Following this question, a man who appeared to be in his late thirties emerged from the ground with a stern expression. His body was of a brownish-yellow colour whilst several black vertical lines ran the length of it.

He didn’t waste any time and asked Yang Fuyou, “Where are they?”

****

“A Nitu Demon? Ah, you’re from the Infernal Myriad Ground Clan. Are you intending to buy or sell some wares today?” asked Yang Fuyou with a smile. Though he was a human himself, because he spent so much time amongst the demons, he could instantly deduce the origins of most of the demons he came across.

The Nitu Demon before him glunched at his words, “You speak too much!”

Boom!

With a wave of his hands, several spikes shot up from the ground intending to impale Yang Fuyou!

Yang Fuyou stared at him with that same warm summer breeze-like smile, “Are you intending to cause trouble at the Qian Dao Sect’s auction house?” he asked.

“Hmph!” The Nitu demon snorted as he continued his attack.

“Wait!”

A shout of panic came from behind the Nitu Demon, which caused the latter to look behind him and, after seeing no one, turned his gaze upwards. At that moment, a shadow broke through one of the windows of the Qian Dao Sect!

The figure flew in an arc over the head of the Nitu demon in an odd posture, “What is that?”

Before long, the figure fell to the ground with a crash before it slid a great distance, coming to a stop at the side of Yang Fuyou.

At this, everyone, and I mean everyone, was staring at this new arrival with an odd expression.

“H-Hu Guan?” in the end, it was Yang Fuyou who broke the silence when he saw his bodyguard.

Now, you may ask, why did Hu Guan’s arrival and subsequent state attract so much attention? Easy, from the moment that Hu Guan blasted through the window, slid on the ground like a drunk driver’s fate, before arriving beside Yang Fuyou, he maintained a kowtow position. The same kowtow position he offered to Long Di which the latter didn’t address because of his pettiness.

However, Hu Guan couldn’t care about what people thought of him at the moment, he had to act! “Great sir of the Infernal Myriad Ground Clan, please have mercy on our auction house’s manager!”

The Nitu Demon’s expression changed greatly when he heard this, “Manager!?”

Dum!

The spikes stopped mere inches from Yang Fuyou’s body.

“Hngh!”

The Nitu Demon took several steps back because of the minor injury he suffered a while ago. There was naturally a backlash to bear when one suddenly pulled back such an attack. Luckily, the attack was a relatively bearable one. If it was much more powerful, the backlash he would face would be many times greater.

Though the previous proceedings took a time and a half to describe, the actual actions took place within the span of several breaths.

Yet, why was this? The Nitu demon obviously knew that Yang Fuyou and Huli Ruo were members of the Qian Dao Sect in one way or another. So why did hearing what Hu Guan had to say cause him to pull back his attack even at the risk of suffering such injuries?

The answer was quite simple. Who among those who held true power didn’t know the terrible implications involved with offending the Qian Dao Sect?

Maybe by killing an insignificant attendant, one could get away with it if one’s background was powerful enough. This was why the Nitu demon attacked Yang Fuyou a few moments after meeting him. Surely, no one young and outstanding would reside in a mundane mortal city. So the Nitu demon automatically assumed that Yang Fuyou and the girl behind him were either attendants, apprentices or even servants, no one important enough to cause any waves.

This line of thought led him to believe that the auction house manager was someone who was maybe middle-aged, and even that was young considering the Qian Dao Sect’s normal operating standards.

Yet, this odd man in kowtow referred to Yang Fuyou as the manager!? What could one say if they attacked and killed the Qian Dao Sect’s auction house manager!?

Plus, with how young this person was, he had to be someone to whom the Qian Dao Sect was paying great attention to.

It was these thoughts running through his head in a flash that compelled him to stop his attacks in a hurry, even though such an action caused a small backlash.

He then stared at Yang Fuyou in silence for a moment before saying, “Can you bear the consequences of allowing such a thing to escape?”

Yang Fuyou’s smile never left his face the entire time, “I have no idea what you’re referring to. I am simply a humble manager running a business. If you are not here to conduct any sort of business, then I wouldn’t be able to entertain you any longer, and can only ask you to leave.”

The Nitu demon stared at him for a bit, then at Huli Ruo for a moment longer and then last at Hu Guan. His face twitched at the sight and couldn’t understand why such a cultivator was doing such a thing?

Plus, even though he was beside Yang Fuyou, he was kowtowing in the direction behind Yang Fuyou while his butt faced the Nitu demon.

“Separate!”

After shouting this, the Nitu Demon stopped paying attention to him and sank into the ground before disappearing from view.

At the same time, the several auras that locked down the area vanished as well, causing the pressure that bore down on everyone to disappear.

Huli Ruo plopped down on her butt as soon as she relaxed, her knees weak from the experience, “That was so scary. I honestly thought I was going to die!”

“We need to make preparations,” Yang Fuyou advised. Even his back was soaked with cold sweat at the moment. The earlier experience made a huge impression on him.

“You’re going to interfere even further in these muddled waters, manager Yang Fuyou?” asked the kowtowing Hu Guan with his head down.

