Li Lei was quite the talker, warm and enthusiastic, and the sort who knew when to back off. Whenever he asked Chu Feng something the latter didn't wish to answer, he would never press further. In time, he stopped asking Chu Feng questions altogether and instead began eagerly recounting his own anecdotes.
Chu Feng was adept at reading people, and he could tell that Li Lei was a genuine, good-natured person. He rather liked the man and decided to befriend him. Still, throughout their conversation, Chu Feng skillfully probed certain matters to clear up questions lingering in his mind.
Take the Heavenly Path, for instance. When Chu Feng had entered it back in the day, all the cultivators who went in alongside him had been experts from the Eastern Sea Region — Martial Kings among them. They had been several times stronger than this bunch from the Southern Sea Region.
Yet in the end, the only ones to pass the trial had been Chu Feng and Chantai Xue. Had the Old Ape not intervened, ordering the Martial Emperor-level guardian within the territory to show itself, even Chu Feng and Chantai Xue would have perished inside the Heavenly Path. That was how brutally difficult it was.
So Chu Feng couldn't wrap his head around it: if the Heavenly Path was so impossibly hard, how had the people from the Southern Sea Region passed it so effortlessly? Had they some secret trick?
After questioning Li Lei, Chu Feng finally understood. It wasn't that Li Lei and the others possessed some shortcut — it was that the Southern Sea Region's Heavenly Path and the Eastern Sea Region's Heavenly Path were simply not the same. The trials within them were fundamentally different.
In the Southern Sea Region, the Heavenly Path was also shrouded in legend and mystery, but once you entered, the trials were laughably simple. As long as you had a Heaven Martial Realm cultivation, you could pass through it with ease.
That was why virtually everyone from Li Lei's group who had entered the Heavenly Path had passed without a single mishap.
Beyond that, Chu Feng also learned that the strongest cultivator in the Southern Sea Region was only a Martial King realm expert. The man hailed as the region's number one powerhouse was merely a second-rank Martial King.
A second-rank Martial King — even though Chu Feng was currently only a ninth-rank Heaven Lord, taking care of an ordinary second-rank Martial King would be a piece of cake. Yet such a person was the strongest fighter in the entire Southern Sea Region, and the strongest in nearly a thousand years at that.
It was clear then that not only was the Southern Sea Region's Heavenly Path easier to traverse, but the cultivators there were far weaker than their Eastern Sea counterparts.
"Boom!" Just as Chu Feng and Li Lei were chatting away in high spirits, a thunderous crash suddenly echoed through the great dining hall.
Looking over, they saw that a dining table had been shattered to splinters. The culprit was a white-robed young man whose cultivation was decent — a fourth-rank Heaven Lord, the strongest among all the Southern Sea Region people present.
He had been the one to destroy the table. A second person had also been knocked to the ground by the force of his pressure, and now the white-robed man was relentless, pointing at the fallen individual and cursing at the top of his lungs:
"You piece of trash, when was the last time you ate? You some kind of starving ghost reincarnated? I told you to stop smacking your lips! Stop smacking your lips! And what do you do — you just won't listen! You eat louder than a pig and greedier than a dog! You're making that horrible racket, and you think I can eat in peace?"
"Big Brother Shen Lang, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry! I really didn't mean it — I've just had this habit for so many years. Nobody ever told me before that I eat too loudly. You just mentioned it, and I can't adjust on the spot. I really didn't mean to disturb your meal."
The man who had been knocked to the ground scrambled up, but didn't dare stand. He dropped to his knees and began kowtowing and bowing to the man called Shen Lang.
"So you can't fix it, huh? Can't fix it, then you fix it anyway! Do you know how much of an embarrassment you are to our Southern Sea Region? You've dragged every last one of us down! Because of you, everyone else will think they're a cut above us!" Shen Lang roared.
"Don't worry, Big Brother Shen Lang, I'll definitely fix it! I promise I'll fix it!" The man was clearly terrified. He didn't dare offer even a hint of rebuttal.
"Oh, you'll fix it, all right. But I want you to fix it right now. Here — eat this." Shen Lang opened his palm, drawing up the food that had been scattered on the ground into his hand, then forcefully shoved it into the man's mouth. "Eat it, I said."
The man's body trembled slightly, tears welling in his eyes, but he didn't dare resist. All he could do was kneel there before the crowd, enduring the humiliation, and chew on the food Shen Lang had crammed into his mouth.
"Smack!"
But who could have guessed — the moment the man chewed twice, Shen Lang's palm cracked across his face, sending him sprawling. The sheer force not only knocked the food out of the man's mouth but also brought up a small mouthful of blood with it.
"I told you to stop smacking your lips! Can you not understand plain words? Pick up the food off the ground and eat it! And remember — no more smacking! You smack again and I'll hit you harder!" Shen Lang pointed at the pile of food on the ground — already chewed, flecked with blood, so disgusting that a single glance turned the stomach — and barked out his command once more.
Many of the onlookers wore cold smiles, clearly enjoying the show. Even if a few of them felt uneasy, no one dared speak up. They just kept their heads down and ate, unable to bear watching the man be tormented by Shen Lang any longer.
"That Shen Lang really deserves what's coming to him. So he's a bit stronger — that doesn't give him the right to bully someone like this," Li Lei muttered under his breath beside Chu Feng, his voice low and indignant. He loathed Shen Lang's behavior, but as a mere ninth-rank Heaven Martial cultivator, he didn't dare intervene. All he could do was grumble quietly next to Chu Feng.
"Li Lei, what do you think of this steamed bun?" Suddenly, Chu Feng picked up a big, fragrant steamed bun from the dining table.
"It's a fine bun, actually. Made from special ingredients and infused with medicinal herbs beneficial to the body. It may look like an ordinary steamed bun, but its nutritional value is extraordinary — not something just anyone could prepare. At the very least, it was crafted by a gold-robed Spirit World Master."
"I have to say, the Greenwood Southern Forest really is a formidable power. That even we, ordinary disciples, get to eat food of this caliber — that's some serious generosity."
Li Lei spoke with great conviction, even a hint of pride on his face. He genuinely felt honored to be part of an organization as impressive as the Greenwood Southern Forest.
Chu Feng gave a faint smile at Li Lei's assessment, then opened his mouth wide and deposited a huge glob of phlegm right onto the bun. "What about now?" he asked.
"Chu Feng, you — what are you doing?!" Li Lei stared in open-mouthed shock, completely bewildered.
At Li Lei's stunned reaction, Chu Feng smiled again, then drew back his arm and performed a move that stunned everyone present. With a casual flick of his hand, he hurled the bun — and the person he hurled it at was none other than Shen Lang.
Chu Feng hadn't thrown it particularly fast. In fact, the motion drew the attention of quite a few people. But there was hidden cunning in the act: at the very moment everyone noticed the bun sailing through the air, the very instant Shen Lang sensed something was off and tried to dodge —
The bun suddenly accelerated.
And so, before the eyes of the entire hall, the spectacle unfolded without the slightest hitch: a large steamed bun, thoroughly coated in phlegm, smacked squarely into Shen Lang's face.
The bun may have looked soft, but launched from Chu Feng's hand, it hit harder than a block of iron. It struck Shen Lang's face with a muffled "bang," and the man let out a miserable shriek as he went flying sideways, crashing into the palace wall before slumping to the ground.
When Shen Lang hit the floor, he opened his mouth wide and spat out not only a large mouthful of blood but also six broken teeth. And what infuriated him most was this: when he reached up to touch his bruised, swollen cheek, his fingers met something sticky. He looked more closely — and damn it, it was a massive gob of phlegm.