Chapter 22: Gathering Storm Clouds

  Stepping out of the linguistic cocoon, he suddenly had a comfortable feeling, from today on, he was no longer a boy, but a real man.

  He walked into the celebratory venue, and instantly everyone cheered and whistled for him. He laughed loudly and returned to his seat, embracing Lele tightly, smelling her scent, and only then did he realize the wonder of a perfect match between men and women, this comfortable feeling.

  Le Qing pouted on one side, then took out a red envelope and handed it to Yu Zecheng, saying:

  "This is what I got for you on behalf of my sister, it's really annoying why didn't you choose me?"

  Yu then smiled awkwardly and opened the red envelope to find one or two silver coins inside. He hesitated for a moment before asking:

  "What does this mean?"

  At this moment everyone burst out laughing, Le Feng suddenly got angry and hit Yu Ze Cheng, then pouted and said:

  "Bad egg, didn't choose me after all. I've lost to my sister. My sister rarely takes a liking to someone, it's your good fortune that she likes you. We've never accompanied anyone here before."

  Le Qing sprinkled her coquettish glance at Yu Ze Cheng, and suddenly she seemed to have seen something, whispering in surprise:

  "Huh? The yuan yang hasn't been lost?"

  Her expression changed in an instant, and Le Qing's face turned cold and stern. Yu Ze Cheng suddenly felt a chill emanating from her, and he was completely frozen in place by the aura she exuded.

  It was just a moment, Le Rong's aura disappeared, and she became that lovely and naive girl again. However, her mind was no longer on Yu Ze Cheng. She said a few words of courtesy and then hurriedly walked away to see her sister.

  Yu Ze Cheng looked at the smiling face, his whole body was covered in cold sweat, and just now Le Xiang's sudden change had thoroughly shocked him. What was going on with Le Xiang? It must be an illusion, this was definitely his own illusion.

  Without waiting for Le Qing and the others to return, Yu Ze Cheng ended the banquet and celebrated for an afternoon. Everyone had a great time playing, and Yu Ze Cheng and the others returned to their base. Now Yu Ze Cheng is not resting in the rudder but living in the base. Besides him, there are also Gao Feng, Dou You Zi, Lin Ye Hong, Fu Jia San people, and Kou Lian San Ying people who live in the base. In addition, other disciples are divided into three classes, with about 20 people on duty at the base every night.

  Yu Ze Cheng arranged for two sentries every night and three hidden guards at the same time, and also revised that mechanism, it can be said that this stronghold was guarded like an iron bucket.

  This is not the end, Yu Ze Cheng began to plan to have money, returned to the hall and hired a master craftsman, making this place as solid as copper walls and iron walls, only then can he rest assured.

  Unfortunately, Master Tiechi was not available for hire, but it's said that he has two disciples who had previously accompanied him in a big victory over the Wild Wolf Gang. Yu Zecheng planned to invite one of them back to help him create a mechanical array.

  Back to the base, eating and drinking enough, it's already late at night. Yu Ze Cheng returned to his room to start practicing the Blood Ring Technique. As a sentry, he naturally had nothing to do with standing guard duty.

  Yu Ze Cheng refined the Blood Seal Technique, and suddenly Yu Ze Cheng discovered that the strand of blood he had cultivated himself could undergo a transformation. This transformation was very mysterious, as this strand of blood would disappear for nine-tenths without warning, leaving behind only a tiny bit of blood energy. However, within this tiny bit of blood energy lay a kind of strange and wondrous true yuan. This true yuan decomposed most of the blood energy, but the remaining blood energy withstood this decomposition and absorbed this true yuan.

  Moreover, when Yu Ze Cheng entered a meditative state, he suddenly found himself transported into the Sea of Consciousness. In the past, he would only enter this realm after falling asleep, but now, with his consciousness clear and awake, he had actually entered the Sea of Consciousness - this was undoubtedly a huge breakthrough.

  In the spiritual sea, the demonic thoughts produced by the scripture "Formless Annihilation Spiritual Transformation Technique" and the ghostly spirits born from the scripture "Universal Soul-Slaying Demon-Refining Method" joined forces with the boundless blood sea to counterattack against the green thread in their own spiritual consciousness.

  That green thread in Yu Ze Cheng's sea of consciousness transformed into a rose, which clashed with the giant snake born from demonic thoughts and countless ghosts, as well as the bloody sky. The rose petals flew everywhere, suppressing the three entities to one corner of the spiritual sea.

  Yu Ze Cheng suddenly realized why he had entered the Divine Consciousness Sea. The three scripture divine consciousnesses that originally belonged to him were no match for this foreign green rose, so they cried out for help and pulled their main consciousness into the Divine Consciousness Sea.

  When I understood this principle, my mind focused on the rose, and suddenly the green spiritual consciousness that didn't belong to me began to collapse. The Blood Sea, Magic Snake, and Ghostly Fiend in the Spiritual Consciousness Ocean received my mental support, their aura greatly strengthened, increasing a thousandfold, and immediately counterattacked the rose. In an instant, the rose was torn apart and swallowed by the three spiritual consciousnesses. The green color instantly vanished without a trace.

  The green divine sense disappeared, and Yu Ze Cheng was immediately ejected from the Divine Sea of Consciousness. He could only wait until nightfall to re-enter. At the moment he was ejected from the Divine Sea of Consciousness, he lost the support of the green rose in the Divine Sea of Consciousness. The strange energy that had been stagnant immediately stagnated, and the blood energy in his body quickly swallowed up the true yuan of that strange energy, transforming it into his own blood energy. This true yuan didn't seem like much, but for Yu Ze Cheng, it was not a small amount. In an instant, the strand of blood energy recovered to its original state and even split again, giving birth to another strand of blood energy. And this wasn't over yet - the two strands of blood energy grew and split once more, transforming into four strands before finally stopping.

