The angrier
His expression was placid as he regarded the unfamiliar pill king. There was a commanding, almost suffocating authority in his gaze — so much so that when the pill king's eyes met his, the man couldn't help but avert them involuntarily.
"And who are you to question me? By what right do you get to ask me three questions?" The pill king's gaze, hemmed in by Jiang Chen's pressure with nowhere to rest, finally erupted in humiliation and rage. "Guards! Get this man out of here!"
The martial artists below the stage all had their own duties, but they surged upward all the same.
Jiang Chen swept his hand casually, and the powerful imperial-domain energy rippled outward in waves, sweeping the onrushing fighters away once more.
From atop the high platform, Jiang Chen gazed down at the man like a god descended from the heavens. His eyes were like blades that could pierce straight through to the man's thoughts.
"Don't bother asking who I am. If you truly had the courage to answer their questions, then you should have the courage to answer mine. If you don't even have the courage to answer a single question, what right do you have to lecture here on Zhuque Avenue? Tell me — who gave you that authority?"
Jiang Chen's tone turned suddenly severe.
The man was not entirely without merit. On the contrary, he possessed genuine knowledge of the Dao of Pills. Otherwise, he could never have set up a forum and lectured here in the first place.
The questions he'd fielded had indeed been pre-arranged by him and his people, which was why he could answer them so fluently and so brilliantly.
But that didn't mean he had no real expertise whatsoever.
He had done it solely to inflate his own legend — to layer himself in an aura of mystery and power.
These tricks were nothing new, and Jiang Chen had seen through them at a glance.
The reason Jiang Chen had proposed asking him three questions was simple: his own foundation in the Dao of Pills was at least as deep, if not deeper, than the man's. He had plenty of ways to leave this man unable to hold his head up.
After a brief moment of panic, the pill king collected himself. Seeing that Jiang Chen possessed extraordinary martial cultivation, he thought to himself: This fellow was almost certainly sent by the Taiyuan Pavilion. His martial arts are formidable — he's definitely not a pill master. He came here purely to cause trouble. His demand to ask me questions is just an empty bluff, meant to intimidate me!
When Jiang Chen saw that the man still hadn't answered, he smiled coolly and cupped his fists toward the crowd. "Everyone — I know some of you came here to listen to this lecture. But how much genuine knowledge does this reputation-clinging fraud actually possess? Do you really know? And are you willing to be taught by a charlatan?"
The majority of those present had, in fact, come to listen. But with Jiang Chen stirring things up, their minds began to clear. They had to admit that this man's lectures were genuinely entertaining.
However, in a scene like this, the man couldn't even summon the courage to answer this troublemaker's questions. Could it really be true, as the troublemaker claimed, that all those previous questions and answers had been pre-arranged?
If so, it was nothing short of devastating.
In both the world of pills and the world of martial arts, people respected those with genuine skill and knowledge. Charlatans, even if they had some talent, saw it discounted heavily.
At the very least, the impression they left was far from favorable.
Why had Pill King Zhen once attracted so many people to his lectures? Because the man had real expertise — expertise proven time and again through practice. He had demonstrated his level and his strength to everyone.
It was just that in recent years, Pill King Zhen had stopped coming to lecture at the Taiyuan Pavilion, and everyone missed him dearly.
Over the past while, two new pill shops had opened next to the Taiyuan Pavilion. At first, no one paid them much mind.
But gradually, these two new pill shops began inviting two pill kings each day to take turns lecturing. At first, everyone came just to see the spectacle.
Very few attended with serious intent to learn.
But after watching the spectacle for a few days, people realized that the content these two unfamiliar pill kings discussed was actually quite interesting.
Word spread — one person told ten, ten told a hundred — and more and more listeners came.
Though most people were loyal to the Taiyuan Pavilion and could see that these two forces had come to challenge it, deliberately picking a fight — the Taiyuan Pavilion, no matter how great, could not win everyone's hearts. There were still those who, due to differing loyalties or even outright grudges, had never been particularly fond of the Taiyuan Pavilion.
These people, naturally, would not boycott the two new forces simply because of the Taiyuan Pavilion.
Many among the audience had once attended Jiang Chen's own lectures, but they weren't necessarily die-hard Taiyuan Pavilion loyalists. Some among them secretly wished the Taiyuan Pavilion would shut its doors sooner rather than later.
And then there were the neutrals, who came to listen without taking sides. Whether it was the Taiyuan Pavilion or these two new shops, they would never openly declare support for either. They simply wanted to extract whatever benefit they could from the battle between the Taiyuan Pavilion and these rival forces.
The free lectures, for instance, were a tangible benefit.
Even if the pill king's answers were pre-rehearsed, the lectures themselves still had to contain some genuine knowledge — some real substance.
If the content were entirely hollow and devoid of anything concrete, it could never have attracted so many people.