Having made up his mind, Wu Tao looked around and his expression changed.
The Cloud-Riding Azure Bird Boots on his feet flashed with azure light. He intercepted two figures who were flying through the air on their spiritual artifacts not far away.
They were an old cultivator and a young one. The elder was white-haired, while the youth was still wet behind the ears.
Judging by their attire, it was clear they were ordinary rogue cultivators.
And not even the successful ones. The elder’s cultivation was only at the sixth level of Qi Condensation, and the youth was even weaker, at the third level.
Seeing Wu Tao block their path, the old and young cultivators instinctively reached for their storage bags. After a quick glance around, their faces changed drastically.
Wu Tao hadn't concealed his cultivation. The spiritual pressure radiating from the peak of the thirteenth level of Qi Condensation immediately informed the grandfather and grandson of his identity.
"Little brother, what is this..."
The elder was startled, his heart filled with unease.
A young man, clearly from an extraordinary background, at the peak of the thirteenth level of Qi Condensation, blocking their way for no apparent reason?
Was he a robber? The elder was an old pauper, and his grandson was even poorer. What did they possess that would attract such attention?
Seeing that Wu Tao didn't respond, the elder dared not think further. He quickly stepped forward, shielding his grandson behind him, and stammered, "Little brother, what do you want us for?"
Wu Tao then smiled slightly and replied, "Are you going to the Zhang family?"
"Yes."
Not a robber? The elder secretly breathed a sigh of relief and quickly nodded.
...
The cunning elder, without waiting for Wu Tao to speak further, poured out all the information about the Zhang family.
The eldest grandson of the Zhang family patriarch was getting married today.
The bride's family was the Li family from Hongkui Basin, famous for its red ginseng. They were a perfect match for the Zhang family of Qinggang Iron Mountain Range.
The groom was the Zhang family's eldest grandson, "Zhang Tong," and today was his auspicious wedding day.
Wu Tao's brow twitched. He inquired further about the Li family.
"The Li family of Hongkui Basin?"
"Is this Li family very famous?"
"How powerful is the Li family?"
The elder answered Wu Tao's questions one by one.
Wu Tao kept the old man and the youth there, interrogating them meticulously for an hour before letting them go.
...
It turned out that the Li family was also a cultivation family, with a status similar to the Zhang family. Both were subordinate to the Taiyi Immortal Sect, and were considered insignificant families.
Since he knew their exact situation, dealing with them wouldn't be too difficult for Wu Tao.
After all, since he had come today, no matter who the target was, they wouldn't survive until tomorrow.
That so-called eldest grandson Zhang Tong was destined to not become a groom. Not only that, but he was about to become a dead man.
Wu Tao then asked, "So, you must have an invitation, right?"
"I do, but..."
The sentence after "but" remained unfinished, not because the elder had suddenly become bold, but because he couldn't continue.
As he spoke, the azure light from the Cloud-Riding Azure Bird Boots on Wu Tao's feet flashed. Wu Tao's figure flickered and disappeared from his spot, becoming an afterimage. Then, in the next second, he reappeared.
However, compared to before, Wu Tao now held a gray storage bag in his hand.
It turned out that while the elder was not paying attention, Wu Tao had taken his storage bag from his waist.
Wu Tao then casually rummaged through it, found an invitation, and weighed it in his hand. He then tossed the storage bag back to the elder without a care.
The youth behind the elder, seeing this, flashed with anger and was about to rush forward, but was grabbed by the elder, who shook his head slightly, signaling the youth to endure. After all, they were weak rogue cultivators, while Wu Tao was an elite outer disciple of a major sect.
The cruelty of the cultivation world was not merely spoken of; it was paid for with layers of blood, paved with countless lives, and the deaths of innumerable fools, culminating in an ironclad rule.
If the weak provoke the strong, the strong kill them without guilt.
The invitation in Wu Tao's hand was cut from bright red Xuanshi Snow Paper. Several gilded characters were printed on it, most likely introducing the elder's name.
Such an invitation, if seen in the mortal world, would be considered quite impressive, no less grand than that of a marquis or a prince.
A piece of Xuanshi Snow Paper was worth at least ten taels of silver in the mortal world, and the gilded characters were also printed with pure gold powder.
This single invitation would be worth at least thirty taels of silver in the mortal world, enough to cover thirty years of income for an ordinary family.
However, to cultivators who could summon winds and call rain, it was rather crude. A single invitation like this in the cultivation world was not even worth a single spirit stone.
About thirty years ago, the Liu family, a large cultivation family in Qingzhou, and the Meng family, a large family in Jizhou, formed an inter-state alliance through marriage.
