"Who?!"
The hairs all over Mo Fan's body stood on end in this instant.
His newly relaxed nerves pulled taut once again, tight as a fully drawn bowstring.
In this crisis-ridden inner sect of the Azure Cloud Sect, any carelessness could lead to eternal damnation.
He stared dead at the purple-red high-energy light dot on the edge of his retina, his brain instantly flashing through countless contingency plans for engaging the enemy or fleeing.
However, after observing tensely for a full five seconds, Mo Fan's tightly furrowed brows slowly smoothed out.
"Something's not right..."
He keenly perceived an anomaly.
The movement speed of that red dot radiating tyrannical spiritual fluctuations was simply too slow. Not only was it slow, but its path was exceptionally steady. One could even call it... leisurely.
No stealth, no acceleration, and certainly not the frenzied killing intent unique to a Spirit Beast on the hunt.
Mo Fan quickly calculated in his mind:
"Early in the morning, walking over with this kind of gait—it absolutely cannot be an ambushing Spirit Beast. Moreover, I was just assigned to this godforsaken Hundred Forging Peak yesterday.""I'm a newcomer; aside from that soot-faced Zhao Ziwei, I haven't offended so much as an ant. It's absolutely impossible for this to be someone seeking revenge."
The conclusion was ready to be drawn: It was highly likely some weirdo neighbor wandering nearby who noticed a new house had been built and strolled over to "drop in for a visit."
"Crisis averted, but trouble has arrived."
A sharp light flashed in Mo Fan's eyes, and he swiftly issued a highest-priority command.
"Mo Yan, 003, 004, return immediately!"
Following the surge of his Mana, the skeleton army that had been standing in the underground base like three door gods was forcibly recalled deep into the storage bag at his waist.
They entered a state of absolute, silent hibernation.
Immediately after, Mo Fan transformed into the most seasoned crime scene cleanup master.
He leaped out from the ten-meter-deep underground base back to the concealed clearing on the surface. Then, with quick hands and sharp eyes, he hauled a nearby massive boulder over.
With a thud, he pressed it seamlessly over the hidden trapdoor leading to the underground base.
To throw off any suspicion, he even extremely detail-orientedly grabbed two handfuls of dew-covered dirt and fallen leaves.
He casually scattered them around the boulder, cleanly covering up all traces of freshly turned soil.
Clean.
After doing all this, Mo Fan quickly rushed back into the cyan-tiled stone house Zhao Ziwei had helped him build last night.
He threw himself onto the bed, trying hard to brew a state of "sleepy-eyed" and "bewildered" morning grogginess.
Tap, tap, tap.
Almost the very second Mo Fan finished adjusting his sleeping posture, the simple wooden gate outside the courtyard was knocked.
"May I ask, is Junior Brother Xiaoqi inside?"
A mild, mellow male voice, even carrying a bit of an immortal, otherworldly flair, transmitted in through the courtyard wall.
"I am Xiao Hai of Hundred Forging Peak. I heard from Junior Brother Ziwei last night that you just settled in. I happened to be out for a morning stroll and came specifically to visit our new fellow disciple, and incidentally brought a modest welcoming gift for you, Junior Brother."
This voice sounded like a refreshing spring breeze; one couldn't pick a single fault with it.
Mo Fan deliberately stalled for over ten seconds.
Only when the second series of knocks sounded outside the door did he pretend to have just been woken up, shouting at the top of his lungs:
"Coming, coming! Which Senior Brother is it?"
Yawning and rubbing his eyes, Mo Fan limped out of the stone house and pulled open the courtyard gate.
Standing outside the door was a meticulously dressed middle-aged man.
He wore a well-tailored moon-white Daoist robe, the corners even embroidered with exquisite cloud patterns. A warm jade pendant hung at his waist, and he toyed with a folding fan in his hand.
His face was fair and clean, his features regular, and a friendly smile hung on his face.
If Zhao Ziwei, carrying that door-panel greatsword yesterday, looked like a hot-blooded, chuunibyou, unkempt wild boy...
Then this person named "Xiao Hai" before him was clearly a seasoned "old dough stick" (veteran) who had tumbled for years in the giant dyeing vat of the cultivation world and placed extreme importance on maintaining a decent facade.
