Tengshe was also a ruthless character. Despite his broken leg bone, he actually gritted his teeth and shoved the bone right back into his flesh, then used a strip of cloth torn from his clothes to bind the wound and stood up on one leg.
The charming woman called Yaoji had been terrified at first, but upon hearing Tengshe's words, she gritted her teeth and, taking advantage of Li Daofeng's distraction, charged forward in an attempted sneak attack.
Li Daofeng moved as the wind shifted. With a single step, he was already right in front of Yaoji, ignoring her attack and gently sweeping out with a casual palm strike.
Yet this seemingly effortless palm strike hit Yaoji with the force of a massive impact, sending her flying backward through the air.
Pain was etched across her face! Blood gushed from all seven of her facial orifices, and the leather armor on her body instantly shattered into pieces. By the time she crashed to the ground, she had already stopped breathing.
"If you want to die, I'll grant your wish!" Li Daofeng's icy voice sent a chill through everyone's bones.
Li Daofeng had no intention of letting Tengshe go either. For someone who was given a second chance and failed to cherish it, his method was to send them back to the manufacturer for recycling and remolding.
Stepping over to Tengshe, he ended his life with a single kick.
Two Earth-tier Martial Artists had been killed just like that, without the slightest effort! The hundreds of soldiers lying on the ground had never witnessed such a spectacle; terror was plastered across every single one of their faces.
"Get lost! Or die!"
Facing the hundreds of soldiers, Li Daofeng unleashed a wave of arrogant presence. The already terrified soldiers of the Northwest Marquis scattered in all directions, not daring to linger for even half a second longer.
When their boss had been swatted to death with a single slap, why stay and wait to throw their lives away?
Yet these soldiers had not gotten very far when a voice suddenly echoed through the dark night.
"Such grand arrogance! You've got quite some nerve coming to stir up trouble in my Northwest!"
An overbearing elder, flanked by dozens of men, appeared in the courtyard. Guided by the lantern held by one of his men, Li Daofeng clearly made out the newcomer's appearance.
He was in his fifties and dressed in military uniform!
He exuded an extraordinary bearing—the supreme aura of someone in high authority, looking down from above, though a hint of sinister sharpness lurked between his brows.
There was no need to guess; this man was none of other than Northwest Marquis General Li!
"The Northwest Marquis!" Li Daofeng said coldly.
"That's right! It's me. You had someone send me a message saying you were waiting for me at the old Li family residence! Now I've come! Shouldn't you give me an explanation?"
"This is the Northwest! It's not a place where just anyone can run wild! You killed my Divine Army Commander and beheaded the expert under my command! You owe me an account for this!"
The Northwest Marquis looked at Li Daofeng with an icy expression and said calmly, yet his flat tone carried a thick undercurrent of rage.
"An explanation! You're not even worthy! You let yourself be used as a tool for others without even realizing it, and you call yourself the Northwest Marquis. Look at this... Hahaha..."
Li Daofeng sneered disdainfully, not paying the so-called Northwest Marquis any mind at all.
"Insolent! What do you mean?" the Northwest Marquis said darkly.
"Heh! The dignified Northwest Marquis, the local emperor of the Northwest, allowed himself to be used as a tool by the Jiang family, rushing here to throw your life away without even knowing it! Pathetic!" Li Daofeng taunted.
"Such audacity! Is the Northwest Marquis someone a little bastard like you is qualified to lecture?" a young man behind the Northwest Marquis barked harshly.
"I'm talking to your master. Since when does a dog like you have the right to speak?"
Li Daofeng's expression turned icy as he snapped!
"You..." The young man was subdued by Li Daofeng's overwhelming aura!
"Say another useless word and die!"
"Arrogant! Just because you're a little half-breed, you think you can kill me?" The young man laughed angrily and scornfully!
Without another word, Li Daofeng flicked his wrist, sending a silver needle flying straight into the young man's throat.
Everything happened too fast; no one had time to react! It wasn't until the young man collapsed to the ground, lifeless, that the crowd finally snapped back to reality.
