Shu…

A sudden movement caught Long Di’s eyes, and he turned his head to see shuffled movement from the shadows.

****

He activated his heavenly gaze but saw nothing there.

“This..”

Long Di heard Jingyi Yu and looked back to see her inspecting the corpse with a serious look on her face.

“You’ve seen this before?” He asked her, and everyone looked over to her in turn.

“Something similar,” she admitted with a nod.

“Where?” Mad Sword Haoran asked.

“It can’t be…” she whispered under her breath.

“Can’t be what?” Mad Sword Haoran urged on.

However, she was silent as her eyes narrowed under her surveyance.

“Spit it out!” Black Fortress Guo Da yelled.

Mad Sword Haoran turned around with his sword drawn. “Shut up!”

“Why don’t you-”

Shu!

Another person arrived and was visibly disturbed by the scene before him.

He haphazardly cupped his fists to the nobles and heroes before he clumsily left the combatant room, but never took his eye off the corpse the entire time.

“He must have lost,” Heavenly Sun Noble surmised.

As soon as she said this, another person arrived. People then began popping up in irregular intervals.

However, there wasn’t much noise. The presence of this corpse greatly unnerved them.

“Excuse us!” A shout came from beyond Long Di’s view. The crowd parted to reveal a few elders from Golden Lion Gate.

At the head of them was Enforcement Elder Cheng, whom Long Di had less of an amicable relationship with. Several other elders trailed him behind with grave expressions as well.

Normally, anything that is seen as the breaking of rules falls under the jurisdiction of the enforcement elder. However, because of the importance of the competition this time around, though he was in the lead, he also had other elders to help as well.

After all, not only were they entertaining the Divine Daughter of Ice Phoenix Hall and one of the Five Nobles from the same, but they were also hosting a competition that contained some of the Five Nobles and the Seven Heroes. If this was handled poorly, they wouldn’t have a good time in the future.

When they appeared before the corpse, their expressions turned ever graver.

In truth, they had never hosted a tournament the size of the one they were hosting now. They normally had this tournament once a year, and it was an inter-sect tournament at that.

Because of this, although they were witnesses to near-crippling injuries and wounds, death was far from being a real thing due to the safeguards in place. The tablets could be activated with only a thought, and the presence of the elders was perfect for stopping such things from happening.

The Enforcement Elder whispered into one of the other elder’s ear and the latter nodded before he took the corpse and exited the combatants’ room.

The enforcement elder scanned the room and then he spotted Long Di.

“You!”

“You too,” replied Long Di with a hand gesture of his index finger pointing forward and his thumb outward.

Enforcement Elder Cheng’s anger flared when he saw Long Di. This child made a fool of him in the city.

“You dare to stay here!?” Enforcement Elder Cheng's eyes narrowed at Long Di. “After what you’ve done!?”

Seeing the enforcement elder focus on Long Di like this caused many of the other disciples to look at him oddly.

What was going on?

“So that’s your play? You’re framing me?” Long Di immediately knew what this enforcement elder was planning to do. He saw it happened way too many times in cultivation novels.

Enforcement Elder Cheng sneered when he heard this. “I didn’t even say anything and you’re already jumping to conclusions. Isn’t that the action of a guilty conscience!?”

Long Di could feel a headache coming on. “Okay then. Let’s play along. What am I guilty of here?”

Enforcement Elder Cheng hated Long Di’s apathetic expression. It was like nothing could move him or that no one could touch him.

“You’re the one who’s responsible for the corpse from earlier!”

The remaining elders who came with the enforcement elder were shocked to hear this, but when seeing the subtle gesture from the enforcement elder, they immediately understood and anger overflowed from them as well.

“That’s right!”

“We have proof!”

“Nonsense!” Violet Flame Noble immediately stood up in Long Di’s defence at the blatant accusation.

One of the elders cupped his fist to Violet Flame Noble. “Violet Flame Noble you are a generational genius and an example to the younger generation. However, we do ask that you don’t get in the way of our investigation.”

“What investigation? You just saw a weird corpse and then blamed it on Long Di!” Violet Flame Noble couldn’t believe it.

“Long Di?” the Enforcement Elder’s eyes narrowed. “Wasn’t your name Di Long?”

“Oh, shit.” Violet Flame Noble realised he had his foot in his mouth.

“Well, screw me from an obtuse angle,” Long Di cursed under his breath.

‘This looks bad. Okay, no need to panic. Execute plan verbal getaway number one.’ Long Di looked at the enforcement elder and responded. “Di Long, Long Di, what’s the difference? Weren’t we all Long Di’s at some point in our lives? What is a Long Di, really? I’ll tell you what’s a Long Di. I’m a Long Di, You’re a Long Di, We’re all Long Di’s.”

“What the hell are you talking about!?” The enforcement elder yelled.

Long Di raised his hand and answered. “The profoundness of Long Di?”

Enforcement Elder Cheng was confused for a good ten seconds before his anger returned. “Trying to trick me!? You lied about your name, so who knows what else you’re lying about!?”

