Chapter 333: The Han Clan's Younger Generation Breaks the Formation Together |
Liu Xiaolou set up his formation right in front of the main gate of Dafeng Mountain, deliberately trying to draw the Han family’s attention. The formation had been in place for about the time it takes an incense stick to burn when it finally did alert the Han family, but not in the way he had imagined.
The first one to enter the formation was the same Han family servant from before. Talk about enemies crossing paths. This was the second time the man had run into Liu Xiaolou. Still, the servant didn’t recognize him. And Liu Xiaolou had no intention of introducing himself. He just let the guy barrel out of the mountain gate and plow right into the Abyssal Blackstone Formation.
After entering the formation, the man stood there dumbly for just a few moments before poking his head out of a pavilion and looking around. He even stopped to watch the fish swimming in the pond, showing not the slightest sign of being shaken by the illusion around him. Hell, he actually thought about scooping up a fish. His mental resilience was impressive, to say the least.
After the Abyssal Blackstone Formation was rebuilt for the third time, the fish in the pond became a crucial sub-formation within it. Their main function was to absorb and redirect force. Any attack an intruder launched at different parts of the formation would be transferred onto the fish in the pond instead. Through the fishes’ swimming, tail flicks, and even the bubbles they blew, that force would be dispersed into the water, reducing most of the damage.
There were five fish in total. Each one was difficult to refine, and together they functioned as five separate points for dissipating force.
After entering the formation, most people either never noticed the fish at all or immediately killed them with a magical tool. Someone like this, who actually rolled up his pant legs and waded into the water to catch fish with his bare hands? Not a single one before him. It completely caught Liu Xiaolou off guard.
Liu Xiaolou genuinely had no good way to deal with this kind of fish-grabbing behavior. For a moment, he was stunned. Seeing that one of the fish was about to be scooped up, he hurriedly increased the release of the Bewildering Fragrance. Only then was the man’s attention pulled toward the pavilion, letting the fish struggle free from his grasp, slip back into the water, and narrowly escape disaster.
After that, the man wandered curiously into the pavilion, dragged a chair over from the main hall, and sat down to watch the illusions at his leisure. The guy was ballsy to the extreme. And completely shameless about it.
Worried that the man might actually get himself killed, Liu Xiaolou had already been holding back from the start and never fully unleashed the formation. None of its lethal moves were activated, and he didn’t dare release any more of the Bewildering Fragrance either. Even so, it was more than enough to overwhelm him.
Seeing how badly he was doing, Liu Xiaolou didn’t dare let him stay any longer and quickly expelled him from the formation. Watching the man sprint back toward the mountain, Liu Xiaolou couldn’t help but fall into thought. The guy really did have some unusual talent. So why, at thirty or forty years old, was he still stuck at the second layer of Qi Refinement?
Kicking the man out of the formation was meant to send him back to the mountain to spread the word. And spread the word he did. Before long, he came back out again, this time with two others in tow. Judging by how they were dressed, they were also steward-level servants of the Han family.
He grabbed one by the arm on his left and the other on his right and dragged them straight into the formation. Then he pulled the two of them out of the pavilion, led them around the pond, flowerbeds, and winding paths, and made a beeline for the tower.
The two newcomers were much like him. One had slightly higher cultivation, at the third layer. The other hadn’t even reached the second layer yet and, despite his age, was still stuck hovering at the first. How could either of them endure illusions like these? It didn’t take long before they embarrassed themselves and lost control of their Primordial Gates!
All three had laughably weak cultivation, yet they loved to have fun. After Liu Xiaolou expelled them from the formation, instead of sitting down to meditate and recover, they went off together to the kitchens and split a pot of rich Lingnan-style soup. As they drank, they excitedly chatted about what it felt like inside the formation, focusing only on the experience itself and not a word about where the illusion formation had come from. Truly bizarre.
After their animated discussion, the three of them hurried off to spread the news again. Each rounded up friends and acquaintances, and before long they were pouring out through the mountain gate and into the formation. One after another, they rolled up their sleeves, loosened their robes, and rushed into the pavilion to grab seats.
All at once, more than a dozen people flooded in. Most of them had very low cultivation, with the strongest only around the fourth or fifth layer, and a few had no cultivation at all. Even so, this was the largest group the Abyssal Blackstone Formation had ever received since its creation. Liu Xiaolou stayed alert and took it seriously. In the process, he discovered several weak points in the formation, which turned out to be a worthwhile gain. He planned to keep refining it after returning, aiming to trap even more people next time.
Handling a group of more than ten at once kept Liu Xiaolou extremely busy. Both his own true qi and the formation’s spiritual energy were heavily drained. After this group finally wrapped things up and headed back up the mountain, he waited expectantly for the next wave.
