The room was filled with a heaven-shaking stench. Billowing yellow clouds of gas churned while dark yellow liquid flowed like a stream across the walls, bookshelves, and floor. Luo Sanpao and Yu Xiaogang lay in the liquid, their bodies soaked and stained.
Outside the room, Tang San nervously led a middle-aged man—who claimed to be his teacher's second uncle—toward Yu Xiaogang's residence.
Tang San didn't know Yu Xiaogang had a second uncle. And the fact that this uncle looked younger than his teacher while also being far stronger left Tang San deeply shocked.
"Yu Xiaogang, oh Yu Xiaogang... Big Brother still holds some hope for you, but I truly don't believe you can achieve anything. If Erlong... forget it, forget it. This waste doesn't have many years left anyway. I'll just treat this as him going back to wait for death."
Yu Luomian's emotions were extremely complicated. He felt more disgust than affection toward Yu Xiaogang, yet because he did not want to hurt his elder brother Yu Yuanzhen too deeply, he ultimately did not refuse Yu Yuanzhen's request.
Yu Xiaogang considered himself to be living in seclusion, but in reality, both the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan and Spirit Hall knew exactly where he was.
After all, Yu Xiaogang no longer earned any money. The funds he had taken from home decades ago, along with what he had earned while traveling the continent, had long since been spent. He survived entirely on the ten gold soul coins distributed monthly by the Spirit Hall to Spirit Grand Masters.
To prevent people from repeatedly claiming benefits in multiple cities, the Spirit Hall maintained a registration system. Through Spirit Master identity tokens and registration records, they tracked nearly every low-level Spirit Master's Martial Soul, rank, and locations where benefits had been collected.
Every year, Spirit Halls in towns and cities compiled and submitted records of the Spirit Masters who had received benefits, layer by layer, until they reached the Spirit Hall branches of each nation for processing.
The Spirit Hall branches would then hand the lists over to the emperors of the corresponding empires, using them to continue obtaining gold soul coins from the imperial families to fund welfare for lower-ranked Spirit Masters.
The state institutions of the two great empires also used these lists and records provided by the Spirit Hall to calculate how many low-level Spirit Masters existed within their nations and what their overall strength levels were. It was effectively a disguised census targeting Spirit Masters without influential backgrounds.
Yu Xiaogang had stayed in Nuoding City for over a decade, believing he had hidden himself perfectly. But his monthly trips to collect welfare payments had exposed his existence long ago.
To the Spirit Hall and the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon clan—one of the Upper Three Sects—Yu Xiaogang's actions were completely transparent.
It was just that Yu Xiaogang himself believed he was hidden well, while everyone else simply could not be bothered to disturb him and left him alone in Nuoding City.
Ironically, someone like Flender, a Spirit Saint without any background, and Liu Erlong, who remained completely unaware of the truth, had no way of finding Yu Xiaogang even if they wanted to.
...
Outside Yu Xiaogang's door, Tang San nervously knocked several times but received no response. Yu Luomian, who had arrived in Nuoding City together with Prince Xue Xing, vaguely smelled something strange. His already unpleasant expression immediately darkened further.
Before Tang San could do anything else, Yu Luomian directly pushed the door open with Spirit Power.
The moment he saw Yu Xiaogang lying on the floor drenched in dark-yellow foul-smelling liquid, and smelled the stench filling the room and the yellow haze hanging in the air, lightning burst uncontrollably from Yu Luomian's body.
Why was Luo Sanpao called "Sanpao" (Three Cannons)? Many people only noticed the "Three" but ignored the "Cannon."
Although Luo Sanpao attacked through farting, those were not ordinary farts. The gas possessed highly flammable and explosive properties, erupting like thunder.
It was hard to say whether it counted as methane, but in terms of flammability and explosiveness, it was not much different.
A confined space had accumulated massive amounts of explosive gas… and then lightning appeared.
The result was only natural.
The flammable gas was ignited by the lightning and exploded. Instinctively, Yu Luomian formed a protective barrier with Spirit Power around himself and the child who had brought him here, leaving the two of them completely unharmed.
Yu Xiaogang, however, was not nearly so fortunate.
Before he could even react to what had happened, he was hit head-on by a small methane-like explosion. His body blasted straight through the cracked wall and flew outside.
Luo Sanpao did not even have time to land before it shattered apart within the explosion and returned to Yu Xiaogang's body, causing Yu Xiaogang to cough up blood as he was sent flying backward.
