Leng Chuchen withdrew his long sword and stood opposite Feng Ning with an aura of immense superiority, sneering, "Is your specialty sneaking up on people?"
"Of course not!" Feng Ning shook her wrist, which was still tingling slightly from the sword qi, and with a roll of her eyes, she pulled out a pile of Storage Bags.
Since she could not bury them all herself!
She would just get the disciples of the major sects to help her bury them. Besides, the reinforcements from the other sects and aristocratic families had arrived just in time!
Seeing that these were clearly the Storage Bags of disciples from the major sects, Leng Chuchen understood. "Consider yourself sensible, knowing to hand over the stolen Storage Bags first."
Accompanied by the sound of approaching footsteps, Feng Ning suddenly bowed deeply to Leng Chuchen. "All of these Storage Bags belong to the various sects. I'm giving them all to you. They're packed with good things. Thank you so much for the Sword Sect's help!"
Her sincere voice was full of emotion and impassioned enough to ensure that anyone within a radius of two miles could hear it.
Hearing her nonsense, Di Siyu nearly fell out of the tree. Could... could she really play it like this?
As for Leng Chuchen, he was completely dumbfounded by her expression of gratitude, his brain cells practically shriveling up on the spot.
"What on earth are you babbling about?!"
Before he could figure out the situation, a crowd swarmed in from all directions, led by a junior disciple holding a torch, illuminating the entire clearing in its bright glare.
"People from the Sword Sect? To think you'd actually help Feng Ning commit such atrocities."
Sure enough, everything Feng Ning had just done had been seen clearly and heard loud and clear by all of them.
"Oh heavens! Why did so many people suddenly show up?" Feng Ning put on a look of utter astonishment, retreating behind Leng Chuchen in apparent panic.
"Senior Brother Leng, another mob is chasing us down. I'll leave these people to you. Just treat them the exact same way you handled Xuanming and the others—bury them all in that pit! I believe in you, Senior Brother Leng!"
"As a good-for-nothing, I won't hold you back any longer. I'm making a run for it!"
"I cannot thank you enough for your great kindness! Until we meet again, Senior Brother Leng!"
With that, she even patted him on the shoulder as if they were old friends.
Having never experienced such treatment before, Leng Chuchen was completely stunned by those pats, only realizing belatedly that Feng Ning was using him as a scapegoat.
She had played him and everyone else completely for fools!
"You're not going anywhere!" Leng Chuchen wanted to give chase, but the crowd assumed he was trying to flee as well, and they surrounded him airtight.
"Stop putting on an act! You want to run too!" The leading disciple of the Ye Family thought himself quite clever, believing he had seen right through the swordsman's disguise.
Leng Chuchen's face turned as dark as the bottom of a wok; he truly wanted to hack this entire mob to pieces with a single sword stroke.
"I am not close to Feng Ning!" he argued through gritted teeth.
"Keep acting! Go on, keep acting!" Not a soul believed him. "If you aren't close, would she hand all her Storage Bags over to you?"
"If you aren't close, would she bow to you, thank you for your great kindness, and bid you farewell until next time?"
On the surface, relations among the major sects and aristocratic families appeared harmonious, but underneath, they fought each other to the death.
With the annual sect tournament fast approaching, all the major sects and aristocratic families had entered a tense period of trials, and they would all be thrilled if this talented swordsman from the Sword Sect were to perish tonight.
Consequently, Xuanming, who had just been hauled out of the pit, stood silently to the side, casting a look of profound sympathy toward Leng Chuchen.
"Our Senior Brother really didn't do it! We're just here to rescue people."
"You've wronged our Senior Brother!"
The other disciples of the Sword Sect also chimed in to defend Leng Chuchen, but unfortunately, no one was willing to listen.
They only believed what they saw with their own eyes.
Until a junior disciple picked up his own stolen Storage Bag and muttered, "Strange, why is my Storage Bag empty?"
"Stop arguing! We've been played by that Feng Ning! All the Storage Bags are empty!"
Dead silence! The scene plunged into a deathly quiet.
After this night, Feng Ning became a legend in Yunzhong City. She had blown up the branches of the four major sects and made fools of the five major sects and aristocratic families, yet managed to escape completely unscathed.
She had become a legend among the good-for-nothings, and the target of intense, teeth-grinding hatred from the five major sects and aristocratic families.
