Confucian and Taoist Cultivation Starting from the Equipment Slot

Suddenly, he turned to look at Gu Qing'e.

"By the way, I arranged for Xie Zhiwei to come to the Faculty of Arts. Where is she?"

Gu Qing'e was stunned for a moment.

"I didn't see her! She's never been here."

Upon hearing this, Chen Zhuo's heart skipped a beat, and an ominous premonition welled up in his mind.

"I'm going out again."

With that, he turned and walked out the door.

"Hey! Where are you going! Is it really necessary!" Gu Qing'e's voice came from afar.

Chen Zhuo did not answer; the moon-shaped script emerged, and his figure disappeared from the spot.

……

Inside Qingshan Castle

Chen Zhuo's figure darted through the streets and alleys, the moonlight casting a fleeting afterimage behind him.

Xie Zhiwei did not go to the College of Arts.

After the banquet, he clearly told her the location of the Literature Academy and Gu Qing'e's name.

The distance from the Xie residence to the academy wasn't far; given her pace, she should have arrived long ago.

But now that Gu Qing'e says she hasn't seen anyone, there are only two possibilities.

Either she encountered an accident on the way, or she didn't head towards the College of Arts at all.

Chen Zhuo prefers the latter.

Xie Zhiwei is not the kind of person who will obediently listen to others.

So she must have gone to chase after the Xie family's group.

Under the moonlight, Chen Zhuo pushed the art of "speed" to its limit.

In ghost form, he could penetrate all obstacles along the way, and his three times base movement speed allowed him to rush out of the north gate of the county town in just a few breaths.

The guard felt a gust of wind pass in front of him, blinked, but saw nothing.

Thinking he was hallucinating from his night shift, he rubbed his eyes and shrank back into the doorway.

Once outside the city, the moonlight became even brighter.

Chen Zhuo activated his spatial perception, taking in all the fluctuations of energy within a radius of several hundred feet.

The wilderness outside the city appeared empty and silent under the moonlight.

At the foot of the mountain, several clusters of literary energy were clashing fiercely, their light flickering as if someone were engaging in a battle of literary arts.

Chen Zhuo carefully sensed the surroundings and discovered at least two battlefields.

Chen Zhuo turned around and sped towards the foot of the mountain.

The closer he got, the clearer the fluctuations in the literary aura became. He recognized several familiar auras within them.

Xie Shi'an's literary style carried a sense of vicissitude, like withered wood, while the Wang family members possessed a gloomy and sharp literary style.

There's also a strong sense of wildness.

They are demons!

The demon race has indeed arrived!

He stopped behind a mound about two hundred paces from the battlefield, activated the Moon-character script to its maximum, and vanished into a hidden state under the moonlight.

Then slowly approach the battlefield until you can see the situation clearly.

This is an open area at the foot of the mountain, backed by a rocky slope, and beyond that, there are vast green mountains.

Xie Shi'an stood in front of a blue stone about half a person's height, with more than ten surviving members of the Xie family behind him.

Their robes were stained with blood and mud, and some of them had strips of cloth hastily torn off their arms.

The strips of cloth were soaked in blood, appearing as a dark red, almost black, under the moonlight.

Opposite them, Wang Zhongting stood with his hands behind his back.

Behind him were Wang Kui and another scholar, and behind them a row of black-clad warriors and crossbowmen.

Several corpses lay across the open ground between the two sides.

One was a young man from the Xie family, another was a martial artist from the Wang family, and the third was wearing a drab gray robe with a wooden plaque engraved with a cat's paw print hanging from his waist.

Those were people from the demon race, or rather, one of the envoys sent by the demon race at this point in time.

"It seems they've already played one round."

Chen Zhuo thought to himself.

Wang Zhongting's voice carried far on the night wind, his tone carrying a condescending composure:

"Xie Shi'an, you're quite fast. It's at least ten miles from the Xie residence to the foot of this mountain."

