Dao of Money

258. Keep coming back

Chen Ren felt pain and winced as Yalan held him by his collar and dragged him out of the array he had built, but his eyes stayed glued to Yun Zhaotian who was grabbed by the tendrils.The man pushed lightning out of his body to try to break them off, and when it didn’t work, he even lowered his head to bite them off, but in the end, nothing worked.

The next second, Chen Ren saw the rest of the Thunder Blade Sect disciples jump down, sending projectiles towards the tendrils. Three of them even moved to enter the array to get their senior brother out, but were pushed back by the force of it and slammed into the buildings.

Yun Zhaotian kept screaming and screaming more every second, glaring at Chen Ren and then gritting out, “I’m going to fucking kill you, you bastard of a who—”

But before he could even complete his sentence, the light around him brightened even further, so much so that even Chen Ren had to close his eyes.

He could hear a few people crying out as the light hit their retinas.

After a few seconds, when he finally felt like he could open his eyes again, he saw that Yun Zhaotian was gone.

There was no one inside the array now. And it had stopped glowing altogether.

Chen Ren let out a breath of relief seeing that, as Yalan muttered, “What the heck happened to Yun Zhaotian? Did he die?”

Before Chen Ren could answer, the Thunder Blade Sect disciples were already moving.

One of them cried out and rushed toward him on a flying sword, pulling out a large axe as if he wanted to cleave Chen Ren in half.

He didn’t move, knowing Yalan would step in if needed. But even before she could—

An arrow struck.

It hit the charging disciple mid-air, and a powerful gust of wind burst out of it, knocking him straight down onto the street.

More disciples rushed in the next second and more arrows followed.

They streaked through the air one after another, and as they landed, different elemental attacks burst out from them. Wind, fire, and lightning spread across the street, not killing the disciples but injuring them and forcing them back onto the ground.

Chen Ren watched as the tide turned instantly.

Then, Princess Yanyue stepped forward. She walked up beside him, her bow still in her hand, her gaze cold as she looked at the writhing disciples.

“Get out of here,” she said. “The duel is over, and Chen Ren has won. If you don’t leave my sight, I will kill all of you.”

A few of the disciples groaned, struggling to get up. Then one of them stood.

Chen Ren recognised her immediately—the female disciple from the fourth floor.

She glared at Princess Yanyue, her lips curling up in anger. “No, there was no honour in that duel! His spirit beast interfered. You are royalty. If you can’t see that, then the imperial family has truly lost its way.”

Princess Yanyue scoffed. “Say one more word, and I will cut your tongue off.”

“Try me, you—”

She didn’t get to finish.

Princess Yanyue fired again. The arrow shot forward instantly.

The female disciple tried to dodge, but the arrow followed her movement and exploded right in front of her face. A net burst out of it, wrapping around her body and trapping her in place.

Before anyone else could react, Princess Yanyue moved.

One moment she was standing beside Chen Ren. The next, she was already in front of the trapped disciple, whose face turned pale.

A streak of lightning moved through her body, but it was too late. Princess Yanyue punched her straight in the face before grabbing her jaw and forcing her mouth open with one hand.

The next second, her bow shifted, turning into a blade of qi, and she slashed.

In an instant, the girl’s tongue was cut and fell onto the floor.

Princess Yanyue even kicked it aside as the female disciple cried out and writhed on the street.

Before anyone else could react, she disappeared again and returned to her original spot beside Chen Ren as if nothing had happened.

“Does anyone else have something to say?” she asked.

No one did. More than half the disciples stared at her in shock while another half looked at the female disciple crying out.

“I’ll repeat it,” she continued. “The duel is over. Yun Zhaotian lost. Yalan never attacked him in any way. He lost to Chen Ren. If anyone wants to question it, do it when we return to the real world.” Her eyes swept across all of them. “For now, if I see anyone from Thunder Blade Sect getting in our way again, I will make sure to end all of you.”

At the end of her sentence, she pushed qi into her voice. A heavy pressure fell over everyone present.

Even Chen Ren felt it.

The disciples froze under it, unable to act. They could only glare, their expressions filled with anger.

Two of them moved forward, picking up the female disciple, and one of them quickly stuffed pills into her mouth before lifting her up.

As they turned to leave, one of them looked straight at Chen Ren.

“We will remember this.”

Chen Ren almost replied that there was no way they were going to forget it anyway. But he said nothing.

His gaze stayed on their silhouettes until they disappeared over the buildings.

Then he finally let out a sigh of relief and took out more pills from his spatial ring, gulping them down one after another.

They left a bitter aftertaste, and with how many he had taken in such a short time, he was sure he would need proper rest soon or he would start feeling the side effects. Even healing pills weren’t meant to be consumed like this. For a cultivator, overusing them could be just as harmful as not healing at all.

Still, he guessed he deserved the rest.

He had defeated Yun Zhaotian, no matter how he had done it.

Letting out another breath, he pushed himself up slightly and leaned against Yalan for support. She was still in her larger form, and although she let out a small groan, she lowered herself down, allowing him to rest against her soft fur.

Only then did he look at Princess Yanyue. She was already looking at him.

“You sure are scary sometimes,” he said.

