I Have the Martial Arts Heavenly Eye in the Storm Riders

"It's alright."

Duan Lang raised his hand in a gesture, indicating the empty seat next to the low table.

"Please sit down."

Xu Fu slowly sat down, cross-legged, his sleeves swaying gently.

He had just settled into his seat.

Several feet away, a maid raised her hand, and the teapot tilted slightly.

A stream of tea soup gushed from the pot, soared through the air for several feet, and poured precisely into the teacup in front of Xu Fu.

Full but not overflowing, and stopping when full.

Not a single drop of tea remained in the air.

Xu Fu paused for a moment as he picked up the teacup.

His gaze swept over the maid, his face expressionless.

But that pause, which lasted only half a breath, betrayed the turmoil in his heart.

Tea can be poured from a distance, several feet in the air, without spilling a single drop.

Even within his Heavenly Gate, only a select few could pull off this move.

Xu Fu brought the teacup to his lips and took a small sip.

As the tea went down his throat, his peripheral vision subtly swept to his right.

A young man in white sat there; his face was unfamiliar.

He had a clean and composed demeanor, quietly sipping his tea as if he didn't care about a single word of the meeting.

Xu Fu's gaze fell on his face briefly before quickly averting, a hint of doubt rising in his heart.

He had never seen the young man's face in any intelligence reports.

However, that aura...

It's so deep you can't see the bottom.

He quickly suppressed this strange feeling and resumed his leisurely demeanor.

Then he noticed another gaze.

The old man across from him, chewing on fruit, was lazily scanning his face with his smiling, curved eyes.

Xu Fu did not recognize the old man.

But to be able to sit here and be treated as a guest by Duan Lang, one must be no ordinary person.

He didn't speak rashly, but simply picked up his teacup and glanced back at her without making a sound.

The two looked at each other across the low table for a moment before looking away.

Just then, Duan Lang put down his teacup, glanced at Xiao Sanxiao and then at Xu Fu, and spoke calmly.

"Since you two are both here, why don't you get to know each other first?"

He tilted his head slightly and raised his chin toward the white-clad youth on his right.

"This one needs no introduction, Jiang Chen, my good brother."

Xu Fu and Xiao Sanxiao's gazes fell on Jiang Chen almost simultaneously.

Everyone here knows who Duan Lang is.

Those whom he calls "good brothers" are definitely not ordinary people.

Jiang Chen simply nodded slightly, his expression indifferent, and said nothing more.

Duan Lang's gaze shifted to the old man with crescent-shaped eyes opposite him.

"This is Senior Xiao Sanxiao."

"Senior Xiao has lived for over four thousand years—far longer than you, Senior Xu."

Xu Fu paused for a moment as he held the teacup.

More than four thousand years?

He slowly turned his head and looked again at the smiling old man opposite him.

His gaze was different from before.

Xiao Sanxiao chuckled and cupped his hands in a respectful gesture.

"Young friend Xu, it's a pleasure to meet you."

His voice was gentle, his brows were relaxed, and the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes were gathered together, making him look exactly like a kind old man who could be found anywhere and harmless to humans and animals.

However, beneath this harmless exterior...

In his heart, however, he swept his gaze over the person opposite him with a look colder than an ice cave.

Emperor Shitian.

An immortal being who has lived for two thousand years.

The mastermind behind the scenes, who treated the martial arts world as a plaything and the common people as straw dogs, was now holding a cup of tea, exchanging pleasantries with people in a dignified and otherworldly manner, like a "Senior Xu."

Xiao Sanxiao let out a very light and indifferent snort in his heart.

The millennia-old conspiracy that Indra was so proud of was nothing more than a worthless piece of chess destined to be crushed in his eyes.

From beginning to end, they were merely stepping stones to achieving greatness.

In his eyes, such a person is not even a pawn worth considering.

On the surface, he still held onto that broken gourd, smiling nonchalantly.

Xu Fu's fingers, which were resting on the table, paused almost imperceptibly.

He has lived for two thousand years.

He considered himself to be the oldest and most unattainable being in the world.

However, when he heard the phrase "more than four thousand years ago," what rose in his heart was not amazement, but an indescribable chill.

It suppressed him for two thousand years.

This means that, before he was even born, in the old man's eyes, the world had already changed countless times.

While he was cultivating the Sacred Heart Technique.

When he painstakingly established Tianmen.

During those two long years when he believed himself to be high above the clouds, looking down upon all living beings—

This person has always been there.

Those smiling eyes, now carrying a hint of nonchalance and a touch of sleepiness, were looking at him without any sense of threat.

But it was precisely this lack of threat that sent a shiver down Xu Fu's spine.

He quickly sifted through his vast two-thousand-year-old memories.

The name Xiao Sanxiao and his face never left even the slightest trace in his intelligence network.

A person who has lived for four thousand years can leave no trace.

This only proves one thing—

This person is deliberately hiding himself and is unfathomable.

Xu Fu lowered his eyes slightly, looking at the gently rippling reflection in the tea soup.

Two thousand years of experience taught him that some extremely terrible problems, even just the first sign of them, are enough to destroy a person's defenses.

All my plans over the past two thousand years...