  Yu Ze Cheng then opened his eyes to find that it was already broad daylight and the sun had risen, he had sat for a whole night.

  Yu Ze stood up, finding no lingering soreness in his waist and knees. He was about to ponder what that green spiritual sense was, and what the true yuan he had absorbed was. Suddenly, Le Hu's transformation floated into his mind - could it be Yu Die? What kind of people were they? But before he could think further, someone knocked heavily on the door.

  Yu Ze Cheng opened the door and saw Master Gao Feng standing at the entrance with a gloomy expression, saying:

  "Someone has laid hands on us, and we have not recovered the silver from Majiazai. The three people who were stationed there have also been detained."

  Yu Zhen then took a deep breath and said:

  "What's coming has finally come, gather all disciples for a meeting, prepare for battle."

  Then dressed up and went to the hall, all disciples arrived, and the meeting began.

  Following the old convention, the three disciples of Ma Jiazhai would collect protection fees in silver, but they wouldn't return themselves. Two hundred taels of silver for the three of them was enough to attract bandits' attacks, so each time seven people were sent to escort them.

  Yesterday, after returning, Gaofeng sent seven disciples to escort, but this morning they all returned in vain. Some people used the excuse of teasing women by the disciples and detained three disciples from Majia Village, wanting Yu Zecheng to go for negotiations.

  Yu Ze Cheng then began to ask the seven disciples who had returned, what was the situation. Tong Lei, who was the leader of this silver retrieval mission, and originally a disciple of the Wild Wolf Sect, replied:

  "Report to the leader, when we arrived at Majiazai, we found something was wrong. There were many more Jianghu people in Majiazai than usual. I didn't let them enter the village and sneaked in alone. I discovered that our stronghold had been ambushed, Lao Gada's arm had been broken, and he shouted to me to run quickly. So I fought my way out."

  After they came out to kill, they chased us. We figured out that they were disciples of the Warmth Gang, with about 200 people, led by Beast King Jīn and Lìehuǒ Jīn, two of the five great Golden Strengths of the Warmth Gang.

  They saw that they didn't catch us, so they shouted to let us pass and negotiate, saying that our people had an affair with the widow of Ma's husband who opened a tofu house, which violated the Jianghu code of conduct, and it was done by Feng Tianxi, he seemed to have admitted it.

  Yu then became silent and listened carefully before saying:

  "Who knows the inside story of the Heating Gang?"

  The disciples began to tell their stories about the Warm Helper one by one. At this time, Yang Yiliang, who had just recovered from his injuries, appeared and said:

  "I'm the younger cousin of the leader of the Warmth Assistance Group, no one knows more about the group's inner workings than I do."

  Yang Yiliang had a wound on his chest, but he was no longer in serious danger. As soon as he said this, everyone stopped talking and waited for him to continue speaking.

  Yang Yiliang said:

  The Warmth Assistance Gang was originally a self-help gang created by loggers and hunters in the Ten Thousand Great Mountains. The original leader of the gang was my great-grandfather, but later found the body of a high-ranking martial artist in the Ten Thousand Great Mountains and obtained three secret books, from which the Warmth Assistance Gang began to rise.

  Now helping the middle brother with thousands of people, the main purple guest Yang Yicheng is good at transforming butterfly Dafa. Under his command are five great golden men, including the giant power golden man Yang Debao holding a 200-pound copper rod, with boundless strength. The opening mountain golden man Li Huanliang holds two broad axes, and no one can match him. The iron armor golden man Hu Tianma has had strange encounters since childhood, his whole body is covered in thousand-year-old green pine oil, knives and guns cannot enter, water and fire are not diligent. Beast King Golden Man Liu Peng is good at controlling fierce beasts and flying birds. Lihuo Golden Man Wang Bin is skilled with a pair of flowing star hammers and can also perform fire magic, able to burn thousands of soldiers to death.

  Apart from them, there was also an elder in the sect, namely Yang Chenglin, who was Yang Yicheng's master. It is said that his martial arts skills were very high and he was in seclusion, breaking through to the Xiantian boundary, which was Yang Yicheng's greatest reliance.

  The headquarters of Bangzhong is in Liujihezi, which is close to Majiazai. It seems that Yang Yicheng wants to expand his territory, so he will do so.

  In fact, the Take Warmth Sect has over a thousand disciples, but only about three hundred are truly capable of fighting to the death. The rest are either old, weak, sick or disabled, or just ordinary woodcutters and hunters. Originally, the position of sect leader was supposed to be passed down to my father by his father, but it was usurped by Yang Yicheng's father, who drove my father out of the Take Warmth Sect. My father died in despair, which is why I joined the Fierce Tiger Sect, seeking to avenge this blood feud.

  After everyone heard this, they had a specific understanding of the warming helper, and Gaofeng said:

  "It seems they want to take advantage of this matter to intimidate us and snatch the territory of Majiazai from us. This widow Ma must have deliberately seduced Fengtianxi, now they have reason and evidence, caught our flagrant delict, it's a bit tricky, can only go there according to the rules and negotiate with them properly, but in the end still need to take action, two hundred against fifty, a bit of an uneven match."

  Yu Ze Cheng listened with a smile and said:

  "Alright, they want to talk, we'll talk with them. Everyone set off and headed straight for Majiazai. We'll have a good talk with them."

  Yu Zhen then made a gesture with his hand and said:

  "Bring the wooden shields I bought last time, they have hunters who are good at shooting. Set off immediately, Yang Yiliang you lead the way, everyone in groups of two or three, sneak out of the city without making a sound, and let the servants pretend to be disciples on patrol at home. Everyone gather at Wulipo outside the city and attack Majia Village."