136: Chapter 136 How dare you lay a finger on my sister!

Wang Qingcheng poked her head out from behind Yang Yang, her face flushed red, glaring angrily and anxiously at Wang Shouyi, who was charging up the slope.

"He is my friend! He is a Talisman Maker I invited to help at the workshop! Why are you shouting so loudly? You scared away all the wild boars!"

Wang Shouyi had already rushed in front of the two, thrusting his heavy sword into the ground, glaring at Yang Yang with full Killing Intent. His gaze swept from the boots Yang Yang had stepped in the mud to the Talisman exposed at his cuff, and then from his dark, rough face to the old scar on his cheekbone. The more he looked, the more he felt this kid was no good man.

"A Talisman Maker? What would a Talisman Maker be doing not staying in the market town, running off to this desolate wilderness to draw portraits for you?"

His words were spoken to Wang Qingcheng, but his eyes were fixed dead on Yang Yang's face, as if he wanted to carve that face off to take a clear look.

"Qingcheng, could you have been tricked by someone? Nowadays, I could cut down ten Loose Cultivators who swindle under the guise of being a Talisman Maker with a single sword!"

"Second Brother, why are you here too?" Seeing Wang Shoudong, who had followed the crowd, Wang Qingcheng was noticeably stunned for a moment.

Wang Shoudong stepped forward, pushed the heavy sword aside, and stood between the two. He first nodded toward Wang Qingcheng, then looked at Yang Yang, cupping his fists slightly in a greeting, his tone gentle yet measured.

"I am Wang Shoudong. I wonder how this Fellow Daoist is addressed?" Although he had not returned for ten years, he saw through the trick at a glance—Third Brother had rushed over for a long time, yet this Loose Cultivator's posture of shielding Qingcheng had not changed from start to finish.

Facing a fierce man like Wang Shouyi, being able to not take a single step back meant he was either a fool or had guts.

This dark-skinned man looked nothing like a fool no matter how one looked at it.

"Yang Yang." Yang Yang put away the Talisman, his voice somewhat tight, yet still steady. "My late father is Old Yang, who served Master Chongyang at Lotus Pier back then."

The Killing Intent on Wang Shouyi's face paused for a moment.

Wang Shoudong was also noticeably stunned for a moment.

The two brothers exchanged glances, and Wang Shoudong spoke first, "Could it be that Old Yang who used his own body as bait to lure out the Black Fiend for the Wang family?"

Yang Yang nodded and said nothing more.

Wang Shouyi fell silent for a moment, pulled up the heavy sword inserted in the ground, turned his head away, presenting the back of his head to Yang Yang, and said in a rough voice, "Even if it is Old Yang's kid, a man and a woman staying together in this desolate wilderness, what would it sound like if word got out!"

"I begged him to stay." Wang Qingcheng put her hands on her hips, completely justified.

The hillside was utterly quiet.

Only Yang Yang still stood before her, his shadow drawn very long by the setting sun.

He suddenly felt that although this Third Master of the Wang family looked fierce and terrifying, he was not actually detestable.

At least he truly doted on Wang Qingcheng.

"Come home with us first. Your Second Brother is back, so you have to come home for a meal no matter what." Wang Shouyi put away his heavy sword, his tone softening by a few fractions, but that unnegotiable posture did not diminish by a single bit.

"I am not going back. I simply am not going back."

Wang Qingcheng tossed her head, the little flowers on her two hair buns swaying along, "They are annoying to death, making me study Puppets all day long. Even when eating a meal, they have to ask how the new Puppet testing is going. Can't I even come out to catch some breath? I am not a three-year-old child!"

Yang Yang stood nearby, feeling awkward whether he stood or sat.

Wang Shouyi's gaze swept over him every now and then, sweeping until his back grew tight.

He had the mind to say a couple of smoothing words, but Wang Qingcheng's tongue was too fast, and he couldn't get a word in at all.

Wang Shoudong stood a bit further away, a faint smile hanging on his face, with no intention of intervening.

As for Dan Linger, her eyes shone brightly as she watched the excitement, and she even fished out half a pack of melon seeds from her Storage Pouch, cracking them open with crunching sounds.

"Is that breath you're catching? What you're catching is the face and prestige of the Wang family!" Wang Shouyi's voice rose high again, shaking a few peach blossom petals on the ground into a jump.

He took a step forward, and Wang Qingcheng retreated a step, backing up to Yang Yang's side. Suddenly, she stamped her foot and slapped a cyan jade token out from her Storage Pouch.

"Wang Shouyi! Try being fierce to me again!" She flashed the token forward and poured spiritual power into it.

The instant the token lit up, dense metallic figures emerged from the bushes on both sides of the slope, behind the peach trees, and along the mountain path.

Fifty combat Puppets broke out of their stealth state, shimmering with a chilling bronze light under the setting sun.

Every single one was a humanoid Puppet, seven feet tall, with array patterns circulating at the joints and the Spirit Stone cores humming inside their chests.

The top ten in the front had already assumed attack stances, condensing crimson spiritual light in their palms, and the temperature of the entire hillside suddenly spiked a notch.

Wang Shouyi's face turned cyan on the spot, so cyan that water could be wrung out of it.

Although he knew Qingcheng had made a big name for herself playing with Puppets over the years, he had never seen her release fifty combat Puppets in one breath with his own eyes.

These were Second-Rank combat Puppets, equivalent to the combat power of the Peak Qi Refining stage, capable of punching a First-Rank Yao Beast to death with a single strike. With fifty of them arrayed in formation, unless a Foundation Establishment Cultivator took action, who could possibly withstand them?

Yang Yang's facial skin twitched fiercely twice more. Although he had witnessed Wang Qingcheng's attainments in Puppetry, the scene of fifty combat Puppets appearing simultaneously was still the first time in his life.

He gazed at those bronze and iron bodies standing silently and solemnly like sculptures, and that little thought he had managed to suppress with such difficulty floated back up ungratefully—was this the foundation and confidence of the Wang family's chief Puppet Master?

That half-branch of wild mountain peach, what on earth could he, Yang Yang, use to receive it?

What was even more crucial was that, as a Talisman Maker, he also had quite a bit of understanding of industries belonging to the same realm of cultivation arts like Puppets.

A Late Stage Qi Refining Cultivator could control at most two Second-Rank Puppets, yet Wang Qingcheng could actually control fifty, and judging by their appearance, they all advanced and retreated in an orderly manner, not just a flashy showpiece set up for display.

"He had actually been chatting and laughing with Qingcheng just now while surrounded by fifty Puppets?"

The more he thought about it, the more he felt his guts were truly huge.