Over the course of the night, the formation was entered more than a hundred times by members of the Han family. Some people came three times or more, including the fish-grabbing guy, and even a few Han clan youths made repeat visits. Yet not a single person who truly mattered ever showed up. For example, Fourth Uncle Han, who had personally received Liu Xiaolou when he entered the mountain the day before, never appeared at all.
This left Liu Xiaolou deep in thought. What exactly was the Han family playing at? Their mountain gate had been blocked for so long, and no one had even come out to ask what was going on?
Meanwhile, the next very day at noon, the Fourth Uncle Han finally realized something was off. Where the hell had all the servants disappeared to?
He stepped into the courtyard and called out, “Tousi. Tousi. Han Tousi!”
He called a few times. No answer. So he tried again. “Xiao Song. Xiao Song.”
Still nothing.
An old serving woman poked her head in from outside the gate. “Fourth Master, are you looking for someone to run an errand?”
“Where did everyone go?” asked Fourth Uncle Han.
The woman looked completely baffled. “No idea.”
Fourth Uncle Han walked out of his courtyard and wandered around the estate for a bit. The more he looked, the stranger it felt. Inside the compound and outside it, there were far fewer people than usual. The place felt oddly quiet and empty.
And the ones missing seemed to all be men.
After watching for a while, he spotted a young nephew from the Fourth Branch, sneaking along in a panic and trying to duck into a side path through the flowers. Fourth Uncle Han moved without hesitation and grabbed him. “Why are you skulking around like this?” he barked. “What are you up to?”
The nephew was only fifteen or sixteen, and he was already feeling guilty. When Fourth Master Han roared at him, the kid damn near pissed his pants. No need for whips or hot irons. After just a few hurried sentences, he spilled everything, start to finish.
Fourth Master Han was stunned. “The main gate’s been blocked for a whole day and night, and nobody thought to report it?”
The boy looked miserable, on the verge of tears. “We thought it was no big deal. Didn’t seem worth bothering the uncles. We figured the brothers could just work together and break the formation ourselves.”
Fourth Master Han snapped, “And why the hell wouldn’t you report it? With just the likes of you little brats, what formation could you possibly break? Fine. I’ll go take a look myself! Who set it up?”
The nephew hurriedly tried to stop him. “There’s no need for Fourth Great-Uncle to go in person. Let us brothers handle it!”
Fourth Master Han strode off at the front without slowing, speaking as he walked. “Is it someone from the South Sea? None of those sects or families from the South ever learned any manners. All day long they go around challenging other houses and blocking gates. The worst of them is the Southern Sea Sword Sect. I've reported this shit to Mount Luofu ages ago, and asked them to rein it in, but those people up at Luofu just turn a blind eye.... Where is Tousi?”
The nephew said, “Tousi, Fourth Uncle, is there too. He’s the one who fought the visitors first. Fourth Great-Uncle, please slow down!”
But there was no way this boy was going to stop Fourth Master Han. In no time at all, he reached the mountain gate. One glance was enough to show him what was going on.
Dozens of Han family disciples and household servants were gathered in the open space before the gate, sitting in all kinds of weird positions. They were staring straight ahead with flushed faces and not even blinking.
Half of them were just sitting in midair, and somehow, their poses looked even more solid and impressive than the horse stances they usually struck during body training!
And it wasn’t just the sitting. Their movements and expressions were all bizarre and unnatural.
Fourth Master Han knew right away what was going on. The whole lot of them had fallen into the enemy's illusion formation!
Everyone caught in it was a Han man. A few young ladies and servant women had come over too, but they weren’t trapped in the formation: they just stood off to the side, watching the spectacle out of sheer curiosity, hands over their mouths to stifle giggles. When they spotted Fourth Master Han, the girls and maids spun around and bolted, vanishing in the blink of an eye.
Looking past the crowd, Fourth Master Han spotted Liu Xiaolou at once.
After holding the formation for a full day and night, Liu Xiaolou was exhausted. When he saw someone in charge finally arrive, he let out a breath of relief. He dismissed the formation at once and took the chance to pop a qi-restoring pill into his mouth.
If Han family leadership still hadn’t shown up, he would have had to take the formation down anyway and rest. It was just about drained, worn down by the combined efforts of the Han disciples inside it.
The Han youths snapped out of it as if waking from a long dream, or like people just hauled out of the water. Their clothes were soaked through, and they leaned on one another as they staggered back toward the mountain gate. Some were already shouting about heading to the kitchens for hot soup. A few sharp-eyed ones spotted Fourth Master Han as they left and immediately started sighing and groaning, which left him completely baffled.
He didn’t have the patience to worry about that. Face dark, he walked up to Liu Xiaolou and demanded, “Daoist Liu, the Han family has never been lacking in proper hospitality. You set up a formation and block our gate like this. What exactly is the meaning of it?”