Chapter 475: Chapter 27: Return to Qing State, Chaos in the Mortal Realm (Part 2)
Five years together made the Island Whale extremely reluctant.
...
Half a two-hour later, Qing State.
Lin Chen arrived in the former Yanlai Realm, which used to be Guangyuan Town.
But during decades under the rule of the Demon Path, this small town had clearly become a paradise for Demon Cultivators and Tribulation Cultivators.
Lin Chen casually found an inn and prepared to stay.
He ordered a table full of dishes, planning to rest for the night.
But when the dishes were served, Lin Chen was stunned.
"Someone come here!"
Lin Chen shouted.
Soon, a person dressed as a servant came over.
"What are you shouting for? Can’t you see I’m busy?" The servant, a Qi Refining Loose Cultivator, looked at Lin Chen’s ordinary appearance and assumed he was easy to bully.
Lin Chen pointed at the table full of dishes and shouted,
"Why did you poison the food?"
The servant was stunned for a moment, and then shouted,
"Which of your eyes saw us poisoning it?"
Lin Chen smiled and took out a silver needle, piercing it into the food.
Soon, the silver needle turned black.
The evidence was overwhelming.
"Damn it, I randomly picked an inn, and it’s a shady place..."
Lin Chen cursed and lost his appetite, ready to leave.
Yet behind him, the servant was relentless.
"Hey, you haven’t paid for your meal yet!"
"This whole table of food costs three hundred Spirit Stones!"
Lin Chen was dumbfounded after hearing this.
He questioned, "Just this table of food, and you want three hundred Spirit Stones? Besides... there’s poison in the food, didn’t you see?"
The servant sneered,
"Are you going to pay or not?"
Lin Chen shook his head, saying seriously, "This is a shady place."
Hearing this, the servant didn’t bother acting anymore.
Nodding in acknowledgment, he said, "That’s right, this is a shady place!"
"Someone come here!"
Soon, a dozen strong men surrounded Lin Chen.
These strong men were all Cultivators, either in the Qi Refining or Foundation Establishment Stage.
Lin Chen saw the situation and felt a bit speechless.
Good grief, if poisoning the customer didn’t work, they’d scam, and if scamming didn’t work, they’d resort to robbery?
"Is this how you do business?" Lin Chen asked calmly.
The servant replied confidently, "That’s right, this is how we do business."
"A lot of people have died in your store, right?" Lin Chen continued to ask.
Hearing this, the servant laughed, revealing a mouthful of yellow teeth.
"Don’t worry, this poison doesn’t kill! At most, it will paralyze you, then you’ll be sent to the altar in the city for a blood sacrifice!"
"We only care about robbery, we rarely kill..."
Lin Chen nodded after listening, not saying much more.
They indeed seemed experienced.
"In that case, there’s nothing more to say..."
...
A moment later, Lin Chen walked out of the inn.
The scent of blood wafted throughout the inn...
Dealing with such scum, Lin Chen naturally had no reason to hold back.
Lin Chen left the inn but didn’t hurry to leave; he first went to the brothel, tea house, and other places.
Soon, he discovered that it wasn’t just the inn in chaos.
The vast Guangyuan Town Marketplace was now full of shady places.
Finding a reputable shop was even harder than finding a shady one before.
The inn had poisoned food; if business couldn’t be done, they’d resort to robbery.
The brothel was not only filled with flesh trade, but had become a place to traffic mortal women.
The tea house was a blatant black market, openly selling slaves and looted Magical Treasures.
After seeing all this, Lin Chen was silent.
He left Guangyuan Town and went to check out other towns.
But it wasn’t just Guangyuan Town that was like this.
All the towns within the Nether Realm were almost in this state.
This had already become a common phenomenon.
...
In fact, Lin Chen had long known about this.
But without seeing it with his own eyes, Lin Chen wouldn’t have understood it.
Over the past five years, although Lin Chen had been in the Endless Sea Domain, he hadn’t been out of touch with the information from Qing State.
Five years ago, Zheng Tianhe died.
In less than half a year, the Nether Realm had another new monarch.
This newly appointed Lord of the Nether Realm was known as True Man Huiyue!
Hmm, if Lin Chen guessed correctly, this True Man Huiyue was the same Demon Monarch Huiyue who had chased him before.
He had supported two Nascent Soul True Men in succession, Blood Pupil the Old Demon and Zheng Tianhe, but they were merely puppets for the flourishing of the Demon Sect in the Spirit Realm.
And now, both puppet True Men had been killed by Lin Chen.
The Demon Monarch Huiyue had no choice but to step in personally.
"Heh, but is personally stepping in really going to help?"