“Y-Yes, I made a gamble and I’m going to see it thro… can you not just stand and speak like a normal person? I’m sure whatever existence is behind Long Di wouldn’t bother with making things hard on you,” he said, feeling it was odd to talk to someone in such a manner.

“You think so?” he asked.

“I do,” Yang Fuyou replied.

“Hmm, I-I’ll do it a bit longer, just to be safe,” Hu Guan stated.

Yang Fuyou was speechless. For how much longer would he need to converse with his own bodyguard in this manner? Huli Ruo, on the other hand, was barely keeping her laughter contained at the moment.

“Ah boy, do whatever you want,” Yang Fuyou said with a sigh.

He then looked towards Huli Ruo with a tender gaze, bereft of the lust seen in others. He extended a hand to her as he spoke in a soft voice, “Let’s go Ruo’er, we’ll be able to move to the next level with everything we’ve accrued.”

“En!” she replied, a bashful smile on her face, as she took his hand.

…

Bang!

A carriage burst through the small forest that lay to one side of Blackstone City without slowing down!

Long Di held the reins before quickly realising he had no idea how to steer carriages, horses or anything of the like! Especially if the ‘like’ in this case was super donkeys!

“Long Di, can’t you control this thing any better!?” asked Yaomu Shou in trepidation as she was being thrown around in the carriage with everyone else.

“Oh yeah, can you do any better?” Long Di asked.

“W-Well… I..” Yaomu Shou really couldn’t do it either. From the day she was born, she never had to drive or steer her own carriage. She had people for that.

“Fine! So what if I can’t!? You still don’t have to be so bad at it!” Yaomu Shou pouted, still bouncing around the carriage like a ping-pong ball’s lovechild.

“L-L-Lo-L-”

“Yes, Feng Yu?” Long Di answered, realising that the girl was finding it hard to speak on account of being affected the same way that Yaomu Shou was.

“I-I-I c-can st-st-”

“Why don’t you do what you want to do before you bite your tongue,” Long Di advised.

The only reason Long Di was able to speak with little to no trouble was that since he was holding the reins at the front, he was more or less anchored in the same place than everyone else was.

Following his advice, Feng Yu, through no small amount of effort, was finally able to arrive beside him before nudging the latter to hand over the reins before he could kill them all.

Realising that killing everyone else via vehicular manslaughter would impede his journey somewhat, he decided to hand it over to her.

Not long after, the shaking subsided and everyone could finally get their feet under them.

Long Di noticed a little side-effect of his driving skills where, if his hands came any closer to the reins by accident, the occupants would stiffen in dread. Seeing this, he decided it would be best to just leave it to be.

“Where are we going, anyway?” Feng Yu asked after a while.

“Gonna take a look at the map so we can figure that out,” said Long Di.

“Thank goodness!” Zi Yu sighed in relief after the shaking stopped.

“Why are you here?” Long Di asked her while he perused the map in his hands.

“I would still like to receive your help with my earlier issue. I hope you know that the Zhen family won’t leave things like this, and like I said, I am prepared to offer you a slot for Ghostfire Forest,” she replied.

“Which reminds me,” said Yaomu Shou. “Long Di can you let me see that beast skin with the Earth Flame’s fluctuations please?”

“Hm? Yeah, sure,” after saying this, he threw her a ring that contained the beast skin.

She took it out and a burst of heat energy rippled out that stimulated the cultivation technique of Feng Yu, Tie Lang and Jia Yan.

They didn’t feel this effect the first time the beast skin was unveiled because they were too far from it. Now that they were in such close proximity, they could feel the effects.

Seeing such a rare opportunity. Both Jia Yan and even Tie Lang took the initiative to start cultivating. Feng Yu was rueful because of missing this chance because she had to steer the carriage lest Long Di trigger multiple second degree murders with his driving skills.

Yaomu Shou didn’t mind this, and was inspecting the beast skin in close detail.

Seeing that not much was happening, Shen Ling chose to sit cross-legged and was just about to start cultivating when Long Di’s voice drifted over.

“Hold off on that Shen Ling.”

Without asking any questions, Shen Ling decided not to cultivate at the moment. Xiannu Liang saw this and was a bit surprised that Shen Ling was so obedient to Long Di, who was so much younger than her.

“Hahaha! We’ve struck it rich!” Yaomu Shou’s laughter rang out.

“What do you mean?” Long Di asked.

She looked at Long with a greedy look in her eyes, to which Long Di followed up with, “I know I look like a snack, but I’m gonna have to ask you to stop being so paedophile-ish.”

“I don’t know what those terms mean, but I am severely angered for some reason. In any case, I’ve got an adventure in mind,” she said, putting Long Di’s last comment to the back of her mind.

“Oh? You’ve found something on the beast skin already?” he was a bit shocked that she was able to find something so quick. After all, the Qian Dao Sect must have people knowledgeable about deciphering things like this. “So then, what’s on it?” he asked.

“This is a map to an actual earth flame!” she cried with undisguised glee.

“Great, so hand it and the girl over and I’ll leave your corpses intact.” A cold voice echoed out that caused the heads of Long Di and the rest to turn towards the source, where they saw a Nitu demon looking at them with disdain.