Chapter 181: Bu Jing Emerges into the World

The whole thing started with a small matter.

A disciple of the Bu Clan and a disciple from another aristocratic family in Wubu City went drinking with courtesans. Upon seeing that one of the songstresses was particularly beautiful, both disciples developed feelings for her and wanted to redeem her.

Redemption required money, so the two disciples began slapping silver notes onto the table, competing to see who had more money and thus the right to redeem her.

By the end, the amount of money they put down could’ve redeemed not just one, but ten songstresses.

The other family’s disciple lost the contest, and in his anger, started a fight. The two clashed violently and ended up wrecking an entire floor, both sustaining serious injuries.

The Bu Clan Leader and the leader of the other family, upon hearing of the incident, both stepped up to back their own people and demand justice.

And in a world where everyone practices martial arts, justice is determined by fists.

The two clan leaders, both at grandmaster level, squared off in Wubu City. Naturally, such a showdown had to be as grand as possible.

They set up a fighting platform in the city. Before a massive crowd, the two clan leaders fought, cracking the stage beneath them.

Perhaps the Bu Clan Leader was feeling unwell that day and couldn’t even exert half his strength. The other clan leader seized the opportunity to launch a fierce attack and was about to kill the Bu Clan Leader.

At that moment, an old monster with white hair, white beard, and white brows suddenly appeared from the Bu Clan. With a single palm strike, he sent the clan leader from the other family flying, blood streaming from his seven orifices, severely injured.

“I’ve been in closed-door death seclusion for three hundred years. Just stepped back into the martial world today. Are the youngsters nowadays really this weak? You can’t even take ten percent of my strength.”

The old monster from the Bu Clan swept his gaze over the crowd and praised, “You lot burn your lifespan to cultivate martial arts. Your pursuit of the Martial Dao is commendable. Even if it shortens your life to forty years, you still reach for martial mastery. That is great virtue!”

“My path is not a lonely one. The Martial Dao has successors!”

The crowd erupted in commotion.

To injure a clan leader with one move, he was undoubtedly a Human Sovereign Peak. But that wasn’t even what shocked people the most.

What shocked them most was—how could anyone look like this?

Hunched back, white hair, white brows, white beard, face full of wrinkles, skinny to the point of being skin and bones.

Was this even human?

Call him a demon or a ghost, and people would believe it—just not that he was human.

For people who could only live to forty, it was unimaginable what someone who lived three hundred years would look like.

“So the Bu Clan really did have someone from three hundred years ago!” someone exclaimed in sudden realization, connecting the dots between the pill-selling and book-selling incidents and guessing at the Bu Clan’s deep foundation.

And this was all part of Jiang Li’s plan.

Bu Jing’s emergence hadn’t caused a big enough stir—after all, this world had no livestreams. Him showing off in Wubu City only made the locals believe that someone could look like that and live three hundred years.

But once news left Wubu City and spread by word of mouth, it would become just a joke—something to laugh at and dismiss without a second thought.

Only by planting the idea early and making people rack their brains with speculation, then having Bu Jing appear in broad daylight, could the impact be maximized.

“What did he mean by saying we’re cultivating martial arts that burn our lifespan?”

“How could that be possible? He says he’s lived for three hundred years and we’re just supposed to believe it? I think he just dressed up in some never-before-seen look to grab attention.”

“A Human Sovereign Peak doing clown tricks just because he’s bored?”

There were only six Human Sovereign Peaks in existence—fewer than even three hundred years ago. To the common folk, these were unfathomably powerful beings. How could someone like that come out and joke around?

“So just because he’s a Human Sovereign Peak, everything he says is automatically true? What a joke. Do you believe in the Twelve Heavenly Kings or some freak that popped out of nowhere? He says our martial arts burn our lifespan—doesn’t that mean the Heavenly Kings are harming us? Is that even possible?”

“Of course not. The Heavenly Kings are our saviors. They freed us from the clutches of the old martial artists. Why would they harm us?”

“Obviously I believe in the Heavenly Kings.”

Hearing the crowd call him a monster, Bu Jing felt both grief and irony.

If this had happened in his youth, he never would’ve imagined a time where people hadn’t even seen an old man before, and instead mistook him for a monster.

How utterly ridiculous.

“There are only six Human Sovereign Peaks? Why so few?” Abu, hiding in the crowd, asked in confusion.

Logically speaking, with the whole world practicing martial arts, the number of martial artists should be thousands or even tens of thousands times more than three hundred years ago. Even if not hundreds, there should at least be dozens of Human Sovereign Peaks. Why only six?

Jiang Li shook his head: “To reach Human Sovereign Peak, you need to unify essence, qi, and spirit. But when you burn lifespan, your essence is depleted, your qi is discouraged, and your spirit weakens. It becomes incredibly difficult to unify the three. Under such conditions, having six is already a lot.”

“Suppressing people’s levels, stopping them from getting stronger, afraid they’ll rise up from below—cowards, the lot of them.” Yu Yin scorned the Twelve Heavenly Kings and had no respect for them.

Yu Yin believed the martial arts manuals issued by the Twelve Heavenly Kings weren’t just for accelerating generational turnover, rewriting history, and building up their majestic image—but also to prevent people from advancing to higher realms. They feared the large number of martial artists would lead to someone breaking through to Human Sovereign Peak and threatening their rule.

Jiang Li and the others, being the top cultivators of the Nine Provinces, had never feared people below them rising up to challenge their status.

All three had the heart of true powerhouses and weren’t afraid of being challenged. In fact, the more people who challenged them, the better.

The more challengers they beat, the stronger they proved themselves to be.

“My lord, should we act?” someone quietly asked the Wubu City Lord.

“Act, my a**. You think you can go capture a Human Sovereign Peak?” the City Lord’s face was dark and uncertain. “Report this immediately and let the imperial court handle it.”

Today’s incident had actually been orchestrated by the Wubu City Lord.

The court had taken notice of the Bu Clan secretly selling books and spreading old martial arts, and wanted to shut them down. But they didn’t understand the Bu Clan’s full strength. The Wubu City Lord guessed their intentions and arranged for the other family’s clan leader to provoke the Bu Clan, hoping to stir up a conflict and uncover their hidden strength.

The City Lord’s plan was clear: once he understood the Bu Clan’s power, he’d catch them off guard, capture them, and claim credit with the court.

And now, the Bu Clan’s strength had indeed been revealed—only, the City Lord realized he couldn’t handle it.

Everyone’s a grandmaster-level martial artist—so why does the Bu Clan have someone at Human Sovereign Peak?

At this point, claiming credit was impossible. All he could do was report to the court and let them send a Human Sovereign Peak to handle the Bu Clan.

“Many thanks, Brother Shi. Are your injuries alright?” The Bu Clan Leader fed a pill to the other clan leader, and his injuries healed instantly.

The clan leader was astonished: “Such miraculous medicine exists in the world? Is this also from your old ancestor?”

The Bu Clan Leader smiled without answering.

It was a Great Revitalization Pill provided by Bai Hongtu.

“Brother Bu, is that man… really someone who survived from three hundred years ago?” the other clan leader asked in a low voice.

This clan leader had actually received two invitations—one from the Wubu City Lord, asking him to start a fight and expose the Bu Clan’s strength; the other from the Bu Clan Leader, asking him to start a fight so the world could see the Bu Clan’s strength.

Never in his life had he seen such a coincidentally aligned plan. So he agreed to both.

He really had wanted to see what the Bu Clan was hiding.

And now that he saw—it truly was extraordinary.