"Everyone, stop looking! Disperse!"

A few female disciples from Immortal Mountain saw that Gongsun Miao Tong was in an awkward position and couldn't save face, so they quickly shooed away the onlookers. They walked over to her, and some even offered to take off their own shoes for their stunning Senior Sister to wear.

"He..."

"He..."

Gongsun Miao Tong, however, just stared in the direction Su Xuan had left. Her mouth opened and closed, but she couldn't utter a complete sentence.

She felt ashamed, but more than that, she was utterly shocked. During her second clash with Su Xuan, she suddenly realized she wasn't facing some nobody. Instead, she was facing a mountain, a mountain she could only look up to in awe! It was a feeling she had never experienced with any other disciple of Immortal Mountain!

Gongsun Miao Tong couldn't remember how she left the Hall of Merit. When she returned to her private chambers, she didn't immediately wash her foot or put on a shoe. She simply gazed at her bare foot, lost in thought for a long, long time.

"Senior Brother, you're in big trouble!"

On the thousand stone steps leading to Golden Lotus Peak, Ying Lan didn't ask Su Xuan why he had hidden his true strength. Instead, she said worriedly, "If you had beaten Miao Tong fair and square with everyone watching, it would just be a matter of her skills being inferior. But why did you have to take her shoe? This is a mess! The Great Elder will surely lose face over this. What do we do? What do we do?"

"We'll deal with it as it comes." Su Xuan casually tossed Gongsun Miao Tong's shoe to Ying Lan.

Ying Lan caught the shoe, her mind racing. "Senior Brother, why don't you take another mission and leave the mountain? You can't stay in the sect any longer! That's it, go into hiding for a while. The Great Elder can't possibly chase you all the way down the mountain, right?"

"There's no need," Su Xuan waved his hand. "I'll cross that bridge when I get to it."

"But you can't! It's too big to handle!" Ying Lan stomped her foot anxiously. "Even if we don't consider the Great Elder, you have to think about all the Senior Brothers from the other peaks! Do you have any idea how many admirers Senior Sister Miao Tong has? They'll find ways to make trouble for you and get revenge on her behalf!"

"Then let them try," Su Xuan said, quickening his pace.

He was now quite eager to meet his master-in-name-only, whom he had yet to see. He wanted to find out how the man would react to all this.

「In a grand hall at the highest point of Golden Lotus Peak」

An old man sat in meditation. It was the Second Elder of Immortal Mountain and the Peak Master of Golden Lotus Peak, Ma Beiqiu.

Ma Beiqiu held a jade slip, speaking into it as if it were a phone. "Fifth Elder, the children are just playing around. Why get so worked up?"

"Playing around?" a voice buzzed from the jade slip. "That monster of a disciple of yours broke my beloved disciple's wrist and beat their face until it was swollen like a pig's! You call that playing around? He was trying to cripple them!"

"How about I compensate you with two high-grade elixirs?" Ma Beiqiu offered seriously. "And I'll have the Enforcement Hall punish him severely as well?"

"Do you take me for a beggar?" the voice from the jade slip shot back. "Just you wait. I won't involve the Enforcement Hall. I'm going to break both of Feng Zhengyuan's legs myself!"

"Wait, wait!" Ma Beiqiu tried to say more, but the other party had already cut off the jade slip communication.

BUZZ... BUZZ... BUZZ...

Just as Ma Beiqiu was about to put the jade slip down, he tried to process what had just happened. Why would his disciple, who was usually so well-behaved, dare to attack another Peak Master's disciple so viciously? He didn't even step up to defend Ying Lan when she was beaten, did he?

The jade slip buzzed again before he could finish his thought.

"Second Elder, I assume you've heard?" The voice of the Great Elder transmitted from the jade slip.

"Heard what?" Even though the Great Elder wasn't physically present, Ma Beiqiu's expression grew solemn.

"'Heard what?'" the Great Elder's tone rose. "Your precious disciple, Feng Zhengyuan, stole my disciple's shoe! The news has already spread throughout the entire sect, and you're telling me you don't know?"

"That can't be, right?" Ma Beiqiu's expression turned strange. "My Golden Lotus Peak is adequately supplied with clothing. Why would he steal your disciple's shoe? Besides, what's so special about a shoe that's worth stealing?"

The Great Elder said only a few words, but they made Ma Beiqiu nearly jump out of his skin. With a chilling voice, he snarled, "He freaking stole my dear Tong'er's shoe!"

Without waiting for a response, the Great Elder continued, "You'd better keep a close watch on that precious disciple of yours. Make sure he stays alive, because I will be paying a personal visit to Golden Lotus Peak to find him!"

SNAP!

The connection was cut.

How strange! Ma Beiqiu stroked his white beard, sinking into deep thought, genuinely bewildered by the situation. His disciple had just returned to Immortal Mountain, and he hadn't even seen him yet. How had he managed to cause one incident after another? What had gotten into him? Besides, was Feng Zhengyuan really that incredible now? Forget breaking someone's wrist, he actually had the ability to steal Gongsun Miao Tong's shoe? That girl was at the Longevity Boundary's Later Stage! She was the junior in Immortal Mountain with the greatest hope of breaking through to the Observing Appearance Realm!

"Master!"

Just then, Ying Lan entered the hall with Su Xuan. Her face was fraught with worry as she addressed the Second Elder first. "Senior Brother has been bullied! You must seek justice for him!"

"He was bullied?" Ma Beiqiu's eyes widened.

"Yes, yes!" Unable to think of a better excuse, Ying Lan said brazenly, "My Senior Brother had just returned after completing a difficult mission, and the Fifth Elder's two disciples..."

"That's enough." Ma Beiqiu raised the jade slip in his hand. "The Fifth Elder and the Great Elder have already contacted me. They claim Zhengyuan deliberately picked a fight with their disciples."

With that, Ma Beiqiu's gaze fell upon Su Xuan. He asked in a questioning tone, "Did you really steal Gongsun Miao Tong's shoe?"

He could overlook Su Xuan breaking someone's wrist, but he was particularly keen to know if the shoe-stealing incident was true.

Su Xuan glanced at Ying Lan.

She brought her hand out from behind her back, revealing the shoe she was holding.

Ma Beiqiu's mouth twitched. "Zhengyuan, I've long heard that you have a crush on that girl. Could it be that she likes you too and let you steal it on purpose?"

"No," Su Xuan shook his head. "She wasn't strong enough to keep her shoe."

"Master, Senior Sister Miao Tong humiliated my Senior Brother in public! She said that even if every other man in the world died, she would never choose him," Ying Lan chimed in quickly. "That's why he refused to give her any face."

"Your cultivation level is far below Gongsun Miao Tong's. Are you really skilled enough to take her shoe?" Ma Beiqiu asked, getting to the question that mattered most to him.

"Master, Senior Brother has been hiding his true cultivation all along!" Ying Lan said immediately. "If Senior Sister Miao Tong hadn't insulted him, he would have continued to keep a low profile!"

"Lan'er, do you really think I'd believe that?" Ma Beiqiu raised a hand. "Do you think I don't know what your Senior Brother is capable of? What cultivation does he even have to hide?"

"Then Master, what if I told you that I've been hiding my cultivation level too?"

Ying Lan, who was at the Longevity Realm Initial Stage, suddenly had her aura surge dramatically. In the blink of an eye, it climbed to the Middle Stage of the Longevity Realm.

She looked at her master.

"See, Master?"

"I was hiding my cultivation level too!"

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