Crisis Emerges Suddenly

Following the Yang family steward, the three hundred and sixty children from the South Bank lined up and entered the rear courtyard.

"Those clan children in front all seem to have failed!"

"Ah? Really? More than two hundred people, and not a single one succeeded?"

"Of course it's true. Just now when I went to the latrine, I heard two Clan Soldiers talking."

"Looking at this, what the elders said about talent being one in ten thousand is really no exaggeration."

"Sigh... if even the clan children can't succeed, then people like us probably have even less of a chance."

"Are those three on the platform the Immortal Masters?"

"They all look so young, much younger than our parents."

"Shh... keep your voice down, you must not discuss the Immortal Masters recklessly!"

After arriving in the courtyard, these children whispered and murmured among themselves.

Yang Lingqing paid no attention to the children's whispers and raised her hand to signal Yang Feiyun to begin calling out names.

But at that moment, a loud voice suddenly rang out from among the children.

"How spineless! Are we people from the South Bank inherently inferior?"

A tall child spoke loudly.

His words immediately drew the gaze of everyone in the courtyard, and the companions beside him hurriedly tugged at his clothes.

"Zhou Qing! Have you gone mad! Stop talking! Do you want to die!"

"Hmph! I am going to say it today!"

Zhou Qing shook off his companion's arm. "All the hard and dangerous duties are assigned to us from the South Bank, while the clan children at most just go through the motions, and the Yang family sits high up here reaping the benefits without lifting a finger!"

The children standing around him, upon hearing these words, showed expressions of panic and quickly stepped back several paces.

"When Baishi Town was being rebuilt, we from the South Bank suffered the most casualties. When mining the ores, we also suffered the heaviest losses. Especially those fathers and elder brothers who were the first to go to the distant northern mines, fewer than one in ten returned!"

The more Zhou Qing spoke, the more impassioned he became. Even as Clan Soldiers stepped forward to restrain him, he kept talking.

"Those easy and comfortable positions will always fall into the hands of the clan children! The Yang family only needs to sit up here, collect our heavy taxes, drink our blood, and enjoy the fruits of our labor!"

"I am not afraid to die! If you have the guts, strike me down right here! Even if my head is severed and my blood flows today, I will still say these words!"

Yang Feiyun's expression was now extremely gloomy. The three stewards behind him responsible for South Bank affairs were so frightened their faces turned pale.

Whoosh.

Zhao Qi leaped down and waved away the several Clan Soldiers restraining Zhou Qing.

"What? Is the Immortal Master preparing to take my life?"

Zhou Qing's face showed a provocative smile.

Zhao Qi looked at him calmly. "You speak the truth about laborers being injured during the rebuilding of Baishi Town, but you do not mention how much compensation their families received afterward;"

"You speak the truth about deaths and injuries in mining, but you do not mention that under the burning, killing, and plundering of bandits, only our Yang family's North and South Banks remained safe and peaceful;"

"You say that the clan children enjoy favorable treatment, but you do not mention how many of their relatives and elders died or were injured resisting the Beast Tide;"

"As for the taxes you speak of, the North Bank clans pay far more, while the South Bank is only lightly taxed, less than thirty percent of what Liuye and Baishi towns demand. With all this, you still have the nerve to speak of 'heavy taxes'?"

"Not to mention the severe drought two years ago, when there were so many starving refugees in the southeast of Wangchao, with countless dying of hunger. Did the main family ever let you go hungry even once?"

"With just a few words, you wipe away all the main family's many contributions. Who taught you this rhetoric?"

Zhao Qi refuted each of Zhou Qing's statements one by one. The boy, faced with these questions, momentarily turned red in the face.

"No one taught me! These are my own thoughts!"

"Then now, do you still have any grievances in your heart?"

Zhou Qing gritted his teeth, his face twitching as he said, "Just because you say so, does that make it true? What Beast Tide, what bandits! I think they are just excuses you so-called Immortal Masters use to sacrifice mortals!"

"Refusing a toast only to drink a forfeit! You ungrateful little beast, still daring to cause trouble here!"