At that time, not only did the vast continent of the Nine Provinces tremble, but ten thousand immortals appeared, and many top cultivators at the Core Formation and Nascent Soul stages attended the ceremony.
Legend had it that an invitation to Liu family's wedding banquet was worth over a thousand spirit stones. The invitation was made primarily from a three-hundred-year-old Green Wood Immortal Vine, adorned with ten-thousand-year-old Warm Jade and ten-thousand-year-old Cold Jade, and even contained a small amount of Soul-Settling Incense, one of the five rare fragrances in the cultivation world. It was a treasure.
...
Wu Tao glanced at the grandfather and grandson, held the invitation in his hand, and returned the elder's storage bag to him.
Then, Wu Tao flickered and disappeared from his spot. When he reappeared, he was already at the entrance of the core area of the small town.
A moment later, the experienced elder saw Wu Tao disappear. The smile on his face vanished, and his expression suddenly turned grim. He quickly checked his storage bag and found that nothing was missing except for one invitation.
The elder then pulled his grandson and, while cursing Wu Tao's ancestors, ran away at full speed.
As for the lively wedding banquet being held in the center of the town, the elder didn't even glance at it.
After this incident, the elder knew without a doubt that something major would happen there. If he and his grandson dared to approach, they would truly be courting death.
At this moment, Wu Tao had just presented the invitation and, led by a Zhang family disciple, entered the town with the crowd.
The town was decorated with wedding characters everywhere, adorned with bright red lanterns, and filled with the sounds of gongs and drums. Zhang family servants were distributing wedding flowers and candies all around. ...
At the Zhang family's residence, within a grand thirty-zhang hall. Decorated with lanterns and festive colors, filled with gold, silver, jade, and agate, with clinking glasses and lively conversations, it was a scene of joy.
In front of the bright red hall, an elder, a patriarch of the highest order, with a dragon-headed cane as a top-grade magical artifact, sat at the head.
Beside the elder stood a middle-aged man in a dark red robe. The middle-aged man was smiling as he watched below, constantly offering tea to the elders, a newly married couple in wedding attire.
The order in which this couple offered tea was well-executed. First, it was the venerable elder, then the middle-aged man on the left, and finally the uncles and elder brothers below.
Each received a cup of spiritual tea. The elders took a gentle sip, nodded with a smile, clearly satisfied with the couple, especially the venerable elder at the top, whose wrinkles were almost blooming like a flower, filled with pride.
...
He had every reason to be proud. The Zhang family's control over this Qinggang Iron Mountain Range was, in a sense, built by his own efforts.
He had constantly schemed against others, while also relying on others' power and playing both sides, thus establishing himself and his family in this mountain range.
With three generations of his family present, he had ensured decades of peace for the clan.
Now, with the marriage alliance with the Li family from Hongkui Basin, the two families supporting each other, it was foreseeable that the family would have further development in the future...
"If not for the lack of good cultivation techniques and even a single Foundation Establishment Pill, the family would have had a Foundation Establishment cultivator long ago."
"It's all the fault of these coldhearted high-ranking members of the Taiyi Immortal Sect. We've served them like beasts of burden for so many years, yet they haven't even provided us with a superior cultivation technique or a Foundation Establishment Pill."
The elder sighed, thinking this in his heart, his eyes inadvertently glancing at the middle-aged man in the dark red robe standing beside him.
In order for his descendants to escape the tragedy of being permanently stuck below the Foundation Establishment realm, he had decided to completely betray the Taiyi Immortal Sect and exchange for a superior cultivation technique and a Foundation Establishment Pill from the Demonic Cult.
He, being deeply cunning, naturally knew that if his betrayal of the Taiyi Immortal Sect were exposed, he and his family would surely face retribution, leading to their annihilation. However, humans always harbored hope.
...
He, who was already seventy or eighty years old, coughed and was about to say something when suddenly, a commotion erupted from outside the wedding hall. It sounded like things were being knocked over, people were being beaten, and screams could be heard. Various杂乱 sounds continuously came from outside the hall.
"Hmm?"
The elder listened for a moment, his brow furrowed. He sharply rapped his dragon-headed cane, a top-grade magical artifact, and shouted, "What's going on? Why the panic? Who is making such a noise? Zhang He, Zhang Jiang, go out and see what's happening!"
In this corner of the Qinggang Iron Mountain Range, the elder was accustomed to having absolute power over life and death.
His loud shout carried the imposing, inviolable authority of a superior. The hall immediately fell silent, and no one dared to speak.