The Regressor of Mount Hua

Chapter 254. The Splendid Melody Gate Master (2)

What's with this bastard? Jin Ba felt a little uneasy. Does he know that I'm lying?

Jin Ba was a First Class warrior. He wasn't a master, but he was still quite skilled.

The Evil Faction had few masters and many weaklings, and Jin Ba's skills were considered outstanding among them. However, his greed far exceeded his cultivation. He would jump out of bed at the mention of women or alcohol, and if he had the money, he would go "hug" women first.

Whenever he began his parakho[1], he would borrow money and spend it lavishly before changing his identity and going into hiding.

Even after reaching the First Class Realm, his habits remained—no, he became worse. He had both the money and the skills, so it wasn't hard for him to "hug" women, but he wasn't strong enough to "hug" all of the beautiful women who caught his eye.

Upon arriving at Nanchang, Jin Ba hadn't been able to forget the feeling of calling over the high-class courtesans of the Pavilion of Prince Teng and playing with them.

There was a saying about how one would never be satisfied with playing somewhere else upon having a taste of what the Pavilion of Prince Teng had to offer, and the saying was completely true.

Isn't there a way to make some easy money?

With that in mind, Jin Ba settled down in Nanchang. He somehow found all sorts of ways to play at the Pavilion of Prince Teng for a long time. He spent every day drowning in luxuries. Then, Dan Libai, the rebellious son, convinced four of the Eight Gates of the Evil Dao to start a rebellion.

Jin Ba was a member of the Evil Valley. He was a First Class warrior and strong in his own right, so he was conscripted and was forced to join a side.

He chose the Evil Valley Master's side. The rebellion came as a shock, but Dan Libai's chances of winning were slim. In the end, his decision was proven wise. The rebellion was squashed, and the forces following Dan Libai were annihilated.

The Evil Valley Master didn't forgive them at all.

The right decision allowed Jin Ba to earn a decent amount of money. However, the money disappeared in an instant once he rose to the second floor of the Pavilion of Prince Teng. When money grew tight again, Jin Ba came up with an incredible money-making idea.

The Phantom Bow Swordsman!

The Hero of the Evil Faction, the Phantom Bow Swordsman, had appeared and disappeared like a comet. Jin Ba hadn't seen the Phantom Bow Swordsman's face, but he was on the same battlefield as the latter and had swung his sword by the Phantom Bow Swordsman's side.

When the rebellion ended, the Phantom Bow Swordsman disappeared, and Jin Ba came up with a plan. The plan was to pretend to be the Phantom Bow Swordsman's sworn brother.

He wasn't pretending to be the Phantom Bow Swordsman but the latter's sworn brother, so there was no need for him to show off his skills.

He could perfectly disguise himself as well, and his new reputation provided him with great benefits.

When he first said that he was the Phantom Bow Swordsman's sworn brother, people looked up to him. Even First Class and Peak Realm masters came to greet him. Those experts eventually left due to the Evil Valley's call for recruitment, but the rest stayed as his sworn brothers.

Whenever the Phantom Bow Swordsman's name was mentioned, those of the Evil Faction would automatically turn a blind eye. In addition, women who admired the Phantom Bow Swordsman often visited him, offering him alcohol and seducing him with a few lies before spending the night with him.

Whenever he grew short on money, he would borrow the Phantom Bow Swordsman's name and extort money from merchants or the Sect Masters of small and medium-sized sects.

It was just too convenient.

At first, some were suspicious, but since the Phantom Bow Swordsman himself never actually denied it or anything, the lies gradually became the truth. As the rumors grew, no one bothered him anymore.

Today, however, someone actually appeared and called himself the Phantom Bow Swordsman.

Since he was sitting in the Pavilion of Prince Teng and had claimed to be the Phantom Bow Swordsman's sworn brother, everyone's attention immediately landed on him.

Jin Ba flinched, but when he saw the individual claiming to be the Phantom Bow Swordsman, he got up from his seat. He must be like me!

Their situation wasn't exactly the same, but it was clear that the man before him was impersonating the Phantom Bow Swordsman.

The man's eyes seemed a bit harsher than expected, but his cultivation baser didn't seem that great. He had to be a bastard like him, trying to fake it until he made it.

