Stepping on the demon door, the witch becomes the strongest

Chapter 787: Enmity

Tang Xiaolian was summoned, and she quickly prepared herself mentally on the way.

The two older sisters already disliked each other, and the situation was on the verge of exploding. What I said was just the trigger; even if I hadn't said anything, they would have still started fighting.

It has nothing to do with me, humph. But why is Yan Yu in Vice Captain Zhang's room?

When she arrived at Zhang Huaide's room, she saw the two men sitting in chairs, looking at her expressionlessly.

Zhang Huaide usually had a cold expression and preferred to think things through rather than speak directly, which Tang Xiaolian was familiar with. However, Yan Yu's expression at this moment made her feel slightly guilty, and she subconsciously defended herself by saying:
"I really don't know. I was still sleeping in your bed when they left the base."

Yan Yu watched her quietly, as if trying to find a clue on her face. Tang Xiaolian didn't dare to meet his gaze, and could only pretend to be shy as she lowered her head, her heart pounding.

"Huai De, what do you think?" Yan Yu asked, tilting his head.

“My lord, there must be something fishy going on here.” Zhang Huaide caught up with the joke.

"I'm innocent!" Tang Xiaolian cried out instinctively, then paused slightly.

Why should I play along with their act?

"What's strange about this?" Yan Yu raised his sword finger and pointed it at Tang Xiaolian, who quickly lowered her head again.

“As far as I know, Zhou Hongyu and Tang Xiaolian are extremely close and talk about almost everything,” Zhang Huaide said calmly. “Zhou Hongyu and Zhao Yuanzhen started fighting each other without any reason. Tang Xiaolian should at least know something about it, if not eight or nine out of ten, rather than being completely unaware.”

"Zhang Huaide, you bastard!" Tang Xiaolian cursed inwardly, but on the surface she feigned a pitiful look and explained to Yan Yu:

"I didn't say I knew nothing, it's just that I can't talk about things I'm not sure about. Actually, Sister Hongyu really wants to spend more time with you, but you haven't come to see her recently, so she thinks you're spending more time with the team members, and that's probably why she's a little resentful towards them."

"I see, so it was a battleground caused by jealousy and rivalry." Zhang Huaide said thoughtfully, "Doesn't personal charisma play a role in this?"

Yan Yu frowned immediately, feeling as if Lao Zhang was mocking him.

"Didn't you try to persuade her?" he asked Tang Xiaolian.

"I tried to persuade her!" Tang Xiaolian said loudly, "but she wouldn't listen to me!"

"Wait a minute," Zhang Huaide suddenly said. "Didn't you just say that you were sleeping when Zhou Hongyu and Zhao Yuanzhen left the base?"

Tang Xiaolian's expression froze. She hadn't expected to slip up. Seeing that Yan Yu was already smiling, she knew she couldn't hide it any longer. So she told him everything: Zhao Yuanzhen barged in, how she argued with Zhou Hongyu, and how she tried to mediate to protect Yan Yu's room from being affected, which instead led to them fighting outside.

Yan Yu and Zhang Huaide looked at each other for a moment, both speechless.

This is certainly not Tang Xiaolian's fault. The two girls are both strong-willed and don't get along, so it was only a matter of time before they started fighting.

The problem lies in their current overwhelming power. Even a casually cast spell by a high-grade Golden Core cultivator would be tantamount to the end of the world for those around them. Therefore, from a social impact perspective, it's necessary to dissuade them, not because Yan Yu is worried about a chaotic battlefield.

The question is: how do you persuade them?
Yan Yu glanced at Zhang Huaide, as if to say, "Comrade Zhang, you're quite clever, can you come up with an idea?"

Zhang Huaide returned a helpless look, as if to say, "You're their husband, why are you asking me for help?"

Seeing that Lao Zhang refused to offer any advice, Yan Yu could only ask Tang Xiaolian:

"Xiao Lian, do you have any good ideas on how to persuade them to stop?"

Then Tang Xiaolian also had a puzzled expression, as if to say, "What does your wife's fighting have to do with me?"

Seeing that Yan Yu's expression subtly revealed hostility, Tang Xiaolian immediately raised her hand and suggested:
"I have a way! As long as you sleep with them all and they're exhausted, they won't be able to fight."

I can even take the opportunity to sip some soup, hehe. Then, when I encounter someone, I can retort like Sister Zhao, "I've eaten more than you've smelled!"

“That’s a good plan,” Yan Yu said curtly, “but I won’t adopt it.”

"Trying to subdue someone with sleep is like adding fuel to the fire," Zhang Huaide chimed in. "Sleep once today, sleep ten times tomorrow, the fuel will never run out, and the fire will never be extinguished."

Tang Xiaolian argued:
"This is the fundamental solution. If you refuse to use it, then we can only resort to expedient measures. For example, asking relatives and friends to persuade them, but even if you manage to persuade them, they will still argue next time."

