Chapter 156 – The Daemon-trapping Cage of Bi’an (1/2)

Shen Xihua smiled. “Please settle down, everyone. I hope you can enjoy yourselves in my humble abode while I go retrieve the pills.” He retreated to the darkness outside the hall, and his smile immediately vanished. Something seemed to weigh on his mind.

“Sir, the island lord has invited you to the back of the hall,” a servant said to Li Qingshan politely.

Li Qingshan walked through the corridors, and two fierce men leapt out from the bushes in the darkness, blocking his way. “Who are you?”

The servant said in a hurry, “Good sirs, are you guests of our island lord?”

The two people studied Li Qingshan. “Why haven’t we seen or heard about someone like you?”

Li Qingshan said, “Not everyone is available for the likes of you to see or hear about.”

“What did you say!?” The two became enraged. They wanted to draw their blades.

With two thuds, the two of them fell back into the bushes in the darkness, reduced to corpses.

“You can go see the king of hell!” Then Li Qingshan said to the servant, “Let’s keep going.”

The servant shivered and obliged in a hurry.

Shen Xihua rubbed his hands uneasily within his study room. Suddenly, he saw Li Qingshan arrive and invited him to sit down in a hurry before pouring some tea for him. He treated him with the utmost hospitality.

Li Qingshan said, “Island lord Shen, what do you want to say to me? Get to the point. I can’t wait any longer.” With his ears, he could clearly hear the ruckus up ahead. His blood had slowly begun to boil.

Shen Xihua lifted up his robes and knelt down before Li Qingshan. “I’ve already followed all of your orders, sir, so please just spare the lowly me!” In all these days, Li Qingshan had never been willing to promise that he would spare him. It made him worry to a point where his food turned tasteless, and he could not even get a wink of sleep.

Li Qingshan said, “How did you know I would kill you?”

“Do you really plan on sparing no one, sir?” Shen Xihua raised his head in great surprise as he stared at Li Qingshan closely. Desperation began to fill his eyes.

Li Qingshan said, “It’s not that I’m not sparing you. It’s just that you cannot be spared for what you have done.”

Shen Xihua croaked, “But I’ve already reformed myself completely!”

Li Qingshan said, “Reformed yourself completely? What about six months ago? What were you doing then? Do you really think the Hawkwolf Guard wouldn’t know?” Although there were rather few core members to the Hawkwolf Guard, they had countless informants and spies within the various major cities as a Qi Practitioner organisation that did not care about silver.

Abruptly, Shen Xihua thought of something. Half a year ago, he had drunk a little and saw a beauty pass by in Lakeside city. As a result, he took her to the island and forced himself on her, reliving his youth.

He continued to argue, “But I’ve already accepted her as a concubine.”

“Just how many more concubines do you plan on accepting like that? Why don’t you tell me that?” Li Qingshan’s tone was very calm the entire time. His anger was like hot, flowing lava beneath an icebound mountain. It could erupt at any time.

Shen Xihua’s expression changed several times. He pressed down with one hand and a tile sank. A series of mechanical sounds rang out from underground, allowing a large, metal cage to spring out and trap Li Qingshan.

The place where Shen Xihua had invited Li Qingshan to sit was actually a trap, and the mechanism was extremely clever. It had not even taken a blink of an eye for the cage to appear after Shen Xihua pressed down on the tile.

Shen Xihua yelled, “Li Qingshan, you’ve gone too far! Since you won’t spare me, then let’s die together!”

The bars to the cage were as thick as an adult’s arm and solid all the way through. They were also inscribed with many glyphs. When Li Qingshan’s fingers touched the bars, he immediately felt like he was being stabbed by needles. At the top of the prison was the image of a strange beast that seemed like a tiger, yet also not a tiger.

Shen Xihua said, “I invited a great master of mohism to create this mechanism. It’s known as the Daemon-trapping Cage of Bi’an1. Even powerful daemonic beasts can’t escape, so you better give up on that thought! Let me ask you again. Are you going to spare me or not? If you agree, I can release you. I can even help you kill them.”

“If I say I’ll spare you, you’ll just believe me?”

Shen Xihua seemed extremely conflicted. “I’m willing to gamble on it. I believe that you’re a man.”

Li Qingshan shook his head silently and slowly.

Shen Xihua screeched, “Don’t regret your choice! You’re in my hands now. All you need to do is nod, and we can sit down and discuss matters. Your cultivation might be higher, but there might always be a time when you need someone like me.”

Li Qingshan burst out into a roar of laughter, which thundered through the entire room. It felt like a great gust of wind had been whipped up, blowing books and paintings on the ground and shattering vases and jars.

Shen Xihua blocked his hears as he resisted it with all of his true qi. He was shocked. Was he really just a second layer Qi Practitioner?

All the unorthodox masters in the front hall only stared at their trembling cups. The entire building seemed to be tottering. They became alarmed.

“What is happening?” “Is that someone laughing?” “What powerful inner force!” “It comes from up ahead. Didn’t Shen Xihua go there to retrieve the pills? Has someone tried to steal the pills?”

With that, everyone became restless. “Let’s go over there and take a look!” “Who the hell is so stupid to try steal from the jaws of tigers?”

Li Qingshan stopped laughing and said to Shen Xihua, “Do you think that someone like you, someone no different from an animal, is worthy enough to become associated with me?”