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“Are you sure he would pass through here, Silver Toad?”

The mud on a wall suddenly converged on one spot and formed a strange face. The question had come from its mouth.

“Croak… he must. This is the shortest route between the Fish Dragon Market and the Pacification Bureau,” A silver toad answered. It was crouching in a corner of the wall while its abdomen inflated and deflated with air.

Whoosh whoosh…

The silver toad had just finished talking when a dark, chilly wind blew out of the darkness and circled around the wall and Silver Toad. Then, the wind itself spoke, “Whoosh, are you sure your plan would go off without a hitch, Silver Toad? The Pacification Bureau will hunt us to the ends of the earth if anything goes wrong.”

The silver toad was none other than the Silver Toad of Cornucopia and Bronze Toad’s sibling.

Silver Toad let out a strange laugh and answered, “It will. Everything is under my control.”

“Most of the Pacification Bureau are busy dealing with the transformed humans, so much so that they are unable to spare the manpower necessary to protect the Miracle Doctor Calabash. Therefore, he must be alone when he escorts the Strange Artifact back to the Pacification Bureau. And let’s not forget that he is accompanied by three burdens.”

“He has no idea that we’re coming for him, while we know exactly when and where he’s coming from. When we ambush him, he’ll have to fight all of us and protect those three burdens as well. What can he possibly do to turn things around?”

“Even better, the Pacification Bureau wouldn’t suspect us. I’d looked into his background and found out that he had murdered Wang Luori’s direct disciple, Xiao Yang. For those who don\'t know, Wang Luori is the Hill Lord of Sunset Hill, a major power in Luo Shui.”

“A few days ago, Wang Luori barged into the Pacification Bureau to take revenge for his disciple only to have his ass beaten by Gu Suitang. No matter how you look at it, Wang Luori has a million reasons to want Ye Qing dead. Therefore, no one would suspect a thing if we pin the blame on Wang Luori.”

The more Silver Toad explained, the more excited he became. It grew to the point where his voice took on a tinge of madness and anticipation, “Not only that, the Pacification Bureau must take action be it for revenge or their own face. While the humans beat the crap out of each other, we’ll have much greater freedom than we had before. All in all, there is practically no downside to this plan whatsoever!”

The human face and the voice in the wind didn’t reply as if in thought, so Silver Toad said, “You won’t get another opportunity like this if you miss it, Old Mud, Yin Woman. You better think long and hard about this!”

Old Mud was the face on the wall. He paid no heed to Silver Toad and asked, “What do you think, Writer?”

A wolf hair brush abruptly appeared in the air. It looked perfectly ordinary and unassuming, but the air rippled with ink black circles as soon as it made its appearance. It was also dripping with fragrant-smelling ink that vanished into the void after falling for a short distance.

The wolf hair brush swayed left and right as if someone was using it. It wrote the word, “Acceptable.”

It was at this moment Yin Woman spoke up, “You won’t go back on your promise, right?”

Silver Toad croaked out a chuckle, “You’re all well aware of the kind of person I am. I never go back on my words.”

“All I want is his life and a silver page. Everything else including the Miracle Doctor Calabash is yours.”

“He killed my brother, Bronze Toad. I must have my revenge.”

The yin wind flew away and left behind some cold parting words, “Very well. For your own sake, I hope you’re not playing games with us.”

Silver Toad’s beady eyes narrowed into a cruel, anticipatory slits. “Murderer of my brother, Ye Qing… Today is the day you pay your debt in blood.”

……

“Gulp—ah! Man, this night just keeps getting colder and colder. Do you guys want to take a sip and warm up a little?” Ye Qing asked after taking a deep gulp from his wine gourd. The strong wine chased away the cold and the day’s fatigue like a stiff breeze.

“Thank you for the offer, my lord, but no thanks,” all three Artifact Wielders replied in the exact tone.

“You guys should learn to live life a little,” Ye Qing shook his head and sighed internally. He was told that Artifact Wielders were like ascetic monks who spent most of their time in the Tower of Secrets cultivating or researching Strange Artifacts only. Besides that, well, there was no besides that. Pleasure and entertainment were practically alien concepts to these people. Now, he could see it was all true.

Ye Qing took another gulp of wine as another gust of icy wind blew across his face. He had no idea that a wolf hair brush was writing something in an empty house:

“Ye Qing and the three Artifact Wielders were passing through Eminence Street when suddenly, Ye Qing accidentally stepped on a slippery rock and slipped, falling toward the wall next to him.”

Back at Eminence Street, Ye Qing was still enjoying his drink when suddenly, he stepped on a round, slippery rock and fell toward the wall next to him.

“My wine!”

Ye Qing reached out and caught his wine gourd before it could spill out his contents. He chuckled in relief while leaning against the wall, “Thank goodness.”

He would be fine even if he crashed through the wall, but it would be a shame if his wine were to go to waste. In this world, beautiful people [1] and delicious wine were the two things one must live up to.