"Little bastard! You're asking for death!" No longer able to suppress his fury, the Northwest Marquis let out a harsh roar.
"Kill him!"
At the Northwest Marquis's command, an elder behind him leaped forward.
Like an agile ape, he sprang high into the air and struck toward Li Daofeng.
The elder's moves were vicious and ruthless, every single strike carrying lethal intent.
In the blink of an eye, he had already exchanged more than three blows with Li Daofeng.
"Seeing that you're old, I'll let you make three moves! The three moves are up, time to send you on your way!" Li Daofeng said this with one hand behind his back, having parried the elder's attacks using only a single hand.
Hearing this, the elder felt as though he had suffered a humiliating insult. His face flushed with anger, and he accelerated his attacks, only for Li Daofeng to strike him squarely in the chest with a single palm.
The immense palm force instantly shattered the elder's heart meridian!
A flush of dark red rushed to the elder's face before he collapsed to the ground, dead.
"Master Gongfeng!"
The Northwest Marquis was shaken to the core, refusing to believe this was real.
The elder was one of the two Heaven-grade experts he retained as personal honor guards!
One of the top-tier powerhouses in the entire Northwest had just been killed right before his eyes.
"Who on earth are you? Coming to the Northwest to cause trouble, what is your true intent?" the Northwest Marquis asked warily.
He assumed that Li Daofeng's rampage in the Northwest was the work of his political rivals operating in the shadows to take him down.
"I said you were stupid, and you didn't like hearing it! From the very beginning, I've made it clear that I'm only targeting the Jiang family! You are the ones who came one after another to throw your lives away; what does that have to do with me?"
"Get lost now while you still have the chance, otherwise a piece of trash like the Northwest Marquis is no different from a dead dog in my eyes. Killing you is nothing more than the trouble of a single silver needle!"
Li Daofeng was supremely arrogant, showing the Northwest Marquis zero respect. In his words, the terrifying Northwest Marquis, ruler of the region, was no different from a dead dog.
"Audacious brat! I don't care who you are, nor how capable you might be. If you dare to cause trouble in the Northwest, you must be prepared to die!"
"If I don't leave you here today, how will this old face of mine ever survive in Yan Country?" the Northwest Marquis said viciously.
Li Daofeng had slaughtered countless people on his turf today! He had even killed several of his elite experts, including one of his Heaven-grade retainers. If Li Daofeng were allowed to walk out of Wancheng just like that, he might as well hang up his title as the Northwest Marquis!
"Since that's the case, feel free to try and see if you, the Northwest Marquis, can stop me!" Li Daofeng said dismissively.
"Humph! Thirty-six guards! Take this brat down, dead or alive!" the Northwest Marquis roared fiercely.
"Such grand airs from Uncle Li! Who is it that Uncle wants to take down?"
Just as the atmosphere in the courtyard reached a boiling point, a woman's voice suddenly rang out!
All eyes turned toward the gate to see a mature woman in uniform stride in briskly, closely followed by another woman.
Who else could it be but Huang Wenyin and Li Xuemei—the very ones Li Daofeng had misunderstood on the airplane.
Seeing Li Daofeng, Huang Wenyin greeted him with a smile: "Mr. Li, we meet again! That hurried parting on the plane made it quite difficult for me to find you afterward!"
Before Li Daofeng could reply, General Li, the Northwest Marquis standing off to the side, froze in place.
Others might not know Huang Wenyin's identity, but he was crystal clear about it.
What shocked him, however, was how someone of Huang Wenyin's stature could possibly have any connection to Li Daofeng. From what he knew, eight years ago, Li Daofeng was merely a live-in son-in-law of the Jiang family who wasn't even treated as well as a dog.
How could a good-for-nothing like him possibly know someone like Huang Wenyin?
Moreover, judging by Huang Wenyin's greeting, she seemed exceedingly polite toward Li Daofeng.
Li Daofeng looked at the two women with a mixture of helplessness and speechlessness in his heart. These two women really knew how to pick their timing—not coming early, not coming late, but showing up right while he was being ambushed, and in the middle of the night at that.
