The one with the watermelon-shaped head was Niu Zi, and the one with the pot-lid hairstyle was Hu Zi — two innocent children who answered Chu Feng's questions in all seriousness, yet couldn't for the life of them figure out why Chu Feng had burst into uncontrollable laughter the moment he heard the name "Niu Zi."
Chu Feng couldn't really help himself either. Niu Zi's hairstyle combined with that name made it impossible not to laugh, because that shape was honestly just a little bit too suggestive.
But laugh or not, Chu Feng quickly suppressed his emotions and asked earnestly, "Hu Zi, Niu Zi, answer me first — why did the two of you come all the way out to this remote mountain forest?"
"Great God, we're here to save our little sister!" the two children answered in unison.
"Little sister?" Chu Feng wondered — these kids were so young. How old could their sister be?
"Yes! Our sister was taken away by bad people, and we have to rescue her. Great God, please take us as your disciples and teach us your divine powers!" Growing excited, Hu Zi and Niu Zi dropped to their knees again with a thud.
"I can teach you skills, but before that, you need to tell me — where was your sister taken? And who took her?" Chu Feng asked seriously.
After learning the full story, Chu Feng finally understood. Niu Zi and Hu Zi were brothers. Niu Zi was the eldest at nine years old, Hu Zi was the second child at seven, and they also had a younger sister who was five. Her name was Niu Niu.
The three siblings all lived in a mountain village within the territory of Xuanwu City. The village was extremely poor, practically cut off from the outside world, so these children had no idea what martial cultivation even was. They were thoroughly superstitious — when they saw Chu Feng descend from the sky, they assumed he was a god who could use divine powers.
As for why Hu Zi and Niu Zi kept insisting they had to rescue Niu Niu, it was because she had been taken away that very morning by a group of men wearing golden armor. Word was that they had been brought into Xuanwu City, and Niu Niu wasn't the only one — every young girl in the village had been rounded up.
"It must be the Qilin Manor. The Gong family has already been destroyed, so why are Qilin Manor's people still in Xuanwu City? Could it be that instead of selecting a new family to manage the city, they've decided to govern it directly?"
"But why would Qilin Manor's people snatch a bunch of little village girls?" Chu Feng furrowed his brow, unable to come up with an answer. In the end, he decided to investigate for himself.
Before leaving, however, he passed on the cultivation technique to Hu Zi and Niu Zi, and left them some gold, telling them to go home and wait — he would bring their sister back soon.
"Thank you, Great God, for teaching us your divine powers! We will practice diligently and never disappoint your expectations!" The two children dropped to their knees once more, faces full of gratitude, and kowtowed to Chu Feng.
"Heh, these aren't divine powers. It's a cultivation technique. Once you master this technique, you'll have embarked on the path of martial cultivation and become martial cultivators."
"Also, I'm not some great god. There are no gods in this world. Even if gods did exist, they'd just be powerful humans."
Chu Feng smiled and ruffled Niu Zi's and Hu Zi's hair, then carried the two of them onto his White-Headed Eagle. After dropping them off at their village, he turned and headed toward Xuanwu City.
Upon arriving at Xuanwu City, Chu Feng discovered that it was exactly as he had suspected — it had already been occupied by Qilin Manor's forces.
Qilin Manor had stationed a massive army here, dispatched numerous strong fighters from the manor, including several hundred at the Xuan Wu Realm. Their main base of operations was the former site of the Gong family estate.
"Could they have found something?" Chu Feng, wearing the uniform of a Qilin Manor guard, slipped into their encampment.
After some snooping around, Chu Feng excitedly confirmed that Qilin Manor's people had indeed discovered something in Xuanwu City — and what they had found was precisely what Chu Feng had been looking for: the entrance to the Imperial Tomb within the Xuanwu Mountain Range.
Previously, when Chu Feng had come to the Xuanwu Mountain Range, he had investigated that Imperial Tomb entrance, but his abilities hadn't been sufficient — he couldn't find anything, as if the entrance didn't exist at all.
What he never expected was that the entrance to the Imperial Tomb was actually located beneath the Gong family estate. It was only after Qilin Manor destroyed the Gong family and razed their estate that they discovered a barrier entrance hidden underneath.
Qilin Manor didn't know this was the entrance to the Imperial Tomb, but they knew it was some kind of treasure vault, so they dispatched a large force to occupy the area. They had even sent that gray-robed Spirit World Master to try to open the entrance and claim whatever treasure lay within.
And speaking of that gray-robed Spirit World Master — this was how Chu Feng found the reason why Niu Niu and the other little girls had been brought here. They had all been delivered to the place where the gray-robed Spirit World Master was staying.
At this moment, red clouds gathered along the western horizon, and night was about to fall. Qilin Manor's work on opening the barrier entrance had been called off for the day.
Disguised as a Qilin Manor guard, Chu Feng made his way toward the gray-robed Spirit World Master's quarters. Thanks to his sharp senses, he could hear the muffled voices of several guard leaders inside a tent long before he got close.
"Old bastard treats us like dogs, ordering us around all day, and after all these days he still can't even open a barrier entrance."
"That old pervert sends us out to the mountain villages around Xuanwu City every day to find cute little girls for him to abuse. Watching so many little girls get tortured to death by him, I really feel like we're drowning in sin."
"Shh, keep your voices down! He's a gray-robed Spirit World Master with incredibly powerful perception. If he overhears what you're saying, we're dead." Several guard leaders were whispering among themselves over drinks inside their tent.
"Damn it! They grabbed all those little girls just to do something like this!" At this moment, having learned the truth, Chu Feng clenched his fists so hard that veins bulged along his arms.
Abusing and killing little girls every single day — if that wasn't the definition of a pervert, what was? Anyone with even a shred of humanity would never do something like this. And Qilin Manor, the very ruler of Qingzhou, was actually helping facilitate such atrocities. They were no different from a demonic sect. Chu Feng was furious, and his disappointment in Qilin Manor deepened.
With that thought, Chu Feng quickened his pace. After some traveling, he finally arrived at the gray-robed Spirit World Master's dwelling.
Since the Gong family estate had been reduced to ruins, everyone was living in tents. But the gray-robed Spirit World Master's tent was enormous — probably because of what he intended to do in there, he had dismissed all his guards.
Chu Feng crept closer and noticed that a hidden barrier had been set up around the tent. This kind of technique was indeed something only a gray-robed Spirit World Master could pull off, but it wasn't enough to stop Chu Feng.
Chu Feng effortlessly dismantled the barrier the Spirit World Master had erected. The moment the barrier came down, his expression changed drastically — the rage he had been holding back surged forth like a flame.
From inside the tent, he could hear the voices of several little girls. But those weren't the innocent sounds of laughter — they were cries of agony and desperate, helpless wailing.