# Chapter 154: You Bear What Stele
Jiang Wang did not speak, and did not turn back.
Back in the Twenty-Seventh City, Zhao Cang had performed faultlessly, been too magnanimous, too wise for comfort. A man of such wisdom—could he truly not see what his own son had done? Yet Zhao Che had still grown into what he was today.
And so Jiang Wang had caught the murderous intent in Zhao Cang. He had hoped it was only an illusion; he was willing to believe in the warm side of the world. Even if those who had shown him warmth... had almost all died.
But the moment he saw Yin Guan, he understood: he was only bait.
Perhaps Yin Guan had hidden too well, perhaps the divination had failed. In any case, the Upper City had not been able to find him. And Zhao Cang had deliberately trumpeted his own deeds before the gathered crowd, precisely so that Yin Guan would catch sight of him. Using himself—a traveler with merit to You Kingdom—as a lure.
The invitation to join the Upper City, the gift of the Youth-Nourishing Pill: all of it meant only to disarm suspicion. His own, and the lurking vigilance of Yin Guan in the unseen dark.
When even Fang Pengju would kill him, when even Dong A would deceive him, a Grand Mentor of You Kingdom like Zhao Cang taking him for bait was hardly a curiosity. And yet he felt anger.
Could it be that doing good should invite disaster? That good and evil went unrewarded, and that Heaven and Earth held private prejudices?
Behind Jiang Wang.
Yin Guan and Zheng Chaoyang collided with a thunderclap!
One was a young cultivator not yet past his twentieth year, a candidate among Upper City cultivators. The other was a mighty soldier-cultivator of long and fearsome renown, legendary commander of You Kingdom's Stele-Bearing Army.
One was of middling build, wide sleeves fluttering. The other stood bare of chest, majestic and strong. Even their two hands stood in stark contrast: one palm as light as drifting willow-catkins, one fist like a mountain.
Yet when they met, they hung suspended for an instant. Then they parted, and both were thrown back. Yin Guan drifted back several dozen feet; Zheng Chaoyang staggered back seven paces. A level contest!
Zheng Chaoyang was astonished. He would not claim to have fought across all the world, but on this patch of You Kingdom soil he was beyond dispute a top-tier powerhouse. In countless battles on the field of war, across all You Kingdom, apart from the Grand Mentor Zhao Cang, he had never laid hand on a second opponent.
Now, before him, this mere lord of a Lower City, this young man of under twenty who had never once cultivated in the Upper City, contended with him even-steven?
Could this... be what a true genius was?
Even one of his iron-and-blood hardness felt, for an instant, a blur of a daze. Then clouds blotted the sun, and black smoke gathered like a cage.
That was curse, resentment, despair, pain. The confluence of all that was negative, struggling, dark. A ferocious demonic qi burst forth with savage fury.
Yin Guan's gaze began to gleam green, and his long hair stretched down to trail at his feet.
"Just filthy arts, crooked means!" Zheng Chaoyang drove a fist out, and his blood-qi blazed. Life-force and blood rose like smoke from a signal fire, charging into the black clouds.
The fist hammered and the body advanced; that murderous intent split the air, becoming spears, javelins, sharp swords... covering the sky and ground. The killing arts of the soldier's path. To raze a city into ruins, to condense baleful mist into weapons of war!
It cut through the dark and resentful air, slashed open the gnawing hatred and the curse.
"There are no crooked arts—only crooked men!" Yin Guan gave no ground: "I would gladly study proper orthodox methods, but the Upper City is nothing but mediocrities huddling together for warmth—how would a genius like me ever rise there?"
Zheng Chaoyang could not answer. For a genius of Yin Guan's caliber is bound, whichever generation of Lower City lords produced him, to be the very best—enough to delight the Guardian Sacred Beast.
This was also why Su Quan had "accidentally" revealed his prodigy's talent—this level of delight won him ample reward from You Kingdom's Upper City. Even relocating his entire clan there was nothing out of reach.
