The man's expression changed upon hearing Wang Xinyan's words. He spun around abruptly to find Ye Bufan standing behind him, smiling.
"Who are you!" the man asked, eyeing Ye Bufan warily. He felt a prickle on his scalp, realizing someone had appeared behind him without him noticing.
"Didn't she just tell you?" Ye Bufan replied.
"Ye Bufan? No, you shouldn't be here at this time..."
"Shouldn't I be keeping your female slave company?" Ye Bufan interjected. "I'd only heard from my master before about some sect called the Joyous Union Gate, which specialized in abducting virtuous women to become dual cultivation slaves to boost their own cultivation. I never thought I'd actually encounter one today."
"Kid, I can't believe you know about the Joyous Union Gate," the man said, his gaze still wary. "Since you know of it, beg me now, and I might leave you with a whole corpse. If you can offer me this girl, I might even consider letting you go, or even taking you as a disciple."
"Oh?" Ye Bufan looked at the man, who suddenly seemed quite extraordinary.
"Why don't you look in a mirror? You're so ordinary yet so confident. I don't know where you got the nerve to take Ye Bufan as a disciple," Wang Xinyan said, running to Ye Bufan's side and sticking out her tongue at the man.
"Hmph! You're just a high-level martial artist, how can you be on par with our dual cultivation disciples of the Joyous Union Gate," the man retorted. He drew a soft sword from his waist. As he circulated his true qi, the soft sword immediately straightened.
Seeing this, Wang Xinyan said to Ye Bufan, "My intuition tells me you can handle him with ease."
"Indeed," Ye Bufan replied.
"How dare you!" The man overheard their conversation and, enraged, drew his soft sword and leaped forward.
"I'll show you the might of a cultivator! Golden Snake Dance!"
Mid-air, the man spun his soft sword in a dazzling display, emitting a golden light. In a blur, it seemed as if hundreds of golden snakes were attacking Ye Bufan.
"I forgot to tell you, I'm not exactly a high-level martial artist."
Ye Bufan calmly pulled Wang Xinyan behind him and unleashed his true qi.
Seeing Ye Bufan's erupted aura, the man clearly understood Ye Bufan's strength surpassed his. His pupils contracted, and he decisively abandoned his sword, turning to flee.
"You've come, now stay! Purple Void Sword Skill!" Ye Bufan raised his sword finger, and sword intent surged throughout his body, forming a giant sword that he swung down at the man in mid-air.
"Pfft—" The man spat out a mouthful of blood, looking at Ye Bufan in shock, murmuring, "Foundation Establishment stage... cultivator..."
"Bang—"
The man fell from mid-air, creating a deep crater upon impact. A ball of purple fire appeared in Ye Bufan's hand and flew towards the man's body. In an instant, he turned to dust.
Wang Xinyan watched Ye Bufan in shock. "It's over just like that?"
Ye Bufan nodded. Wang Xinyan circled him, her gaze sweeping over him repeatedly.
"Who exactly are you?" Wang Xinyan asked. "With your strength, you're no longer just a martial artist, and you certainly don't seem like a Martial Venerate."
"That... I'll explain later," Ye Bufan said. "The most important thing now is to go to the Chu family. The situation there is likely more troublesome."
"Then I'll go with you. I'll drive," Wang Xinyan said immediately. "But my car is blocked by a tree."
"No problem, leave that tree to me," Ye Bufan replied.
Ye Bufan used his Purple Void Sword Skill to cleave the tree blocking the car into pieces. The two of them pushed the car and sped towards the Chu family villa.
Outside the Chu family compound, many assassins, upon hearing that the Seven Fiends assassin organization was making a move, chose to wait and observe from the shadows.
At this moment, a person stood outside the Chu family villa. They weren't in a hurry to enter, but stood by the entrance, seemingly waiting for something.
Soon, countless bats flew from all directions and hovered behind this person, forming a black silhouette, like their shadow.
"This... this should be Gu technique, right?" an assassin lurking in the shadows whispered. "It's said that among the Seven Fiends, there's a Gu master named Yin Yi, skilled in Gu techniques, capable of killing people invisibly. It must be him."
"Hush, he's going in," another assassin warned.
The black shadow behind Yin Yi smashed open the Chu family's main door and entered. Yin Yi himself waited outside for about five minutes before entering the residence.
Chu He sat calmly in the villa's main hall, with only Chu Mengyao by his side. The rest had been sent back to their rooms by Chu He.
After the black shadow entered, the jade that Ye Bufan had placed at the entrance shattered. Upon learning of this, Chu He knew it must be an assassin from the Seven Fiends.
"Why are there only two of you?" Yin Yi walked up to Chu He and sat on the sofa opposite him.
The black shadow behind him stood at his command. Yin Yi looked at Chu He and smiled, saying, "Do you think this will make them escape death? You should know that the bounty on your entire family and that Ye whatever-his-name's life is two billion. We, the Seven Fiends, are determined to claim this two billion; they cannot escape."
"Whether we escape or not is irrelevant," Chu He said calmly. "For those who have been on the battlefield, death is nothing; it's merely reuniting with the brothers who fought alongside them. And no one in our Chu family fears death."
"Is that so? I hope Old Master Chu can still say those words later," Yin Yi chuckled. He raised his right hand and subtly moved his middle finger. The black shadow behind him suddenly flew upstairs. Shortly after, another person appeared at the top of the stairs.
Yin Yi exchanged a glance with this person. The individual disappeared into the hallway, and Yin Yi's face showed a satisfied smile.
"Bang—" A loud explosion echoed from upstairs, followed by silence.
A minute later, there was still no further movement from upstairs, not even his bat-man.
A hint of panic flickered across Yin Yi's face. He closed his eyes as if sensing something.
"Thump ~ thump ~ thump ~"
Footsteps sounded from upstairs. Yin Yi assumed it was someone from the Seven Fiends and looked up, only to see the corpse of the person he had just exchanged glances with rolling down from upstairs, covered in bat carcasses.
Yin Yi turned to look at Chu He and Chu Mengyao. The faces of the grandfather and granddaughter were also etched with shock.
"Huh?" Yin Yi was about to move but found himself being pressed down by something, unable to stand up...