Rumors targeting the Feng family flew thick and fast across the city. People said it was because the Feng family had found their biological daughter and ruthlessly abused the daughter they had raised for over a decade, driving her completely insane!
Once again, the Feng family was thrust into the spotlight, unable to voice their grievances as their reputation plummeted to rock bottom.
Meanwhile... when Feng Ning and Di Siyu returned to the Wanshou Sect, they discovered their home had been sacked!
The already modest Wanshou Sect had been blown into ruins, leaving only the conspicuous plaque hanging over the entrance.
Wan Chongshan sat slumped at the sect's entrance, weeping tears and snot alike. "The empire this old man worked so hard to build is just gone like this."
Mo Xuan and the other three sat on either side of him, listening to his howling without the slightest intention of stopping him.
They were feeling quite depressed and worried themselves.
Their Junior Sister was being hunted down by so many sects and aristocratic families; they had desperately tried to lend a hand, but lost their way and couldn't catch up, leaving them with no choice but to return to the sect and wait.
They had no idea if their Junior Sister and Junior Brother would even make it back alive.
"Stop howling, Master!"
Feng Ning arrived travel-worn and looking rather dusty and disheveled.
Di Siyu followed closely behind her, looking more or less disheveled himself.
"Junior Sister! Junior Brother! You're back!"
"..."
Mo Xuan and the three seniors visibly relaxed, speaking in unison.
Only Wan Chongshan continued his howling.
"My young apprentice, this old man doesn't have a home anymore, boo-hoo-hoo... Those Feng family members are too much. They've learned how to demolish houses right from you!"
"Alright, alright! Stop howling already!" Feng Ning's head was throbbing from his wailing. She was partly to blame for this, having acted too impulsively.
"Isn't the neighboring Golden Armor Sect abandoned? It's not far. Let's go take over their mountain gate."
Wan Chongshan's weeping hitched at the words. He blinked his shrewd eyes twice and hesitated, saying, "That doesn't seem quite right."
What's wrong with that? If we take it, it's ours." In the Cultivation World where the strong were respected, why make things so complicated?
"Eldest Senior Brother, carry our sect plaque stone! We're moving!"
Acting like a bandit chieftain, Feng Ning settled the matter with a single word. They needed a place to settle down anyway—and the most dangerous place was the safest place.
The Golden Armor Sect was nestled between two massive mountains, occupying a terrain that was easy to defend and difficult to attack, with a very complex layout.
At that moment, Feng Ning was directing Mo Xuan to replace the Golden Armor Sect's plaque stone with the Wanshou Sect's. From then on, they had a home again.
Despite the narrow mountain gate, the Golden Armor Sect possessed a breathtaking world of its own inside. It could accommodate hundreds of people, complete with a duel arena, a Scripture Pavilion, and a Disciplinary Hall... It was built entirely to the standards of a major sect, and the spiritual energy lingering among the mountains was abundant enough to fully support their cultivation.
Acting like a country bumpkin who had never seen the world, Wan Chongshan walked around with his hands clasped behind his back, grinning from ear to ear. "What a wonderful place! My young apprentice, you are so visionary."
"As long as you're happy, Master." Exhausted from the day's turmoil, Feng Ning felt bone-weary and simply picked an uninhabited courtyard to move into.
She needed to rest and recharge her batteries.
Before falling asleep, she didn't forget to stick a Spirit-Gathering Talisman onto her forehead, only then closing her eyes in peace.
Let this frail little body of hers be cleansed by spiritual energy even in her sleep.
She was simply too weak—she couldn't even defeat a Golden Core Stage swordsman. She had better wash up and sleep first.
She could replay the events in her dreams.
Yet, despite sleeping without dreams, Feng Ning was startled awake in the dead of night.
Rich spiritual energy swirled through every corner of the room. She immediately sat cross-legged, drawing all the spiritual energy into her body.
As she exhaled a deep breath of stale air, dawn was just breaking.
Refreshed and invigorated, she got up and walked out to the mountain gate. Measuring the distance with her paces, she began to set up boundary formations, enclosing the entire mountain gate within a protective barrier.
"Drawing talismans and setting up formations?" Di Siyu leaned against a massive boulder, his hands lazily clasped behind his head as he asked with amused interest, "Junior Sister, just how many talents do you have that I don't know about?"
Was she really the good-for-nothing described in the rumors about the Feng family?