"It'll be better for you to leave now while I'm still being nice." Jin Ba snorted in front of Zhou Xuchuan. "And I'll take this gold yuanbao in place of Eldest Hyungnim."

Jin Ba's hand immediately went to the gold yuanbao in the courtesan's hands. He could hear his younger brothers giggling behind him.

Hehehe! With this money, we can surely have fun on the second floor!

Just imagining it made him feel good. His lower half was already growing strong as the faces of the courtesans he wanted to "hug" came to his mind.

"You better retract that hand. I don't want to see my younger brothers get hurt; they're serving me as their Eldest Hyungnim, after all."

"What?!" Jin Ba's face quickly turned a mix of red and blue. I've been trying to give this bastard a graceful way out of this, so how dare this con artist bastard crawl his way back? Wait, it actually feels weird for a con artist to call out another con artist.

"How dare you insult me?!" Jin Ba exclaimed. He was about to move his hand to his waist, but he stopped. He stopped not because he was scared of the self-proclaimed Phantom Bow Swordsman standing in front of him.

It was all because he knew that things would become complicated if he were to make a fuss in the jurisdiction of the Melody Gate.

He straightened his bent legs and retracted his killing intent. "I can endure you insulting my parents, but I can't endure you insulting me—"

"Ha, damn it! Hurry up and shut up!"

Clang!

A table shattered, eliciting a loud noise.

"Eeek!"

The surprised courtesans backed up. The masters hiding above the ceiling dropped down and stood before the courtesans.

"You! Who the hell are you?"

Everything was a mess now.

A man in his mid-thirties who had been drinking alone in a corner stepped forward and kicked the broken table.

"So it's a crazy bastard!"

Jin Ba looked at the destroyed table and fell into a daze.

"Ah!"

"I'm leaving now!"

The men who had been doing whatever they could to hold onto the courtesans immediately got up from their seats and ran out of the pavilion. Instead of leaving, however, they poked their heads in to watch.

This is bad. Jin Ba also stepped backward. Looking around, his eight sworn brothers were missing. It seemed that they had all decided that it was time to run away.

"Damn it, I came here because I heard that the liquor from the Pavilion of Prince Teng is incredible, but isn't this a complete mess?!"

"You crazy bastard. Stop that audacious mouth of yours this instant."

Jin Ba glanced at the upper floor and lowered his voice.

"Do you not know who owns the Pavilion of Prince Teng?"

"Are you talking about the Melody Gate Master?"

"Y-you crazy bastard! Is the Sound God your friend?!"

The Seven Empyrean Overlords—the Melody Gate Master and the Sound God. There was a reason the Evil Faction members—known for being rough and fighting at the drop of a hat—were quiet within the Pavilion of Prince Teng.

Jin Ba was careful and cautious because the owner of Prince Teng's Pavilion was one of the Seven Empyrean Overlords. As one of the leaders of Evil Valley and a Gate Master of the Eight Gates of the Evil Dao, or rather the Four Gates of the Evil Dao, the Sound God was one of the Evil Path's Absolute Masters.

"Hmph, no matter how you look at it, that bitch's still some singer at best. Empty talks are useless in front of me, the Pure Saber!"

"The Pure Saber? You mean from that mysterious Pure Saber Gate?" Jin Ba asked back in surprise.

Zhou Xuchuan's eyes widened in surprise.

The Pure Saber Gate was a mysterious sect passed down only to one person. It appeared about seventy years ago, and it was active in many battlefields before disappearing.

In other words, it wasn't strange for the onlookers to be surprised to know that the Pure Saber was here.

"Are you really the Pure Saber?"

The Pure Saber Gate seventy years ago was strong. When its successor appeared, they were immediately ranked within the upper ranks of the One Hundred Experts Under Heaven.

Thus, it was natural for everyone to be in disbelief at the sight of such a master after seventy long years.

"Hmph, can you really not tell even after seeing this blade?"

The Pure Saber drew the saber at his waist and showed it off.

It was a brilliant sword that gave off an extraordinary aura at first glance. Soon, a pure, bluish-white saber aura was released, and gasps echoed here and there.

"He really is the Pure Saber!"

Upon mastering the Pure Saber, one would be able to emit a bluish-white saber aura.

D-damn it. I just got caught up in something annoying. Jin Ba rolled his eyes. He was about to tell his new fake to go away to another province, but a completely unrelated master just had to show up.