A South Bank steward over fifty years old trembled with rage. He strode forward and pointed at the mountain. "The four hundred and eighty-four people who died in the Beast Tide, their bones are buried on Song Mountain right now. How dare you utter such treacherous words!"

"Heh, those who died?"

Zhou Qing no longer cared about anything and shouted directly, "Who knows what is actually buried in there? If you have the guts, dig it up and show me!"

As soon as these words were spoken, they completely aroused public anger, and the onlookers all cursed loudly.

On the high platform, Wu Tong gently clasped his hands, his brow slightly twitching.

Seeing this, Yang Yuanhong's eyes immediately showed a fierce look, and a wild, instinctive impulse spread from his heart.

He said softly to Yang Lingqing, "Aunt, I want to kill him!"

"There is something wrong with this person. Stay calm."

Yang Lingqing pressed down on his shoulder, while her other hand had already silently grasped the Yang family's grand formation token.

This person was only a little over ten years old, and suddenly saying these things now clearly meant someone was pulling the strings behind him.

Choosing this moment to cause trouble, and seeking death at that, it was very likely that he had hidden moves, or accomplices.

But regardless, this situation indicated one thing.

The Yang family's outer ranks had been infiltrated.

Upon hearing this, Yang Yuanhong thought briefly, then closed his eyes and concentrated for three breaths, suppressing the murderous intent in his heart.

"Aunt is right. I almost took the bait," Yang Yuanhong thought to himself.

Facing the crowd's curses, Zhou Qing still refused to stop, shouting madly, "You bunch of deeply servile cowards! You deserve to be ridden over, to be beasts of burden for others your whole lives!"

"Silence!"

Zhao Qi stopped the crowd and looked at Zhou Qing. "Do not cause trouble here. Considering you are young and have been deceived by villains, if you admit your mistake now and tell the whole story, I will spare you from punishment. After this, return to the South Bank and live your life properly."

"I'll say it again! No one instigated me!"

Zhou Qing pointed at Zhao Qi and said, "You dog slave colluding with them, stop putting on airs here! Who knows how much human flesh you and the Yang family have eaten in private! How much human blood you've drunk!"

His words were fierce, intending to provoke the person in front of him into attacking.

But unfortunately, the person standing before him, Zhao Qi, was the most cautious person in the Yang family.

Not only did he not attack in anger, but these words instead made Zhao Qi even more vigilant, and he quietly pinched a Vajra Talisman between his fingers.

He then shook his head and said, "Stubborn and unrepentant. Take him away. Execute clan law and throw him into prison."

The Clan Soldiers received the order and surrounded him. Seeing that his plan had failed, Zhou Qing completely dropped his disguise.

Bang.

Suddenly, an extremely powerful aura burst forth from around him, knocking back the surrounding crowd. His cultivation level instantly leaped from that of a mortal to the eighth level of Qi Gathering!

"You die first!"

A rushing punch was thrown, aiming to kill Zhao Qi.

If it had been a skilled eighth-level martial cultivator launching a sudden attack from this distance, Zhao Qi wouldn't even have had a chance to react.

But Zhou Qing was using this power for the first time. Both his techniques and movements were very crude. Moreover, Zhao Qi was already on guard, so he blocked the attack with a high-grade Golden Light Talisman.

"How is this possible? They said I was six levels stronger than you!"

Zhou Qing's face showed great shock. Just as he was about to strike again, he was pinned firmly to the ground by a powerful force, his entire body sinking half an inch into the earth, unable to move at all.

Yang Lingqing used the family protection formation to suppress him. She didn't kill him directly because she wanted to capture him alive for interrogation later.

As the Yang family's formation activated, the four accomplices of Zhou Qing in the South Bank knew they had been exposed. They stopped pretending, removed their concealing techniques, and prepared to massacre the entire South Bank before leaving.

But at that moment, Song Mountain suddenly shook violently.

Everyone looked up and saw four beams of spiritual light, like shooting stars, streak across the sky. In an instant, they landed precisely on four locations in the South Bank.

Following the flash of spiritual light, these four people vanished as if evaporated from the face of the earth, their bodies and bones utterly destroyed!

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