This matter was of grave importance.
After trembling as he climbed back to his feet, Zhou Shier immediately sought out the two remaining brothers of the Twelve-Link Docks who were still present.
The other brothers had already left Xuanwu River City to handle their respective affairs. When the two who stayed behind heard that Zhou Shiyiyi had been casually trampled to pieces, their expressions varied.
Zhou Shier sat blankly in his chair.
Usually the most fond of drinking, he now looked at the fine wine on the table with zero appetite. His eyes could only stare blankly at the burning stove glowing near the edge of the room.
Zhou Lingjiu glared at the brother beside him, his words laced with utter displeasure, "Old Seven! I told you before not to be too reckless when doing things outside, and not to fight over other people's belongings. Now look, they've hunted us down!"
Zhou Lingqi's face flickered with shifting emotions.
His aged face flushed crimson as he slammed a palm onto the table, "Old Jiu!"
"You have no conscience saying that! Didn't you all know when I went out to snatch things from other sects?"
"When I went to rob them, none of you said a word!"
"Now you're all starting to blame me. Isn't this going a bit too far?"
After a moment of awkwardness, Zhou Lingjiu stubbornly retorted, "We did know you went out to rob sects, but you shouldn't target major ones!"
"Those small sects with only a hundred or so people—you could rob them all you want, and would you hear a single word of objection from us?"
"Take the Longmen Escort Agency, Cangjian Villa, Mount Qingcheng foothills, or the Zhou Ling estate—those places have at least a thousand disciples each."
"And their ancestors were powerful back in the day."
"You went and snatched their things, and now nobody knows which sect's ancestor has come looking for us!"
Rolling his eyes in burning anger, Zhou Lingqi snapped, "Damn it, Old Jiu, you really have no conscience!"
"What kind of good loot could you possibly get from robbing a tiny sect of a hundred people?"
"Only these thousand-disciple sects have actual treasures!"
Zhou Lingjiu argued, "Still, you shouldn't have stolen so much. Just look at how many people you've offended!"
Zhou Lingqi cursed, "Damn it, you're blaming me?!"
Zhou Lingjiu replied, "If I don't blame you, who should I blame?"
Zhou Lingqi shouted, "Damn it, I think you're just a coward! It's just one person who came, and he only killed Old Eleventh. If the three of us join forces to attack him, can he possibly block us?!"
"If you ask me, the three of us should just grab our blades, rush out there, and hack him to pieces!"
"Is there any need to agonize over this?!"
Zhou Lingjiu retorted, "Hack him to pieces my ass! Old Eleventh was trampled to death right in front of Old Shier. For all we know, the opponent has already generated a True Essence. If he really has True Essence, the three of us combined wouldn't be enough for him to slaughter alone!"
While the two of them were engaged in a frantic, back-and-forth confrontation, Zhou Shier was in agonizing torment.
"Enough!!!"
His angry roar echoed through the room!
The other two men turned to look at Zhou Shier, who was continually pulling at his hair.
Zhou Shier stood up and said, "This matter is not up for us to decide. The silver that must be paid now, we still have to pay."
"Ten thousand qian!"
"Go get it now!"
Hearing this, Zhou Lingjiu and Zhou Lingqi felt as though their hearts were bleeding.
In the current state of the world, for an ordinary peasant family of five in a small village to scrape together a single qian of silver in a month was already no easy feat.
The opponent had opened a lion's maw and demanded ten thousand—and not just any ten thousand, but a full thousand sheets of them!
What kind of terrifying concept was that?
Ten thousand qian—that was already the sum total of all the silver possessed by many entire sects!
Yet what choice did they have right now?
The opponent's strength was too terrifying, to the extent that they didn't even know what background he came from!
"If only Big Brother were here!"
"Yeah, if Big Brother were here!"
The two men heaved heavy sighs.
Just as they were preparing to go retrieve the silver, a middle-aged ruffian draped in a tiger pelt, with an immensely sturdy build and a nine-ring broadsword strapped around his waist, strode into the council hall.
His face was covered in numerous scars, and his formidable physique looked almost as if two door panels had been stitched together!
The shoes on his feet probably matched the size of an adult's entire chest!
The moment this middle-aged ruffian appeared, the three men froze. Then, looking at him, they truly gazed upon him as if he were their savior!
