Stop it, Taoist, Your Fight almost Ruins the DAO!

The Peach Blossom Daoist had just staggered out from a tenant farmer's dwelling, drunk as a lord, his footsteps sloppy and belching from time to time.

He lifted his hand to his nose and took a fierce sniff, a sweet milky fragrance shooting straight up his nostrils.

The Peach Blossom Daoist let out a sleazy chuckle with a mouthful of big gold teeth shining, those false teeth he had had made by a master craftsman after that little bastard from Hidden Dragon Temple had knocked his out.

"So fragrant!"

"I'll come again tomorrow!"

Half of Rolling Stone Town belonged to his Spirit Wind View, and with a mix of lawful and illicit, overt and covert means, they had indeed annexed quite a bit of land over the years.

So what if he slept with one of his tenant farmers' new daughters-in-law?

After all, they depended on farming for the temple to have food to eat.

Gratitude was a virtue people should learn to express.

Don't bite the hand that feeds you.

After all, half of Rolling Stone Town relied on their Spirit Wind View for sustenance.

"Brother, your cultivation has reached a critical juncture; we need to hurry up with the next batch of sacrificial offerings."

"They're just destitute families, unable to repay their loans, losing a few beasts wouldn't matter much."

"Once Brother's divine powers are complete, I will flay that little bastard from Hidden Dragon Temple alive to vent the hatred in my heart."

"Kill the adults, and take the young alive to beg for their lives as penance."

The Peach Blossom Daoist muttered to himself, let out a belch, then took another fierce sniff with his palm before staggering in the direction of Spirit Wind View.

With the help of the moonlight, Spirit Wind View was already in sight at this point.

Squinting as he walked, the Peach Blossom Daoist suddenly felt the daylight dim, and he opened his bleary, drunken eyes to look up.

Standing there was a towering figure over two meters tall, garbed in a cloak for night travel and built like a bear.

Even though the cloak was a size XXL, it still looked tight on that person's body.

Instantly, the Peach Blossom Daoist sobered up by half.

"Yi Cheng..."

With a snap, a hard slap sent another good portion of his recently fixed gold teeth flying, doubling his vision immediately.

Yi Chen dragged the Peach Blossom Daoist by the ankles as if dragging a dead dog, pulling him to a secluded spot.

"What Yi Chengzi, I'm a notorious bandit, a sea-hawk supreme."

"I'm here to interrogate you about a few things, and you better spill the beans."

The Peach Blossom Daoist's eyes bulged with incredulous shock.

"I didn't even finish my sentence, how could you know I was talking about Yi Chengzi?"

"With that body of yours, you dare say you're not..."

Whack!

Another violent slap, and all the Peach Blossom Daoist's gold teeth were knocked out for nothing.

"Wrong answer."

"That does not please me, the sea-hawk supreme."

Yi Chen's cold voice followed.

With a swing of his Dragon-Slaying Sword, the Peach Blossom Daoist's thumb was sheared off in an instant.

Agony struck, and just as the Peach Blossom Daoist was about to wail in panic, he heard Yi Chen's eerie voice again.

"If you keep screaming, it won't just be your fingers that are dropped, oof,"

Half an hour later, the Peach Blossom Daoist, who had been interrogated and tortured by Yi Chen to the point of resembling a dead dog, was being held up by him.

After repeated questioning, the Peach Blossom Daoist confessed to everything, even admitting to the fortune-telling he had just done for another family's wife.

During the interrogation, he had thought about being tricky, exaggerating the truth, and distorting the facts, but under Yi Chen's relentless questioning and torture, his little tricks were no match for Yi Chen's perception.

Under the extreme torture, Yi Chen managed to piece together most of the truth.

The Peach Blossom Daoist was indeed a talented manager of external affairs, secretly supporting and controlling quite a few gangs to work for his temple, even maintaining a clout through single-line contacts, quite a strategist.

His senior brother, the master of Ling Feng Temple, had not been able to advance to the Qi Refinement Realm for many years and had somehow acquired a method that used fresh human blood as a medium, paired with a blood refining technique to craft blood pills and increase mana.

Of course, this is not yet where the Peach Blossom Daoist's genius shows.

To satisfy his senior brother's need for fresh human blood, the Peach Blossom Daoist hinted to the gangs to detain those who were unreliable, owed money, were gamblers, or gang members.

Then.

Sustainability was drained dry.

He called these people blood offerings. They were well-fed and bled regularly. If they fell ill, they were treated. Under his meticulous cultivation, the turnover of blood offerings was not fast, and over the years, it hadn't attracted anyone's attention.

After all, those chosen as blood offerings were either the destitute, whose deaths would not be investigated, or those despicable to both humans and dogs.

You know, for some people, their death is a greater contribution than anything they did in life.

The Peach Blossom Daoist was so secretive in his dealings that no one investigated.

The matter with the Evil Tiger Gang was entirely the Peach Blossom Daoist's personal resentment. He could not let go of the punishment Bai Yunzi had given him years ago and hence sent members of the Evil Tiger Gang to probe.

His senior brother, the master of Ling Feng Temple, was originally indifferent to his meddling, after all, his dear junior brother had provided significant help for his blood pill enterprise.

Furthermore, the stone from other mountains can be used to polish the jade—if he could obtain the foundational Daoist techniques of Hidden Dragon Temple, he would certainly welcome it.

However, under Yi Chen's violent methods, not being sure of the depth of Hidden Dragon Temple, the master of Ling Feng Temple called a halt to the Peach Blossom Daoist's antics.

Everything was to be secondary to his breakthrough to the Qi Refinement Realm.

To avoid detection, the master of Ling Feng Temple had not made a move in front of others for a long time.

"You little bastard are really damn talented,"

Yi Chen couldn't help but exclaim as he held the Peach Blossom Daoist by the neck.

By that time, eight of the ten fingers of the Peach Blossom Daoist had been sliced off, blood dripping steadily into the soil, his complexion ashen, like a dead dog.

No, he was a dead dog.

Because as soon as Yi Chen finished speaking, the Dragon-Slaying Sword pierced the heart of the Peach Blossom Daoist, and with a kick of his legs, he quickly lay still.

His death was a boundless merit.

More than all the contributions he had made in his lifetime.

Yi Chen, holding the corpse of the Peach Blossom Daoist, strode toward the direction of Ling Feng Temple in the distance.

With the efforts of several generations, Ling Feng Temple had prospered under meticulous management, with emerald tiles and white walls, and statues of ancestors lined in gold.

Not only did it have many courtyards and vast grounds, but even its arrangement was exquisite and costly.

Compared to it, Hidden Dragon Temple was as poor as a starving wolf dog.

However, tonight, all of that was about to vanish.

In the quiet room, the master of Ling Feng Temple took a crimson pill from the porcelain bottle he carried and placed it in his mouth. Then he closed his eyes tightly, circulating his mana to dissolve the pill and absorb its power.

Thanks to his daily dedication for the past three years, combining his efforts, he tirelessly refined and consumed these blood pills, and his mana had finally reached the peak of refining essence into qi. At that moment, his mana was boiling, and he had a premonition that with another dozen blood offerings next month.

He, reaching the Qi Refinement Realm, was just within reach!