Chapter One Hundred Forty-One: Collecting Scrap

After all the Southern Domain cultivators had returned to their respective places, Xiu Binggan couldn’t help but cast a sorrowful glance at the hellish scenes from the eight battlefields and sighed deeply. He then set about organizing the cleanup and arrangement.

In this great battle, the Asura Mansion had deployed two waves of disciples totaling nearly one hundred thousand. In the end, only about thirty thousand survived, all heavily wounded—truly shaken to their very bones.

Xiu Binggan and the other senior leaders knew well that it would take over a century for a full recovery.

As for the affiliated factions tied by kinship, they were nearly wiped out entirely, with only a handful returning alive. Their forces were effectively crippled.

After several hours, tens of thousands of corpses and severed limbs from the eight battlefields were gathered in one place and set ablaze. The choking black smoke, mixed with the endless aura of blood and killing intent, burned continuously for seven days and nights before finally dissipating.

The junction between the Central and Southern Domains remained deserted for more than half a month, forcing those who needed to cross to take detours.

Though the Asura Mansion’s Grand Ascension Patriarch never appeared, he sighed deeply in secret, brooding for a long, long time before finally dispelling distractions and retreating once more into his secluded death-sealing cultivation.

Within the central hall of the Asura Mansion, Xiu Binggan and several senior leaders were gathered.

“Master of the mansion, there are two pieces of news.”

“Speak.”

A Daoist elder in the Transformation stage reported to Xiu Binggan.

The information mainly concerned Xiu Ji, Xiu Sihai, Xiu Haobo, and others.

What they did not know was that the messages they obtained had long since been tampered with by Gu Xiaopang’s orders.

The report stated that the second wave of affiliated reinforcements from the Puppet Sect’s senior members had been ambushed en route, with Xiu Ji, Xiu Sihai, and others personally hiring assassins from various regions to carry out the attacks.

This was verifiable by the spies infiltrated into the Deadly Killing Tower; no deception was possible.

However, the report emphasized that their rash actions were due to excessive concern over the battlefield situation and a moment of hot-headedness. After calming down, they realized the consequences and feared being torn apart by the mansion’s leadership. Hence, they had hidden in other regions all this time.

Only when dozens of forces from different regions approached did they reemerge, determined to risk death to turn the tide by secretly printing and distributing leaflets throughout the Southern Domain, thus inciting the mass mobilization of cultivators there.

“Those old bastards are still hiding in other regions?”

“Yes, but we have pinpointed their exact locations. We seek your instruction on how to deal with them.”

“Sigh, forget it. They only acted out of concern for their own forces, trying to relieve some pressure from the frontline troops. It was just a misstep.”

“Besides, the final retreat of the enemy was largely due to the leaflets they produced. In that regard, their damage control was quite timely.”

“Let their merits and demerits balance out.”

“Go fetch them yourself. These old bastards hiding? They’d better not think they can escape; this mansion won’t swallow them whole.”

“Master of the mansion, your wisdom is unparalleled!”

In previous times, hot-tempered Xiu Binggan would never have listened to excuses and would have cut those old fools down without hesitation.

But times had changed. The Asura Mansion was in a state of rebuilding, and losing a few fewer perfected Nascent Soul cultivators was beneficial.

Furthermore, these old men had proven through their actions that their intentions were truly for the good of the Asura Mansion.

Thus, when Xiu Ji and the others were summoned back, they were not punished. On the contrary, their status within the mansion rose several steps, and the power they wielded grew manyfold.

News of their deeds spread among the mansion’s disciples, earning them throngs of supporters.

In the days that followed, their hurried figures were often seen throughout the rebuilding mansion, all deeply admiring their young master’s brilliant and martial prowess.

After all, when they realized the gravity of their mistake, they were nearly scared to death and had prepared to flee the continent.

Yet unexpectedly, their young master never intended to send them to their deaths. Instead, he had arranged contingencies in advance, even granting them more real power within the mansion, turning a crisis into an opportunity.

...

Within the miasma of the Eastern Central Domain, Taishi Zheng sat slumped in his seat, his entire body radiating a chilling, oppressive aura, his heart bleeding incessantly.

The senior leaders beside him wore grim expressions, sighing repeatedly.

They had suffered enormous losses in their campaign against the Asura Mansion.

First, two waves of tens of thousands of troops in the Southern Domain were completely wiped out.

In terms of high-ranking cultivators, they lost one Transformation stage and one Tribulation stage warrior.

Then, the sect mobilized seventy thousand troops and over sixty thousand puppets, but after the battle, they brought back only about twenty thousand, with puppets suffering over eighty percent casualties.

That was not all. Due to their subconscious negligence, they never anticipated that the Asura Mansion would deploy the Asura’s Death Formation—an array not seen in over a thousand years.

Taishi Zheng had only focused on the retreat of his troops, forgetting the countless corpses gathered earlier.

By the time they realized, the pursuing blood-killing immense blade’s spatial turbulence had crushed them to dust.

In the end, he himself lost a hundred million spirit stones to the Asura Mansion and was also extorted over thirty million spirit stones by eight other detestable forces.

Those thirty million spirit stones were undoubtedly gone for good, a lost investment.