"Greetings, Senior Brother Xiao." Mo Fan hurriedly piled on an honest, simple smile and bowed slightly in greeting.
But the instant he lowered his head, Mo Fan's radar was blaring frantically.
Although this person smiled brilliantly, that smile didn't reach his eyes. Hidden in those narrow eyes was a shrewdness and mercantilism akin to evaluating the price of a commodity.
An absolute smiling tiger.
"I presume you are the Junior Brother Xiaoqi that Ziwei mentioned, the one who practices physical tempering to the extreme and caused a huge uproar at the Outer Court Grand Tournament?"
Xiao Hai looked Mo Fan up and down.
Seeing his washed-out coarse cloth clothes and messy hair, a trace of disdain flashed covertly deep in his eyes, but the smile on his face grew even thicker.
"Senior Brother overpraises me. It was all luck, just luck." Mo Fan played it off, not daring to be negligent.
After all, the spiritual fluctuations radiating from the other party belonged to a bona fide Foundation Establishment cultivator.
"Please come in, please come in! My little place is shabby; I haven't even had time to prepare a mouthful of hot tea. I've made a fool of myself in front of Senior Brother."
Mo Fan welcomed Xiao Hai into the courtyard, and the two sat down at the scorched Eight Immortals table.
After exchanging a few completely unnutritious pleasantries like "Are you getting used to living here?" and "The wind in the back mountain is strong, mind you stay warm," Xiao Hai gently closed the folding fan in his hand, and the conversation took a sudden turn.
"As a newcomer to the inner sect, Junior Brother Xiaoqi, do you know that there has always been an unwritten rule among the various peaks of the Azure Cloud Sect?"
Xiao Hai asked seemingly casually, but his gaze was locked dead onto Mo Fan's eyes.
"An unwritten rule?" Mo Fan shook his head, looking bewildered, his eyes full of unadulterated, innocent cluelessness. "Senior Brother Ziwei left in a hurry yesterday and didn't explain the details to me."
"Ziwei? Hmph, he's just a reckless kid who doesn't understand worldly wisdom. What rules does he know?"
Xiao Hai waved his hand dismissively. Subsequently, leaning forward slightly, revealing the dagger when the map unrolled, he smiled and pitched his core business:
"Junior Brother, although our Hundred Forging Peak is located in a remote area and doesn't share the glory of the Main Peak, as fellow disciples, we should absolutely band together for warmth and be intimately united."
"To foster camaraderie among fellow disciples and resist the bullying of those arrogant guys from the outer peaks, I, your untalented Senior Brother, took the lead in establishing a 'Cultivation Exchange and Mutual Aid Society' here at Hundred Forging Peak."
"Mutual Aid Society?" Mo Fan's heart skipped a beat.
"Exactly!" Xiao Hai tapped his palm with his fan, his tone filled with agitation.
"Everyone gathers regularly to exchange cultivation insights, comprehend the spiritual Qi of heaven and earth, share what we have, and elevate our cultivation together."
"If Junior Brother encounters any intractable problems in cultivation, or gets bullied by outsiders, our Mutual Aid Society will naturally stand up for you. Wouldn't that be beautiful?"
On the surface, Mo Fan nodded repeatedly, but internally he was frantically roasting: "Isn't this just a fucking mafia protection racket in disguise?"
"Of course..."
Xiao Hai smilingly revealed his fox tail. "For this Mutual Aid Society to operate, it requires some daily expenses. The initiation fee isn't much; just consider it a token of appreciation from the junior brothers to the organization."
He extended five fingers, waving them in front of Mo Fan's eyes.
"Every month, just 50 [ Sect Contribution Points ] will do. For an inner sect disciple, this is merely a drop in the bucket."
50 Points?!
Hearing this, Mo Fan was completely stunned.
He had just been educated by Zhao Ziwei yesterday. For exiled disciples in the inner sect, the monthly "welfare" contribution value was only 100 points!
This old bastard simply touched his upper and lower lips together and directly demanded to siphon off half of his rations!
So you dressed up looking like a proper human being and ran over here bright and early just to collect a protection fee?!
After the brief moment of dumbfounded shock, Mo Fan's brain spun rapidly like a supercomputer.