Zheng Chaoyang could not answer, but his fists and feet had to respond. Blood-qi cleaved through the demonic; martial balefulness scattered the resentment. The sky became half black-cloud, half crimson smoke.
His blood-qi seemed to take on substance, wound into every fist and every kick. Step by step, fist by fist, he drew closer to his opponent. He had never cared to trouble himself with too many mundane affairs beyond the battlefield. When Zhao Cang told him coming here might snare that Yin Guan who schemed to topple the kingdom, he had come.
Zhao Cang had to remain within the city—to guard the Upper City and guide the Guardian Sacred Beast at need, and to guard against the chance that Yin Guan was still inside or held other moves in reserve. Given how Yin Guan had fled the Upper City and stirred the sacred beast to fury, only he could come, and only he with any certainty.
He had always trusted Zhao Cang's judgment, and so had not hesitated to come. But Yin Guan was stronger than he had judged! This even exceeded his conception of what a genius could be.
To judge by the current fight, if he went all out and fought with his life, perhaps he could still pin the man down. But was that... right?
For the first time, he doubted his own fists. His fists wavered, yet Yin Guan's attack turned only more savage."Mountains and rivers at peace; under Bixia, a stele bearing merit. And you? Zheng Chaoyang, what stele do you bear?"
Zheng Chaoyang could not answer. He could not answer.
That great tortoise-beast of Bixia bloodline, at full eruption, wielded battle-strength approaching the Second-Rank True Cave Realm—the strongest fighting force in all You Kingdom, which across the ages had time and again snatched the kingdom back from the brink of ruin. Thus it had become the Guardian Sacred Beast.
But he knew clearly what the "Guardian Sacred Beast" required. As commander of the Stele-Bearing Army, first soldier of You Kingdom, the feeding of the sacred beast on genius cultivators could never be kept from him. He had doubted, and he had faltered. But once the beast departed, could he, Zheng Chaoyang, hold You Kingdom's territory alone?
He could not. He was willing to die for You Kingdom. But even dying could not hold it. After all, he was but at the peak of the Fourth-Rank Outer Tower Realm, barred before Divine Presence for decades. The Grand Mentor Zhao Cang, with the Upper City's great formation, could wield Divine Presence-level battle-strength. But a single Divine Presence guarding an entire kingdom's territory in an era of great contention—that was simply not realistic.
Sacrifice one person every half-year, to save all of You Kingdom—was that not worth it? And so he had grown ever less willing to meddle in worldly affairs, ever more devoted to matters of war and cultivation. But was that not, in its own way, a species of escape?
He had no way to answer Yin Guan's question. After all, he was only good at battle. Then let it be battle!
Fists and palms, the force of blood-qi and the force of the curse. A hundred and a thousand collisions within a single breath. Zheng Chaoyang stood silent, his body like a mountain. Yin Guan's gaze burned greener, until it was nearly a beast's; his floor-length hair thrashed wild, demonic as a fiend. None knew where he had learned these crooked witchcrafts. None knew what this child... had endured.
Boom!
A fierce exchange ended. The two separated once more. As his eyes were about to be wholly devoured by green light, Yin Guan abruptly shut them. When he opened them again, all was normal—eyes and hair alike.
He was certain that for now, he could not kill Zheng Chaoyang. But it had been enough. He did not cling to the fight; he turned and flew far away.
Only a voice was left behind, wrapped in demonic force, rolling on across the vast distance until it burst above the Twenty-Seventh City!
"One day I shall return to take your stele and wring your head from your neck!"
Whether in the Upper City or the Lower Twenty-Seventh City, all who heard it quailed. They all knew Zheng Chaoyang had personally set out to run Yin Guan down—and yet even he had not managed to slay the fiend!
Zheng Chaoyang quietly gathered his blood-qi, gazing toward the path where Yin Guan had raced across the sky. And Yin Guan did not once look back, did not cast a single glance at the Twenty-Seventh City.