Could it be that everything was part of this old man's scheme from beginning to end?

Xu Fu did not let this slight ripple show on his face.

He picked up the teacup, took a small sip, swallowed the biting chill, and his face remained calm and composed, as if tempered by time.

Duan Lang sat quietly in the main seat.

Although these two old men, who had lived for over six thousand years combined, showed no sign of it on their faces.

But how could he possibly hide from such a subtle interplay of energy and undercurrents?

He put down his teacup, taking in this interesting, unspoken exchange.

"Senior Xu."

Duan Lang suddenly spoke, his voice calm.

Have you ever heard of the "Twelve Terrifying Tales" of the martial arts world?

Xu Fu snapped out of his reverie, his gaze shifting slightly.

"Of course I've heard of it."

"Twelve incredible people and things in the world as judged by Bai Xiaokuangsheng".

"The first eleven terrors all had traceable clues, but the twelfth terror is mysterious and unpredictable, and it appears in the martial arts world once every hundred years, its whereabouts remaining a mystery."

"The rumors are unfathomable. But in my opinion, they are mostly just exaggerated stories spread by the world."

Upon hearing this, Duan Lang's lips curled into a very faint smile.

He did not refute it.

Instead, he leisurely turned his gaze to Xiao Sanxiao across from him.

"Senior Xu is right."

Duan Lang's tone was neither too light nor too heavy, "Only this twelfth terror appears once every hundred years, and no one knows its true face."

"but--"

Duan Lang's voice trailed off by half an inch, seemingly casually.

In that extremely brief pause, Xu Fu frowned almost imperceptibly, a vague sense of improbable unease creeping over him.

"It's just such a coincidence."

Duan Lang stretched out his hand, his well-defined fingers casually pointing at the old man opposite him who had just finished chewing fruit and was about to take a sip from his gourd.

"The twelfth terror, which the world has been searching for but cannot find, happens to be sitting right here."

"It is indeed Senior Xiao Sanxiao."

The sound of the wind at the edge of the cliff seemed to be abruptly cut off by some invisible force at that moment.

Xu Fu's face, hardened by countless trials and tribulations and one that should not have changed even in the face of a collapsing mountain, froze uncontrollably for a moment upon hearing this most calm sentence.

He suddenly turned his head and stared intently at Xiao Sanxiao.

The twelfth panic.

He appears in the martial arts world once every hundred years.

Xu Fu suddenly realized something extremely terrifying and ironic—

If the person in front of you is the one who is terrified of the Twelve.

That means that the various "destined calamities" and so-called "behind-the-scenes forces" that have plagued the martial arts world of the Central Plains for the past two thousand years are not some vague and ethereal river of destiny!

That was the old man before me, who, every hundred years, truly manipulated the fate of mortals with his own hands!

Xu Fu was one of the "mortals" swept up by these vast celestial events!

the other side.

Xiao Sanxiao never stopped drinking tea.

With a "gulp," he swallowed the tea calmly and steadily.

There's no way to hide it anymore.

He smacked his lips twice and happily continued to savor the lingering sweetness on his tongue.

They acted like a dead pig that wasn't afraid of boiling water.

Duan Lang looked at them and got straight to the point.

"Senior Xiao has truly played a very grand game."

His gaze lingered on Xiao Sanxiao, his tone carrying a hint of mockery.

"Use Indra as a whetstone to hone your skills and, incidentally, a perfect stone to cleanse the martial arts world of the Central Plains."

"The more Di Shitian stirs things up, the faster the blade of wind and clouds will be sharpened."

"The more people Di Shitian kills, the cleaner the landscape of the Central Plains martial arts world will be."

Duan Lang tapped his finger lightly again.

"But Senior Xiao, your move was too ruthless. The heroes of the martial arts world were almost wiped out, and the main pillar was broken, directly causing a serious gap in the martial arts world of the Central Plains."

"If it weren't for your 'brilliant' cleansing, how could the so-called great calamity have found this once-in-a-lifetime opening and advanced unimpeded?"

These few words are plain and unremarkable.

But it was like a thunderclap exploding in Xu Fu's mind.

Whetstone?

Xu Fu's hand holding the teacup showed faint whitening at the knuckles.

He, the dignified leader of the Heavenly Gate, who considered himself the very heavens and even manipulated powerful figures across the land, was nothing more than a tool to sharpen the knives of juniors in Xiao Sanxiao's eyes?!

But amidst his shock and anger, a sudden realization quickly spread through his mind.

No wonder...

No wonder that recently, when he observed the celestial phenomena at night and deduced his own fate, he always felt a suffocating death aura surrounding him, indicating that his time was near.

Someone is plotting against him!

This whetstone has been used up so much that people are planning to discard it!

And what about the great calamity of a thousand autumns?

What is that?

Xu Fu was deeply shocked, but he remained silent, took a deep breath, and listened to Duan Lang continue.

Faced with the prospect of his underwear being gradually stripped away, Xiao Sanxiao stopped smacking his lips.

He sighed.

His face once again displayed that aloof yet compassionate expression.

"This is destiny."

The old man shook his head, his tone weary and helpless.

"The mandate of Heaven is vast and cannot be defied; I am merely going with the flow."