"Big Brother, you're back!!!"
Overjoyed in their misery, the three of them rushed to the ruffian's side.
The ruffian unhooked the tiger-pelt cloak from his back and let out a hearty laugh, looking down at the three tiny brothers before him. "So, what happened?"
***
The span of a cup of tea later.
Zhou Lingyi held a wide-mouthed bowl between two fingers and gulped down a mouthful of wine. He understood the situation now.
Looking at his eldest brother, Zhou Lingqi felt both indignant and aggrieved. "Big Brother, we must kill this person! This is an open provocation against our dignity."
Emboldened, Zhou Lingjiu chimed in, "Big Brother, this person is far too arrogant. He doesn't take us seriously at all."
"If we let ourselves be looked down upon by this fellow today, there's no telling who might come looking down on us in the future."
Zhou Lingqi agreed, "Exactly, exactly! So, Boss, let's go together and finish this guy off directly. Leave not a single bone of his intact, and throw him into the Xuanwu River to feed the fish."
"It'll serve as revenge for Old Eleventh, too."
The two of them chattered away, their eyes brimming with absolute fury.
For the two of them, they could endure when their eldest brother was away, but now that their big brother had returned—and with a terrifying cultivation like his, at the First Level of Postnatal in the Crystallization Realm—did they still need to show any forbearance? Did they still need to hesitate over anything at this moment?
Not at all.
This was the realm of the First Level of Postnatal, which was completely different from the Innate Great Perfection!
To break through from Innate Great Perfection to the Postnatal Realm required transforming the True Essence within one's body into Spirit Essence!
As for the condensation of Spirit Essence, only those at the Innate Great Perfection knew just how difficult it truly was!
Only by condensing Spirit Essence and turning the internal True Essence Sea into a Spirit Origin Sea could one break through the Innate boundary!
And that wasn't even the end of it!
Upon reaching the Postnatal Realm, one still had to temper the meridians previously opened up!
Completely transforming those meridians into Spirit Essence!
This process of Spirit Essence transformation manifested upon the meridians much like ice crystals forming, hence it was called the Crystallization Realm. Naturally, this was an immensely powerful kind of strength!
So as for their big brother wiping out this pugilist, wouldn't it be as easy as reaching out and plucking something from the air?
Zhou Lingyi cast his fist-sized eyeballs toward Zhou Shier, who was sitting quietly to the side, and asked, "Old Shier, what do you think of this matter?"
Zhou Shier looked at Old Jiu and Old Seven, who had instantly found a backing and whose ambitions soared higher than the heavens.
His heart was filled with bitter anguish.
The reason Old Jiu and Old Seven could be so arrogant right now, the reason they could instantly become so high-spirited, was primarily because neither of them had been present to witness how Old Eleventh had been killed.
He, however, had watched with his own eyes the terror in Old Eleventh's eyes as he was trampled to pieces, along with the desperate look in his eyes as his soul sought to flee. All of this remained vividly etched in his mind.
Yet facing the haughty and arrogant expressions of Old Jiu and Old Seven, what could he possibly say?
"Big Brother, I will listen to you."
Moving with supreme ease, Zhou Lingyi's mountain-like, sturdy frame rose to his feet.
The light in the room was largely blocked out, casting him in the gloomy shadow beneath the overcast sky.
He said, "Let's go. Lead me to take a look at this opponent!"
Zhou Lingjiu laughed, "Haha, that's how our Boss should be! Let's go crush him."
Zhou Lingqi asked, "Old Shier, where is that bastard right now?"
Faced with the three men's inquiry, Zhou Shier sighed. "That pugilist is fishing by the bank of the Xuanwu River. He said there is a pavilion there."
At these words, the three men froze.
Fishing?!
"This pugilist has quite the leisurely mood," Zhou Lingyi muttered, rubbing his chin.
Zhou Lingjiu sneered, "Damn him, he actually dares to fish."
Zhou Lingqi raged, "He truly doesn't know how the character for 'death' is written! He actually dares to fish by our Xuanwu River!"
"He must die!"
"He's a dead man!"
"If he doesn't die, it won't soothe the hatred in my heart!"
Zhou Lingqi's ferocious face was filled with fury. Right now, he couldn't wait to hack that pugilist to pieces!