The enormous noise even drew the attention of Prince Xue Xing and Vice Principal Lu, who had been chatting outside in the distance.
And when they saw that thing flying out while spraying from both ends, everyone present froze in shock.
"What is that? What on earth is that?!"
Although Prince Xue Xing was not a weak Spirit Master, he had little actual combat experience and had lived in luxury for far too long. The instant the foul stench reached him, he vomited on the spot.
Vice Principal Lu, who had been preparing to properly entertain Prince Xue Xing while imagining the future of both himself and the academy, stared blankly at the familiar figure embedded headfirst into the ground in a back-drop position. Its limbs were broken, its body covered in large amounts of dark-yellow sticky liquid, and the horrible stench surrounding it caused his mind to go completely blank.
Almost instinctively, Lu Zhen—who suddenly felt he was about to go from Vice Principal Lu to just some random "Old Lu"—summoned his Martial Soul. A large iron hammer with weak fire attributes appeared in his hand as four Spirit Rings—two yellow and two purple—rose behind him.
Ignoring Yu Xiaogang's background entirely, Vice Principal Lu immediately swung his flame-covered hammer, preparing to send Yu Xiaogang flying away.
To be fair, at this moment Yu Luomian truly wished Yu Xiaogang, this utterly disgraceful thing, would simply die out here. But because of his elder brother's request...
Grinding his teeth, Yu Luomian transformed into a streak of lightning and appeared between the two of them, stopping Lu Zhen's hammer with one hand while casually extinguishing the not-so-powerful flames on it.
"Apologies, a nephew of my clan has suffered too great a blow and his mind has gone a bit mad. I ask for your forgiveness." The usually arrogant Yu Luomian could only cup his hands toward the surrounding crowd, wearing an extremely awkward expression.
No matter how arrogant a person is, it's hard to remain so when burdened by a dog-like creature like Yu Xiaogang. Having regained his composure, Yu Luomian truly wished Yu Xiaogang had just been crushed to death.
"Vice Sect Master Yu... this is your nephew?"
Even Prince Xue Xing could no longer maintain his usual demeanor as he asked stiffly.
"Yes..." Yu Luomian answered in silence, wishing he could go fight a hundred-thousand-year Spirit Beast and die a glorious death rather than stay with this dog Yu Xiaogang for another second.
"Haha... Vice Sect Master Yu... until next time." Prince Xue Xing glanced at Yu Xiaogang on the ground. He could not even force out a fake smile anymore. He merely cupped his fists before quickly leaving with his attendants.
The disgusted manner in which he departed was as though he were fleeing from some dreadful plague.
"Second Uncle... save me... someone ambushed me..." Yu Xiaogang groaned painfully from the ground.
At this moment, the explosion had broken his limbs, and several ribs had nearly pierced his lungs. For Yu Xiaogang—a Spirit Master over fifty years old who still had not reached Level 30 and whose physical condition might not even compare to an ordinary Spirit Master—such injuries had already pushed him close to death.
He could not even think about why his second uncle was here, nor could he think about how much face he had lost. He could only groan and beg for help.
"Second Uncle... you always cared about me most... save me... save me..." Yu Xiaogang squirmed on the ground, brown and red merging together.
Yu Luomian remained silent for a moment. Then he turned into a streak of lightning, grabbed Tang San, and pulled him over before patting him on the shoulder earnestly.
"Child, your teacher needs your help. Hurry and go."
Looking at Yu Xiaogang on the ground, covered in a mixture of filth and blood, even Tang San—who prided himself on respecting his teachers and valuing loyalty—remained speechless for a long time.
Although Yu Xiaogang had indeed treated him well normally, teaching him much theoretical knowledge and putting great effort into guiding him. Tang San himself had even knelt and formally acknowledged him as his teacher.
But...
Yu Xiaogang's current appearance was simply too... indescribable.
So much so that Tang San's first thought was not to rush over and save him, but rather how he could hide the fact that he had once acknowledged such a person as his teacher.
Tang Hao, hidden in the shadows, had already begun to wonder how to quickly silence Yu Xiaogang and everyone who knew about the relationship between Tang San and Yu Xiaogang.
Although angering his father to death and causing his sect to suffer great trauma was already quite unfilial, Tang Hao felt that if he were to share a reputation with this thing, his late father would most likely turn into a zombie and crawl out of the ground to bite his unfilial son to
...
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