Chapter 13: Either Take the Beating or Get Out

Chapter 13: Either Take the Beating or Leave

What had that woman said? Why did Pei Zhi keep glaring at him so fiercely?

Xue Youtan rubbed the jade thumb ring on his finger, puzzled, and Feng Mingjue, standing beside him, raised his right hand and swept it down. In an instant, everyone inside the formation threw both hands up in a defensive stance, but the overwhelming internal force still drove them to their knees.

"Patriarch, you used the Cloud Palm!" Yueli's fan, which had been swaying, froze as he blurted out in surprise.

Xue Youtan had read descriptions of Feng Mingjue's Cloud Palm technique in books. It was said to look like a sheet of transparent tempered glass dropping from the sky, each wave of his hand making the glass come down harder, until it hit the ground and squashed people flat as crackers.

This was Feng Mingjue's ultimate demon-killing move, and it packed a serious punch.

The people in the formation were clearly juniors who hadn't even hit the golden core stage yet. Even if they'd barged onto the mountain and broken Cangya Mountain's rules, there was no need to go this hard.

This old man hated demons that much? There had to be a story behind it.

Xue Youtan opened his mouth to plead for them, but then he saw Pei Zhi in the formation get driven to his knees by the pressure and cough up a mouthful of blood. He tried to get up, but after a few attempts, he just spat out more blood.

Tsk, this male lead really had a stubborn streak. Kneeling wouldn't cost him any skin—why was he so dead set on standing?

On Pei Zhi's fifteenth attempt to fight off Feng Mingjue's internal force and rise from under the Cloud Palm, Xue Youtan made his move. His Liguang blade slid from its sheath, and in one fluid motion, he sliced through the glass and yanked Pei Zhi out.

With the Cloud Palm's pressure gone, the veiled woman and her companions traded glances, then all made hand seals at once. A thick puff of smoke burst out, and they vanished into thin air.

"Master, those were demons! What if they stole something of ours and fled down the mountain? How could you let them go?!" Li Luoshu's words drew everyone's gaze to Xue Youtan.

Oh, his precious disciple—whose side was he even on? Always stirring up trouble for him.

Under the eyes of the whole Cangya Mountain, Xue Youtan calmly let go of Pei Zhi's collar. Pei Zhi slumped to the ground, sat there, and coughed twice into his hand.

The next second, he heard Xue Youtan say, "My disciple should be disciplined by me. The Patriarch hit way too hard—if he'd killed him, how was I supposed to discipline him?"

No matter how you spun it, that sounded like favoritism. Li Luoshu felt sour about it, but he didn't let it show. Instead, when Xiao Yiheng glanced his way, he quietly gripped his sleeve and dropped his gaze.

Seeing that, Xiao Yiheng naturally figured Li Luoshu was feeling wronged, so he opened his mouth to urge Xue Youtan to punish Pei Zhi hard.

"Master, Pei—" But Xiao Yiheng's words died in his throat.

Because he saw Xue Youtan, after concealing Liguang into his divine sense, pull the nine-section whip from his waist and crack it against the ground.

The whip was studded with barbs, and one flick sent dust and dirt scattering everywhere.

Pei Zhi, sitting on the ground and closest to the dust, sucked in a mouthful, and his throat, which had just settled, started hacking again. By the time the coughing died down, Xue Youtan was already standing in front of him, whip in hand.

He looked up. Xue Youtan's tall frame was backlit, his face impossible to read. The only thing he could make out was Xue Youtan's icy, clear voice.

"Whatever your reasons for teaming up with demons to come up the mountain, the fact is you broke Cangya Mountain's rules. If you still recognize me as your master, you'll take twenty lashes today, and this whole thing is done. If you don't want to recognize me anymore, hand back your jade token and get off the mountain yourself."

There were no other choices. Xue Youtan had deliberately backed Pei Zhi into a corner, forcing him to pick on his own.

Obviously, with the male lead's personality, he wasn't going to pick the second option.

Sure enough, the second the words left his mouth, Pei Zhi straightened his spine. "This disciple is willing to accept the twenty lashes."

Good.

That way, it went from being forced to take the punishment to willingly accepting it. Later, when the male lead got strong and came back to settle old scores, he could still talk his way out of it.

Xue Youtan glanced at the countdown in his head—1 day, 00 hours, 37 minutes—then raised the whip.

One lash, two lashes, three lashes...

With every lash, Pei Zhi gritted his teeth. Even as the pain had him clawing deep furrows into the dirt with his fingers, he didn't let out a single sound.

Xue Youtan had already held back a lot of his internal force, but every time the whip swung, the barbs ripped flesh off Pei Zhi's body, blood and meat spraying everywhere—a brutal sight.

The disciples gritted their teeth, unable to watch, but no one dared step in to beg for mercy, scared the whip might land on them next.

On the fifteenth lash, Ling Yue, who'd been bawling in the crowd, finally rushed out and threw herself in front of Pei Zhi.

"Master, stop, please! Junior Brother is frail—if you finish all twenty lashes, he'll die."

Ling Yue's tears fell like they were free. Anyone else would've softened at the sight and quit while the going was good.

But Xue Youtan couldn't stop.

Fifteen lashes in, and the countdown was still going. That meant if he didn't finish the task, the timer wouldn't stop.

When it hit zero, he would die.

But Pei Zhi right now looked like he had more breath going out than coming in. If he kept going, the male lead would die.

The male lead couldn't die, and neither could he. So what was he supposed to do?

Xue Youtan pressed his lips together, clenching his back teeth slightly, and pulled the whip back as ordered.

Ling Yue, thinking he was letting Pei Zhi off, laughed and cried with joy. "It's okay, it's okay, Junior Fellow Pei."

"Cough, cough... thank you... thank you, Senior Sister..." Pei Zhi was severely injured, blood seeping from the corners of his mouth as he spoke. Ling Yue's heart ached even more.

She wiped the blood from Pei Zhi's face and tried to help him up, but there wasn't a single intact spot on his body or legs. Her hand hovered in the air, unsure where to touch, so she called out to her brother instead. "Ling Feng, Ling Feng, what are you standing there for? Go get a stretcher to take Junior Fellow Pei for treatment!"

"Oh, right!" Ling Feng turned and ran toward the medicine hut.

While waiting for the stretcher, Xue Youtan looked at Feng Mingjue. "Patriarch, do you think this punishment is sufficient?"

Feng Mingjue stroked the beard on his chin, neither confirming nor denying, but instead answered off-topic: "Youtan, you... so bloody and so violent—it really doesn't match your looks."

Tsk, tsk—this old man knew how to talk.

If he hadn't intervened just now, those people and Pei Zhi would have been crushed into meat patties by his Cloud Palm. Who exactly was more bloody and violent here?!

"Coming, coming!" As they spoke, Ling Feng arrived carrying a stretcher. He and a few fellow disciples lifted Pei Zhi onto it and were about to leave when Xue Youtan suddenly called out Pei Zhi's name.

Pei Zhi turned his eyes toward the voice. In his line of sight, Xue Youtan stared at him with a stern, gloomy expression, and the words he spoke chilled the air like ice.

He heard Xue Youtan say:

"Get treated well. This time tomorrow, you still owe the remaining five lashes."