Refuse? Directly fall out and say he won't pay? The opponent is at the Foundation Establishment stage, and right now, on paper, he is only a late-stage Qi Condensation body cultivator. If they really fought, without his undead army, he would definitely suffer. If he did use his undead army, in broad daylight, he would be sliced up for research as an evil cultivator tomorrow.
Pay money for peace? Are you kidding me! He, Mo Fan, was an iron rooster (penny-pincher) who would squeeze the remnant souls dry out of the rotting bone ants by the roadside. Plucking feathers from him was worse than killing him!
Looking at Xiao Hai's fake smile, confident that he had him dead to rights, Mo Fan suddenly had a flash of inspiration.
He found an extremely fatal, and arguably the world's most hilarious, logical dead end in the opponent's pitch.
"Senior Brother Xiao..."
Mo Fan blinked those "innocent and clueless" eyes. The expression on his face slowly morphed from dumbfounded shock to extreme innocence and grievance.
He spread his hands, and with an extremely sincere tone, issued a soul-searching interrogation:
"Senior Brother, this 'Cultivation Exchange and Mutual Aid Society' you speak of indeed sounds like a great thing that benefits fellow disciples..."
"But, there is a massive problem here!"
Mo Fan pointed at his own nose, speaking loudly with self-righteous justification:
"I am a fucking waste Spirit Root!"
"Huh?" Xiao Hai froze for a moment.
"Senior Brother, please see clearly!" Mo Fan grew increasingly agitated as he spoke.
"From birth until now, I haven't felt a single shred of the spiritual Qi of heaven and earth! My dantian is cleaner than the rocks outside! If I go attend your exchange meeting, what am I going to exchange?"
Mo Fan gestured animatedly in the air, his voice full of emotion:
"Exchange ideas on how to save effort when smashing rocks with a sledgehammer? Or exchange tips on how to grind calluses onto my own skin?"
"You guys will be at the meeting eloquently discussing how to draw Qi into the body, how to comprehend the Heavenly Dao, how to condense a Golden Core... And me? Am I supposed to sit on the side like an idiot listening to a heavenly script? I can't even understand those cultivation terms you guys use!"
"Senior Brother, you are asking me to pay money to join an organization I fundamentally cannot participate in. Isn't this just humiliating me?"
Silence.
The courtyard plunged into a deathly silence.
That fake smile Xiao Hai had maintained for ages, as if hitting the pause button, instantly stiffened, froze, and then shattered into slag.
His CPU completely fried.
He was a veteran of the jianghu. To collect this 50-point contribution protection fee, he had prepared an extremely flawless set of pitches.
If the opponent said "I don't have money," he had ways to force the opponent to take on missions to pay off the debt.
If the opponent said "I don't want to pay," he had hundreds of underhanded methods to secretly slip them tight shoes (make things difficult) or use martial intimidation.
But he never in a million years expected that this seemingly foolish body cultivator before him would use the consumer logic of "I'm a waste Spirit Root, I couldn't attend even if I wanted to" to tear his high-sounding fig leaf to absolute shreds!
You want me to pay for a class? Sorry, I'm illiterate, I don't know how to read!
"You..."
Xiao Hai's face darkened instantly. An ashen pallor of humiliation turning to rage surfaced on his fair face.
The mask of hypocrisy was torn off, exposing the essence of extortion for all to see.
A trace of sinister malice flashed through his narrow eyes.
The spiritual pressure belonging to the Foundation Establishment stage was no longer concealed; like an invisible hill, it faintly pressed toward Mo Fan.
"Junior Brother Lu, it seems you are refusing a toast only to be forced to drink a forfeit."
"Here at Hundred Forging Peak, no one has ever dared to reject an invitation from me, Xiao Hai!"
He violently slammed the table, just about to tear off all pretenses and suppress him with power.
WHOOSH—!
Right in this moment of swords drawn and bows bent.
An extremely sharp cyan sword light, carrying an ear-piercing shriek as it cut through the air, tore fiercely through the tranquil sky above the canyon like a bolt of lightning!
A figure stepped on a flying sword, hurtling over accompanied by a roaring gale.
Before the person even landed, a resonant, booming curse, loud as a massive bell, echoed throughout the entire canyon:
"Xiao Hai! You shameless beast!"