Ascending to Immortality by Slaying Spirits

Chapter 90 - Sweeping Through the Entire County
When Liu Yonghuai slowly woke up, he saw a woman looking at him with concern.

Upon seeing Liu Yonghuai wake up, the woman's face immediately lit up with joy: "Master, you're awake."

"Hmm." Liu Yonghuai touched his still aching neck and glanced around. "Madam, where are we?"

"The inn." The woman nodded. "Ah Le brought you here."

"Ah Le." Upon hearing this name, Liu Yonghuai immediately recalled the events before he fell into a coma. He sighed sadly, "Where is he now?"

“Here I am, Uncle Liu.” A voice came from the side.

Liu Yonghuai looked to the side and saw a handsome young man sitting by the window. He held a gourd in his hand and looked carefree. The setting sun shone on him, and his ethereal temperament was like that of a banished immortal.

Looking at Lin Le, Liu Yonghuai fell silent again. He found it hard to reconcile the ethereal young man before him with the inhuman demon child from before.

Taking a deep breath, Liu Yonghuai asked, "How are things with the Xiang family?"

"What can be done?" Lin Le jumped out of the window and shrugged. "I can only say that the direct descendants are all dead, but there are too many collateral descendants, and I can't deal with them all by myself, so some of them escaped."

"If you continue like this, you'll be condemned to the demonic path sooner or later!" Liu Yonghuai's tone became stern.

"Whether it's good or evil is not important," Lin Le said calmly. "Uncle Liu, don't you understand? In this world, strength matters. If I'm weak, they can define me as a demon; if I'm strong, they can define them as demons."

“Your indiscriminate killing of innocent people makes you no different from a demon!” Liu Yonghuai shouted.

Lin Le sighed: "I don't want to argue with you about this, Uncle Liu. All I can say is that they deserve to die for being my enemies."

Liu Yonghuai reached out and clutched his chest. He felt a pang of heartache and was furious. He took a few deep breaths to calm himself down.

Liu Yonghuai knew he couldn't wake up a stubborn young man, so he changed the subject and said, "What are you going to do next? You killed a court official, and Wei Zhenshan is from the Wei family in the prefecture. The higher-ups will never let you go. Have you thought about where you're going?"

"You don't need to worry about that. I have my own plans." Lin Le shook his head slightly. "In two or three days, you should take your family and leave Anzhu County. This place is not suitable for a peaceful life."

Liu Yonghuai's pupils contracted, but he didn't doubt Lin Le's words, because he himself had more or less sensed something. He nodded and said, "Okay."

"Before that, I need you to do me a favor." Lin Le tossed a few books to Liu Yonghuai. "These are the secret ledgers of Wei Zhenshan and the Xiang family. Tomorrow morning, you need to gather some trustworthy officials and, according to the ledgers, compensate the victims. Those who want to return land should return it, those who want to return money should return it, and those who want to lose their lives, I'll handle that myself."

Liu Yonghuai looked at the ledger in his arms, then glanced at Lin Le, his expression complex, before finally giving a firm "Okay."

"Here's some money and the land deed. Ask me for more if it's not enough." Lin Le tossed down a storage bag, turned, and left. "You get some rest. I have things to take care of."

Whoosh, Lin Le leaped away from the window.

“Ah Le looks so unfamiliar, sir,” the woman said. If it weren’t for the similar appearance, she wouldn’t have believed that this boy was the same chubby, fair-skinned Ah Le from before.

“Yes, he’s changed so much I hardly recognize him anymore,” Liu Yonghuai sighed. “A day apart feels like three autumns. I used to think it was an exaggeration by the ancients, but now it seems like a true reflection.”

Ignoring the couple's sentiments, Lin Le landed on the street and saw a woman in a blue and white dress approaching him.

"Ah Le, which side are we going to start with?" the woman asked, her voice strangely familiar—it was Qing Li.

It turned out that when Lin Le asked Qing Li to clean up the battlefield, she picked up Wei Zhenshan's official seal, and then she emerged from the bottom of the well, completely transforming into human form.

However, the official seal, or rather the imperial aura, also served to conceal her whereabouts, which is why she hid beneath the water veins of the human town.

She had been afraid of being discovered by Wei Zhenshan and the others, so she naturally dared not leave the well.

However, now that Wei Zhenshan and the others are dead, and the official seal is under her control, she naturally came out openly.

"North of the city." Lin Le gripped his spear tightly.

"Okay." Qingli nodded.

Two days later, in the early morning, Lin Le bid farewell to Liu Yonghuai. After exchanging only a few words, Lin Le watched the carriage slowly depart.

Qingli, who was wrapped in a fur coat, glanced at Lin Le and said, "You don't seem very sad."

"Just an acquaintance who's about to become a stranger, nothing to be sad about," Lin Le said, shaking his head.

Their differing philosophies destined Liu Yonghuai and Lin Le to be on different paths, and since they were not on the same path, there was no need to lament their separation.

Qingli pinched Lin Le's cheek with her fingers: "Then what am I to you?"

"A good friend," Lin Le said after thinking for a moment.

Her eyebrows were delicate and arched.

On the city wall, Lin Le sat on a chair, leisurely sipping tea from his gourd, looking quite carefree, while Qing Li basked in the sun beside him.

Looking at the figure on the city wall, the people of the county felt both respect and fear.

Remarkably, Lin Le eliminated the local tyrants as soon as he arrived, and also uprooted the corrupt officials, gentry, and bullies who preyed on the people. He even distributed tax revenue to them, making their lives much better.

What's frightening is that Lin Le has really killed too many people and killed too ruthlessly. In the past two days, the city has been covered in blood, and the stench of blood is overwhelming. It is said that the number of people killed is so great that even the mass grave cannot hold them all.

Lin Le didn't care much about what the people thought. However, it's worth mentioning that he roughly figured out why Wei Zhenshan used imperial aura to suppress him, but he didn't feel much pressure.

There are two reasons. First, his reputation. He had previously destroyed the Tongxin Society and the Hunshan Hall, two criminal organizations that had a significant impact on the lives of ordinary people.

Besides them, the common people at the bottom of society naturally applauded and praised him.

The most important component of imperial aura is the thoughts of the people.

They were naturally unwilling to turn against their benefactor, so when Wei Zhenshan used the imperial aura of Bailian County to suppress him, the effect was naturally diminished.

This is something Lin Le realized when he was refunding money to the people.

The second point is something both sides are well aware of: the imperial aura cannot be efficiently gathered, further reducing the suppression effect.

The discount was already reduced, so it naturally didn't have much effect on him.

Sitting atop the city wall, Lin Le flipped through Wei Zhenshan's autobiography. He was waiting for someone, or rather, waiting for a fox.

According to the intelligence left behind by Wei Zhenshan, three hundred hastily trained martial arts masters were supposed to be sent to Baiyun Mountain yesterday, but he died, so the plan naturally fell through.

So that old fox from Baiyun Mountain should have come over today.

As the sun began to set, Lin Le's expression shifted slightly as he looked at an old man approaching from a distance.

Using his Tiger Eye Technique, Lin Le immediately saw through its true form.

He stood up and said, "Tu Shanrong."

The voice was so clear that many people could hear it.

Tu Shanrong stopped and looked up at Lin Le: "Who are you?"

"Who I am is not important, what matters is this." Lin Le took out a fox head. "Do you still recognize it?"

Tu Shanrong looked at the fox head, his pupils immediately contracting: "Ling'er!"

(End of this chapter)