Moreover, he also didn't understand why a master of some mysterious sect would show up now after seventy years. He wanted to swear at him and tell him to leave, but he couldn't do that, so he decided to employ his glib tongue instead.

"Pure Saber! I apologize for interrupting your drinking! How about we just wrap things up?"

"Hmph! If this were something that could be easily dismissed, I wouldn't have started all this."

The Pure Saber had been holding himself back for quite a while now, but he couldn't stand it anymore and had decided to draw his blade.

"If a man draws his blade, he should cut one's gusset—no, he must chop someone's head off at the very least. And a man ought to take responsibility for their own life."

"A man ought to chop someone's head off at the very least? But don't you know that I, Jin Ba, am the brother of the Hero of the Evil Path, the Phantom Bow Swordsman?!"

"As I said, I never had a younger brother like you," Zhou Xuchuan chimed in, feeling irritated by Jin Ba's lie.

"Shut your mouth, you fake bastard! If you have even a trace of tact in you, you better stop getting involved!" Jin Ba cast a murderous glare at Zhou Xuchuan. Oh, come to think of it, isn't this all his fault?

Jin Ba's gaze became filled with killing intent as he stared at the fake Phantom Bow Swordsman. Then, he proceeded to curse, shouting, "This is all that bastard's fault! Chop his head off!"

"Don't worry, I'll beat that bastard and you, too. I, the Pure Saber, won't send people to the afterlife by themselves. After all, isn't that the duty of the gangho?"

No one needs that kind of duty! Jin Ba was about to curse reflexively but stopped himself in time.

"Okay, then let's go to the afterlife together—"

Clap, clap, clap!

A round of applause echoed from upstairs. All the noise was engulfed, and even the sound of breathing had vanished.

W-what is this? Jin Ba couldn't move. Even his brothers, who—forget about loyalty—were willing to abandon him without a second thought, froze like stones.

Jin Ba wanted to look around, but he couldn't move.

"Ugh..." someone groaned in pain, and it was the Pure Saber. The Pure Saber trembled like a sick dog, and dark red blood flowed out of his nostrils.

W-wait... Jin Ba trembled in fear. The round of applause just now and the fact that they all froze as if they had been paralyzed by poison as soon as the applause ended.

Jin Ba mustered his qi with a hopeful mind, but it wouldn't budge. It felt like he had immediately lost before anything could even begin. There were only a few people capable of doing such a thing in the Central Plains.

Since they were within the Pavilion of Prince Teng, this was most likely the work of the Immortal Clap of the Melody Gate.

"What kind of scoundrels dare to make a fuss here?"

Jin Ba couldn't move, but he was shaking inside in fear. He truly wanted to run away. At the moment, Jin Ba really wanted to be in the middle of the Great War of Good and Demonic or the Great War of Good and Evil rather than be here.

Shao Leijin!

The newcomer's pitch-black hair that reminded one of the night's sky cascaded down their back, and there were elegant, sexy eyes beneath the long eyelashes that were so long that frost could form on them.

The newcomer's thick lips were shining, and their skin was so white that one would assume that the newcomer was from the North Sea.

The Paragon Beauty—one of Shao Leijin's titles. Shao Leijin was androgynous, so it was hard to tell whether they were a man or a woman. Their voice was androgynous as well.

Whether Shao Leijin was a man or a woman, they were still a beauty capable of making anyone fall in love with them at first sight. However, no one ever dared to show their lust in front of them.

It was all because they were one of the murim's Absolute Masters

The martial artists referred to them as the Sound God.

"Argh!" The Pure Saber trembled. The blood vessels in his eyes burst, turning his eyes bloodshot, and blood poured out of his nose as well.

"I'll praise you for being able to endure this much, but that's all you amount to."

Shao Leijin looked at the Pure Saber and extended their index and middle fingers. The next moment, a crisp, resonant ring echoed as their sword emerged from its scabbard.

Ting, ting, ting~

The noises changed slowly until the noises transformed into a vibrato, generating a wave of sound that pierced the Pure Saber's eardrums.

"Ugh!" The Pure Saber flinched and froze before falling backward with blood pouring out of his pores.

To think the Pure Saber died without even being able to respond!

1. imagine a prodigal debauchee ☜