The group trudged through the desert. Amidst the light gray sky and the dark brown earth, the world was like a monotony of black and white painting, devoid of life and color.
On the black-and-brown grounds, there was a vast expanse of white sand, like a skin disease with white spots.
It was the white powder that came from the lizard sculptures after they were shattered.
There were no statues that can be seen anywhere now. Previously, they had awakened to hunt down those who had entered the Great Deities Palace. Now, they were a pile of white sand. The Baoze crowd, who were intruders, managed to get past them.
Li Xianyu who was lying on Cui Hua's back looked pale and there was no light in his eyes. He looked extremely sickly and frail.
Lying on the back of her brother, Victoria was seriously injured, her face pale and wilted like Li Xianyu.
Considering that Great-Grandma was amidst a battle and was absorbing a lot of essence, he couldn't afford to give Victoria a blood transfusion.
Ryder walked with his sister on his back together with Cui Hua. Behind them are the survivors of Baoze and The a.s.sociation of Superpowered Beings. The former didn't have missing teammates while the latter only had seven members remaining.
Li Xianyu endured it for a while but couldn't help it. He looked at the elegant, beautiful young woman and said exasperatedly, “Is my handsome face attracting you, or are these charming eyes alluring you?”
Victoria, like a girl who was caught doing bad things, unconsciously turned away. She looked away but then turned back to look at him. She said in a wavering voice, “I don't know what you're talking about.”
Just keep pretending, your glance has never left me. Women are really good at denial.
Victoria was fortunate. At the moment of life and death, Lee Xianyu arrived with a SHAK-12 on his left hand, a HK416 on the right, and in a rain of sparks and lightning bolts, succeeded in saving the gorgeous lady amidst so many enemies.
According to the script, there was no other way of Victoria repaying this grat.i.tude than to marry Li Xianyu. If she was unwilling, she would be an ungrateful woman.
However, when Victoria was rescued, the first thing she said was, “Qin Ze…”
Li Xianyu was enraged. Qin my a.s.s, Ze your head, you heartless woman. Do you believe that I will shoot you? I'm the one who came all the way to save you. You know what? Our friends.h.i.+p is over.
Li Xianyu ignored Victoria all the way. He was reminded of a gossip, when Lady Killer told him about this Caucasian beauty in Baoze headquarters.
She was the big boss's fangirl who, for some reason, was incredibly obsessed with the big boss, that she visited Baoze twice last year to meet him. It was a pity that Big Boss doesn't reciprocate her feelings and she didn't manage to meet him.
His thoughts floated, and he heard Victoria calling him. “Hey, Li Xianyu, are you okay?”
Li Xianyu returned to his senses and replied in confusion, “I'm fine. What can be wrong with me?”
Victoria pursed her lips and made a move to jab his waist with her finger. “Then what happened when you were holding your waist and screaming?”
Li Xianyu was alright and dealing with the remaining lizard sculptures but on his way back to the Bronze Palace, he suddenly shouted, and cradled his waist. He fell to the ground, then convulsed and looked miserable.
Everyone was shocked, afraid that something had happened to him. After a preliminary examination, the conclusion was that he was too physically exhausted and overstretched.
“I was already hurt, and I heard you asking for help, so I came without saying anything with my injuries.” Li Xianyu sighed and said forlornly, “I was looking for the moon, but the moon shone somewhere else. A certain someone had called someone else's name when we met.”
Victoria was embarra.s.sed, as her face was slightly red. Guilt and grat.i.tude flashed in her eyes as she whispered, “Thank you…”
Li Xianyu replied, “Mhm,” and turned his head aside. He accidentally flirted with her.
Li Xianyu felt bad, and he should let the past be bygones. He should no longer be as brazen as before. He promised his great-grandmother to be a virtuous Li family heir. He also promised Ice Shards that he would stay single for two years.
After the initial pain, he hadn't felt any more pain for a long time, which indicated that Great-Grandma's business was done. The beheading of Wald Jones was complete.
He just had to blame it on the lizard sculptures. Great-Grandma was so smart, she would get rid of all traces on the scene.
As thick-skinned and dark-hearted as he was, he felt a little embarra.s.sed. We killed your boss, and you are grateful to me and take me as a lifesaver.
However, there was no pity. It was just karma and retribution. Wald Jones's ending was what he deserved.
I wonder how the other people's beheadings are going, he thought.
A total of 60 members that followed Baoze into the world had been on the kill list. Of which, two family heads, Shentu Changgong and Xu Changda are the top priorities.
Shentu Changgong who had been in office for 36 years, staunchly expressed his hatred of Baoze. The Shentu family is based in Guangdong Province, where over the years, they have dealt countless soft knives and knives in the open and in the dark at the Baoze branch in Guangdong.
In order to maintain the Shentu family's status and authority amongst the demon descendants in the Guangdong province, he secretly united small and medium-sized demon descendants families to boycott Baoze, obstruct justice and s.h.i.+eld countless demon descendants who had committed crimes.
Even many of the illegal and criminal incidents were secretly directed by him to alienate the Guangdong Provincial Branch.
Xu Changda was the Xu family's master, and the Xu family's base was in the Shaanxi Province. A few years ago, Mr. Xu's youngest son was suspected of committing a vicious s.e.xual a.s.sault. He had relied on family power to win the lawsuit, forcing the girl to jump off a building and commit suicide. They won the lawsuit, but it was not so easy to get past the laws of the demon descendants community. Baoze sent two specialists to investigate the case, who unfortunately were beaten and ended up as vegetables.
