The Smiling, Proud Wanderer, becoming a disciple of Yue Buqun.

The child still looked curious.

"I'm just staying here temporarily; I'll be leaving tomorrow."

Jiang Ning replied.

"Where to go?"

The child tilted his head.

Jiang Ning pointed in a direction: "Over there."

The child looked in that direction, his expression instantly turning frightened, and he quickly said...

“There are bad people over there, don’t go. Grandpa Li’s son died at the hands of those bad people.”

Hearing this, Jiang Ning raised an eyebrow and asked, "How did you die? Tell me."

The child quickly shook his head: "My dad doesn't let me talk nonsense, he's afraid Grandpa Li will be sad if he hears it."

Jiang Ning took out a few candied fruits from her bosom and handed them to him.

"Want to eat?"

The child looked curiously at the candied fruit in Jiang Ning's hand, but did not take it.

Jiang Ning raised an eyebrow and smiled, "Afraid I'll harm you?"

As soon as he finished speaking, Jiang Ning put one of the candied fruits in his mouth and chewed it a few times.

Seeing that Jiang Ning had also eaten, the child curiously took one and put it in his mouth. The next second, his eyes lit up as he stared intently at the remaining candied fruit Jiang Ning had.

However, Jiang Ning withdrew her hand and looked at him with a smile.

"Would you like more?"

"Hmm."

The child nodded repeatedly.

Jiang Ning laughed and said, "Tell me that secret you were talking about earlier, and I'll let you eat it."

The child looked conflicted, and after a second he said, "Then I'll tell you, but don't tell anyone else, and don't tell my dad either, otherwise my dad will beat me, and he hits really hard."

"Don't worry, I don't have many other good qualities, but I'm good at keeping my mouth shut."

Jiang Ning made a promise.

The child believed him, plopped down on the ground, crossed his legs, and began to tell his story.

"I overheard my father and mother talking."

The child's voice was childish, but his tone was very serious.

“My dad said that many, many years ago, not long after Grandpa Li’s son and daughter-in-law got married, they heard that Grandpa Li’s daughter-in-law was very beautiful. The bad guys from Tianfeng Village came to our village to rob us. Later, when they saw Grandpa Li’s daughter-in-law, they wanted to take her back, but Grandpa Li’s son refused. He was stabbed to death, and his daughter-in-law was taken away.”

The story is simple, with no twists or turns; it's just bandits killing people.

Jiang Ning's face remained expressionless upon hearing this; he simply nodded.

After the child finished speaking, he stared intently at Jiang Ning's hand.

Jiang Ning then gave him all the candied fruit she had in her hand.

Jiang Ning bought this in Yangzhou. It tastes great and can be stored for a year, so Jiang Ning bought some to bring back for Liu Zhao and his junior brothers to try.

The child happily ate the candied fruit that Jiang Ning had given him.

Jiang Ning then asked, "Do you know what Grandpa Li's daughter-in-law's name is?"

The child looked bewildered for a moment, racking his brains to think, before his eyes lit up and he said, "My dad said her name seems to be Wang Yunlan."

Jiang Ning nodded without saying anything more, his gaze fixed on the mountains in the distance, lost in thought.

……

Tianfeng Village.

Main hall.

A group of bandits were sitting around a table eating meat and drinking wine.

At this moment, a tall and burly bandit, holding a leg of lamb and eating it with his mouth full of oil, laughed.

"Brother, Jiangnan is still the best. The money here is much better than that wretched place in Shaanxi, and we don't have the King of Hell chasing us away."

"you do not say."

One of them chuckled and said, "We brothers have traveled all the way to Jiangnan, but we're afraid we'll never see that King Yama in our lifetime."

At this moment, a burly man with a thick beard in the main seat laughed and said, "Brother Hu, is the King of Hell really that scary?"

The man who was named said, "Boss, you don't know, the Huashan Sect has gone mad and started suppressing bandits in Shaanxi. That Yama King is even more ruthless. He's going from one mountain stronghold to another, leaving rivers of blood in his wake. There's not a single survivor. We brothers were lucky enough to escape from another group of Huashan disciples. We overheard their conversation and quickly fled here."

The man's face showed fear as he spoke, still feeling lingering fear even though the incident had happened quite some time ago.

"Brother, my eyelids have been twitching a lot lately, does that mean something's going to happen?"

At this moment, a bandit with a Shaanxi accent looked somewhat sullen and said, "I even dreamed yesterday that the King of Hell came looking for us."

The bandit named Lao Hu glared at the man and cursed, "Don't say such unlucky things at night."

"Is that even possible? My brothers and I have traveled thousands of miles, from Shaanxi to Jiangnan. Would Ning Yama, the King of Hell, really come all the way from Jiangnan to wipe us out?"

Chapter 284: I can't take it anymore, just mentioning him sends chills down my spine.

"Big brother is right."

The man nodded: "We've all come all the way to Jiangnan to hide from that King Yama, there's no way we'd run into him here, right?"

"Brother Hu, is Yama really that terrifying? I've never heard of him before. Does he have three heads and six arms?"

The leader of Tianfeng Village was intrigued to see how terrified these people were of one person, even though they were thousands of miles apart.

These men came to his mountain stronghold last year. He saw that they were tall and strong and had decent martial arts skills, so he let them stay.

