In Emei, start by obtaining golden attributes.

Chapter 384 The Boomerang of Fate
Before their fists and palms even met, two equally powerful and fierce yet vastly different internal energies clashed violently from a distance.

"boom--"

A deafening roar, far more intense than the one Li Xunhuan had during his battle with the Great Joyful Female Bodhisattva Palm, suddenly exploded in the middle of the long street.

Centered on the point where the two men's fists and palms met, a visible shockwave swept outwards like ripples.

Wherever the shockwave passed, the bluestone slabs on the ground shattered and rolled up, as if they had been plowed by a giant plow.

The windows of houses on both sides of the street shattered, and wood chips and dust flew everywhere. Some Five Poisons Sect disciples who were closer had to use their internal energy to defend themselves and retreat repeatedly.

The next instant, Gu Shaoan's palm, imbued with terrifying power and vital energy, landed on the fist of the Great Joyful Female Bodhisattva amidst her greedy and sinister smile.

The moment their fists and palms touched, Gu Shaoan remained unmoved. Although he was the same height as the Great Joyful Bodhisattva, there was a hint of disdain in his calm eyes, as if he were looking down at her.

Immediately afterwards, the greedy and sinister smile on the face of the Great Joyful Bodhisattva suddenly froze, and then turned into a look of disbelief and astonishment.

"Crack!"

Immediately afterwards, a crystal-clear cracking sound suddenly came from the large right finger joint of the Great Joyful Bodhisattva.

"Uh-huh~"

The Great Joyful Bodhisattva let out a pained roar that was not human. Her intact left eye widened instantly, filled with bloodshot veins and horror.

Her enormous body, like a mountain of flesh, was like a giant, red, and bloated cannonball thrown with all its might, flying backward through the air before crashing heavily onto the ground three zhang away.

The moment it landed, the earth shook violently!
It was like a meteorite falling from the sky!

A terrifying crater, over two zhang in diameter and several chi deep, instantly formed beneath her, sending countless shattered flagstones and mud billowing into the sky, billowing smoke and dust that obscured half the street.

Gu Shaoan remained calm and composed, showing no surprise whatsoever at the sight of the Great Joyful Bodhisattva being sent flying with a single palm strike.

In terms of physical strength alone, Gu Shaoan could even be compared to Gu Santong.

Moreover, Gu Shaoan also mastered the skill of "treating light matters as heavy ones".

The force is concentrated and does not disperse; how could the Great Joyful Bodhisattva simply defend against it with her fat and physical training?

"puff--"

In the deep pit, the Bodhisattva of Great Joy suddenly tilted her head back and spat out a mouthful of blood. She lay in the pit, her huge body convulsing violently. The arrogant and ferocious smile on her face had long since disappeared, replaced by twisted pain and a trace of horror.

With her intact left hand slapping the ground, the force of the slap propelled her mountain-like body back to the ground.

She strained to turn her left eye, immediately looking in the direction where Gu Shaoan was.

But when her gaze fell in the direction where Gu Shaoan had just stood, she only saw Li Xunhuan, who was still clutching his chest and whose face was as white as paper, but there was no trace of Gu Shaoan.

Not only did Gu Shaoan disappear, but even the Yitian Sword, which was originally stuck in the ground, vanished without a trace.

The Great Joyful Bodhisattva's surprise and doubt only lingered in her eyes for a moment.

The next instant, the pupil of the Great Joyful Bodhisattva's intact left eye suddenly contracted, not because she had found Gu Shaoan, but because an overwhelming and terrifying pressure and energy enveloped her from above.

The moment this pressure descended, the massive body of the Great Joyful Bodhisattva suddenly sank, and the already shattered ground beneath her feet sank several inches further.

The air seemed to turn into a viscous gel, squeezing every inch of her flesh, making even her proud strength feel sluggish and stiff.

Sensing something was wrong, she suddenly looked up.

In the night sky, Gu Shaoan stood two zhang above her head.

His gaze, calm, indifferent, even carrying a hint of disdain as if looking down on ants, fell upon the ugly face of the Great Joyful Bodhisattva, which was contorted with horror.

The night breeze ruffled his golden robes and jet-black hair, and the bright moonlight seemed to drape him alone in a layer of radiance. His robes fluttered, making him appear like a banished immortal descending to earth.

The Heaven-Reliant Sword, which had just been plunged into the deep pit, had returned to his left hand.

His right hand, however, had already emerged from the wide sleeves and lightly touched the top of her head.

This press was perfectly natural, as if it were just a casual brushing away of dust from one's clothes, or like an immortal on a cloud, casually stroking the peaks of the mountains below.

However, this seemingly casual press caused the Great Joyful Bodhisattva below to be terrified.

