Chapter 453: The Add-on
At Chief Lin’s command, the Darts Masters and porters, who had long been ready, began moving the mountain of silk chests, one by one, onto the Treasure Ship.
The docks burst into a flurry of activity, a cacophony of work chants, footsteps, and the thud of chests hitting the deck.
The Dust-Cleaning Slave watched leisurely, a cold, triumphant smirk on his face.
The Silk Lady maintained her usual cold demeanor, her gaze occasionally sweeping over Chen Li, her thoughts unreadable.
Jiang Nanyue supported Chen Shouyue, her head bowed low.
Time trickled by amidst the dull sounds of loading.
Thirty thousand bolts of silk was a massive quantity. Even with many hands, it took nearly a full hour to move it all.
During this time, a few sailors came down from the Treasure Ship to help, but for the most part, it was the men from the Escort Agency and the porters who did the work.
Finally, the last chest of silk was stowed in the Treasure Ship’s cargo hold.
Chief Lin walked up to Chen Li and cupped his fist. “Patriarch Chen, the cargo is all loaded. Please inspect it.”
Chen Li nodded. “Thank you for your hard work. The night grows late, and you have all toiled hard. You may return to Liyang for now. As for the remaining silver for the escort, I will have someone deliver it to your agency tomorrow.”
Chief Lin said no more. He cupped his fist again. “Patriarch Chen, be careful in all things! I will await good news in Liyang!”
With that, he wasted no more time and waved a hand. “Brothers, back to the city!”
The men from the Escort Agency quickly packed up their carts and horses and, just as they arrived, swiftly vanished into the darkness of the official road to Liyang.
On the docks, only Chen Li remained, along with the Dust-Cleaning Slave, the Silk Lady, Jiang Nanyue, and the unconscious Chen Shouyue across from him.
Chen Li’s gaze fell on the Dust-Cleaning Slave. “You can release her now, can’t you?”
The Dust-Cleaning Slave let out a few sharp, strange laughs. “Patriarch Chen is truly a man of his word. Impressive, most impressive!”
He was smiling, but his tone suddenly shifted. “However… Patriarch Chen needn’t be in such a hurry to take his daughter back. I’m afraid your daughter will have to come with us for a while longer.”
Chen Li’s gaze turned cold. “What else do you want?”
“It’s regrettable, really.”
The Dust-Cleaning Slave spread his hands in a show of pity. “Your daughter has a fiery temperament. When we… invited her, she struggled quite fiercely. We had no choice but to… act, and we accidentally severed several of her meridians…”
Before he could finish, a glacial killing intent, so palpable it felt solid, erupted from Chen Li.
“You…” Chen Li’s voice was still calm, but beneath that calm, it was as if magma was roaring. “Are courting death.”
The Dust-Cleaning Slave felt a slight chill in his heart from this sudden, sharp killing intent, but his confidence in his own strength quickly suppressed it.
He feigned a relaxed tone. “Patriarch Chen, no need for such ugly words. We’re doing this out of the kindness of our hearts. If you take your daughter back with her meridians severed, her future cultivation will surely be affected. She might even be crippled. Why not let her stay with us for a while? We can meticulously mend her meridians and ensure she’s properly recovered before returning her to your estate. Wouldn’t that be the best of both worlds? Of course…”
He drew out his words, a flash of greed in his eyes. “Mending meridians consumes a great deal of Heart Spirit. We can’t just do it for free, can we? As for the price… we won’t ask for much. Just another thirty thousand bolts of silk. How about it?”
The air seemed to freeze.
Chen Li watched him silently for a full three breaths. Suddenly, the corner of his mouth curved into an icy arc.
“And after I gather these thirty thousand bolts…”
Chen Li said coldly, “Will my daughter’s Divine Soul then be ‘accidentally’ injured? Or will she be ‘mistakenly’ poisoned by an Elixir? Why don’t you just state your full price at once? It would save me the trouble of running back and forth.”
The smile on the Dust-Cleaning Slave’s face froze for a moment. He seemed not to have expected this reaction, and a flicker of surprise and suspicion crossed his eyes.
Beside them, the Silk Lady let out a nearly inaudible sneer, glancing sidelong at the Dust-Cleaning Slave. The mockery in her eyes was almost completely unconcealed.
The Dust-Cleaning Slave, somewhat angered by the humiliation, scowled. “Patriarch Chen jests. We have no such intentions! This is simply the fee for mending her meridians—thirty thousand bolts, not one less. It would be best for you to prepare it quickly!”
“Will thirty thousand be enough?”
Chen Li tilted his head slightly, his tone indifferent. “How about I gather another thirty thousand and bring them to you both at the same time?”
“Huh?”
This time, the Dust-Cleaning Slave was genuinely stunned.
He stared suspiciously at Chen Li, unable to fathom what he was planning.
Besides this Patriarch and the ordinary tugmen on the docks, there was no sign of any other hidden experts.
He composed himself, swept his Divine Sense over Chen Li several more times, and after confirming there were no issues, he laughed. “Since Patriarch Chen is so considerate as to offer, why not add another ten thousand to make it a round one hundred thousand bolts? A hundred thousand bolts of silk in exchange for your daughter, returned to you completely unharmed. That’s not a bad deal at all!”
Chen Li nodded, as if seriously considering the proposal.
Just as delight began to fill the Dust-Cleaning Slave’s eyes, thinking Chen Li was about to yield.
Chen Li raised his head and looked directly into the Dust-Cleaning Slave’s eyes, speaking word by word. “One hundred thousand bolts… is acceptable.”
“However, I’ll need you two to throw in a little something extra.”
“What extra something?”
The Dust-Cleaning Slave asked reflexively.
