Chapter 268 Water Demons
What the steward was worrying about was reasonable. Besides the Black Office, the Quanzhen Temple was most powerful in Pinglu Jianghu. Although the Taoists in Quanzhen Temple always did good deeds and helped ordinary people to treat the sick and remove disasters, their cultivation power was worse than that of the Black Office.
When facing the scourge of demons this time, neither had the ability to stabilize the place.
The steward couldn’t help but think that when the Penglai Taoist sect took charge of Pinglu Jianghu before, there was no scourge of demons in Pinglu, but now after the Penglai Taoist sect had retired for only a few years, such a thing happened. Did it mean that the rise of Quanzhen Temple didn’t conform to the destiny of the Great Tao?
He went one step further in thinking that if the Penglai Taoist sect was still here and the Taoist temples in Pinglu were still under Penglai’s control, the Penglai Taoist sect wouldn’t turn a blind eye to the scourge of demons. With its one-thousand-year strength, the Penglai Taoist sect must be able to quickly subdue the scourge of demons.
Unlike Quanzhen Temple and the Black Office who could do nothing with the scourge of demons, Penglai must know how to subdue demons because the Taoist sect could do so...
While the steward was thinking about this, his spirit was suddenly lifted. He quickly looked up at the sky in surprise. Two white rainbows suddenly flew over from the cloudless sky toward them with lightning speed, full of momentum.
The steward paused. As he watched in awe and fear, the two white rainbows came before everyone and two people appeared looking like immortals. The man was dressed in black robes with a jade pendant at his waist. He had knife-shaped eyebrows, bright eyes, and an imposing appearance. He didn’t look like an ordinary person. The woman’s robes were fluttering like a butterfly. She was very beautiful and tranquil with an otherworldly temperament.
Seeing these two people, the steward stood stunned. The two people appeared too suddenly and aggressively, and they arrived from the sky in front of everyone in a blink of an eye. He really couldn’t imagine who else could have such cultivation and momentum, except the immortals.
Compared with these two people, those so-called great cultivators, who were at high-level Qi-refining, were nothing at all. Even though they could fly away dozens of meters in an instant, they were like running on the ground, compared with these two people who came like immortals.
“Are they the immortals who descend to the human world to subdue demons and monsters?” The steward trembled with fear, and he couldn’t think of a more reasonable explanation. In awe and fear, he almost knelt to worship them as his legs weakened.
Fortunately, the steward wasn’t the only person who knelt. In front of him, the Big Master of the Changhe Gang, Liu Zhiyan, who had middle-level Qi-refining cultivation, took the lead in kneeling and saluting the one who’d arrive, “Your Highness Prince An!”
Her voice was gentle but it could be heard from far away. When the people from far or near the shipyard saw Li Ye and Su Emei suddenly appear, they were surprised and afraid, like the steward. Among them, the cultivators could feel great pressure from the other side and had the impulse to worship him. Hearing Liu Zhiyan’s words, they all knelt, stunned, and said together, “Your Highness Prince An!”
“Is this His Highness Prince An? His Highness Prince An has come? His Highness Prince An’s cultivation has reached this point, and he can fly in the air?” The steward knelt on the ground, trembling and sweating on his forehead.
“Get up, everybody,” Li Ye said in a flat tone. He came in front of Liu Zhiyan and helped her up. He smiled and said, “Your cultivation has improved. Well done.”
Liu Zhiyan’s cheeks flushed and hurriedly said, “I didn’t know you would be coming. My... apologies. Your Highness, please... forgive me!”
The steward and Liu Zhiyan’s guards, including various people in the shipyard, surprisingly found that their decisive and resolute Big Master, who held great prestige in the Changhe Gang like a queen, was blushing and as bashful as a child and couldn’t even talk smoothly at this moment.
Li Ye and Liu Zhiyan left the shipyard, went to the port, and walked on the river bank, talking.
Li Ye didn’t know much about the water demons the Changhe Gang encountered, so he wanted Liu Zhiyan to report it to him in detail.
Su Emei followed behind Li Ye quietly, like a shadow.
When Li Ye talked business to others, she would never interrupt but just listened quietly. Even though Li Ye was talking to a cultivator at the Qi-refining Stage, she had no sense of superiority. Moreover, she walked quietly and behaved gently. She didn’t even make a sound. She seemed to be afraid of affecting Li Ye’s business.
“There is not only one water demon but hundreds of them. They once appeared in different sections of Ji River at the same time and all of them had powerful cultivation. Their target was the large fleets. They killed people and destroyed ships but never touched the goods. They came and went without a trace, nor appeared in the same place. In addition, ordinary fishermen and small boats were seldom attacked by the water demons.”