For the first time, a deep-seated fear erupted in her remaining left eye.

She screamed, no longer caring about her injuries or appearance. The remaining vital energy in her body surged wildly as she tried to raise her arms to cross and protect the top of her head. Her strange, fat body writhed violently, concentrating all her defensive power on the top of her head.

But her once-proud, massive body became unusually sluggish at this moment.

Before she could even raise her left hand, Gu Shaoan's right hand, which had been pressing down, had already landed on the top of her head.

In an instant, a terrifying force, condensed to the extreme, heavy enough to crush mountains, yet also agile and mysterious like the trajectory of the heavens, surged forth from Gu Shaoan's hand.

"Boom~"

Centered on the point of contact between Gu Shaoan's palm and the crown of the Great Joyful Bodhisattva, a visible, solid, amber-like transparent energy wave suddenly spread in all directions, causing the air to hum uncontrollably wherever it passed!
The enormous body of the Great Joyful Bodhisattva, weighing thousands of kilograms, sank downwards at an astonishing speed, like a wooden stake hammered into the ground by a celestial hammer.

The ground beneath her feet, the crater that had already formed, collapsed again at an alarming speed, sending plumes of dust billowing into the sky like a tsunami, almost obscuring the moonlight!

As the deafening roar subsided, the billowing dust slowly dissipated in the night wind.

Everyone looked up and saw that in the middle of the street, a huge pit with a diameter of more than two zhang and a depth of one zhang had replaced the place where the female bodhisattva had stood.

At the very center of the deep pit, the bloated, bright red body of the Great Joyful Bodhisattva, from waist down, was forcibly and completely "pressed" into the hard ground, as if she were part of this street, with only her upper body growing out abruptly.

She remained in the same position, looking up at the sky with her arms slightly raised, but her whole body was stiff and motionless.

The enormous head lay limply to one side, its seven orifices filled with thick, dark red and black blood mixed with unidentified fragments. Her intact left eye remained wide open, but was now just a deathly gray, devoid of any life.

"Dead, dead?"

Looking at the lifeless body of the Great Joyful Bodhisattva in the deep pit, He Baiyao's face turned ashen, his body trembled uncontrollably, and his eyes were filled with boundless fear and horror. But no one present responded to He Baiyao's words; everyone stared blankly at the corpse of the Great Joyful Bodhisattva in the pit.

At this moment, a proud figure, dressed in clean white, landed lightly on the edge of the pit, like a white feather.

In an instant, the entire street fell into an even deeper and more suffocating silence than before.

It was so silent that everyone could clearly hear the violent beating of their own hearts.

Fan Sanshan, Tie Chuanjia, Cheng Shifei, and even Li Xunhuan all held their breath, staring at the scene in the deep pit, their hearts filled with turbulent waves that they could not calm down for a long time.

Especially Li Xunhuan.

Having just fought with the Bodhisattva of Great Joy, Li Xunhuan knew just how powerful she truly was.

So powerful that even Li Xunhuan, who had been invincible in previous battles, felt a sense of powerlessness, as if he had nowhere to strike.

Yet this enemy, whom even Li Xunhuan found helpless, was utterly crushed and killed by Gu Shaoan in just two exchanges.

Looking at Gu Shaoan's youthful face and the vibrant energy he exuded, Li Xunhuan couldn't help but murmur to himself, "It's only been a little over ten years since I returned to the Great Wei Kingdom. When did such a peerless genius emerge in the martial world?"

[Slay a master of the Qi Condensation Formation and Horizontal Qi Refining stage, achievement points +1000.]

At the edge of the pit, as a notification popped up in the corner of Gu Shaoan's eye, he glanced at the Great Joyful Female Bodhisattva before calmly withdrawing his gaze.

Then, his calm gaze swept over the silent He Baiyao and the group of Five Poisons Cult members, a thoughtful expression on his face, as if he were considering how to deal with them.

Facing Gu Shaoan's indifferent gaze, He Baiyao felt a chill rise from the soles of her feet to the top of her head, causing her body to tremble involuntarily.

In the next instant, Gu Shaoan took a step forward with his right foot, and his figure moved like an autumn wind, instantly crossing ten zhang and appearing in a small alley.

At the entrance of the alley, Hu Bugui, who had been hiding in the shadows, suddenly felt a blur before his eyes. The next moment, he felt a sharp pain in several acupoints on his body, and his body instantly became stiff as wood, unable to move.

Immediately afterwards, a dizzying sensation came over him. When his vision returned, Hu Bugui found himself moved from the entrance of the dark alley to the middle of the street.

He Baiyao looked at Gu Shaoan, whose figure was like a ghost, disappearing for a moment and then returning to the street, with one hand still holding Hu Bugui, and her fear intensified.

