CHAPTER 56: GRANDPAS NEVER LIE

Old man Di Qian laughed angrily, a purple vein throbbing on his temple as his teeth emitted a grinding sound, most definitely from the frustration of not being able to hurt My Ran.

"Punish evil? Exactly how do you plan on doing that, punk?"

Mu Ran visibly swallowed.

Seeing that the situation was going downhill with each second, Han Xuhan decided to help Mu Ran by jumping out of the boat and swimming his way to the river bank, after which he’d run until he reached the sect, where he could report the incident to the Elders and send reinforcements.

Granted, the whole process might... take a while, but something was better than nothing!

Surely, Mu Ran would appreciate it if Han Xuhan didn’t become a part of the collateral damage in their battle and made sure that the old man couldn’t use Xuhan as a weak hostage to threaten anybody!

Where else can a protagonist find such a smart underling? Not in a Xianxia novel, for sure.

Slithering his way to a corner of the deck unnoticeably, Han Xuhan rolled the sleeves of his robe up and prepared to jump. But right at that moment-

"Hahaha, nice try, old man! You thought you could trick me with that? Take my attack! Astral heatwave!"

Mu Ran’s shout came unexpectedly. By the time Han Xuhan looked back at them, the space where the old man had been standing was empty. Instead, a crumpled body was lying a few feet away and Mu Ran was pointing his fist at it.

"I knew it! Even if the old man was so powerful, he never revealed a hint of his strength despite being insulted and tied up. If I hadn’t noticed the inconsistency in his aura, even I would’ve fallen for his bluff! Indeed, this guy is a scammer to the core!"

Han Xuhan stared with his mouth wide open.

Why hadn’t he noticed any such inconsistency? He might not be a decent cultivator, but he definitely wasn’t dull enough to not notice a flawed or faked aura. It hurt his pride!

"Underling Xuhan, you noticed it too, right? It was so easy to see through! Wait, where did you go?" Mu Ran hollered loudly.

Gritting his teeth, Han Xuhan stomped his way toward the crime scene.

"Of course, boss. Look, I had even rolled my sleeves up to come and help you give this old bastard a beating!"

"That’s too bad, I knocked him out already. If you want to beat him up, wake him up first!"

After being splashed with cold water and a surge of Mu Ran’s qi, the old man opened his eyes, dazed and exhausted.

Mu Ran reached into one of the numerous pouches on his body and pulled out a glittering black marble that seemed to be pulsing with some sort of sealed qi. Han Xuhan could clearly feel the scary aura of a powerhouse leaking out from the marble.

"This is the thing you used to amplify your aura, right? Hehe, using your qi to stimulate the qi inside the crystal? Nice trick."

So that’s how he had been tricked!

Glaring at the old man intensely, Han Xuhan tightened the ropes on him and tied him to the leg of a chair on which a fatty was sitting. One look at the fatty’s magnificent body made the old man lose all hope of escaping. A despairing expression appeared on his face.

"If I return this little trinket to you, you’ll definitely scam more people. As a righteous cultivator, I cannot let that happen. So I’ll take this," Mu Ran explained without a trace of shame and threw it toward Xuhan for safekeeping.

Han Xuhan put it inside one of the twelve secret pockets he had sewn on his robe. It was definitely a very useful treasure. One glance at the old man’s furious face explained that much. Perhaps he had been using that to scam mortals and cultivators alike for a long time.

"Fellow journeymen, our destination is on the next stop, so we’ll have to hand the responsibility of taking this old man to the law enforcers to the rest of you."

Shaking off further responsibilities, Mu Ran returned to his seat with a heroic gait.

About an hour later, the ferry docked at a stop close to Pine Town. They got off the boat while a few enthusiastic passengers practically carried off the old man to the nearest law enforcers on the dock.

Even while he was being carried away, the old man’s eyes stayed on Mu Ran’s figure. If Han Xuhan had been close enough to observe him, he would have realized that the furious look on his face had cooled off, replaced by a cold, observant expression.

"It’s impossible for a normal cultivator in his realm to detect my faked aura. In this lower world, there is no such soul cultivation system that can find flaws in my technique.

"Furthermore, that technique he used to manipulate qi seems a bit familiar. Where did I see it before...definitely not in the neutral territory...It-it can’t be a technique from one of the Solar Aristocrats, right?

"If only, if only little Hei could consume that azure crystal in that necklace and go through her next growth phase, it’d be a simple task for us to cross the poison ocean and bypass the oceanic beast tide.

"Ai~being insulted at this age only because of my injury. That brat from the Crimson Snow sect is definitely not a normal cultivator. His soul is very odd. This matter needs further investigation.

"If it really is what I think it is...then the sect master has to be warned!"

With a flicker of his fingers, the old man sent a small stream of qi flying toward Mu Ran and Han Xuhan, and another toward the fish he called Little Hei.

Despite being out of the water, the fish didn’t seem uncomfortable at all, much to the wonder of the little boy carrying it on a pole. For a spirited beast, it was quite tame, not even as aggressive as a regular fish.

A commotion rose behind him, on the ferry they had just left. A certain rich woman had just stumbled while walking on the deck, and her custom-made, gold-plated, azure crystal had slipped out of her grasp, falling into the river, again.

Unlucky indeed.