Thus, the senior leaders all felt that the Puppet Sect was ill-fated, truly defeated in a spectacular fashion.

To sum it up: they tried to steal chickens but ended up losing the rice, paying dearly in both men and resources.

“Bang!”

Growing increasingly frustrated, Taishi Zheng slammed down hundreds of identical leaflets in pieces on the ground.

Whether it was the hired assassins ambushing their reinforcements or the spread of leaflets disrupting their plans, Taishi Zheng and his cohorts wished they could crush Xiu Ji, Xiu Sihai, and those old bastards on the spot.

...

Meanwhile, the one responsible for this scheme, Gu Xiaopang, had already distributed over a million leaflets, many of which had been seized by various forces across other regions of the continent.

Everyone who read the stories recounted therein was deeply impressed.

Such talent! Who would have imagined the Asura Mansion harbored such greatness? No wonder a single order mobilized the entire Southern Domain.

Though the Puppet Sect was defeated, the general consensus across the continent was that they had brought it upon themselves.

As for the forty-eight forces extorted for fifty million spirit stones, they became the continent’s laughingstock.

They had mobilized en masse for nothing, ending up not only with no gains but also heavy losses.

...

The people of the Heavenly Mansion were deeply moved by their own mansion master’s and leader’s extraordinary stratagem.

Fearful of falling behind and letting their leader down, they once again mobilized en masse to challenge the regional rankings.

Soon, the Southern Domain’s ranking list saw constant upheavals.

A host of Nascent Soul stage assassins and ruffians, behind closed doors, expressed endless admiration for their young master’s brilliance.

At this moment, Gu Xiaopang himself was exceptionally busy.

On the return journey from assisting the battlefield with the Misty Sect, he had appeared before Nangong Kang to request several hundred capable men to remain at his private territory in the Southern Domain.

Nangong Kang casually agreed without probing the purpose.

The next day, Gu Xiaopang launched a massive buyback campaign not far from the Asura Mansion, targeting the entire Southern Domain.

“Scrap collectors! Scrap collectors!”

“Buying discarded treasures and magical artifacts!”

“Buying broken and damaged relics!”

“Buying all kinds of meteorite fragments and weapon shards!”

Over three hundred male disciples of the Misty Sect were dispatched to various locations, shouting loudly. Each shout reddened their faces more.

Their calls were mainly around the Asura Mansion, not far away, just enough to ensure their voices reached the mansion’s outskirts.

Many returning Asura Mansion disciples initially paid no mind to the shouting.

But when Xiu Ji and the others covertly arranged for some disciples to sell a large batch of battlefield weapons and fragments to Gu Xiaopang, earning over a thousand spirit stones, the mansion began sending elders and disciples out in increasing numbers.

Gu Xiaopang set up over a dozen buyback points, all overcrowded.

Piles of treasure and artifact fragments were purchased at very fair prices.

Sometimes, to speed up acquisitions, they even paid extra tens of spirit stones.

As a result, those selling scraps from the Asura Mansion called friends, and waves of them came streaming.

The popularity of these buyback points immediately attracted attention from many Southern Domain cultivators.

Seeing discarded weapons previously left idle in corners now fetching spirit stones, they too eagerly joined in.

Nearly thirty thousand Asura Mansion survivors each collected many fragments during the battlefield cleanup, all of which Gu Xiaopang gathered within a day and night.

Having secured the mansion’s fragments, Gu Xiaopang then somehow obtained dozens of drums and gongs.

With over three hundred male disciples of the Misty Sect, he began beating drums and shouting all the way back to their sect.

Throughout, Bai Ling’er kept falling far behind, implying she knew none of those shameless fellows ahead.

Puyang De awkwardly bid Gu Xiaopang farewell and hurried back to the Central Domain, unwilling to lose face.

Even Gongyang Tai found excuses to flee back to his own base.

Soon, news of Gu Changqing—the Misty Sect’s young sect master, the Southern Domain’s top-ranked cultivator, and the sole son-in-law of the Purple Gold Royal Court—leading a massive scrap-collecting campaign across the Southern Domain spread far and wide.

The Purple Gold Royal Court’s emperor, Zi Qiankun, puzzled by Gu Xiaopang’s antics, seethed with anger.

His personally appointed son-in-law was going around collecting scraps across the Southern Domain?

His once grand royal image was utterly tarnished in a single day by this foul youth.

Within the main hall of the Misty Sect’s principal peak, sect master Nangong Kang wore a dark scowl.

Gu Xiaowu sat nearby, restless and embarrassed.

Other peak masters and pavilion heads struggled to suppress their laughter, nearly bursting from holding it in.

Just yesterday, Nangong Kang had been pleased by an unexpected gain of over thirty million spirit stones, thinking Gu Xiaopang had done well and deserved praise.

But barely a day had passed.

What was this scoundrel up to now?

He had taken three hundred strong men and openly turned to scrap collecting?!

Beating drums and shouting as if to announce the Misty Sect’s presence?

Did he want everyone to know they were scrap collectors?

It was utterly outrageous.

A disgrace—not only to themselves but to everyone present and to the Misty Sect as a whole.

...