He quickly cupped his hands and said in a clear, fluent voice, "Leader of the Five Poisons Sect greets Young Master Gu. Today, I am here on someone's behalf. I was unaware that Young Master Gu knew these people. I have offended you greatly and hope that Young Master Gu will forgive me."

Upon hearing this, Gu Shaoan asked, "Is he the one you were tasked with killing tonight?"

Faced with Gu Shaoan's question, He Baiyao dared not hide the truth and said truthfully, "The one who asked us to ambush and kill Li Xunhuan today is Long Xiaoyun, the master of Xingyun Manor."

"Even the Five Poisons Green Smoke was administered to Master Li and his men by his own people."

When Li Xunhuan, who was in the distance, heard that the person who was really going to kill them was Long Xiaoyun, his expression changed drastically.

"Impossible. Long Xiaoyun is my sworn brother. He would never harm me."

He Baiyao said, "Long Xiaoyun's only son, Long Xiaoyun, had his dantian destroyed a few years ago. It would take a master who has condensed his qi to expend all his power in conjunction with the secret medicine of my Five Poisons Sect to rebuild his dantian."

"That's why Long Xiaoyun asked our Five Poisons Sect to seriously injure you and then let you escape. Afterwards, Long Xiaoyun would bring you back to Xingyun Manor, making you believe that you are poisoned and will not live much longer, so that you would willingly use your own power to save Long Xiaoyun."

After speaking, He Baiyao looked at Gu Shaoan and said, "I dare not speak presumptuously in front of Young Master Gu. Everything I just said is true. I hope Young Master Gu will see through my words."

After hearing what He Baiyao said, Li Xunhuan's eyes widened in disbelief, still unwilling to accept it: "Impossible, my sworn brother is definitely not that kind of person."

"Long Xiaoyun?"

Gu Shaoan, on the other hand, had a more subtle expression.

After all, Long Xiaoyun's dantian was destroyed by him in a dilapidated temple in the wilderness a few years ago.

Who would have thought that after several years, he would witness Long Xiaoyun plotting against Li Xunhuan again because of Long Xiaoyun's affairs.

"This boomerang of fate is quite interesting."

When He Baiyao said that combining the medicinal power with the power of the Qi Condensation Realm martial artist could reshape Long Xiaoyun's dantian, Gu Shaoan did not doubt it.

With Gu Shaoan's current medical skills, he naturally knows many methods to heal a martial artist's dantian.

One such method is what is described by the Hundred Medicines.

At this moment, Fan Sanshan, who was standing to the side, asked in astonishment, "The poison in our bodies didn't originate from the poisonous smoke you released earlier?"

He Baiyao didn't care whether the question was from Gu Shaoan or not. In response to Fan Sanshan's question, He Baiyao quickly replied, "The Five Poisons Green Vine Smoke requires the poison to be within a ten-foot radius or in the food or water. After all, Little Li Flying Dagger is a first-class master who has condensed his Yuan Qi into Gang. Without complete confidence, how could we dare to directly poison Master Li?"

"So we simply handed over the Five Poison Green Vine Smoke to Long Xiaoyun, and it was Long Xiaoyun's people who helped poison it. The poisonous smoke before was just a catalyst to activate the Five Poison Green Vine Smoke."

As he spoke, He Baiyao pointed to Hu Bugui, who was standing next to Gu Shaoan and whose acupoints had been sealed, and said, "This person is Long Xiaoyun's confidant, nicknamed 'Crazy Hu' Hu Bugui."

"Young Master Gu can ask any martial arts force in Baoding Prefecture to find out whether what I said is true or false."

Gu Shaoan glanced at Hu Bugui, who was covered in cold sweat, and gently turned to the side, his eyes flashing with purple light.

After successfully bewitching Hu Bugui with the "Soul Transfer Technique," Gu Shaoan asked a few questions.

Hu Bugui then revealed everything.

He also recounted how he disguised himself as a beggar in the afternoon and then secretly poisoned Li Xunhuan and Fan Sanshan with the Five Poisons Green Vine Smoke under the guise of expressing his gratitude.

At this point, Li Xunhuan and the others understood where the Five Poisons Green Vine Smoke on their bodies came from.

Upon hearing this, Fan Sanshan couldn't help but look at Li Xunhuan and say, "To think that he would secretly poison Brother Li by taking advantage of his compassion, Long Xiaoyun knows Brother Li so well!"

"How could this be? How could my sworn brother do this to me?"

Faced with all this, Li Xunhuan could only murmur incessantly.

Even now, Li Xunhuan still finds it hard to believe that Long Xiaoyun, his sworn brother, would not welcome him back to Baoding Prefecture, but instead set a trap to kill him.

(End of this chapter)