“Oh, you’re still on about that? Well, goddamn.” Long Di’s verbal getaway plan number one failed.

“You killed someone!” Enforcement Elder Cheng roared.

“Hm, sounds fatal,” Long Di nodded.

“That’s right! It is fa…” the enforcement elder paused for a moment because the earlier statement sounded strange for some reason. But he couldn’t find anything wrong with it.

“What’s your actual name!?” one of the other elders asked Long Di.

Long Di put a finger to his own chest. “You want it from me?”

The elder’s reddened with anger. “Who else would I get it from!? The air!?”

“Well, you called me a liar. By that logic, doesn’t it stand to reason that whatever name I give you is a lie?”

“W-Well... But I… y-you…” The elder stuttered when he heard what Long Di said.

Long Di continued. “Moreover, didn’t you already hear the name from Firecracker over there?”

“Who the hell is firecracker!?” Another elder asked.

“Him,” Long Di pointed at Violet Flame Noble. After saying this, Long Di feigned enlightenment. “You know what? I DO have a problem. I can’t seem to stop lying. Look at me calling this young man Firecracker. I am a liar and I will own it.”

Saying this, Long Di turned around and walked away.

“W-Where are you going!?” Enforcement Elder Cheng called out. He found it hard to handle this child.

Why was he so odd!? He didn’t act as one would expect at all!

“I’m going away.” Long Di waved behind him as he walked away.

Dum!

“Stop right there!”

Enforcement Elder Cheng’s cultivation base exploded as his cauldrons whirled behind him.

Nine cauldrons rumbled while eight flashed furiously with their star cores. Enforcement Elder Cheng's cultivation base was revealed as an eight-star-core martial master.

“Really?” Long Di’s gaze was one of severe indifference. “What do you want from me now?”

“What do you mean w-”

“Stop repeating my own questions and just answer. You’re a chore to talk to.”

Enforcement Elder Cheng trembled with rage at Long Di’s audacity. However, he forced himself to calm down but kept his cauldrons out.

“You can’t just kill a genius like that and walk away. You need to be punished!” Another elder declared.

“You carted off like that genius like he/she was refuse. And what do you propose I wonder?” Long Di was nearing his end regarding social interactions for today. He was now 67.4% sure his mileage gets worse when idiots are involved.

‘I wish I was a metaphorical hybrid car in that sense, like a serial killer… or teenagers. I wanna eat something delicious-ish. I only joined this stupid tournament to get justice for Sun Zixin, but it turned into this. This is so annoying and now there’s an evil cultivator running loose, sucking out people’s vitality and one-upping the vampires from Twilight at the same time. You know what? Imma be willful this one time. I’m strong enough, right? Yeah, I’m strong enough… ish.’

“That’s crazy!”

A cry of shock rang out that caused Long Di to be shaken from his thoughts.

‘What’d I miss?’

The earlier comment came oddly enough from Heavenly Sun Noble.

“It’s an apt punishment for a murderer!!”

“What are we doing here?” Long Di asked.

Violet Flame Noble explained. “They want to expel you from the tournament-”

“Go on.” Long Di was liking these punishments so far.

“They also want you to make reparation so they can explain to the cultivator’s sect and family.” Violet Flame Noble finished.

“I’m gonna stop you right there,” Long Di put a finger to his mouth to stop Violet Flame Noble from going any further.

“I’m going to make demands right now. One,” Long Di put up a finger to mark off what he was about to say. “I’m going to leave and you’re not going to do a damn thing about it.”

“Two,” he put up another finger. “I want the light shroud evil durian that you guys stole from a mortal.”

“And third,” he put up a final finger. “Tell Qin Ling and Wei Yun that if they don’t come and see me, they can forget about me helping them. Cuz they want more help from me than I need from them.”

A raucous laugh erupted immediately, and everyone looked over to see a dashing youth heading over. It was Xiong Weizhe, the most gifted youngster of Golden Lion Gate.

“People tell me that I am arrogant, but now I have seen someone more arrogant than me!” Xiong Weizhe came up before everyone else.

“You think you are worthy of the Divine Daughter’s grace!? Don’t think that just because you have one of the Five Nobles below you that you are unrivalled!”

As soon as he said this, the countless young experts in the room sneered at Long Di. They thought that he was only like this because he had one of the Five Nobles backing him.

He was a sheep wearing tiger’s skin.

“Tch! I thought he was someone capable!” sneered one expert.

“Scram!” barked Xiong Weizhe. “You probably don’t even have the funds necessary to pay the reparation. Us at Golden Lion Gate will bear this burden.”

Long Di stared at him wordlessly for a few seconds before he turned around and walked out of the room.

As soon as he did this, the rest of the experts that held back on passing judgement on Long Di immediately marked him off as a fraud, a coward, and a weakling.

Once he was out of sight of the experts in the room, a startling explosion spread out as destruction escalated.