the most important things on me.”
An Keyi looked at Lin Xi and explained, “he has many types of poisons here, some of them astonis.h.i.+ngly great in quant.i.ty, but not only is there no Quicksand here, the second-most formidable Tarsus Bone isn"t here either.”
Lin Xi"s brows furrowed together. “This means that Gongsun Quan might still be perfectly well in the city.”
If it was Tong Wei, he would have definitely berated Lin Xi for speaking this nonsense, but An Keyi only nodded her head simply.
The hurried footsteps and horse hooves became louder.
Lin Xi"s brows furrowed deeply. He nodded and said to An Keyi, “Teacher, I am going to head out to deal with them.”
An Keyi didn"t waste any words, only giving a quiet en in agreement.
…
“What should I do?”
When the slightly cool summer breeze blew against his face, Lin Xi"s mind that began to relax suddenly became a bit heavier again.
Gongsun Quan actually still had a high chance of being alive, so he had to figure out another way to find this person.
Suddenly, he recalled the Chaste and Undefiled Inn that had turned into a land of death in his mind, a flash of light thus appearing in his mind.
“Teacher, if you also used poison and attacked with everything you have, not caring about the innocent, how many people can you quickly poison? Can you poison a thousand people?”
The instant he leapt onto the roof, Lin Xi turned around and asked this.
An Keyi"s brows jumped slightly. When she left the academy and met Lin Xi again, she felt like Lin Xi already no longer seemed to be that underripe student in the academy, already changing considerably. This was especially the case in this extremely short period of time, she couldn"t even figure out the reasoning behind some of the things he did. However, she still nodded, seriously replying to Lin Xi"s question. “I can.”
Lin Xi who received An Keyi"s reply began to move even quicker, looking like a leopard cat as he nimbly pa.s.sed over the roof that wasn"t all that st.u.r.dy, facing the troop that rushed out from Chaste and Undefiled Inn, issuing the orders, “Head to the city"s eatern gate, find an open area nearby to pitch camp!”