"What, do you want to go into the mountains and become savages? This Green Mountain is not peaceful. There are many monsters in the mountains. If your clansmen go in, I'm afraid they won't even be able to find their bones."

Xie Shi'an did not answer.

His gaze swept past Wang Zhongting, across the archers and warriors behind him, and then landed on the city wall of Qingshan County in the distance.

Under the moonlight, the city wall was just a blurry black shadow; it was the place where he had lived most of his life.

He once thought that the Xie family could take root there for a hundred years, but now, none of the lights on those city walls belong to the Xie family.

"Wang Zhongting," Xie Shi'an finally spoke, his voice hoarse and weary.

"I'll give you the Originium mine, and you can also have the Xie family's land deeds, houses, and silver stored in their warehouses. Let my people into the mountains."

Wang Zhongting chuckled.

The laughter wasn't harsh; it even carried a hint of apology, as relaxed and polite as refusing a cup of tea.

"Isn't it a bit late to say this now? Your Xie family has been caught red-handed for secretly colluding with the demon race. If this gets out, even if my Wang family takes your mine, we won't be able to hold our heads up in Qingshan County."

"Besides, let you into the mountains? What happens after you go in? What if, in three or five years, your Xie family recovers and then uses the power of the demon race to fight back? Patriarch Xie, if you were me, would you let a tiger return to the mountains?"

He took a step forward, and the moonlight illuminated his expression clearly.

There was not a trace of a smile on his face, only a chilling calm.

"Not a single member of the Xie family can leave tonight."

Xie Shi'an clenched his fist.

Xie Shiye, Xie Shi'an's younger brother, stepped forward.

"Brother, stop wasting your breath on him! We'll die together!"

Xie Shi'an stopped him and looked at Wang Zhongting.

"Wang Zhongting, you're laughing too soon! You're going to hurt your back."

Wang Zhongting narrowed his eyes slightly.

He was about to say something when he suddenly stopped.

He saw Xie Shi'an smile.

It was a laugh that suppressed both madness and liberation.

Xie Shi'an burst out laughing, his upper body shaking with laughter, tears streaming down his face, making it impossible to tell whether he was laughing or crying.

"You think you have victory in the bag?" Xie Shi'an's laughter stopped abruptly, his gaze turning sharp and cold. "Wang Zhongting, you've miscalculated one thing."

Wang Zhongting's smile finally vanished completely.

Xie Shi'an opened his arms as if to embrace the entire green mountain in the darkness. "Tonight is not the Xie family's death anniversary, but the Wang family's."

The moment he finished speaking, two emerald green lights suddenly lit up behind a boulder on the rocky slope.

No, that's not a lamp.

Those were a pair of eyes.

A huge white cat emerged from behind the boulder.

It was more than three times the size of an ordinary house cat, with its shoulders almost reaching a person's waist. Its limbs were long and powerful, and its paws made no sound when they stepped on the gravel.

Its fur is pure white with a black sheen.

The cat's tail swayed slowly behind it, the tip slightly upturned, as it moved with elegant steps.

It is at least at the peak of Sequence 8, or even a great demon that has already touched the edge of Core Formation.

Wang Zhongting's expression finally changed.

The archers behind him involuntarily took a step back, and some of them almost dropped their crossbows.

"A demon capable of transforming into a human form..." Wang Zhongting spat out these four words through gritted teeth, "Xie Shi'an, you've gone mad. Your Xie family is colluding with a demon capable of transforming into a human form; the entire Great Zhou will not tolerate you!"

"Allow me?" Xie Shi'an laughed, but his laughter was full of sorrow.

"Wang Zhongting, where was the Great Zhou when your Wang family was forcing me? Where was the imperial court when your Wang family was swallowing up smaller families?"

You say I colluded with the demon race, but if you hadn't forced us to this point, why would I have chosen this path?

"Whether the Great Zhou Dynasty tolerates me or not, your Wang family must die!"