Zhou Ping mingled within the crowd, occasionally striking out to cut down members of the Liu clan. His formidable strength struck terror into the hearts of both the Wang and Sun clans, as well as the Liu family.

No matter how he attacked, Zhou Ping always kept seven strands of Spiritual Qi in reserve for self-defense, wary of being ambushed by the Wang and Sun clans. He also deliberately avoided getting trapped, weaving along the periphery of the brawl. Several people in the crowd made subtle moves, attempting to secretly encircle Zhou Ping, but all ultimately failed.

Taking advantage of the chaotic melee, Zhou Ping slipped away at the perfect moment and walked deeper into the Liu estate.

Upon entering the Liu family's backyard, his first action was to sweep his gaze over the surrounding doors and windows. Only after noting which windows offered an easy escape did he feel slightly at ease.

From the start of tonight's events, Zhou Ping refused to put himself in any true danger, ensuring his escape routes were always planned in advance.

He then spotted Liu Ming and another figure hiding inside a room, and immediately followed them with a few quick strides.

He refused to believe that the Liu family, having operated in this village for so many years, would lack a secret escape route.

Just as Liu Ming pushed open the lid of the hidden passage beneath a rice vat, before he could even jump down, he saw Zhou Ping arrive. His expression drastically changed, and he burst into curses.

"Zhou Erlang, helping the Wang and Sun clans deal with my Liu family is truly the height of stupidity!"

"Those two families are tied together by marriage, sharing the same breath and branches. Once my Liu family is gone, do you really think your Zhou family will survive?"

"When the time comes, your entire family won't escape their butcher's knife! You brought this on yourself, and you deserve it!"

Perhaps pushed to the brink of death and facing the extermination of his entire clan, Liu Ming roared in a mad frenzy, screaming like a wild beast.

"Come on! Kill us! And then wait for the destruction of your Zhou family!"

Zhou Ping's expression remained calm. He grabbed Liu Ming by the neck, casually tossed him to the ground, and slowly said, "Who said I was going to kill you?"

He then subtly flicked something onto Liu Hao, a movement neither of the two noticed.

Liu Ming lay sprawled on the ground, completely stunned. Even his pain seemed forgotten in that moment as he stared at Zhou Ping with deep suspicion.

"You are letting us go?" Liu Ming asked uncertainly. He looked nervously at Zhou Ping, his heart pounding in his chest.

He had personally witnessed Zhou Erlang slaughtering his Liu clansmen. Was Zhou Erlang some indecisive fool who didn't understand the principle of pulling weeds up by the roots? Or did he simply want to extricate the Zhou family from this mess, leaving them to seek revenge solely on the Wang and Sun clans in the future?

"What I did today was forced upon me. I was truly coerced by the Wang and Sun clans," Zhou Ping said with a helpless expression, as if he had suffered some massive, heaven-defying injustice.

Liu Ming sneered inwardly. He didn't believe Zhou Ping's ghost stories for a second. But since Zhou Ping wasn't killing him now, he would play along. Survival was the sensible course; only by living would there be hope of slaying his enemies with his own hands.

"Hurry up and leave. Do not let them catch up to you," Zhou Ping urged. He then pulled several books from his robes and tossed them onto the ground to burn.

"What are you burning?" Liu Ming asked suspiciously.

"Cultivation methods," Zhou Ping said calmly.

Liu Ming's eyes flickered, his thoughts unreadable. He then grabbed Liu Hao and ran toward the other end of the tunnel.

Zhou Ping watched until the books he had hand-copied were mostly burned away, and only then did he follow.

Since the Wang and Sun clans wanted cultivation methods, he would write a few for them. Let's see if they believed them, and if they dared to practice them!

These methods were naturally cobbled together by Zhou Ping from various techniques for gathering heaven and earth Qi. They could not draw in Spiritual Qi, but they could gather impure, chaotic Qi!

Even if a Spirit Awakening Realm cultivator rashly gathered violent heaven and earth Qi, they would suffer severe bodily damage at best, and lose their life at worst. Let alone ordinary mortals.

Now that the bulk of the texts were destroyed, it remained to be seen whether the Wang and Sun clans would dare practice from the surviving remnants.

Meanwhile, throughout the chaotic melee in the Liu family's front courtyard, several sturdy men had continuously kept their gazes locked on Zhou Ping, as if waiting to see if he would exhaust his strength. Seeing him chase deeper into the estate, they exchanged glances and immediately followed.