At first, he wondered why these people, who were from Shaanxi, had come all the way to Jiangnan. One of them, called Lao Hu, told him that the Huashan Sect was cracking down on bandits in Shaanxi and they couldn't make a living there anymore, so he didn't ask any more questions.

Now that he heard the other party mention the name Ning Yanwang again, his curiosity was piqued.

"Brother Hu, from what you just said, isn't he just a disciple of Mount Hua? How dare he call himself the King of Hell?"

Seeing that the current leader's curiosity had been piqued, the bandit called Old Hu said, "Leader, you may not know this, but although this person is a disciple of Mount Hua, his martial arts skills are extremely high, and he is ruthless."

Although this burly man with a thick beard was the leader of the stronghold, he was basically a bandit in the Jiangnan area. He usually robbed people on the road and ransacked nearby villages. He didn't care much about things in the martial arts world, especially things that happened thousands of miles away.

"Two years ago, the Huashan Sect suddenly decided to suppress bandits. The Huashan Sect Leader Yue Buqun sent two of his disciples, Linghu Chong and Jiang Ning, to lead the Huashan disciples to sweep across Shaanxi. Jiang Ning was one of them."

Recalling the past, the bandit's face showed bitterness: "Back then, the mountain stronghold where we brothers lived was not a big stronghold, and we didn't live as well as the chief. But at least we had wine and meat, and we could go down the mountain to catch a few women to relieve our boredom."

"But ever since those Huashan disciples attacked the stronghold, our brothers have been dying one after another. We brothers were lucky enough to not run into Ning Yanwang's team and survived by chance."

Although they encountered Linghu Chong leading the team, it was Jiang Ning who left a psychological scar on them.

"We originally thought that the Huashan disciples who slaughtered us were ruthless enough, but we didn't expect there to be even more ruthless ones."

“I heard from the Huashan disciples who slaughtered our stronghold that none of the brothers in the strongholds that Jiang Ning slaughtered could escape his clutches. He slaughtered wherever he went.”

"Later, my brothers and I felt that we could no longer stay in Shaanxi, so we ran to Luoyang. Then we heard that the King of Hell went down the mountain to Sichuan and slaughtered the Qingcheng Sect, a major sect in Sichuan. We brothers felt that Luoyang was not safe either, so we ran here."

The leader nodded thoughtfully and asked curiously, "Then why is he also called the King of Hell in the martial arts world?"

The bandit smiled bitterly upon hearing this, "His reputation was spread by us brothers."

"Oh?"

The leader became curious.

"Hey."

The bandit sighed and said, "Back then, my brothers and I were still in Luoyang. We sought refuge in a mountain stronghold for temporary shelter. When we had nothing to do, we would go to Luoyang to eat, drink, and have fun. We were doing quite well. I never expected that not long after, a storyteller in a teahouse would be spreading his story."

"When we heard that the King of Hell had slaughtered so many mountain strongholds in Shaanxi, he went to Sichuan to slaughter the Qingcheng Sect and wipe out a large gang. He was like the King of Hell, and we said something. We never expected that our words would get out."

"I see."

The leader nodded, indicating that his curiosity had been satisfied.

"I can't take it anymore. It would have been better if I hadn't said anything. Now that I'm talking about it, I feel a chill down my spine."

After the bandit finished speaking, he couldn't help but shudder.

"Brother, now that you mention it, I have the same feeling. I always feel like King Ning is watching us."

The other person also felt a tickling sensation on their back and shifted uncomfortably.

"Brother, my eyelids start twitching whenever you mention Yama. Do you think Yama might have come to Jiangnan? I feel a bit cold, like Yama is about to arrive."

The bandit who had previously mentioned dreaming about Jiangning couldn't help but ask worriedly, "Brother, do you think that King Yama might really be coming to Jiangnan to find us?"

"Impossible! Absolutely impossible!"

The bandit called Lao Hu waved his hand and immediately retorted, "Shaanxi is thousands of miles away from Jiangnan, and he doesn't even know we're here."

Old Hu glared at the bandit and said, "Don't be so paranoid. Back in Luoyang, you kept saying you dreamt that the King of Hell was going to Luoyang, which is why we left Luoyang and came here. Jiangnan is so far from Shaanxi, how could he possibly come here? Besides, even if he really came to Jiangnan, so what? Could he possibly come here? Is it really that much of a coincidence?"

"We call him the King of Hell, but he can't really be the King of Hell, able to take our lives from thousands of miles away, can he?"

Although the bandit felt uneasy and had a bad feeling, he also felt that what his elder brother said made sense.

Seeing how terrified these bandits were of one person, the leader couldn't help but chuckle to himself, but he didn't mock them.

"From what Brother Hu said, it seems that Ning Yama is quite an extraordinary figure. If I have the chance, I would like to meet him and see if this living Yama can send me to see the real Yama."

Upon hearing their leader's words, the bandits from Shaanxi wanted to say something, but ultimately remained silent.

Oh well, if the boss is happy, let him brag a little. Anyway, he won't run into the real person.

"Come on, let's drink."

One of the bandits raised his bowl and clinked glasses with the others. After drinking the bowl of wine, the inexplicable chill he had felt earlier was slightly dispelled.

The hall was immediately filled with laughter and cheerful conversation again.

……