When Ye Qing tried to get up, however, the wall behind him suddenly turned as soft as mud. Alarm bells immediately rang inside his head as he tensed his muscles and threw himself forward in an attempt to escape the wall.

Unfortunately, he was a little too late. The wall abruptly transformed into a giant mouth and consumed Ye Qing whole. Then, it turned back to normal as if nothing had ever happened.

“My lord!”

“My lord!”

The three Artifact Wielders were hardly in tip-top shape, and the attack had begun and ended in just the blink of an eye. By the time they reacted, Ye Qing was already gone.

“It’s an attack! Bring out the contact talisman!”

The good news was that the three Artifact Wielders weren’t greenhorns. The second they realized the danger, they immediately stood back to back with each other and watched their surroundings warily. While doing so, they produced their contact talismans and tried to activate it.

There was no way to tell if Ye Qing was still alive, and the three of them were thoroughly exhausted after using the Miracle Doctor Calabash repeatedly. That was why the best course of action wasn’t to run, but to hold their ground and wait for reinforcements to show up.

Alas, right before an Artifact Wielder was about to activate his contact talisman, a chilly wind suddenly blew into his face. His eyes suddenly grew dull and lifeless, and a layer of ice started creeping across his skin. He froze into an ice sculpture before his companions could do anything.

Realizing that the situation was even worse than they thought, the two Artifact Wielders abruptly split up and ran. So long as one of them managed to activate their contact talismans, there was still a chance they might survive this.

Unfortunately, they had only taken a few steps when the blurry silhouette of a woman took form from the yin wind. When she exhaled, the yin wind split into two and engulfed the two Artifact Wielders in just the blink of an eye. Their bodies froze, and the light in their eyes abruptly turned dim. A layer of ice rose from their feet and trapped them in the blink of an eye as well.

“Croak croak! Die!”

While the Yin Woman was dealing with the three Artifact Wielders, a muscular, silver-haired man wearing silver armor descended from above. His lips were curled into a cruel grin as he launched a might punch at the wall that had devoured Ye Qing.

Old Mud possessed the power to transform any wall into mud and devour a victim who was close to the wall. If the ambush was successful, he could instantly harden the wall and either suffocate a weakling to death, and temporarily immobilize a powerhouse.

Moreover, if an external force destroys the wall before the victim could escape, then they would shatter and die as well.

Suddenly, the wall shook and emitted a strange noise that sounded like dull thunder. Then, innumerable cracks quickly spread across the whole wall. It looked like a vase that was seconds away from crumbling.

Dammit! The silver-haired man cursed internally and moved faster. He was clearly hoping to destroy the wall before Ye Qing could escape.

Unfortunately, his fist was still an inch away from its target when a hole suddenly exploded from the wall. A fist then reached out from the hole and clashed against the silver-haired man’s fist!

Bang!

The silver-haired man’s face went from surprise, to astonishment, to full-blown disbelief in the span of one second. When he looked down at his arm, he saw his silver armor, his flesh and even his bones shattering into a million pieces.

The silver-haired man flew back faster than when he had descended from the sky. Like a cannonball, he crashed through several houses before finally coming to a stop.

After the silver-haired man was sent flying, the breached wall suddenly began to vibrate ominously. It was impossible to say if it was because Old Mud was shaking in fear, or if some sort of terrifying existence was about to break out of his confines, or both.

But right before the arm would break out of the wall, the wolf hair brush began writing once more:

“Ye Qing struggled to break out of Old Mud’s wall after repelling Silver Toad. It was at this moment his nose suddenly felt a little itchy. When he sneezed, his energies slowed down just enough for Old Mud to pull over a couple more walls and seal Ye Qing permanently.”

Something strange happened then. Right after the wolf hair brush wrote the word “permanently”, the word suddenly began fading as if something was rubbing it with an eraser. It wasn’t long before it was completely gone.

When the wolf hair brush tried to write the word again, it discovered that it was blocked by some sort of unspeakable power. No matter how hard it tried, it just could not finish the sentence. In the end, it had no choice but to write the word “temporarily” instead.

As soon as the wolf hair brush completed the passage, Ye Qing suddenly felt a terrible itch in his nose and sneezed. As a result, his energies slowed just a beat.

At the same time, the walls from the surrounding houses turned into liquid and poured in from every direction. Like paper, Old Mud slapped them all on the original wall and buried Ye Qing in a pile of walls. In just the blink of an eye, a bloated, unsightly wall was created on Eminence Street. From a distance, it looked just like a bloated giant.

“Be quick, Silver Toad! He’s too strong! I can’t keep him down for long!” A face appeared on the bloated wall and shouted.

Boom!

A silhouette suddenly dashed out of a pile of rubble and threw a punch at the bloated wall.

1. Beautiful here didn’t necessarily refer to superficial beauty. It could mean inner beauty as well. ☜