Qin Lu gripped his longsword, his knuckles white. His gaze burned into the approaching vessel, adrenaline flooding his system. The thumping of his own heart echoed in his ears like a war drum.

He was ready. If this was a trap, he would take as many of them down with him as possible.

But as the spirit boat decelerated and the figures on deck came into focus, Qin Lu froze. The tension in his shoulders evaporated, replaced by sheer bewilderment. His hand loosened on the hilt of the Seven Star Sword.

The killing intent he had summoned vanished like smoke in a gale.

“How… could it be them?”

He recognized every face on the boat.

“Hahaha!” Li Qingdu threw his head back, his laughter echoing across the mountain peak. With a flourish of his sleeve, he opened a gap in the defensive array, turning to the stunned loose cultivators with a look of supreme satisfaction.

“I told you we had reinforcements. I wasn’t lying, was I?”

The survivors exchanged glances of pure shock. Even Gu Yue, usually composed, looked dumbfounded. She clearly hadn’t been privy to this part of the plan.

The small spirit boat glided through the barrier and landed. As the occupants leaped down, the vessel shrank into a palm-sized toy, which one of them pocketed.

Two men strode forward, bowing deeply to Li Qingdu.

“Market Master! We have not failed your heavy trust! The mission is a complete success!”

“Excellent! You’ve all worked hard!” Li Qingdu beamed, clapping them on the shoulders.

Qin Lu stared, his mind racing to process the scene.

Standing before them were Wei Feng and Wei Huang—the patriarchs of the Wei Family and Sunset Valley, the two other major powers of Wuji Market. Behind them stood their elites, including the formidable Nie Feng.

These were the heavyweights of the market. The people who sat at the high table.

“Li Qingdu mobilized the entire power structure of Wuji Market?” Qin Lu thought, stunned. “Where have they been this whole time?”

“Senior Li,” one of the loose cultivators stammered, “is this… the surprise?”

“Exactly!” Li Qingdu’s smile turned enigmatic. He swept his gaze over the group. “But this is not a place to linger. Everyone, we leave immediately. Back to the market!”

With a snap of his fingers, the formation flags uprooted themselves and flew into his sleeve. Another gesture, and the massive cyan spirit boat expanded in the air, hovering waiting for its passengers.

Still dazed, Qin Lu followed the others on board.

As they settled into the cabin, Wei Feng’s eyes landed on a corpse bag in the corner—Wu Zheng’s body.

“Well, well,” the Wei patriarch sneered, his face lighting up with malicious glee. “Is that old dog Wu Zheng? Dead? Hahaha! Wonderful! Simply wonderful!”

Lu Anchen, sitting in the back, turned white. Grief and rage exploded in his chest, and he shot to his feet.

“What’s so funny?!”

Wei Feng turned slowly, his smile dripping with contempt. “Heh. Kid, I’ll laugh if I want. What are you going to do about it? Sit down. The adults are talking.”

“You…!” Lu Anchen trembled, spiritual energy flaring erratically.

“Enough!”

Li Qingdu’s voice cut through the tension like a whip. He looked at Wei Feng, his expression hardening.

“Fellow Daoist Wei, Wu Zheng died for the sect’s great cause. I will not tolerate insults to his memory. Not here. Not now.”

Wei Feng’s smile didn’t reach his eyes, but he bowed slightly. “Understood. The Market Master is right.”

He sat down, but the glint of satisfaction in his eyes remained. He and Wu Zheng had been bitter rivals for years. Seeing his enemy dead was clearly the highlight of his day.

Li Qingdu nodded, then turned back to the newcomers.

“The harvest. Let’s see it.”

“Of course.”

Wei Feng and Wei Huang tossed several heavy storage bags toward Li Qingdu.

The sect leader caught them, injecting his spiritual sense for a quick scan. His eyes widened, and a genuine, predatory smile spread across his face.

“The Immortal Crane Sect… truly lives up to its century-old reputation. Their accumulation is substantial. It was worth months of planning!”

Immortal Crane Sect?

Qin Lu, sitting in the back, felt a jolt of electricity run through his brain. The pieces of the puzzle slammed together.

He remembered Li Qingdu’s first words to You Ye earlier that day: “Today is the day your entire sect perishes!”

It wasn’t a threat. It wasn’t trash talk.

It was a statement of fact.

“Market Master,” a loose cultivator asked, his voice trembling slightly. “Did… did the two seniors just return from the Immortal Crane Sect’s mountain gate?”

“Correct!” Li Qingdu announced, his voice ringing with pride. “While we lured You Ye and his elites into the ambush, Patriarch Wei and Patriarch Wei led a strike team to attack their headquarters. We didn’t just kill their leaders…”

His gaze turned cold, locking onto Wei Feng.

“I trust the job was thorough? No survivors?”

Wei Feng stroked his beard, his smile beatific. “Naturally. We seized control of their protective array and inverted it. No one got out. From the elders to the disciples… every living thing in the Immortal Crane Sect has been slaughtered.”

“Clean work,” Wei Huang added casually. “Not even a dog was left alive.”

The cabin fell into a dead silence.

“So that’s how it is…”

Qin Lu felt a chill crawl down his spine. The casual brutality of it was staggering.

Li Qingdu hadn’t just planned a raid; he had orchestrated a genocide. He had lured the tigers out of the mountain, then sent wolves to butcher the cubs. A Foundation Establishment sect would have at least a hundred disciples—Qi Refining juniors, servants, non-combatants.

All dead. Slaughtered to the last man.

“One final reminder,” Li Qingdu said, his tone shifting to a warning. “This operation was my personal initiative. It has nothing to do with the Wuji Sect. We still have a ceasefire agreement with the Dragon Tiger Sect. When you return, keep your mouths shut. If word leaks, there will be… consequences.”

“Rest assured, Market Master! My lips are sealed!”

“I’ve already forgotten everything!”

“We saw nothing!”

The loose cultivators scrambled to pledge their silence. Even Gu Can nodded vigorously beside Qin Lu.

Satisfied, Li Qingdu began the distribution of spoils.

He was generous—shockingly so. He emptied the storage bags from the Immortal Crane Sect’s treasury, dividing the loot among the survivors. The cabin, previously tense with the weight of mass murder, filled with the cheerful noise of greed.

Qin Lu received his promised thousand spirit stones, plus a pile of spell books, artifacts, and talismans. It was a fortune.

As the cyan spirit boat streaked through the night sky toward Wuji Market, leaving a trail of light in its wake, Qin Lu stared at the pile of wealth in his lap.

He was rich.

But as he looked at Li Qingdu’s smiling back, he couldn’t shake the cold feeling in his gut. He was riding with monsters. And for now, he was one of them.