"We could ask relatives to try and persuade them," Yan Yu muttered to himself. "Do they have any relatives?"

Zhao Yuanzhen definitely doesn't exist; she's from another world and all alone. Zhou Hongyu's parents are alive, but to her, those biological parents are practically the same as dead.

"Why don't we ask the original team members to persuade them?" Zhang Huaide suggested. "I'll pull the Fire Phoenix team members, and you take the Zhenhai team members. Everyone can rush up and pull them back."

"Alright." Yan Yu pondered for a moment, then nodded in agreement.

Others dared not intervene for fear of being caught in the crossfire. When former team members came to mediate, they said, "You two wouldn't actually attack your former comrades, would you?"

So Yan Yu called Li Weiguo again and explained the next solution.

Li Weiguo was also very puzzled. Aren't these all your wives? Why didn't you just tell them? Why did you have to call so many people?

Of course, only Yan Yu can control these two people, so naturally his opinion should be the primary consideration.

Therefore, the Privy Council quickly reached a consensus, approving the departure of the remaining two teams of monks, excluding those already outside, to travel to the Southern Territory to mediate and end the conflict between the two.

The group left the Wudang Mountain base together, flew across half of the continent and entered the southern border, which quickly alerted more sorcerers.

When the news reached the wizard lord, everyone was shocked: What? The Lu Kingdom has sent so many cultivators to the Southern Territory, are they trying to exterminate us foreign races?

We're doomed! This time, our country is truly doomed to perish!
In the face of life and death, the wisdom that people can unleash is boundless. The lords began to gather the common people of the Lu Kingdom within their territories, and then pestered them to recognize their kinship—some became sworn brothers and sisters, others called them father and mother, in short, they wanted to establish as much kinship as possible with the people of the Lu Kingdom, so as not to be caught up in the upcoming purge.

The cultivators paid no heed to these frightened birds and flew straight to their destination.

Zhou Hongyu and Zhao Yuanzhen were still fighting. Both were exceptionally talented and possessed abundant true energy, making their attacks seemingly endless. One used the advantage of a magical artifact to continuously condense karmic fire lotuses; the other relied on the power of Daoist magic to slice through these lotuses, and then shattered the exploding petals one by one.

Yan Yu looked at the alms bowl from afar. Although he couldn't see the specific situation inside, he could tell from the sounds that Zhao Yuanzhen had the upper hand. The consumption of magic weapons is ultimately lower than that of Taoist magic. Zhou Hongyu's strength lies in her high attack power, but she cannot kill Zhao Yuanzhen and therefore cannot go all out. As a result, she fought rather restrained, and the shrill cries of the Crimson Feather Nine Phoenix Fire were intermittent.

If this drags on, Zhou Hongyu will be defeated sooner or later; we must intervene quickly. The group arrived at the outer wall of the alms bowl, looking at the massive, inverted bowl, and began to struggle with their predicament.

How do I get in?
Qin Meng immediately activated the Nirvana Divine Skill and slammed his fist on the Red Lotus Bowl, producing a dull and low echo.

Unmoved.

Lifting the alms bowl was impossible, and shouts from here wouldn't reach inside.

To break up the fight, one must first overcome the obstruction of the bowl's outer wall; but to overcome the obstruction, one must first get the two to stop fighting and have Zhao Yuanzhen lift the bowl.

Lock each other in!

Everyone turned their attention to Yan Yu, implying that he had to find a solution to the problem of his team's girl's secret weapon.

If you're also at a loss, then don't blame us for using all our abilities to destroy this magical artifact!

Yan Yu remained silent for a moment, then reached into his pocket, seemingly searching for some special magical artifact.

Finally, they pulled out a small, square tablet.

Everyone's eyes narrowed; that was...

Mobile phone.

As it turned out, the Red Lotus Bowl could block outsiders, but it couldn't block satellite phone signals, or perhaps the creator of the magic weapon simply had no idea that satellite communication even existed. The call was quickly answered on the other end.

"Yuanzhen, what are you doing!" Yan Yu immediately questioned.

"Hahahaha!" Zhao Yuanzhen's maniacal laughter came from the other end of the line. "Little Red Feather, today I'll show you who the First Wife is!"

Everyone was speechless with astonishment. This sudden incident, which shocked the entire Southern Territory and even reached the Privy Council of the Lu Kingdom, actually stemmed from a mere power struggle among the first wives of the Yan family?
"Quickly open the alms bowl and let me in!" Yan Yu shouted.

"You wait here," Zhao Yuanzhen said impatiently. "I'll let you in to watch this good show after I've completely defeated her, until she's forced to grovel at my feet, licking my insteps with a humiliated and resentful expression, and calling me 'Madam'!"