The clan head had given strict orders: if Zhou Erlang entered a confined room with no escape, they were to swarm him and hack him to death!

An Immortal Master might be powerful, but once their mana was drained, they were nothing more than an ordinary mortal.

Some among them felt timid, but they were fiercely grabbed by the fierce-looking men beside them, who hissed, "What are you afraid of? That Zhou Erlang is just an ordinary Immortal Master, not much stronger than us. With so many of us, we can drown him in sheer numbers."

"Haven't you heard? Fifteen years ago, an arrogant Immortal Master provoked the Black Wolf Gang in the city. He was cornered in a house by dozens of men. Even though he killed quite a few, he was eventually beaten into a bloody pulp while still breathing!"

"The clan head said that as long as we kill Zhou Erlang, even if we are unlucky enough to be struck down by him, our families will be provided for by the clan, and each household will receive an extra fifteen mu of land!"

Hearing these words, even those who still harbored fear gathered their courage and marched deeper into the Liu family compound.

"Brothers, be careful. Although Zhou Erlang exhausted a lot of mana earlier, he definitely still has some strength left. Don't fall for his tricks."

They carefully searched room by room, both to hunt down Liu Ming's duo and to find Zhou Ping. Yet after scouring the area, they found no trace of the three. Finally, they discovered a pitch-black tunnel hidden beneath a rice vat.

"Motherfucker! When did the Liu family dig a tunnel? Hurry up and chase!" the leader cursed, taking the lead to jump down into the passage.

No wonder they couldn't find any trace of those people. Even with guards surrounding the compound, they hadn't seen anyone slip out. They had clearly used this tunnel to escape.

As soon as they jumped down, they saw several flickering flames giving off the sharp scent of burning paper.

"Not good, it's Immortal cultivation methods!"

Panicking, the men rushed forward to stamp out the flames. But even with their quick intervention, only a few intact pages remained.

"Brother, Zhou Erlang is gone. Should we still give chase?" someone asked.

"Chase! If we don't kill him, how are we supposed to swallow the Zhou and Liu lands!"

Without delay, the group sprinted toward the other end of the tunnel.

Zhou Ping followed behind Liu Ming and the boy. Upon exiting the tunnel, he realized they had emerged at a field ridge just outside the village, not far from a dense mountain forest.

A large stone had capped the tunnel exit, perfectly concealed among the weeds and brambles. Since this area was surrounded by Liu family farmland, Zhou Ping would never have discovered it had he not taken this trip tonight.

At this moment, it was still deep in the night, and a continuous, icy drizzle fell, chilling a person to the bone.

Liu Ming dragged Liu Hao along, watching Zhou Ping with extreme vigilance. Their clothes were muddy and disheveled. Seeing that Zhou Ping made no move against them, they slowly edged toward the mountains. Once they were a safe distance away, Liu Ming scooped up Liu Hao and sprinted off.

'Zhou Erlang, you truly are a fool!'

'To not even understand the principle of pulling weeds up by the roots... Don't worry, when we return to Baixi Village to wipe away our grievances with blood, we will definitely give your entire Zhou family a quick death!'

Zhou Ping watched them for a few moments. Only when Liu Ming and the boy completely vanished from sight did he channel Spiritual Qi into his feet and chase them into the mountains.

The reason he hadn't killed the two immediately was that he wanted them to get further away from the village. This way, when he did kill them, the Wang and Sun clans wouldn't be able to find the corpses, leaving them suspicious and constantly looking over their shoulders.

If he had made his move inside the tunnel, dragging two corpses would have severely slowed his movements, making it far too easy for the Wang and Sun men to catch up and placing him in a highly precarious situation.

Now that they were in the forest, he could kill them and toss their bodies into a concealed location. Even if the Wang and Sun clans searched the heavens, they wouldn't find a thing, leaving behind an unsolved mystery.

Zhou Ping activated a technique, and instantly, a faint, obscure trail illuminated the darkness, extending deep into the mountain forest.

"Huff... huff... huff..."

Liu Ming gasped heavily, clutching Liu Hao tightly as he desperately pushed deeper into the mountains, not daring to stop and rest for even a second.

But the forest under the unceasing drizzle was eerily quiet. The only sound was the sharp crunch of his panicked footsteps crushing dead leaves.

After fleeing for several li through the woods, Liu Ming finally collapsed onto the ground in sheer exhaustion. Allowing the rain to pelt his body, he looked at Liu Hao with the relief of a survivor and said, "Hao'er, we will survive this! We definitely will!"

