Chapter 474: Fear Not, Grandteacher Will Cover This Up! (1)
"Senior Brother Zhou!"
Zhou Pingsheng was surprised to see Liu Hong appearing before him.
"Junior Brother Liu, why are you here?" Liu Hong sighed, "About the matter you told me, I noticed something off as well. Senior Brother, listen to me. You should just change your plan and cultivate silently instead."
Liu Hong earnestly said, "Senior Brother, we can start cultivating together starting now. After leaving the grotto, I can serve as your witness if everyone starts accusing you of something you haven't done. This is the only thing your little junior brother can do for you. I can't afford to offend anyone or do anything for you."
Liu Hong looked exceptionally sincere. He was basically saying that he couldn't offend Hu Wensheng or do much for Zhou Pingsheng. The only thing he could do was provide an alibi for Zhou Pingsheng.
At that moment, Zhou Pingsheng's emotions turned complicated. At this very moment, at a low point of his life, an outsider like Liu Hong was actually the only person willing to stand up for him.
Liu Hong said, "Senior Brother, you're already a seventh-stage Cloudbreach. In all honesty, it is pointless to get into these pointless squabbles at this time. When you reach the Mountainsea Realm, some things will naturally fall into your hands even if you reject them."
"Just take this chance to cultivate more and try to reach the Mountainsea Realm as soon as possible. You're near the eighth-stage Cloudbreach Realm. Why waste your time in the grotto?"
Liu Hong had a look of regret as he said, "You're already the mortal enemy of the multiple character faction. They are going to continue targeting you. And to be honest, internally, our people won't really care about it unless it affects them personally."
He shook his head with a sigh and said, "If you keep this up, your reputation will be completely ruined. The people in this grotto are all the important seedlings of the various factions. Do you want to offend all these people, Senior Brother? Even if you're not the culprit, would any of them believe you? Would anyone listen to you?"
Liu Hong helplessly said, "Senior Brother, listen to me. You really need to stop now. I can start cultivating with you from now. I don't know about the things that have happened before this, but from now on, we can stick together. We can even get a few junior brothers to cultivate with us as well. At that time, they can no longer blame you if the incidents keep happening."
Zhou Pingsheng's eyes flickered as he nodded, "You make sense. But I can't accept this. I'm not reconciled to this. Some people...are already being too excessive!"
He couldn't accept this. Hu Wensheng had left seclusion suddenly to take advantage of his recent downfall. He was not willing to accept that. He had done a lot for the single character faction!
What had Hu Wensheng done for the faction?
Nothing!
He had cultivated in peace until the Skysoar Realm before being defeated by Bai Feng. Then, he cultivated in peace until the Cloudbreach Realm. But right after leaving seclusion, he was rewarded with a slot into this grotto?
Zhou Pingsheng was the one who had gathered a large portion of the riversand used to open this grotto! Not only was Hu Wensheng benefiting from his hard work, that fellow was also trying to kick him while he was down! How hateful!
Zhou Pingsheng looked at Liu Hong. He knew that Liu Hong was definitely not a good person. This Liu Hong was probably doing this after feeling a sense of crisis from Hu Wensheng's appearance.
After all, Liu Hong had benefited after he lost the trust of the faction. But with Hu Wensheng's return, Liu Hong's position was in danger as well. Thus, he knew very well that both him and Liu Hong were on the same boat.
Liu Hong was not helping him out of kindness. Instead, Liu Hong was doing this to resist Hu Wensheng. Knowing all that, he believed that Liu Hong was sincere in helping him this time. Who would be willing to help you without a reason? This was understandable.
Liu Hong's action wasn't surprising at all.
"Junior Brother Liu..."
Liu Hong stopped from talking and solemnly said, "Senior Brother, Where there's life there's hope. You have plenty of time to do what you want in the future. For now, you need to settle down or you might even end up offending the elders! We can take it slow! If you continue roaming around, it would be too difficult to prove your innocence!"
He lowered his voice, "We can take a few people with us and find a place to cultivate together. We can even get Hu Wensheng's student, Guo Shengquan, with us. With that, he can accuse everyone of lying, but can he say the same about his own student?"
Liu Hong sneered, "Hu Wensheng is getting really ambitious. He should look at himself in the mirror. Over these years, he had only faced Bai Feng once. And that one encounter had resulted in an utter defeat. Meanwhile, I have been able to compete against Bai Feng for so many years. A few years ago, he had even called me incompetent for failing to defeat Bai Feng. Would you believe that?"
He was furious.
Zhou Pingsheng could fully empathize with him.
Sure, he was one of those who had called Liu Hong incompetent as well. But in hindsight, was Liu Hong really so incompetent?
No.
In fact, Liu Hong was incredible.
A normal person would have been completely defeated by now. Meanwhile, Liu Hong had been able to let Bai Feng suffer several small losses. That was actually very impressive. Just look at Hu Wensheng. He had only clashed against Bai Feng once and look what happened. Was he not ashamed of himself? He actually dared to compete against them with that shameful performance?
"You're right, Junior Brother." Zhou Pingsheng nodded, "Sure. Let's get a few people and cultivate together."