After the initial surprise and shock, Liu Zhiyan gradually restored her calm, her face was not so red, and she could speak smoothly. She told Li Ye in detail about the scourge of demons in Ji River.
Li Ye was keenly aware of a problem. He asked Liu Zhiyan, “You mean the water demons have no fixed camp? Or you don’t know where their fixed camp is?”
Liu Zhiyan nodded and glanced at Li Ye with guilt, “I’m incompetent...”
Li Ye waved his hand, indicating that he didn’t mind. If they didn’t know the camp of the water demons, they couldn’t march straight in and catch all of them. But for Li Ye, it was nothing. All he had to do was to dispatch a large fleet into the water, and according to past practices, the water demons would bite the bait.
But Li Ye faced another challenge. He wasn’t good at fighting in water. For a cultivator in the Spiritual Master Realm, his breath was long, so it wouldn’t be difficult for him to get into the water, but he couldn’t stay too long in there. Besides, being able to stay in the water was not the same thing as being able to fight with full strength in the water.
Since they were water demons, they were naturally good at fighting in the water. In Li Ye’s current situation, if he encountered a common cultivator in the Spiritual Master Realm in the water, he was afraid that he couldn’t deal with him, to say nothing of the senior demons as powerful as Demon Fei.
Thinking of this, Li Ye glanced at Su Emei.
Although Su Emei didn’t speak along the way, she heard the conversation between Li Ye and Liu Zhiyan and had been thinking about it, so when Li Ye looked at her, she knew what Li Ye wanted to say.
Su Emei said, “I know little about fighting in the water, and I’m far from good at it, so I suggest that we don’t do it. If it’s inevitable to fight in the water, I can teach you a water-repellent spell that will help you move freely underwater. But your fighting ability will certainly be reduced.”
Li Ye nodded slowly. As a land cultivator, it was easy to fight in the air, but he certainly wasn’t as good as water demons at fighting in the water. Since the water-repellent spell allowed him to move freely underwater, it could save his life at least. He couldn’t ask for more in such a short time.
Li Ye thought for a while, and then he said to Liu Zhiyan, “You go and arrange the fleet, as large as possible. If we can attract the leader of the water demons to fight, that will be good.”
Liu Zhiyan quickly took the order and left. Since she had been the Big Master of the Changhe Gang for many years, she was very familiar with the daily affairs and she had a group of trusted followers under her command. She could have arranged her men to do this without having lift a finger. But this matter was very important, so she had to make sure nothing would go wrong.
“It’s not difficult to attract the leader of the water demons to appear, but the question is how high its cultivation is and whether you and I can capture it. If she runs away through water, can we capture her? If we let her run away, it will be difficult to capture her again. Eliminating demons in Ji River may turn into a long-term battle, so we don’t have much time to spend on it.”
Li Ye sat down casually on the river bank, staring at the green river. It was near Qi Prefecture here, and many boats and ships shuttled back and forth on the river in the past. But now it was rare to see a ship. It seemed particularly deserted.
Su Emei squatted beside him and said softly, “The scourge of demons is serious in Pinglu. The demon clan occupies almost all the big mountains and famous Taoist temples. If we can’t find out the demon clan’s headquarters as soon as possible, it will be a lot of trouble to search from one place to another.”
Li Ye suddenly smiled. “I’m thinking that even if we really find where the headquarters is and meet the leader of demons, I may not be able to defeat him.”
That was not a joke. Demon Fei was obviously not the leader. At most, he was the right-hand man of the leader. When Li Ye and Su Emei fought Demon Fei, they all did their best, and Li Ye’s Spiritual Qi was even exhausted in the end. If Demon Fei lasted longer from getting seriously injured by Li Ye in that battle, it would be hard to tell the result.
With this in mind, Li Ye took out Demon Fei’s horns and continued to try refining them.
After the Dragon Qi in Li Ye’s body had fully absorbed the inherited power of Yuan Tiangang, it fell silent. When he fought Demon Fei last time, he could only mobilize some power, which was worse than usual, to say nothing of getting a qualitative improvement.
The Dragon Qi seemed to eat too much, and it was sleeping soundly to digest food. Li Ye didn’t know when it would complete the transformation.
Three days later, the Changhe Gang was ready to launch the fleet. Under Su Emei’s guidance, Li Ye finished practicing the water-repellent spell. This morning, Li Ye came to the dock and boarded the big ship of the Changhe Gang.