Two young women out in the middle of the night, instead of sleeping at home, running off to find a man! What on earth were they trying to do...
Were they having another episode?
"Miss Huang! Miss Li! What brings you two out here in the middle of the night?"
"Mr. Li saved my life, and I hadn't even had a chance to say thank you! Now that I knew Mr. Li was here, how could I possibly miss the chance to come and express my gratitude?"
Huang Wenyin smiled at him, and amid the darkness, it made Li Daofeng swallow hard against an impulse.
The Northwest Marquis snapped back to his senses, frowning as he asked Huang Wenyin, "Miss Huang! You know this brat?"
"Uncle Li! It's been a while, and you're looking even more majestic than before! Even in the Imperial Capital, your niece has heard of the Northwest Marquis's great name!"
"Miss Huang flatters me!" Facing a mere young woman, Northwest Marquis General Li put on no airs whatsoever.
"Who doesn't know of Uncle's capability!"
"I just wonder what brings the Northwest Marquis to this decrepit place, and with so many men in tow, weapons drawn? Is there perhaps some misunderstanding between Uncle and Mr. Li?" Huang Wenyin asked, her beautiful eyes wide with innocent curiosity.
With so many corpses strewn across the ground in a horrifying scene of carnage, she dismissed it all as a mere "misunderstanding."
"Miss Huang doesn't understand. This brat is profoundly arrogant and has slaughtered many of my subordinates! If I don't punish him, where would I, the Northwest Marquis, put my face?"
The Northwest Marquis's tone was icy; his words were also a warning to Huang Wenyin that he was determined to kill Li Daofeng.
"Heh! Uncle's subordinates are all capable men, so if anyone dared to kill them, there must be a huge misunderstanding here! In my view, why don't we just let this matter rest? What does Uncle think?"
Good grief, if that wasn't a slap in the face!
The Northwest Marquis's men were literally lying dead at her feet, their bodies not even cold yet, and she was standing right beside the corpses singing praises like this—wasn't that utterly sickening?
"Humph, a misunderstanding? Miss Huang, the Heaven-grade expert I retain was killed! Hundreds of guards were killed! Four of the thirty-six elite masters under my command were killed! And you call this a misunderstanding?"
"Under normal circumstances, I would give Miss Huang face no matter what, but not this time! If I let this go, how could I ever show my face in the Northwest again, and who would ever dare risk their life for me?" the Northwest Marquis said through gritted teeth.
"So that means Uncle Li has no intention of letting my savior go?"
Huang Wenyin wiped the smile from her face, her expression turning stern.
"Who the hell do you think you are, talking to our Marquis like that!" a woman beside the Northwest Marquis snapped angrily, unable to watch any longer.
"Shut up!" General Li, the Northwest Marquis, barked. "Do not be rude to Miss Huang!"
He then turned back and said, "Miss Huang! It's not that I refuse to spare your savior, but this brat killed many of my men right on my own turf. As the administrator of the Northwest, how could I let him get away with it?"
Huang Wenyin's pretty face turned frosty, and she said coldly: "Mr. Li is my savior. If Uncle insists on giving him a hard time, does that mean Uncle Li has no regard for my father's face?"
"How dare I! But Miss Huang must also understand my predicament! If someone can kill people in the Northwest and I do nothing about it, wouldn't the Northwest descend into chaos?"
"It's not that I won't give Elder Huang face, it's just that I must prioritize the bigger picture. I believe Elder Huang will understand!" The Northwest Marquis replied with a smile that didn't reach his eyes.
Li Daofeng, who had been standing quietly to the side, also caught the drift: Huang Wenyin's identity was likely far from simple.
Yet he still didn't need a woman to rescue him.
A mere Northwest Marquis and a handful of Earth-tier Martial Artists weren't enough to block Li Daofeng's path.
"Humph! Such big words! If I want to leave, do you really think the likes of you can stop me?"
"Not killing you is just because I don't want to rack up too much karmic debt from slaughtering. But that doesn't mean I can't kill you! For Miss Huang's sake, I'll ask you one last time: are you going to get lost, or not?" Li Daofeng said coldly.
