With that, he departed in strides, sword on his back.

I’ve finally returned your son to you, Changqing. Your family can reunite, and Dragon’s Back will accompany me. In our next lives… we won’t be seeing each other in the world.

If not home, where shall I go today?[1]

Meanwhile, on Fengya Mountain, a group suddenly showed up right when everybody was equally exhausted. It was as if they had dropped down from the sky. Their leader was a young man dressed in silks, and behind him was a trailing black mass of Poisonous Scorpions.

Right then, the scarred man that had been by Zhao Jing’s side suddenly came out and knelt down on one knee. “Master,” he called out to the Scorpion.

What a shame that Zhao Jing was already dead, else he would have no idea what to do in this situation. The Scorpion nodded, gaze sweeping across the area; with full satisfaction, he discovered that out of his three customers — Zhao Jing, Sun Ding, and Lao Meng — two-and-a-half out of three were now dead. All that remained was Lao Meng’s bloodied half-self, who was looking at him ecstatically with a face of relief.

The Scorpion laughed coldly. “I trust every hero here has been well since our last meeting,” he stated in a peculiar tone.

The smile on Lao Meng’s face stagnated. He looked on as the Scorpion waved his hand, and then as the black-clothed Scorpions filed up to encircle the entire scene. “What is the meaning of this, Scorpion Master?” he raged.

The other grinned. “I’m collecting my interest.”

Following that, he laughed crisply and loudly, feeling that on this earth, no one was superior to he. Regardless of whether one was of the righteous or demonic faction, they would die while he would live, and none of them could get out of the scope of his manipulations.

He was so overly self-confident, that he didn’t realize that one of the Scorpions he had brought with him wasn’t conforming.

The day before the Scorpions had moved out, Zhou Zishu had snatched an opportunity to become one by substituting for another. He was taking a risk, but luckily, the Scorpion’s desire for control was so strong, his people normally said nothing other than ‘yes’. He had been intending to be close to the Scorpion so that he could easily deal with him when the time came, yet, upon coming to the scene and surveying it, he didn’t see Wen Kexing’s figure at all!

Noiselessly, like an invisible man, he had mixed in with the Scorpions without batting an eye, gaze searching about all over the place. All of a sudden, his eyes widened as he caught sight of a familiar figure behind a huge boulder. It was… Gu Xiang?