After Provoking the Crazy Overpowered Protagonist, the Vicious Bottom’s Plans Failed - Chapter 2

There was someone else standing beside him.

That man’s face was ashen with rage as he sternly denounced Huo Yan. As he spoke, he held up a Recording Orb, which vividly displayed footage of Xian Yuzhu whipping a person in the street. With the evidence right before their eyes, there was truly no denying the act.

This was the latest of countless times that a victim’s elder had come knocking on their door after Xian Yuzhu caused trouble.

“Hanyang Immortal can rest assured.”

Huo Yan turned his head to interrupt the accusations. There was no expression on his perennially frost-covered face. Beneath his thick, dark brows, his ink-black eyes remained calm and motionless.

“I, Huo, am the acting manager of the sect and bear the weight of its responsibilities. If this matter is indeed Yuzhu’s fault, I shall discipline him properly and provide your noble sect with an explanation.”

Having said that, he turned and walked away. He did not care for Hanyang Immortal’s subsequent reaction. Instead, he prepared to catch Xian Yuzhu, who had caused a disaster yet remained blissfully unaware. He is always disobedient and deserves to be punished.

“Hey, Huo Yan! Are you even listening? Why are you seizing me for no reason?”

Along the way, many disciples witnessed their cold and ruthless eldest senior brother, Huo Yan, using an Immortal-Binding Rope to tie Yuzhu’s wrists and drag him along. That grim, corpse-like face remained unmoved, indifferent to how Junior Brother Yuzhu stumbled behind him, cursing and struggling.

The opponent was already at the peak of the Nascent Soul stage, while Xian Yuzhu, due to his youth, was only at the late Golden Core stage. A whole major realm separated the two. Consequently, Huo Yan captured the troublemaker with almost no effort.

The little beauty, with his bright eyes and white teeth, was publicly bound, his face filled with indignation. Xian Yuzhu’s voice was as sharp as an oriole’s, and the feathered gems on his body jingled as he moved, causing the surrounding cultivators to steal frequent glances.

“Huo Yan! Let go of me! You psycho, are you deaf?”

He hurled all sorts of insults, making quite a racket, but Huo Yan remained silent throughout. Finally, having reached the limit of his patience, he placed a Silence Spell on Xian Yuzhu. Xian Yuzhu’s full lips were instantly glued together, rendering him unable to utter a single word. He made a couple of muffled sounds, his face full of resentment.

The next moment, a voice transmission echoed in Huo Yan’s sea of consciousness:

[Huo Yan, you brain-dead moron! You big idiot!]

Huo Yan frowned slightly and turned around. His gaze swept down from a height, flickering lightly over Xian Yuzhu’s angry peach-blossom eyes as he warned coldly, “Watch your language.”

Xian Yuzhu ignored him, jumping up like a beautiful little sparrow to ram into the other man with force. Unfortunately, the man, who stood nearly two meters tall, remained as steady as a rock, watching him cause a scene with a freezing gaze.

The scene was truly excessive. A bold disciple who had a secret crush on Xian Yuzhu could not bear to watch any longer. Bracing himself, he stepped forward and extended his arm toward Huo Yan, blocking his path.

“Eldest Senior Brother, what are you doing?”

The male cultivator surreptitiously glanced at the person behind Huo Yan, swallowed hard, and spoke with an air of indignation. “Even if you are the Eldest Senior Brother, the Young Sect Master is still your superior. You cannot commit such an act of insubordination, can you?”

Hearing the voice, Xian Yuzhu immediately poked his head out and nodded in agreement, his flushed little face written all over with praise. Seeing this, the male cultivator’s breathing grew heavy. The thrill of being a hero saving a beauty made his whole body tingle.

Huo Yan took in the male cultivator’s greedy and covetous gaze. He did not explain his reasons; he merely spared the intruder a fleeting glance.

Boom!

Without any warning, the powerful pressure of a peak Nascent Soul cultivator instantly erupted and rippled through the surroundings. Except for Xian Yuzhu, who was unaffected and still preoccupied with cursing in his head and outsmarting the Immortal-Binding Rope on his wrists, everyone else felt the shift. The faces of the other restless cultivators who were preparing to step forward all turned pale simultaneously. The male cultivator closest to the two could no longer stand steady. His straight back bent, and the metallic taste of blood surged in his throat.

“Move,” Huo Yan commanded expressionlessly.

The suppression of cultivation realms forced people to abandon their resistance, not to mention that Huo Yan was the personal disciple of the Sect Master, tasked with managing the younger generation. The only one who could command him, the Sect Master, happened to be in secluded meditation. All these disciples combined were no match for Huo Yan. The male cultivator had no choice. If he did not move, his Dantian would shatter. He could only step aside unwillingly.

Fifteen minutes later, at the Yuxian Sect Punishment Hall, Hanyang Immortal looked indignant. “Talking is useless! My disciple suffered a disaster for no reason, and the evidence is solid. Do the elders still intend to shield a delinquent junior?”

The Sect Master of the Yuxian Sect was still in seclusion, and Hanyang Immortal held a high status in the cultivation world. Therefore, no matter what the Peak Masters of the Yuxian Sect said, he refused to back down. That was until the light of a nearby teleportation formation flickered. Upon seeing Xian Yuzhu appear, his wrists bound by Huo Yan and his face full of resentment, Hanyang’s expression finally softened slightly.