Her lips twitched slightly. “You can’t just be a pretty princess to deal with sects. They look down on that. So I learned a few tricks.” She paused before adding casually, “Either way, that girl’s tongue will grow back. There are plenty of alchemical substances for that.”

Chen Ren raised an eyebrow at that.

For a moment, he actually wondered if sects had pills and methods specifically made for regrowing tongues, simply because cutting someone’s tongue seemed to be a common enough form of punishment or humiliation.

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Honestly, he wouldn’t put it past them. And from how easily Princess Yanyue had done it, he was sure it wasn’t her first time.

For a brief moment, he had even thought she might just kill all of them. But this was better.

Letting them go was the smarter choice.

In the end, most of them would probably die inside the pagoda anyway. There was no way their sect would let them return without pushing forward as far as they possibly could.

It would be a shame and a slap on their face, especially if the other Guardian sects managed to climb higher than them.

That was actually one of the reasons why Chen Ren didn’t want to contend against Guardian sects.

All of them were doomed to die.

Maybe someone like Han Qingshi might survive, just because he didn’t seem like the type to die uselessly. But Chen Ren didn’t bet on anyone else.

As he thought about it, Yalan spoke from behind him.

“What was that anyway?”

Chen Ren asked without turning, “What was what?”

“The array,” she said. “Did it just whisk Yun Zhaotian out of existence?”

Princess Yanyue also nodded. “Yes, Sect Leader Chen. Is he actually dead?”

Chen Ren smiled wryly. “He’s not dead. I just teleported him.”

Princess Yanyue’s eyes widened. “To where?”

Chen Ren took a moment before replying, thinking through what he had done. “What I made was basically a random teleportation array. I bought it from the merchant on the arena floor. It sends whoever is inside it to a random location in the pagoda. It can’t send you to floors you haven’t visited, but anywhere else is possible.”

Yalan let out a small chuckle at that, clearly finding it amusing.

Princess Yanyue added, “So he could be anywhere… from under a lake to the bedroom of City Lord Xiangrui?”

Chen Ren smiled. “That would be a pretty funny sight. I’m sure Yun Zhaotian would die before he even understood what happened.” He paused slightly before adding, “I’m just hoping wherever he ends up, he won’t be able to get back to the eighth floor anytime soon.”

***

Yun Zhaotian had no idea what was going on, but he knew that damn Chen Ren had done something heinous. One second, he had been right in front of him, about to kill him, about to take back everything Chen Ren had stolen from him—his honour, his pride, his standing.

And the next, there were tendrils that wrapped around him, activating an array beneath his feet. For a moment, Yun Zhaotian had thought that was it. That he was going to die right then and there. But then, something pulled him down.

A crushing force pressed against his entire body, as if the world itself was trying to fold him in half. It lasted for only a second, maybe less, before disappearing just as suddenly as it had come.

When he opened his eyes again he froze. A cold, familiar dread settled in his chest as he looked around the dim surroundings.

He was back in the prison on the fifth floor. The very place that had brought him nothing but humiliation.

Chen Ren had teleported him. Somehow, that bastard had created an array that sent him here and Yun Zhaotian hadn’t even noticed it.

His jaw tightened at the sick realisation. How could he have?

That insufferable man had spent most of the fight acting like a weakling, relying on cheap tricks and borrowed items. Nothing about him had suggested knowledge of arrays.

But that didn’t matter now, what mattered was getting out of here immediately.

If he was seen wandering around this place, the guards would not hesitate to come after him.

Yun Zhaotian started moving. But he had barely taken ten steps when his worst thought came true.

A pair of guards turned around the corner ahead, still talking among themselves.

They saw him right away and froze on the spot. For a brief second, he was hoping they wouldn’t recognise him, maybe he could pretend, act like he had come here normally and talk his way out of it.

But the very next second, one of them shouted from the bottom of his throat.

“A prisoner has escaped!”

And immediately drew his sword.

Yun Zhaotian didn’t even try to explain. He already knew from experience that they wouldn’t listen to a single word until they had those damn cuffs on him again—the ones that would seal his qi and turn him into nothing.

So he turned and ran.

Speed was the one thing he was confident in.

Lightning surged around his legs as he rushed through the underground passages, his figure turning into a blur. But the more he ran, the worse it got.

More guards appeared. From every turn, from every corridor, they came out and joined the chase.

At one point, a group of them blocked his path entirely, shields raised in front of him.

Yun Zhaotian didn’t stop.

He punched straight through them.

The impact sent them crashing back, but it only made things worse. The moment he struck them, any chance of explaining himself disappeared.

Now there was no way out except brute forcing his way through it. Fortunately, he was close. He could see the stairs that led up ahead.

If he reached them, he could head straight to the lift and return to the eighth floor.

Yun Zhaotian pushed himself harder, rushing forward—

And then something grabbed his legs.

The lightning around them flickered and vanished instantly. Before he could react, he was dragged backward.

Yun Zhaotian turned, eyes widening as he tried to cut whatever was holding him, but a heavy foot came down on his arm, pinning him in place.

The next thing he knew, the guards were on him. Their chains and hands locked him, and then those cursed cuffs snapped around his wrists.

His qi died instantly.

As they dragged him back toward the cells, the guards shouted at him, their voices filled with anger, but Yun Zhaotian barely heard any of it.

Only one thought echoed in his mind.

The heavens had truly cursed him.

***

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