That arrogant and unruly vixen doesn't even listen to me anymore! She deserves a beating!
Yan Yu's fists were already hard, but with everyone watching, he couldn't very well drag her out and beat her to a pulp. So he could only suppress his displeasure and say in a gentle tone:
"Let me in first, I have something to tell you."

"Aren't you annoying?!" Zhao Yuanzhen shouted. "I've already told you I'm helping you manage the household. How am I supposed to set rules if you keep arguing like this? A scoundrel is most prone to becoming arrogant because of favor. I think you really don't understand!"

Yan Yu grew increasingly furious, but then he heard Chen Lingyun transmit her voice:

"If she doesn't listen to you, then call Ruoxi."

"Ruoxi, you go." At Yan Yu's command, Xie Ruoxi reluctantly stepped forward. She pondered for a long time on the phone before finally coming up with a line, saying:
"Sister Zhao! The captain has been waiting for you for ages, but you wouldn't even move this bowl. He's off having fun with other girls!"

"What!" Zhao Yuanzhen immediately flew into a rage, and sure enough, he put away the red lotus alms bowl and hurriedly tried to run outside.

The shrunken red lotus bowl spun in the air, and only then could everyone see the chaotic and devastated scene inside.

Forget about trees and rivers; there wasn't a single patch of flat land to be seen. The Crimson Feather Nine Phoenix Fire had carved countless horizontal and vertical trenches into the ground, while the shattered Karmic Fire Red Lotus fell to the ground, melting the surrounding soil, rocks, and gravel. Lava flowed slowly through these trenches.

It was truly no different from purgatory.

Chen Lingyun's eyes lit up. This scene proved that while a Golden Core cultivator might not be able to move mountains and fill seas, they were certainly capable of altering local climate and natural phenomena.

Artificial hell is feasible!
Zhao Yuanzhen, no longer able to suppress Zhou Hongyu, angrily rushed out. Then, seeing Yan Yu's dark face in the distance, she paused, only to hear him call out:
"Take it!"

Xie Ruoxi, Lin Ning, and Chen Lingyun rushed over and grabbed Zhao Yuanzhen, preventing her from fighting back. On the other side, Tang Xiaolian and the others calmed Zhou Hongyu down, and the surrounding bright flames gradually dissipated.

"How did it get to this point?" Yan Yu said, heartbroken. "If you two wanted to have a match, wouldn't it have been better to do it in the base's underground training grounds? Why did you have to fight to the death in broad daylight?"

“Indeed,” Chen Lingyun said with a smile, “Domestic power struggles aren’t conducted like this with physical force…”

"Shut up, I'll do the talking." Yan Yu rudely stopped her, then looked at Zhao Yuanzhen and Zhou Hongyu, his face cold, and said, "It's not convenient to talk here. We'll deal with this after we get back to China!"

The group then set off northwards, discreetly observing the two individuals involved along the way.

Zhou Hongyu's face was gloomy. Although his heroic spirit was undiminished and he had no wounds, he looked somewhat disheveled, as if he had been at a disadvantage in the previous fight.

Zhao Yuanzhen, however, was in high spirits and showed no displeasure at Yan Yu's scolding. Instead, she was excitedly showing off to Xie Ruoxi:

"...If you hadn't arrived so early, I would have won! Haha! I've never fought such a satisfying battle before. After reaching the Core Formation stage, my true energy is practically inexhaustible. I feel like I could blast her for three days and three nights without needing to rest! No wonder a Golden Core cultivator can crush all low-level cultivators. Ruoxi, can you understand this feeling?"

“I understand, Sister Zhao,” Xie Ruoxi said.

"Can you really understand?" Zhao Yuanzhen wanted to describe to her how exhilarating it was to have inexhaustible true energy.

"I really understand..." Xie Ruoxi said hesitantly, on the verge of tears.

Zhou Hongyu's face was gloomy when he heard Tang Xiaolian ask telepathically:
"Sister, are you alright?"

"That bastard!" Zhou Hongyu gritted her teeth. "If I hadn't been holding back at all times to avoid cutting her in half, would she really have thought she was a match for me?"

Tang Xiaolian paused for a moment, then said gently:

"Zhou, who knows how to restrain himself and consider the big picture... people do mature after all."

"Huh?" Zhou Hongyu exhaled directly, asking in bewilderment, "What do you mean?"

"It doesn't mean anything," Tang Xiaolian said with a grin. "I just think that if I were Yan Yu, I would definitely prefer a good woman who is emotionally stable and knows how to consider the big picture, rather than a tough woman who only knows how to fight."

“That’s natural.” Zhou Hongyu looked at Zhao Yuanzhen’s back again and said coldly, “No matter how much Yan Yu tolerates her, there will always be a time when he can’t tolerate it anymore.”

"Let's see how long she can keep jumping around!"

(End of this chapter)