“Your two heads. How about it?”
A dead silence.
Only the lapping of the river could be heard.
The smile on the Dust-Cleaning Slave’s face faded, bit by bit, until it froze into an icy mask.
The feigned playfulness, greed, and arrogance in his eyes vanished, leaving only a killing intent as venomous as a viper’s.
“You. Are. Courting. Death!”
The four words seemed to be squeezed from between his teeth, laced with cold killing intent, boundless fury, and a terrifyingly hostile aura.
A terrifying aura exploded forth without reservation.
The pressure from a Grandmaster Guiyuan’s Divine Sense and Qi surged toward Chen Li like a tsunami, threatening to crush him.
The killing intent locked firmly onto Chen Li.
“Now, kneel! Kowtow and beg for forgiveness! And perhaps this one will spare your dog’s life!”
The Dust-Cleaning Slave’s voice was bone-chillingly cold.
In his eyes, this fool who didn’t know his place, who dared to mock and threaten him, was already a dead man.
Yet, facing this terrifying pressure, Chen Li seemed completely unfazed.
He simply stood there calmly. “The Twelve Celestial Fragrances of the Xiang Sect… I wonder, which two esteemed masters might you be?”
As his words fell, the expression on the Dust-Cleaning Slave’s face froze solid.
‘He knows who we are!’
He stared intently at Chen Li, as if trying to see right through him.
‘He knows about the Xiang Sect, and the Twelve Celestial Fragrances!’
‘Who in the world is he?!’
“It seems…”
The Dust-Cleaning Slave’s voice grew low. “…I can’t let you live.”
The killing intent pouring from him was no longer concealed, spreading out like a tide.
“So be it.”
The Dust-Cleaning Slave slowly brought his hands out from his sleeves. “It doesn’t matter. I can still get the silk by grabbing other members of your Chen Family. You, on the other hand, can die.”
“What a coincidence.”
Chen Li’s face was now completely devoid of warmth. “I wasn’t planning on letting you live, either.”
He casually clenched his right hand.
“You still dare to threaten me? The audacity of a dog!”
The Dust-Cleaning Slave laughed in fury.
But in the next instant, he froze completely.
A dark light flashed in Chen Li’s hand, and the Qiankun Ruyi Staff materialized from thin air.
The staff trembled with a low HUM, and an indescribable pressure—like a slumbering dragon suddenly awakened, like a dormant volcano violently erupting—exploded outward from Chen Li!
In that moment, the savagery, fury, and killing intent on the Dust-Cleaning Slave’s face were extinguished, replaced by an expression of utter disbelief, mixed with shock and absurdity.
His pupils shrank to pinpricks, the hair on his body stood on end, and a chill shot up from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head!
‘How is this possible?!’
‘When Chen Li first appeared, my Divine Sense clearly swept over him back and forth, meticulously, several times.’
‘His aura was a little strange, but it was definitely at the Void Transformation level.’
‘A Void Transformation Grandmaster might be a somebody in Jiangzhou, but to me, he’s just an ant I can crush at will!’
‘I even wondered if he could withstand a single one of my moves.’
‘But… but now!’
‘This terrifying aura, descending like the majestic might of the heavens… the pressure it exerts on me is absolutely not Void Transformation, not Divine Intent, and not even Guiyuan!’
‘This is… Dharma Aspect?!’
‘Motherfucker! Are you toying with me?!’
An utterly absurd thought, one that plunged him into an icy abyss, uncontrollably surged into his mind.
Shock, fury, rage, and panic!
A torrent of emotions instantly shattered all his composure.
But all of this happened in the flash of a spark.
Because Chen Li had moved.
The very instant the Dust-Cleaning Slave’s Heart Spirit faltered, Chen Li’s figure had already vanished from his spot.
In the next moment, a piercing sonic boom finally erupted.
To the Dust-Cleaning Slave’s senses, it wasn’t a person moving, but a light-devouring darkness that suddenly tore through the air, hurtling toward him at a terrifying speed that surpassed the limits of his Divine Sense!
There were no flashy moves, no probing feints. From the very start, it was a killing blow, wrapped in boiling killing intent and overwhelming rage.
The sonic boom sent a hum vibrating through the entire dock, and the shockwave sent violent, spreading ripples across the distant river surface.
On the Dust-Cleaning Slave’s pale, effeminate face, shock, terror, absurdity, and rage… all these emotions mingled, twisting his expression into a savage grimace.
One moment, he was looking down on his prey like an ant. In the blink of an eye, the roles of hunter and hunted had been completely reversed.
But now, all emotion was useless.
The staff was already upon him.
Death had never felt so close.
There was no time to think, no time for regret.
His instincts from countless life-and-death battles forced him into a final struggle.
He let out a sharp shriek as his right hand, which had been tucked into his sleeve, shot out like lightning. A Duster had appeared in it at some unknown point.
The three thousand silver strands of the Duster straightened, infused with Primordial Qi, and let out a sharp, air-rending whistle as he swung it violently at the incoming black shadow.
BOOM!!!
The black staff and the Duster collided viciously!
The ground of the dock cracked and splintered, and dirt and gravel were swept up by the ferocious shockwave as if weightless, shooting out in all directions.
The Duster in the Dust-Cleaning Slave’s hand emitted a crisp cracking sound at the moment of impact, then snapped and recoiled.
As if struck by lightning, he was flung backward off the ground, vomiting mouthfuls of blood.
Chen Li’s killing intent was absolute. How could he give him a moment’s respite?
His figure, like a specter, followed the backward-flying form, launching himself into the air. He soared high, raised the Qiankun Ruyi Staff above his head, and brought it down in a simple, unadorned chop.
“Crazy bitch! Save me…!!”