"Senior Brother, let's take the Skysoars with us." Liu Hong's eyes flickered as he said, "Let him go crazy. He probably won't approach the spots claimed by the Skysoars. He will run around creating trouble while we will be staying with all the Skysoars. Excluding us, only him and Xia Yuwen will be able to do something like that. At that time, would people suspect him or Xia Yuwen?"
Liu Hong continued giving more ideas.
Inwardly, he was greatly amused.
Time for a great show to unfold!
He would gather all Skysoars together and let Su Yu run wild. As long as the kid didn't provoke Hu Wensheng and Xia Yuwen, the two would probably ignore him.
As for Zhou Pingsheng, he would definitely place all the blame on Hu Wensheng. Meanwhile, Hu Wensheng would conclude that Zhou Pingsheng was the culprit.
Even if they were able to prove that Zhou Pingsheng had been staying with so many other cultivators while all those incidents were happening, Hu Wensheng was the type of person that would insist that Zhou Pingsheng had bought them all out instead of changing his mind.
In short, this was not something that could be cleared up. The only way they could clear things up was if they could prove that either Xia Yuwen or Su Yu was the culprit.
But if even Liu Hong himself was finding it hard to believe that Su Yu was the culprit, would the others even believe it? Also, that damn kid had probably hidden even more of his strength. So the kid was probably capable of creating an even bigger ruckus.
According to Zhou Pingsheng, the absorption speed that had emptied the random areas of willpower had reached the level of a Cloudbreach. But earlier, Su Yu had only revealed the absorption speed of a fourth-stage Skysoar in his presence.
Liu Hong was curious, but he couldn't be bothered to say more to the damn kid. He only needed to focus on removing Zhou Pingsheng and giving Su Yu the space to create more trouble.
As a mere spectator, he was more than happy to create more drama. In any case, as a peak Skysoar who wasn' trying to break through in the grotto, he had quite a lot of free time. He only needed to nurture some characters while he was in the grotto.
...
Liu Hong was quite efficient when he decided to get something done. He had really managed to instigate Zhou Pingsheng to gather a group of people and cultivate together.
This group would serve as his alibi.
Of course, he had not made that point clear when gathering those people up. But with those people around him, they could no longer blame him when another spot was emptied of willpower.
...
Before long, Su Yu received an update from Liu Hong.
He looked dumbstruck.
It was...that easy?
Holy shit!
So in this decently sized grotto, only Hu Wensheng and Xia Yuwen were left isolated from the other Skysoar and Cloudbreach cultivators. But those two had been staying at the same spot for a long time. It didn't look like they were going to move around anytime soon. Did that not mean that the entire grotto was now his playground?
Su Yu was completely unbothered about anyone below the Skysoar Realm. Why should he put much thought into those weaklings?
"I thought I have to wait until tomorrow before I can cultivate properly, but looks like I can go crazy right now."
Su Yu was overjoyed.
He had already opened 58 apertures. And it had been nearly 12 hours since the opening of the grotto. During this period of time, he had opened 14 apertures. Since he needed to keep running around, his speed had slowed down considerably. Even so, opening 14 apertures in only half a day was actually a terrifying feat.
Su Yu grinned. The grotto was now his personal playground! Before long, yet another area was emptied of willpower.
This time, Su Yu didn't even bother leaving anything behind. He turned the entire area into a void of willpower before heading to Zhang Hao's place to digest the willpower he had absorbed.
Half an hour later, he left to empty yet another area of willpower before returning to Zhang Hao.
...
Boom!
Outside the grotto.
A loud rumble rang out while creaking sounds started coming from the grotto portal. Zhou Mingren hurriedly stabilized the grotto in panic while the faces of Yu Hong and the others fell.
Elder Sun furiously said, "Bastard! Has he gone mad?"
They had paid a large cost to open this grotto!
They had done this to allow the members of their faction to grow, lending them the strength to once again establish their dominance in the academy. But right now, a damn bastard was constantly creating trouble in the grotto.
At present, there were three particular spots in the grotto with high willpower expenditure. However, the absorption speed at those three spots had remained stable thus far. Those spots were manageable as the people there had gradually increased their absorption speed instead of suddenly pushing their absorption speed to the peak.
That way, they could avoid suddenly emptying an area of willpower. But there was a certain asshole who had directly emptied random areas of willpower all over the grotto. This person had the absorption speed of a Cloudbreach, and because of this person's meddling, the balance of the grotto was being disrupted.
This had happened again and again, infuriating all the elders maintaining the grotto. They had spent resources worth over 100,000 merit points to open this grotto. For the sake of this grotto, the single character faction had pushed themselves into the brink of bankruptcy.
Knowing all that, this bastard was still running around creating trouble for them! They were furious!
Not far away, Hong Tan frowned, "Don't force yourself. If you're already at your limit, let me take over."
Zhou Mingren and the others ignored him.
Based on Zhou Mingren's observation, two Cloudbreach cultivators were steadily cultivating at two different spots while a few Skysoars had gathered at one spot to cultivate together. In that case, it was clear that Zhou Pingsheng was the person who had been creating trouble for them.
Damn it!
Damn that bastard!
But he stubbornly persisted. He was adamant on maintaining control over the grotto for as long as he could. If he allowed Hong Tan and the others to take over, the Skysoar and Cloudbreach cultivators of their faction would no longer be given special treatment in the grotto.