The fleet organized by Liu Zhiyan this time was very large, and there were 50 ships with various sizes. The leading ship was not a cargo ship, but a ship with towers, 30-meters in height, tall and grand, like a monster in the water. It was the biggest towered ship that could go through Ji River. If it was any bigger, it wouldn’t have been able go through Ji River because it was easy to run aground when its draught was too deep.
The towered ship had three stories and looked like a small city from a distance. It had flags all over it. The sides of the ship were made like the parapet walls. There were dense arrow holes on it, and it was covered with cowhide on the surface. There were two bed crossbows in the bow. It looked like a battleship.
“This is the flagship of the Changhe Gang... The first big ship?” Li Ye came to the bow and asked Liu Zhiyan, touching the bed crossbow.
Liu Zhiyan’s face was red, and she looked proud. “Your Highness, you’re right. This is indeed the first battleship of the Changhe Gang and also the face of the Changhe Gang. In the past, the Changhe Gang would send this battleship only when there was something very important, such as negotiating with the river gangs of the other vassal states.”
Li Ye nodded and felt quite satisfied. This towered ship could indeed be called a battleship. Except for the boatmen who controlled the paddles, there were 300 warriors on the ship. This was no longer Jianghu power, but a serious navy battleship.
With this towered ship and a fleet of cargo ships, this bait had enough weight. Then, they waited to see if the leader of the water demons would appear.
The fleet set sail. Holding their breaths and hiding their cultivation at the same time, Li Ye and Su Emei entered the cabin with Liu Zhiyan and the others.
The cabin was the size of a hall of an ordinary mansion, but there was no luxurious decoration. The Changhe Gang built this towered ship not for entertainment, so Li Ye didn’t intend to break the rule.
However, the hall was arranged as a reception room. It seemed that when Liu Zhiyan negotiated with the river gangs of the other vassal states, she often invited their leaders over to show off her strength.
After entering the hall, Li Ye had nothing to do, so he played chess with Liu Zhiyan. The following schedule had been arranged, so Li Ye had nothing important to do before the water demons appeared.
While Li Ye was playing chess with Liu Zhiyan in the main seats, Su Emei watched at their side. The other leaders of the Changhe Gang were sitting in the hall. They kept their minds focused, silently waiting for the coming battle.
The steward, who was in the shipyard with Liu Zhiyan earlier, was also on the ship now. But he was not qualified to enter the hall, and he was in the side hall with a group of people. His name was Liu Shibo. He was over forty years old. He had joined the Changhe Gang only a few years ago, but his position wasn’t low because of his outstanding talent.
When Liu Shibo heard that Li Ye was playing chess with Liu Zhiyan, he became a little gloomy. He sighed. “The water demons are so powerful that even the high-level Qi-refining cultivator of the Black Office hasn’t come back yet. But His Highness still has the mood to play chess...”
“Shut up! Are you so ready to lose your head, criticizing His Highness like this?”
Before Liu Shibo finished speaking, the person beside him immediately warned him. Liu Shibo shut up immediately, but obviously, he still wasn’t convinced, and he was a little disappointed with Li Ye’s arrangement.
Since he was the Pinglu commissioner and he came to suppress the water demons, how could he not bring the navy with him? Even if he didn’t bring the navy, he should’ve gathered a group of masters, but he just brought a woman with him. And none of the famous twelve masters of the Black Office were dispatched...
Even though Li Ye had reached the Spiritual Master Realm, there were hundreds of water demons and all of them had high cultivation. Since Li Ye was so arrogant, Liu Shibo was afraid that he was inexperienced. Now the battle was around the corner, but as the commander, Li Ye wasn’t preparing earnestly. Instead, he was playing chess with Liu Zhiyan. Was he here for a visit, or to have fun?
“Princes and nobles never forget to be culture snobs at any time. His act is really unflattering... Prince An has defeated Huang Chao and made a great achievement. I’m afraid he has become arrogant and complacent. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have come without a master. Alas. After all, he is a young man. When he succeeds, he becomes arrogant. He is not steady enough... ”
The more Liu Shibo thought, the more he felt it was all wrong. The shock and awe brought by Li Ye’s aggressive appearance had almost vanished. Liu Shibo was very worried now and felt hopeless. He silently said in his heart, “I just hope that the water demons won’t be so powerful. Otherwise, I’m afraid that all of us will die. Alas...”
While Liu Shibo was woolgathering, the ship suddenly shook, as if it had hit a mountain. Everyone got up in shock. Before they could get out of the room, they heard the sounds of horns and guards shouting in panic outside, “Water demons! The water demons have appeared!”
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