Lin Chen sneered.
Five years had passed, and the unstoppable momentum of the demon path was no longer irreversible.
The most crucial factor in this was, of course, the promotion of the Martial Arts Breathing Technique!
In just five short years, the number of people in Qing State who learned the Martial Arts Breathing Technique had skyrocketed from hundreds of thousands to twenty or thirty million!
Such a number, not only did cultivators learn it, but even some mortals had learned it.
It had become a ubiquitous cultivation technique...
But being ubiquitous didn’t mean it wasn’t useful.
Every mortal now had the power and capital to resist; what they lacked was time and opportunity...
"Within the Nether Realm, the martial path has not yet flourished... but going further west, west of Celestial Dao City, it won’t be that simple."
Lin Chen murmured.
In five years, under the leadership of Demon Monarch Huiyue, the Nether Realm developed faster than ever before.
The Five Great Domains of Qing State, the Southern Domain, Northern Domain, Eastern Domain, and the Earth Dao and Human Path cities of the Central Domain, had all been incorporated into the Nether Realm’s territory.
The Nether Realm occupied two-thirds of Qing State’s land.
Now, the Nether Realm was launching a full-scale attack on Celestial Dao City.
This battle had been raging for a whole year.
But the Nether Realm hadn’t been able to conquer it.
The reason was that too many mortals in Celestial Dao City practiced the Martial Arts Breathing Technique!
Millions of mortals, cultivating for years, had capabilities comparable to the Foundation Establishment and Qi Refining cultivators.
Plus, with the steadfast defense from several major forces in Celestial Dao City, the Nether Realm’s dream of continuing westward had shattered.
"However, even this is far from enough..."
Lin Chen sighed.
Within the Nether Realm, it had already become an absolute place of chaos.
The folk customs are "simple," and killing and looting happen everywhere.
This is no longer limited to conflicts between demon cultivators and tribulation cultivators.
Even among mortals, banditry is not a minor issue.
"In such circumstances, it’s already difficult to save the country; only self-rescue by the mortals can do it..."
Lin Chen murmured.
"In this situation, even if the mortals of the Nether Realm grasp martial arts, it would only lead to mutual killing..."
Lin Chen shook his head; the development of events seemed to have deviated from his expectations.
The root cause is still the atmosphere of the Nether Realm.
Such a dog-eat-dog atmosphere, how can it ever return to the past?
"It’s not likely to completely eradicate the demon path..."
"But martial arts must be spread among the mortals within the Nether Realm, this is a must!"
Lin Chen fell into deep thought.
To achieve this, first, the Nether Realm must be thrown into chaos.
The ban on martial arts must be abolished...
Thinking of this, Lin Chen took a deep breath and murmured:
"Demon Monarch Huiyue, it seems I have to meet you again..."
Lin Chen said this, then turned and left Yanlai Realm.
...
Half a month later, in Wenda City.
Upon returning to Wenda City, Lin Chen first inquired about the situation of his fellow disciples.
Fortunately, even though the Nether Realm was powerful, it hadn’t been able to continue advancing westward.
With Celestial Dao City blocking the front, Wenda City remained peaceful.
And his master, along with several fellow disciples, were all cultivating steadily.
In these ten years, among Lin Chen’s fellow disciples,
the one with the highest cultivation was actually the youngest junior brother, who had already reached the Nine Revolutions Golden Core Stage.
Third Senior Brother had good aptitude too, but his temperament was not as good as Junior Brother Zhou Tieshan, thus he only reached the Eighth Turn Golden Core.
As for Senior Sister and Master Han Jihai, they remained at the Seven-Turned Golden Core, still a long way from the Nascent Soul.
Among the former members of the Changchun Sect, the one with the highest cultivation... was Li Zhenqian.
However, compared to when Lin Chen was around, Li Zhenqian’s cultivation speed was much slower.
Perhaps it was due to the lack of the pressure that Lin Chen provided, causing Li Zhenqian’s cultivation to lack motivation.
More than ten years had passed, and Li Zhenqian had not yet reached the Nascent Soul True Man, only at the Half-Step Nascent Soul.
"It seems Junior Brother Li is lacking the pills needed for Crossing the Tribulation..."
Lin Chen thought for a moment and decided to help Li Zhenqian.
The Changchun Sect had fostered him, and Lin Chen had once promised to help the Changchun Sect produce a new Nascent Soul True Man.
Now, Li Zhenqian was the best candidate.
"Nascent Soul Pill, Nascent Soul Formation Pill... plus several magical treasures for Crossing the Tribulation, together they would cost nearly ten million Spirit Stones..."
