As Jiang Chen spoke, he flicked two task scrolls left and right, one toward Wang Xuetong and the other toward Medicine King Qingfeng. He casually picked up yet another scroll, sneering: "And then there's this one. Hmm, this one claims to be an ancient talisman. If I'm not mistaken, this is a piece of tiger skin. It does look like decent material for crafting talismans — but could you at least put some effort into your forgeries? The cinnabar on this thing hasn't even dried yet. You can still get red pigment on your hands just from touching it. And you bring out this braindead piece of garbage, claiming it's an ancient talisman? You want me to help restore it? Are you sure you're not asking me to fix your mother's menstruation cloth?"
The crowd erupted in laughter. They all thought Chief Arena Master Shao was absolutely savage — the way he insulted people was on a whole other level.
Menstruation cloth… that was something women used during their monthly cycles. The moment the crowd let their imaginations run with it, the mental image was nothing short of obscene.
Jiang Chen tossed the wretched thing directly at Vice Hall Master Gao. "Vice Hall Master Gao, perhaps you think I'm making too much fuss, letting one incident after another disrupt the Bounty Arena. I have just one question: when I'm faced with people whose purpose is so obviously to cause trouble, what exactly would you have me do?"
Vice Hall Master Gao caught the tiger skin and took one look at it. His expression turned extremely ugly.
At that moment, Medicine King Qingfeng erupted as well: "Which brainless fool said this was an ancient pill recipe? Come here, come here — let me see whether you've got a human brain or a pig's brain in that skull! Vice Hall Master Gao, this is deliberate sabotage! Purifying Pyre Hall cannot afford to be this spineless. One act of disruption, then another — when does it end?"
Medicine King Qingfeng had kept his more extreme remarks in check until now, but this time he was genuinely furious. This kind of braindead pill recipe forgery was an outright insult to the Dao of Alchemy — something Medicine King Qingfeng simply could not tolerate.
It wasn't that he was taking Jiang Chen's side. It was pure instinctive revulsion.
In Medicine King Qingfeng's eyes, the Dao of Alchemy was sacred. To have it exploited this way was absolutely unforgivable.
If you were going to forge something, at least have the decency to make it convincing. Creating something this mindless only stoked his rage further.
Wang Xuetong shook his head with a bitter smile. "What utter nonsense — what kind of formation is this? They don't even understand the fundamentals of formations. Utter nonsense, utter nonsense."
Wang Xuetong was an easygoing man, but when it came to matters of his expertise, he never told a lie.
Vice Hall Master Gao's expression was grim as he fixed those five individuals with a cold stare. "So the lot of you came here dead set on causing trouble, is that it?"
The men panicked. They were lowlifes to begin with — street thugs, plain and simple. Nangong Ping had sent people to bribe them with money, fed them a few lines, and sent them running over to make a scene.
Put bluntly, they were here to make Jiang Chen look bad.
As for the consequences? With the limited brainpower they had, they hadn't thought that far ahead. At worst, they figured they'd take a beating and that would be the end of it.
Clearly, whatever Nangong Ping's people had offered them far outweighed the sweetness of a mere beating.
That was why these men had rushed in without a second thought, acting brazenly and without restraint. Their assignment was simple: cause chaos and make Jiang Chen lose face.
Moreover, the person who bribed them had assured them that the worst-case scenario was a beating — and they might not even get that, just be thrown out.
Now, watching Vice Hall Master Gao's icy expression, these clueless thugs failed entirely to read the room. One of them shouted: "What do you mean by this? We came here to submit bounty tasks! How is that causing trouble? You're all ganging up to suppress a customer!"
"Right! Just because you don't understand our submissions, you call it disruption? That's just covering for your own shoddy standards!"
"Hmph, the Bounty Arena — nothing special after all!"
One had to admit, these men were genuinely missing a few screws. They had not the slightest clue how serious this situation was.
This was exactly the kind of sinister scheme Nangong Ping excelled at. He hadn't told them the slightest thing about the gravity of the matter. He didn't just want these men to disrupt Jiang Chen — he wanted them to slap Purifying Pyre Hall across the face as well.
Nangong Ping was a man who bore grudges. He had now taken against Purifying Pyre Hall too.
As for what happened to these thugs? He couldn't care less. He'd sent proxies to handle everything, thoroughly insulating himself from any blowback. Even if Purifying Pyre Hall knew full well he was behind it, they'd never find any proof.
Nasty — that was the only word for this move. It disgusted Purifying Pyre Hall, disgusted Jiang Chen, and most importantly, disgusted the entire Bounty Arena.
Vice Hall Master Gao's face darkened. A flash of killing intent crossed his eyes, and he waved his hand. "Drag them away. Chop them up!"
Purifying Pyre Hall was no place for mercy. Time and again, the hall's patience had been pushed to its breaking point — and now it had been utterly shattered.
In his heart, Vice Hall Master Gao added Nangong Ping to his private ledger of grudges.
This was undoubtedly Nangong Ping's doing, but he knew the man had insulated himself thoroughly — an investigation would turn up nothing. And Vice Hall Master Gao had no desire to openly rupture relations with the Nangong family over this.
So he had ordered the thugs executed on the spot, to nip the problem in the bud before it could unravel into something bigger.
The warriors of Purifying Pyre Hall had been watching with predatory eyes, stomachs full of pent-up frustration. The moment they heard Vice Hall Master Gao's order, they didn't hesitate for a second. They charged forward and trussed up all five men in short order.
These five were nothing but street thugs — how much fight could they put up? Against Purifying Pyre Hall's warriors, they had absolutely no resistance.
When they heard they were going to be chopped up, they finally snapped awake to reality, realizing just how enormous a disaster they had stumbled into.
"Spare me! Don't kill me!"
"Don't kill me, I'm innocent!"
"I confess! Someone put me up to this!"
"Oh god, please don't kill me! I have an eighty-year-old mother at home and a three-year-old child!"
Wails and screams filled the air, plunging the Bounty Arena into a profoundly eerie atmosphere.