27: Chapter 27 Borrow your knife to cut off his family's livelihood

Shen Xiao took a deep breath, welding the flash of killing intent in his eyes deep into his pupils.

His facial muscles didn't even twitch; he looked away as if nothing had happened.

As long as he wasn't embarrassed, everyone else would be. As long as he didn't give himself away, the bomb was just a slightly peculiar rock.

Deacon Sun Fugui's old face looked worse than if he had swallowed a dead fly. He stared fixedly at the half-dead herb field, his fingernails almost embedding themselves into his flesh.

He had brought people to catch them in the act, only to find not even a hair of a bug. How was he supposed to explain this to the person above?

"Consider yourself lucky, kid!" Deacon Sun Fugui spat on the ground viciously, gritting his teeth as he threw out a parting shot, "You'd better pray this rotten land keeps having such beginner's luck!"

With that, he flicked his sleeves and stormed off in a rage, taking the two bewildered Law Enforcement Hall Disciples with him.

After confirming that these few barking dogs were far away, Shen Xiao didn't immediately attack to expose Xiao Wu. Instead, he put on the sorrowful expression of a landlord's foolish son and sauntered over to her.

"Sigh, this broken place has such thin Spiritual Qi that not even a single hair can grow."

Shen Xiao sighed with his hands behind his back, completely unguarded, looking just like a laborer who had been drained of all value.

"I really don't know how so many top-grade Spirit Medicine grew in that hidden Spiritual Qi spring in the back mountain. It's just a pity that it's locked away by a high-level Formation. We poor outer Sect laborers don't even have the qualifications to smell the Immortal Qi."

While complaining, Shen Xiao seemed to very inadvertently pull a handkerchief for wiping sweat from his sleeve, and with it, a crumpled, tattered map fell into the mud.

As soon as the map landed, he walked away, shaking his head as if he were a blind man who hadn't noticed a thing.

On that tattered map, a hidden mountain hollow in the back mountain was outlined in striking cinnabar red.

That place was the surprise Shen Xiao had accidentally stumbled upon a few days ago while following the movement trajectory of the mutated Golden Silk Gu—a private, high-level herb field that Deacon Sun Fugui had opened up by intercepting a Spiritual Vein, violating the Sect rules to curry favor with Lin Yun!

A cold wind swirled across the herb field.

Xiao Wu remained with her back to the direction where Shen Xiao had left, like a lifeless puppet.

But upon confirming that there were no other living souls around, a flash of extremely cold, bloodthirsty red light flickered in her dead-fish-like eyes.

She slowly lowered her head, her skeletal fingers clamping onto the mud-stained map like iron pincers.

As an elite spy of the Blood Fiend Sect, she already found it disgusting to be lurking in this godforsaken Area Bing-7.

Even if this rotten land were completely destroyed, it would be no more than a scratch to the Qingming Sect.

The Blood-Stained Fungus in her hand was a biochemical weapon so lethal that even Nascent Soul monsters would fear it; using it in this beginner village was simply a waste of a treasure.

Now, a ready-made, high-end poisoning coordinate had been delivered to her door.

Midnight, back mountain.

The cold dew of late autumn condensed into white frost on the grass leaves, and the air was filled with a bone-chilling cold.

Shen Xiao hung upside down in the dense canopy of an ancient towering tree like a ghost bat, his aura completely concealed by the Breath Concealment Technique provided by the System.

"Old Ghost," Shen Xiao tapped on Xuan Chenzi's remnant soul in his Sea of Consciousness, his tone filled with the excitement of someone who feared no chaos.

"Tell me, if we put the Blood-Stained Fungus and the starving Golden Silk Gu together, what kind of chemical reaction would occur?"

Xuan Chenzi's illusory shadow trembled violently, and his voice even carried a tremor.

"Are you crazy?! The Blood-Stained Fungus is an extremely evil object; to touch it is to collapse! Although the Golden Silk Gu are strange insects, they are just food in front of the fungus. Once the fungus parasitizes the Spirit Plant through the wounds bitten by the Golden Silk Gu... My God, that land will instantly turn into a dead zone that even gods couldn't save!"

"A dead zone is exactly what I want." Shen Xiao grinned silently in the darkness, revealing a mouthful of stark white teeth.

Just then, a very slight rustling sound came from the bushes below.