He glanced at the awkward-looking elders of the Yuxian Sect. “As expected, Nephew Huo is the one with a sense of the bigger picture.”

Huo Yan was a clever man. No matter how powerful the Yuxian Sect was, it would not publicly burn bridges with the Lingshuang Sect, one of the eight major sects. Huo Yan bowed slightly to the crowd, his face devoid of emotion.

“Greetings, Martial Uncles and Hanyang Immortal.”

When the elders saw Huo Yan, they sighed softly. In truth, they knew their side was in the wrong first. No matter what, the Young Sect Master could not escape punishment today. However, by stalling, they might have been able to reduce the sentence. They could only blame that old fox Hanyang for being too shrewd; he had actually gone behind their backs to find Huo Yan first.

Huo Yan was famously cold and detached. He was strict with his fellow disciples and even harsher on himself. Even the Sect Master could not necessarily sway him. Poor Yuzhu; now that he was in Huo Yan’s hands, a beating was inevitable.

At that moment, the Silence Spell on Xian Yuzhu’s mouth expired. He was in no mood to curse Huo Yan now. Instead, he glared at Hanyang with his sparkling eyes. “Hey, who are you? Why are you appearing on my Yuxian Sect’s territory?”

Xian Yuzhu had lost his mother at a young age and had been pampered by the Sect Master since childhood. He rarely left the sect for experience, so he was accustomed to speaking without regard for seniority and did not think his tone was problematic. But Hanyang Immortal’s cultivation had already reached the Mahayana stage. In several hundred years, when had he ever been questioned like this by a junior?

His brows furrowed as he sneered, “Does the Young Sect Master still remember injuring my disciple in the town at the foot of the mountain three days ago? Have you forgotten such a thing already?”

As he spoke, he released the images from the Recording Orb. In the footage, a gentle-looking young cultivator appeared anxious, clearly chasing something evil. However, he accidentally bumped into Xian Yuzhu, who was surrounded by a crowd. Almost instantly, the red-and-black whip in Xian Yuzhu’s hand flew out, striking the young man with unerring precision. Caught off guard, the young man was sent flying. He slammed into the ground with a look of utter shock, the gruesome wound on his face oozing blood.

“My poor disciple had just reached the Golden Core stage. How could he possibly withstand a whip from someone at the late Golden Core stage?”

The most infuriating part was that after Hanyang’s disciple returned, he actually became infatuated with Xian Yuzhu.

“Master, you always ask if I want to form a cultivation bond. I did not want to before, but now I do.” The young man, his face wrapped in gauze, clutched his heart obsessively. “I like him. He is so beautiful, and he looks so fierce when he hits people. This must be the love at first sight mentioned in books! Master, what if I go to propose to that young master once my injuries are healed?”

When Hanyang heard that, he nearly exploded with rage and wanted to beat the spineless boy again. His disciple was a talent with a single spiritual root and a limitless future. Why could he not find a partner with a noble character? To propose after being beaten would make the Lingshuang Sect the laughingstock of the cultivation world.

So, Hanyang agreed verbally but had actually come to demand justice. He thought that if the Young Sect Master was punished for this, given his moody temperament, he would surely despise his disciple. This way, he would not only get justice but also make his disciple give up. It was a perfect way to kill two birds with one stone.

Thinking of this, Hanyang stroked his beard and said, “Young Sect Master, do you have anything else to say?”

Xian Yuzhu’s elegant brows knitted. “No. I did hit him, so what?” He spoke as if it were a matter of course, tilting his chin up. “But if your disciple was not blind and had not bumped into me, why would I have hit him? He clearly deserved it.”

“You child!” Hanyang was so angry his hair nearly stood on end.

“Hanyang Immortal,” Huo Yan interrupted him. He then pulled the defiant Xian Yuzhu closer and said word by word, “He is still young. I will handle this matter.”

Before his voice finished echoing, the doors to the Punishment Hall opened silently, revealing walls covered in instruments of torture. This was the first time Xian Yuzhu had faced the Punishment Hall. His originally frivolous and radiant little face turned pale instantly. In his ear was Huo Yan’s cold, emotionless voice.

“An inner sect disciple attacking someone without cause. According to sect rules, the punishment is ten strikes to the palm and one day of reflection behind closed walls.”

Xian Yuzhu’s pupils contracted slightly. “Huo Yan, you dare let someone hit me?”

Huo Yan gave him a chilling glance but did not answer. He then continued, “However, as it was your sect’s disciple who inadvertently bumped into Yuzhu first, and since he is young, ignorant, and acted impulsively, the punishment shall be reduced to five strikes to the palm and half a day of reflection, to be executed by me personally. Before my Master went into seclusion, he entrusted my Junior Brother to me. This incident is also due to my lack of strict discipline. I, Huo, shall take the remaining five strikes myself. Elders, Hanyang Immortal, do you have any objections?”

Hanyang Immortal was originally dissatisfied. But since Huo Yan had put it that way and even offered to punish himself, Hanyang could no longer pursue the matter. He could only say reluctantly, “Fine, we shall do as Nephew Huo says.”

“Huo Yan, no!”

Xian Yuzhu stumbled. His face was white as the young man pulled him into the Punishment Hall. The doors behind them slowly closed. He could only watch as Huo Yan turned around and selected a thick, black bamboo ruler from the wall. It was quite long, gripped in the man’s well-defined, large hand.

“Hand out,” Huo Yan commanded coldly.