"As long as we live, there is hope to avenge our clan and slaughter every last member of those three families!"

Thunder rumbled and lightning flashed, casting a pale glow over Liu Ming's ferocious, terrifying expression.

"Cousin, Hao'er definitely will!"

Even though Liu Hao was young, after witnessing the horrors of tonight, he understood that his family was gone, and his grandfather was dead.

His small face was covered in droplets-whether rain or tears, it was hard to tell. He glared with pure hatred in the direction of Baixi Village.

But right at that moment, Liu Ming suddenly heard the sound of crushing leaves mixed in with the patter of the rain. It was incredibly faint, but it caused his expression to twist in horror!

It was Zhou Erlang! He must have planted some tracking method on him!

Liu Ming instantly recalled how Zhou Erlang had grabbed him by the throat back in the tunnel. He frantically rubbed and scratched at his neck.

"Hao'er, I am going to lure Zhou Erlang away. You must hide well and absolutely not let him find you!" Liu Ming said with absolute resolve. "You are the hope of our Liu family. Remember, you must never forget the blood debt of our forty-seven clansmen!"

"As long as you live, you must avenge us!"

Having said that, Liu Ming shoved Liu Hao deep into the tall grass, then scrambled to his feet and sprinted toward the other side of the forest. Even when he slammed bodily into tree trunks, he didn't dare pause for a second!

In the pitch-black woods, he repeatedly crashed into trees and jagged stones. His body was slick with blood, covered in countless small lacerations. He even took a brutal tumble that snapped his left leg. Agonizing pain flooded his heart, yet he didn't dare stop moving.

The sound behind him was like a vengeful ghost that refused to disperse!

Zhou Ping stopped exactly where Liu Ming had just been hiding. He then channeled a Golden Light Technique toward the nearby patch of grass. A one-chi-long blade of golden light erupted forward, its sharp edge chilling to the bone!

A child's miserable shriek echoed from the brush, quickly followed by dead silence.

Just in case, he had naturally planted tracking marks on both of them, fearing that if one noticed, it would leave behind a disastrous loose end.

Still not entirely at ease, Zhou Ping activated another Golden Light Technique and aimed it at the other side of the small, thin body within the grass-just in case Liu Hao's heart grew on the wrong side.

Only then did he dash off in the direction Liu Ming had fled.

He eventually found an utterly exhausted Liu Ming huddled beneath a massive boulder. Not daring to be careless, Zhou Ping stood atop the boulder, staying completely out of Liu Ming's line of sight, and viciously hurled a heavy rock downward. A scream erupted from below.

To be absolutely certain, Zhou Ping relentlessly dropped several more rocks until the space below fell completely silent. Only then did he cautiously approach.

He found half of Liu Ming's body crushed into pulp. Blood flowed freely, quickly washing away in the rain. Liu Ming's left hand was tightly clutching a dagger, his eyes staring wide open in death.

Zhou Ping remained silent. This wasn't his first time killing. Back when he was in the Azure Cloud Sect, he had undertaken bandit suppression assignments where the cunning and treachery far exceeded this. In one instance, Zhou Ping had nearly lost his life, an experience that had hammered this extreme caution into his bones.

He grabbed a stone and smashed it into the left hand holding the dagger, reducing the flesh and bone to a mangled mess and sending the dagger flying. Only then did he hear a faint, muffled gasp.

"You... will die a miserable death..."

The hoarse voice drifted up. Zhou Ping watched with cold indifference as Liu Ming finally breathed his last.

Afterward, he hauled both corpses to the edge of a steep cliff. He searched their bodies but found no sign of the so-called Liu family cultivation methods. Drawing his blade, he dismembered the bodies into several pieces before throwing them down into the abyss.

As for the leftover bloodstains, after tonight's torrential downpour, the rain would wash them away completely, leaving not a single trace to be found.

The next day, the hundreds of residents in Baixi Village, already jolted awake by the commotion the previous night, were left restless and deeply unsettled.

Learning of the Liu family's complete extermination early in the morning terrified them out of their wits. Panicked and lost, the villagers paled whenever the massacre was mentioned.

Meanwhile, in the main courtyard of the Sun estate, the Sun Clan Head was furiously smashing everything in sight.

"Tell me, what the hell do I feed you for!"

"Failing to kill Zhou Erlang is one thing, but you couldn't even find the Liu family remnants! Do you have any idea how massive a threat this leaves us with!"

"Leaving the roots behind after cutting the weeds-you are all truly useless trash!"