Xiao Wu, like an agile black panther, quietly snuck into this hidden mountain hollow.

By the faint moonlight, a high-level herb field shrouded in a colorful defensive Formation revealed its true form in front of her.

Even through the Formation, one could smell the rich medicinal fragrance that made one drool.

These were all top-tier strategic resources prepared for Lin Yun to break through his Realm!

But this high-level Formation was clearly beyond her ability to break; when she stuck her black flags into the ground, the Formation only rippled, showing no signs of cracking.

"So slow." Shen Xiao rolled his eyes in the canopy.

If you're going to help, help all the way.

He had used the excuse of cleaning up pests to secretly keep a large batch of the largest adult Golden Silk Gu, which were already starving to the point of having green eyes.

Shen Xiao flicked a faint trace of Spiritual Qi from his fingertip, forming an insect-control mantra.

A dense sound of crawling rustled through the night.

Hundreds of starving Golden Silk Gu, like a golden torrent, flowed along the cracks in the soil and rushed crazily toward the roots of the Spirit Plants at the edge of the Formation!

The Golden Silk Gu's desire for high-level Spirit Medicine was carved into their bones.

Their sharp mouthparts, like miniature saws, instantly chewed the roots of several Spirit Trees acting as the Formation eyes to shreds.

With a hum, the originally impenetrable defensive Formation suffered a fatal crack three feet long due to the sudden damage to the Formation eyes, and the Spiritual Qi became violently chaotic.

"Good chance!" Although Xiao Wu was shocked by why the Formation collapsed suddenly, a spy's training didn't allow her to overthink it.

She bit the tip of her tongue and sprayed a mouthful of essence blood onto a black jade bottle engraved with skulls.

The jade bottle shattered, and a nauseating, dark red viscous mist, like living flesh, dived precisely into the underground water vein through the crack in the Formation!

The Blood-Stained Fungus had entered the game.

The scene that followed made even Shen Xiao, who prided himself on having seen big scenes, gasp in the tree.

When the fungus touched the Spirit Plant wounds bitten by the Golden Silk Gu, it was like hot oil being ignited.

The originally crystal-clear high-level Immortal Plant grew disgusting blood-colored patches at a speed visible to the naked eye, and the roots rapidly liquefied into black water that emitted a pungent stench.

And those Golden Silk Gu that swallowed the fungus looked like inflated balloons, their abdomens instantly expanding to the limit, followed by popping one after another, bursting into even denser blood mists, accelerating the spread of the plague!

In just half an hour, the top-tier herb field inside the Formation, which had been full of Spiritual Qi and colorful light, completely turned into a dead zone rolling with black rotting mud.

Countless corpses of Golden Silk Gu that had eaten themselves to death and black residue from the Spirit Plants floated in the mud, and the intense, fishy stench was enough to make someone pass out on the spot.

"A total ruin, a total ruin." Shen Xiao pinched his nose, but his eyes were shining with excitement. "Lin Yun, you big blood bag, I'll gladly accept this."

The next morning.

When the first ray of sunlight barely pierced through the morning mist to shine into the back mountain, Deacon Sun Fugui snuck to the outside of the hidden Formation like a thieving rat, looking left and right.

He was still happily clutching a jade box in his hand.

Master Lin Yun was about to go into seclusion to break through a critical Realm. As long as he presented this batch of Qi Condensation Immortal Plants intact today, he, Deacon Sun Fugui, would be able to walk sideways in the inner Sect from now on!

However, when he habitually took out his jade token to open the Formation, his gaze swept over the scene in front of him, and his whole body went stiff as if struck by a Nine Heavens divine thunder.

The jade box slipped and shattered into pieces.

A shrill, distorted scream, like someone mourning their parents, instantly tore through the silence of the morning.

Deacon Sun Fugui's eyes were so bloodshot they looked like they would drip, and he scrambled to the edge of the Formation.

It was gone!

Everything was gone!

The Immortal Plants were gone, the spirit soil was ruined, and even the Spiritual Vein here had been completely polluted by the fungus into a pool of poisonous water!

The ground was covered with the corpses of Golden Silk Gu that had died with their eyes open and disgusting black mud.

This was Lin Yun's trump card for breaking through his Realm!

It was even the lifeblood that he, Deacon Sun Fugui, had spent half his life's savings on, and even embezzled countless public funds from the outer Sect to pile up!