The culprit was a scattered cultivator, who had escaped abroad after the crime. Baoze suspected that he was under the orders of the Xu family, but due to the lack of evidence, this case was not resolved. However, these feuds were not really written off, and they have been piled up in Baoze's archives until the day of reckoning.
Thankfully, Baoze was essentially a violent inst.i.tution, not a judicial inst.i.tution, and there was no need for evidence of much. Sooner or later the culprit would have to pay for his crimes.
Good will prevail over evil, and karma will come.
Demon descendant families had been a scourge of Chinese demon descendants community for a century. Unlike foreign demon descendant families which follow a path of capital, in some aspects capital was more disciplined and rules-based. The Chinese demon descendants community followed the blood line. Put simply, the family surname was first, order was second, third was society.
What Baoze needed to do was not to destroy demon descendant families. There was no way. They couldn't be wiped out. The demon descendants were particular about blood line, no matter how many they wipe out, this culture will prevail. What Baoze really needed to wipe out was the root of the family. Let the demon descendant families put order first and family surname last.
The campaign could be the start of a second reform in the demon descendants community. Of the 60 demon descendants on the list, there were the least members from the Buddhist society. When the Buddhist society had done the handover with Baoze, the vast majority of the Buddhist society descendants happily accepted.
After so many years of upholding law execution, this burden was too much for them to bear.
Only a handful of people who were obsessed with power were unwilling to hand over power and they disliked Baoze. However, the trend was inevitable, and they could only go along with the trend, but in the dark, they were still at odds with Baoze.
Among those monks who desired power, Baoze had endured 80% of them, and only some of them have been put on the kill list if they have gone overboard.
Li Xianyu, who was lying on Cui Hua's back, smelled a faint scent when a gentle breeze blew on his face.
“Cui Hua?”
“Yes?”
“Did you spray perfume?”
“I don't use perfume,” Cui Hua scoffed. “It's natural fragrance.”
“Bulls.h.i.+t! I smelled this perfume on Battle Lady before. She must have given it to you.” Li Xianyu revealed her lie.
This perfume's scent was light, but was durable. One had to be close to smell that faint, refres.h.i.+ng scent. It was like the smell of a virgin and higher cla.s.s than those overpowering perfumes one could smell from a mile away.
Cui Hua didn't buy perfume. Thunderbolt Battle Lady had given it to her. The long-legged beauty, in some ways, was particularly compet.i.tive. She may be defeated by White G.o.d repeatedly, and was not content. Thus, she had to show off in the harem to find a balance.
The long-legged beauty told Cuihua, “Cui Hua, it's hard to be a person. It's even harder to be a woman. There's more to it than just becoming a human being. You have too much to learn. As a fas.h.i.+onable woman, I suggest that you start from perfume.”
Cui Hua was originally dismissive, but the long-legged beauty said that foreign species would more or less have an odor, and a certain someone would not like it.
As soon as she heard this, Cui Hua said huffily, “You have an odor… Forget it, let's try it.”
Thus, she quietly sprayed some perfume on her body, and sprayed it every day. Someone finally smelled it today, and she felt slightly smug and happy.
Li Xianyu had long smelled it, as he had practiced the art of smelling women's scents. However, perfume was nothing worthy of mentioning. Now that he was on Cui Hua's back, he was bored so he mentioned it.
“How is natural body fragrance like this? Let me tell you, my sister's body fragrance is great and absolutely alluring.” Li Xianyu muttered, “You smell like perfume.”
As her lie was revealed, Cui Hua stomped angrily. “So what? Whatever, it's perfume.” She puffed up her cheeks and said, “I won't use it anymore.”
Li Xianyu had his arms around her neck and his face on her hair. He took a deep breath and said, “I just wanted to say, you smell really nice today.”
He couldn't see her face, but could see that her ears had turned red.
About half an hour away, on the extremely far edge of the sky, a pillar of fire burst into the sky.
Cui Hua's eyes narrowed, “That's the direction of the bronze palace.”
Behind him, a team of 15 senior staff members were on alert. The a.s.sociation of Superpowered Beings, led by Eric, were also ready for war. They pulled out their weapons and looked at the distant firestorm.
After being taught a lesson by the sculptures, they were like frightened birds, nervous about anything that seemed abnormal, not to mention such a large movement.
This pillar of fire was clearly very unusual and indicated that something may have gone wrong over at the bronze palace.
“Remain alert and speed up.” Li Xianyu said solemnly, “Let's rush over.”
Cui Hua was like an arrow that was shot as she led the pack.
The senior staff of Baoze and the members of the a.s.sociation of Superpowered Beings followed far behind her, trying not to let themselves fall behind.
In the team, the senior staff naturally follow the lead of Li Xianyu, who had the same combat power as Baoze's Ten G.o.ds. He was a junior staff member leading a large group of senior staff, and he was probably the only one in Baoze who could do so.
Ryder used up all his might and his face was twisted in exhaustion, before he caught up with Cui Hua. Victoria on his back was breathless and wanted to vomit.
Victoria looked up, and the outlines of the Bronze Palace had appeared at the end of the horizon. The sculptures stood in the wilderness, just as it was before she left.
“Why did you stop?” Victoria was gasping for breath.
Li Xianyu turned around and glanced at all the sculptures, before gazing at the bronze palace in the distance. After a short while, his gaze fell back to the endless body of sculptures, and he was slightly confused. “What's going on?”