Hearing this, a savage grin appeared on the Northwest Marquis's face as he barked: "Brat! Today I'll teach you that a person cannot be too arrogant, or you'll die a very miserable death!"
"If you want to die, I'll grant it!"
With those words, Li Daofeng vanished like a phantom, reappearing directly in front of the Northwest Marquis, reaching out to grab him by the throat and hoist him into mid-air.
In an instant, everyone present was struck with terror!
"Brat, let go of the Marquis, or this old man will make you die!"
"Let go of the Marquis..."
The elite experts under the Northwest Marquis's command panicked instantly, shouting furiously for Li Daofeng to let go, yet held back by fear of harming their master, none dared to pounce.
* * *
"You're the one asking to die, don't blame others!"
Li Daofeng spoke with icy coldness, tightening his grip, ready to finish off the Northwest Marquis then and there.
"Hold your hand!"
Suddenly, a crisp shout rang out, making Li Daofeng frown deeply.
He felt as though he had poked a hornets' nest today or something—every single time he was about to kill someone, some show-off always popped up to interrupt him.
Judging by the voice, this time it seemed to be a woman as well.
By now, the sky was already growing faintly bright, making the surroundings clearly visible. Everyone turned their gaze toward the main gate, only to see an exquisitely beautiful woman dressed in an apricot-yellow Han-style gown appear before them.
"Sister Shang! Why are you here?"
Seeing the newcomer, Huang Wenyin ran over joyfully and linked arms with the woman, looking extremely affectionate.
"I've come to introduce you to your fiancé!" The woman affectionately tapped the bridge of Huang Wenyin's nose and said with a smile.
"Aiyah! Sister Shang, you're teasing me again! Did my mother send you?" Huang Wenyin twisted her body coyly, protesting.
"You guessed wrong this time! Sister isn't tricking you, I really am here to introduce your fiancé! You'll see in a moment!" The woman surnamed Shang said as she slowly walked toward Li Daofeng.
Looking at Li Daofeng, she recited:
"Misty trails of Smoke Ridge linger high, Cloud-veiled forests separate Taixu!"
Hearing this, Li Daofeng's eyes flew wide open as he stared at the woman in utter disbelief.
For no other reason than the verse this woman had just recited—
It was carved onto the two sides of the cave where his master lived on Taixu Mountain. In this world, apart from himself, his master Daoist Taixu, none of his senior martial sisters—whom he had never met—knew of it.
Now, this stunning woman had recited those two lines right to his face. Even if he used his heels to think, he knew she had to be connected to him.
"You are..."
"Hahaha! You little brat! Having met your Eighth Senior Sister, why aren't you paying your respects? Careful your Eighth Senior Sister spanks your butt!" The woman laughed, dropping such a fierce and racy phrase.
Li Daofeng could only curl his lip upon hearing it. This woman was a bit of a little pervert herself!
Was a rear end something you could just talk about casually? Looking so pretty, why wasn't she a lady? Shouldn't she have called it her gluteus or something more refined?
Still, he was now basically certain that this woman was without a doubt his Eighth Senior Sister!
For no other reason than his old, unrespectable master—how could an old pervert like him teach any proper disciples? Only his own restraint was a bit better, preventing him from being corrupted by the old pervert.
He wasn't wronging his master by saying this; he had evidence!
He remembered a few years ago when he went to his master's living cave once and actually found the old man red-faced and panting heavily.
At the time, he thought the old fellow was about to kick the bucket or something, and rushed in out of sheer worry.
The moment he rushed in, both he and the old Daoist priest fell into excruciating awkwardness.
His master wasn't about to kick the bucket; he was actually reading a book called *The Lantern Monk*! The kind with illustrations!
At the time, staring at those vivid illustrations, the awkwardness was indescribable!
Yet after the old fellow snapped back to reality, he actually explained with a straight face that he was genuinely researching a secret manual of Yin-Yang harmony titled *The Thirty-Six Techniques of Dongxuanzi*.
