After the path was cut off

Above the clouds, Xuan Li, silently observing the bloody conflict below, felt the mirror's light become disordered and let out a sigh filled with deep confusion:

"It's chaos, complete chaos... I can't understand it anymore! I was thinking about how to prevent these spies from causing trouble, but I never expected... they'd start fighting amongst themselves! And they're killing each other so fiercely!"

Li Wangxiang remained silent for a long time, a complex light flashing in his eyes, which finally turned into a whisper filled with admiration and self-mockery:

"I'm not as good as Ye Xingwen... He was able to see the situation clearly in such a short time, and so decisively switch sides, even resorting to drastic measures to prove his innocence... Now that I think about it, it was indeed their only and best choice."

[Xuan Li] The mirror turned towards Li Wangxiang, his ethereal voice carrying a hint of interrogation:

"So what do you plan to do with him? This guy has blood on his hands and has definitely done a lot of bad things! What Liu Shihao said... is almost certainly true."

Looking at Ye Xingwen and Liu Shihao confronting each other on the dirt road below, and the Qingliu villagers watching in fear around them, Li Wangxiang felt a headache coming on.

He knew far too little about the undercurrents in Baixi Town over the years, especially the Ye family's shady dealings.

"This matter..." Li Wangxiang rubbed his temples and sighed helplessly, "Let's leave it to my elder brother to decide."

He knew that in terms of understanding people's hearts, weighing pros and cons, and dealing with these complex human entanglements, he was far inferior to his elder brother, who had struggled to survive in the mortal world all his life.

-----------------

On the outskirts of Baixi Town, twelve villages are scattered like stars around the moon. Qiuye Village guards a strategic point, bordering Meiling to the east and Qingliu to the west. Tieyuwang Village, on the other hand, is right next to Meiling Village, like a silent and gloomy shadow.

Just moments ago, a bloody purge had just ended. Ye Xingwu led a group of menacing Ye family members, escorting four burly men with black aura covering their faces and vacant eyes, carrying more than a dozen heads with bristling beards and unclosed eyes. They marched in a grand and undisguised manner toward the ancestral hall in the town.

The thick stench of blood and the undisguised, chilling demeanor were like a stone thrown into a calm pond, instantly startling the neighboring Tieyuwang Village!

Wang Yong, the village chief of Tieyuwang Village, had already been alarmed and was now rushing to the town with several village elders to find out what was going on.

Meanwhile, deep within Tieyuwang Village, in an ordinary adobe house, the doors and windows were tightly shut.

An elderly couple used to live here. Now, the old woman, hunched over, was packing a few worn-out pieces of luggage while muttering complaints:

"We've only had a few years of peace and comfort... and now it's going to be chaotic again... This damned world..."

As she spoke, the old man beside her, who had been silently tidying up, suddenly stiffened!

Without warning, he turned around, walked stiffly to the door, and slammed the latch shut with a "click"! Then, he mechanically went to each window and locked them one by one!

The old woman was startled by her husband's strange behavior, her cloudy eyes filled with surprise and doubt: "Old man? What...what are you doing...?"

Before she could finish speaking, her body suddenly trembled! Her eyes instantly lost all their luster, becoming empty and dull! She turned around stiffly as well, letting out a meaningless "ho..." sound, and her entire demeanor changed strangely.

In a short while, the elderly couple seemed to put on two completely unfamiliar masks! The wrinkles on their faces remained, but their eyes revealed a coldness, resentment, and scheming that were incongruous with their aging bodies.

The old man's voice was hoarse and low, carrying suppressed anger:

"Ye Xingwen... that damned mortal! How dare he betray us at the last minute! Meiling and Qingliu villages... all the 'seeds' we've painstakingly cultivated over the years... have been uprooted!"

His withered fingers clenched into a fist and slammed it against the table. "Damn it! I never thought I'd end up having to debase myself in this... decaying, stinking carcass!"

The old woman's voice was sharp and sarcastic: "Hmph! Be content! If it weren't for my foresight in planting a 'soul-binding spell' on these two old folks, neither of us would even have a 'eye' to watch over them! What kind of surveillance would we be talking about?"

Her cloudy old eyes gleamed with a sinister light. "Lord Black Bat... won't care whether we live or die! If we botch the mission... we'll be left wishing for death!"

"Old Man": "Where's Wang Yanfeng? With such a catastrophic event, why is he nowhere to be seen? He's our unsung hero!"

The old woman's face showed extreme contempt, and she spat out a mouthful of spittle:

"Him? Bah! He's not one of us at all!"

"What are you pretending to be so high and mighty for! Haven't you got enough blood on your hands? Yet here in Baixi Town… you refuse to touch even a drop of 'blood food'! You've been holed up here for over thirty years… your heart? It's probably already addicted!"

Her voice was almost overflowing with resentment, "Bloodline? Hmph! What a joke! He just crawled out of a woman's belly!"

Look at this world, how many people wish they were born into the celestial nobility?

Even those poor pedants who write storybooks love to fabricate nonsense about being "born without parents and raised by nature," and they all feel that their bloodline is a burden!

The old man interrupted her irritably, "Enough! What's the point of all this useless talk! Now... what do we do?"

A crazed red glint flashed in the "old woman's" eyes, and her chapped lips parted in a sinister smile.

"What to do? Hehe... The method for refining the Blood-Boosting Pill is ready! These tens of thousands of 'two-legged sheep' in Baixi Town... not a single one will leave alive!"

Their blood... is the nourishment that transforms us!

Upon hearing this, the old man showed no excitement, but rather fear:

"Are you crazy?! That Li Wangxiang is a Foundation Establishment cultivator! He's standing right here in town!"

You dare to cause trouble right under the noses of a Foundation Establishment cultivator?!

The "old woman's" smile grew increasingly eerie. She leaned closer to the "old man," her voice low and filled with a seductive fervor:

"Once those fools have tasted the 'sweetness' of the Blood-Boosting Pill... hehe... we won't need to... step in ourselves..." She made a "detonate" gesture in the air with her withered fingers.

Inside the house, only two evil spirits cloaked in human skin remained, brewing a mad and wicked plot to poison tens of thousands of lives within their decaying bodies.

Outside the window, Tieyuwang Village was deathly silent, as if foreshadowing the coming storm.