Chapter 400: A Beating

Li Musheng's already terrifying power was something beyond imagining, and now that he had obtained the treasure from the dark pool of the Qingxuan Temple, it was as though a tiger had grown wings.

Even Bai Wuying, hidden in the dark, had drifted noiselessly into the illusion without the faintest awareness or power to resist.

Going forward, throughout the entire martial world under heaven, even a Martial God acting against this great demon lord would probably find nothing to work with.

He had been hesitating before about whether to go and question Li Musheng about Bai Xiaotang, but now he did not hesitate for a single moment. He withdrew at once.

"That troublesome girl, I took my eyes off her for one moment and she managed to stir up this much trouble. When I get back she is getting strung up and beaten."

Bai Wuying muttered darkly under his breath and immediately headed back toward the Treasure Assembly Trading House's branch.

He said he was going to string Bai Xiaotang up and beat her, but what he actually intended was to question her exhaustively about her situation with Li Musheng.

Only then could he get the full picture, and deal with whatever mark this great demon lord might have left on Bai Xiaotang.

But when Bai Wuying arrived back at the trading house, he received word that the Grand Manager of the Treasure Assembly Trading House had suddenly died.

He understood immediately. The Great Xuan emperor was truly dead. With the emperor's death, the Grand Manager, who had an Intestinal Fiend Worm planted in his head, had naturally not survived either.

But it had all been completely beyond Bai Wuying's anticipation, and he had not had the chance to help the man eliminate the worm.

"Well, one cannot blame me for this. What is sown is what is reaped."

Bai Wuying only shook his head. As the saying went, there was no honest merchant.

For the Grand Manager to have built the Treasure Assembly Trading House into the greatest in all of Great Xuan, he had done no small amount of dirty work behind the scenes. In his time, in order to monopolize the commercial landscape of Great Xuan, he had even hired people to exterminate rival families entirely.

This was also why Bai Wuying had parted ways with the man and had never looked kindly on him.

The man had now followed the Great Xuan emperor into death, which could only be called a fate that had been written.

With that thought, Bai Wuying let the news of the Grand Manager's death go, and went directly to find Bai Xiaotang.

Bai Xiaotang saw Bai Wuying come back completely unscathed, with not a mark on him and showing no sign of injury whatsoever. A look of unconcealed regret crossed her face.

She had just had a dream in which the old beggar had gone to find Li Musheng, only to be strung up and beaten, then hung from the city wall of Taixuan City for public display, while she stood beside him laughing and clapping with great satisfaction.

But dreams were always too short, and she had woken up far too soon.

At the time, Bai Xiaotang had felt somewhat unsatisfied and had been eagerly waiting for Bai Wuying to come back looking thoroughly sorry for himself.

After all, these past few days she had been put through too much misery at his hands.

But the scene she had anticipated clearly had not come to pass.

"You troublesome girl, what kind of expression is that? Is it a disappointment to see me back alive?"

Bai Wuying had naturally caught Bai Xiaotang's unusual expression, and the fury rising within him had nowhere else to go.

He immediately gathered his true qi into a whip of energy and delivered several strikes that had Bai Xiaotang howling.

It seemed as though he was taking out every bit of his resentment at being completely overwhelmed by Li Musheng and scared into running on Bai Xiaotang's behalf.

After all, as a former martial prodigy and the Theft Saint who had roamed the world unchallenged, when had he ever felt the weight of the gap between people from a young man's hands?

"What is wrong with you, old beggar? Coming back and hitting me the moment you walk in."

Bai Xiaotang howled in pain while unleashing a torrent of abuse at Bai Wuying.

She had already been in a bad mood seeing Bai Wuying come back without a scratch. And she had not said a single word, yet the old beggar had started hitting her the moment he came through the door.

The injustice of it was almost too much to bear.

Bai Wuying paid no attention and kept hitting.

"A girl your age, still so young, how did you manage to get yourself into this much trouble?"

Bai Wuying continued delivering strikes with the true qi whip while pressing her to explain everything that had happened between her and Li Musheng.

He even threatened that if she did not come clean, he would not stop.

Seeing Bai Wuying behave with uncharacteristic viciousness, Bai Xiaotang was genuinely frightened and had no idea what had come over the old beggar.

She suspected he might already know that she had traded his prized movement technique to Li Musheng in exchange for the finger art she had wanted.

With that suspicion in mind, Bai Xiaotang immediately dropped all pretense and laid out everything that had happened between herself and Li Musheng.

When Bai Wuying learned that the movement technique he was so proud of had been passed to the great demon lord Li Musheng by Bai Xiaotang, his fury nearly reached the point of bursting blood vessels, and the beating he delivered became considerably harder.

"Is this serious? I came clean like you wanted and you hit me harder? Old beggar, you clearly want me dead."

Bai Xiaotang was on the verge of tears, her protests going unheard. She had resisted and been hit, and she had submitted and been hit too. This old beggar clearly had no intention of letting her survive this.

After quite some time, Bai Wuying finally stopped, apparently either tired from the effort, or having vented enough of his anger.

Of course, though his hands had been striking Bai Xiaotang, what he had actually been doing throughout was discreetly working through her meridians and bones with his true qi, helping to build a solid foundation for her martial cultivation.

But the pain had been genuine, and on that point he had shown her absolutely no mercy.

"That Eighth Prince you are talking about has become a great demon lord. In the future, the further you stay from him the better."

Bai Wuying said this sternly, then gave Bai Xiaotang a brief account of Li Musheng's demonic transformation that night and his absorption of the power from the Demonic Cores.

He placed particular emphasis on the sight of Li Musheng draining the demonic experts to husks, deliberately describing it in vivid detail to frighten Bai Xiaotang and discourage her from having any further contact with Li Musheng.

Bai Xiaotang's expression went through several rapid changes, her face going somewhat pale. But she very quickly recovered and said, "Wait, old beggar. His Highness the Eighth Prince only killed demonic world people. What does that have to do with you?"

"Are you asking for another round?"

Bai Wuying raised a hand as though gathering his true qi whip again, and Bai Xiaotang flinched. But Bai Wuying quickly shook his head and let his tone soften somewhat, "Even if he can still hold his demonic nature in check right now, he has devoured the cultivation of this many demonic experts and the Demonic Patriarch's powers. His demonic nature will eventually consume him completely."

"I am telling you to stay away from him for your own good. Demon lords have no humanity left in them, and he is no longer the person you knew."

At those words, Bai Xiaotang looked Bai Wuying over carefully. She noticed, for the first time, that his expression was deadly serious in a way she had never seen before, and his eyes were flickering with unspoken thoughts.

She hesitated for a moment, then probed cautiously, "Old beggar, is it that you cannot beat him now?"

"You..."

Bai Wuying's eyes flew wide, and the true qi whip condensed instantly in his hand. In the next moment, the room was filled once more with Bai Xiaotang's wailing cries.

It was quite some time before the crying stopped, and not long after that, Bai Wuying grabbed Bai Xiaotang and left, disappearing into the Taixuan City night.