The old man had lied with his eyes wide open. Li Daofeng might have had a kidney removed, but he wasn't blind—he still recognized the four characters *Lantern Monk*.
Besides, *The Lantern Monk* and Dongxuanzi had nothing to do with each other! Even if they were trying to fool him into thinking he couldn't read classical text, he could still count those few characters.
Yet at the time, the old man had looked so deadpan that it made Li Daofeng feel as though he was the one who had committed a grave error.
It really proved the saying: as long as you aren't embarrassed, the person who's embarrassed is always someone else.
Thinking of the old man's wretchedness, and then hearing this woman's racy remarks!
That settled it—they came from the exact same mold!
"Eighth Senior Sister? Why are you here?" Li Daofeng said speechlessly.
"Don't get me started! I received a letter from that old man saying my little junior brother had descended the mountain and was in Wancheng, telling me to come help you out! He even said something like you might have a huge need for it, telling me to bear more of the burden!?"
Whenever she mentioned her master, the woman addressed him directly as "that old man." She chuckled and continued:
"Who knows what kind of nonsense that old man was spouting! When I asked him, he wouldn't explain, just dropped a line saying I wouldn't get the short end of the stick and that I was guaranteed to love it, and then stopped talking!"
"So I had no choice but to come to Wancheng to find you, you little brat! I never expected you to be so capable—you came for a single day and turned Wancheng upside down! Impressive... you take after your senior sister here..."
"Oh! I forgot to introduce myself! My Eighth Senior Sister name is Shang Wanqiu! Remember it! Forget it and I'll beat your butt..."
Shang Wanqiu rambled on and on, from start to finish not sparing the Northwest Marquis and the others even a single glance, as if this Northwest Marquis who ruled the region was just a minor transparency, not even worth talking about compared to her junior brother Li Daofeng's backside.
"Senior Sister! Can you be a little more lady-like? Stop talking about butts all the time! Say something elegant and civilized! You're a girl! You need to be a lady!" Li Daofeng said speechlessly.
"Lady my foot! If your old lady here wanted to be a lady, I wouldn't have been taken in as a disciple by that old man. Cut the crap, drop whatever you've got in your hand and come with Senior Sister. Senior Sister has found you a good wife! Let me introduce you!" Shang Wanqiu said dismissively.
Yet the dignified Northwest Marquis had just been casually dismissed as "whatever you've got in your hand"!
However, facing Shang Wanqiu's audacity, the crowd of experts present—including the Northwest Marquis himself—did not seem particularly displeased. Instead, upon hearing the name Shang Wanqiu, shock was plastered across all their eyes.
Shang Wanqiu!
In recent years, this name had carried a legendary aura throughout Yan Country. Among high-ranking officials, dignitaries, leaders of major factions, and martial arts experts, there were very few who hadn't heard of it.
To name just one example, take the Huang family of the Imperial Capital. A few years ago, the Huang family was merely a wealthy household with some money, having nothing to do with true power or nobility. Yet simply because this woman appeared at the Huang family a few years ago, the Huang family leaped into the ranks of the powerful elite overnight, to the point where even someone like the Northwest Marquis had to show deference to the Huang family's misses.
Everyone in high society knew that Shang Wanqiu was not only formidable in strength, but her background and identity were also far from simple. Rumors whispered that she had close ties with the Empress of Yan Country herself.
Aside from that, the woman herself was terrifyingly capable.
Not only was her appearance exceptional, but her intellect and methods were top-tier.
*"Shang Wanqiu is this little bastard's senior sister?"* The Northwest Marquis muttered inwardly, his expression turning even heavier.
*"No wonder this little brat is so brazen, daring to launch a bloodbath in the Northwest! Turns out he has a woman like this backing him up!"* Another Heaven-grade retainer beside the Northwest Marquis whispered.
*"Marquis! Today's situation is probably going to be hard to handle!"*
*"Humph! Whoever she is, no one is taking this little bastard away today!"* The Northwest Marquis muttered fiercely in a low voice.
Just as the Northwest Marquis finished speaking—