Deacon Sun Fugui was overcome with rage and anxiety, spitting out a mouthful of black blood as he looked up. He seemed to age twenty years in an instant, collapsing into the mud and trembling.

It was over, all over.

Lin Yun would eat him alive!

"Yo, isn't this Deacon Sun? Spitting blood early in the morning—could it be that you're practicing some unique evil cultivation technique?"

A cold laugh full of mockery and ridicule, like a death knell, sounded leisurely behind Deacon Sun Fugui.

Deacon Sun Fugui turned his head abruptly and was shocked to see Shen Xiao walking out of the shadows of the woods with a swaggering gait.

Even worse, Shen Xiao was holding a copper mirror high, flashing with a haunting blue light—the outer Sect surveillance Magical Artifact, the Image-Recording Sky Shuttle!

Shen Xiao had spent a fortune renting this high-definition law enforcement recorder from that black-hearted merchant, Manager Qian, last night.

At this moment, the copper mirror was meticulously recording the miserable state of Deacon Sun Fugui sitting in front of the illegal herb field, as well as this foul-smelling private black enterprise, from every angle.

"Privately building a high-level herb field, lining your pockets, cutting off the Sect's Spiritual Vein."

Shen Xiao looked down at Deacon Sun Fugui, who looked like a stray dog, a cruel arc curling at the corner of his mouth.

"Deacon Sun Fugui, according to the Qingming Sect laws, any one of these is enough for you to take a trip to the Ten Thousand Snake Cave to have your flesh and bones separated. With this ironclad evidence of catching you in the act, do you think I should hand it over to the Law Enforcement Hall, or execute you publicly?"

Pulling the firewood from under the cauldron to cut off his wings.

Once this economic lifeline was broken, what would that so-called Child of Destiny, Lin Yun, use to act big?

Fear, like freezing ice water, instantly extinguished all of Deacon Sun Fugui's luck.

He stared fixedly at the Image-Recording Sky Shuttle in Shen Xiao's hand, the muscles on his face twitching violently due to extreme panic.

Going to the Law Enforcement Hall meant death, and having the matter exposed and being silenced by Lin Yun also meant death!

With no way out, there was only madness.

Faced with the ironclad evidence, Deacon Sun Fugui's originally despair-filled face suddenly twisted violently. Instead of kneeling to beg for mercy like a pile of mud, a harsh, shrill, owl-like laugh erupted from his throat!

"Shen Xiao... you little bastard! Since you won't give me a way to live, then we'll all die together!!!"

Deacon Sun Fugui roared, his blood-stained right hand suddenly reaching for his waist, crushing the Deacon jade token engraved with his own Divine Soul into powder!

The moment the jade token shattered, the situation changed abruptly!

From the bottom of the entire abandoned herb field, which had been lifeless, a blinding blood light erupted like substance!

This blood light did not come from the polluted fungus, but from some ancient Restriction buried deep underground being completely detonated!

The earth shook violently, and rocks collapsed.

Twelve scarlet pillars of light, dozens of feet high, rose from the ground like the fangs of Hell, instantly weaving into a blood-colored light shield that blotted out the sky!

This was a suicide Restriction set up from the very beginning to prevent the secrets of the herb field from leaking!

The violent blood-colored gang wind raged crazily within the Formation, instantly shredding the surrounding towering trees.

Shen Xiao's pupils contracted, and he exerted force on the soles of his feet, wanting to retreat, but the blood-colored light shield closed too fast. Like an inverted iron bowl, it trapped him, the maddened Deacon Sun Fugui, and Xiao Wu—who had been hiding on the edge to confirm the results after releasing the poison last night and hadn't been able to withdraw—all in this square inch!

The System's scarlet notification sound screamed crazily in his mind, but that was not the most fatal thing.

With the activation of the lethal Restriction, a pitch-black crack suddenly tore open in the Void Realm.

A suffocating, terrifying pressure, far exceeding the Foundation Establishment Stage or even the Core Formation Stage, poured out of the crack like a materialized mountain.

That was the Divine Sense belonging to a high-level guardian behind Lin Yun!

This Divine Sense seemed to cross the endless Void Realm, carrying cold, tyrannical, and murderous intent, following the sky-filled blood light, and locked onto Shen Xiao's crown without any suspense!