When Ding Hao went back to the Sword-hidden Peak, Ding Tianshuang just woke up and was still drowsy. The moment she saw Ding Hao, she immediately cheered and jumped up, hanging on Ding Hao’s neck like a koala.

  “Dad, I thought you disappeared again,” the little girl said worriedly.

  Ding Hao smiled and kissed her.

  The reason why Ding Hao spent his first night in the sect on the Sword-hidden Peak was that he wanted to keep her baby daughter company. Therefore, he visited Li Yiruo and Ximen Qianxue the next day.

  “You’re back?” Li Lan greeted him with a smile. She had already made breakfast.

  “Come on, let’s go and have breakfast.” Ding Hao lifted little Tianshuang over his head and let the little girl sit on his neck, cheerfully heading toward the dining table under the peach tree on the Sword-hidden Peak.

  Time passed away quickly.

  Ding Hao patiently fed breakfast to little Tianshuang. After he finished, he turned to Li Lan and said, “You have something to tell me, right? Did something happen in the sect?”
Li Lan was stunned and then nodded and said, “You’ve figured it out? There is indeed something very important. I just received the news that Junior Brothers Wang Xiaoqi and Li Yunqi are in big trouble outside.”
“They are in big trouble?” Ding Hao frowned slightly. “Could it be the Demon Clan……”
Li Lan nodded and said, “Junior Brother Xiaoqi and Junior Brother Yunqi are trapped in Qing River Town by some powerful masters of the Heavenly Demon Temple. However, things are not as simple as they might seem. Now they can only send messages through the special communication channel of our sect. It is said that there are also some masters of the Human Clan around Qing River Town.”
Ding Hao looked down, thinking carefully for a moment, and then said, “I’ll go and have a look.”
“Brother Hao, it can’t be better if you can go there. I’m afraid it will be useless for others to go if those demons are really strong masters of the Heavenly Demon Temple,” Li Lan said with a soft smile. However, after a moment’s thought, she added, “But Brother Hao, it seems that you don’t have a good sense of direction. You might get lost easily if you go alone.”
Ding Hao suddenly blushed.

  Li Lan continued, “Well, let Sister Yiruo go with you. She is distinctly familiar with today’s Snow Province. Besides, she once went to Qing River Town with Junior Brother Xiaoqi. I believe she won’t mislead you.”
Ding Hao glanced at Li Lan with some surprise.

  Li Lan knew the relationship between him and Li Yiruo. If she were a common woman, she would wish that he could stay far away from Li Yiruo so as not to cause more disputes. In fact, Ding Hao was considering how to put forward the idea that he preferred to go to Qing River Town with Li Yiruo. It didn’t occur to him that Li Lan would suggest this forwardly.

  Could it be……

  Ding Hao turned around and saw a meaningful smile on Li Lan’s soft and delicate face.

  Ding Hao nodded and said, “That would be fine. So without further ado, we will set out at once.”
Qing River Town.

  Covered by snow, the small town with a radius of over 10 miles was quite serene.

  The thick stone wall, which was more than ten meters high, surrounded the whole town. Some of the vital parts were empowered with the inscription formation, safeguarding the nearly 10,000 residents of the Human Clan.

  It was an ordinary town of Snow Province where people from the Human Clan lived together.

  Three years ago, with a population of over 1,000 and averaged power, this town could only be regarded as a third- or fourth-rate settlement for the Human Clan. However, after two sons of the head of the town, Li Ying, joined the Chopping Sun City and the Swordsmanship-seeking Sect respectively, no one dared to cause trouble here since it was protected by the two top sects.

  Afterward, the Swordsmanship-seeking Sect rose rapidly, and Li Ying’s youngest son, Li Yunqi, became a core disciple of the Swordsmanship-seeking Sect because of his extraordinary aptitude. As the saying went, when a man got to the top, all his friends and relations got there with him. Thanks to Li Yunqi, the status of Qing River Town was improved significantly. Since more and more vagrant warriors and rogue cultivators became residents of the town, its size and population increased sharply.

  Today, Qing River Town was a medium-sized settlement of the Human Clan with a population of more than 10,000.

  It was the third nine-day period after the winter solstice, the coldest day of the year. The snow fell heavily outside.

  In the center of the town, three people stood at the gate of the stone hall.

  Two young men in their twenties were standing on both sides. They were extremely handsome and had extraordinary temperaments, with long swords hanging from their waists. The wind and snow which were as sharp as knives were resisted to one meter away from them. In the middle, there was a burly old man with gray hair who was as strong as a lion. He looked hale and hearty with a red face.

  “The sect should have received the news now, right?” the young man in a long purple robe on the right whispered. With white vapor exhaled from his hooked nose and his eyebrows knitted tightly, he seemed to contemplate something. It was exactly Wang Xiaoqi, the famous little God of Wealth in the Swordsmanship-seeking Sect and the big boss of Heavenly World.

  “If there are no accidents on the road, the news should have arrived at the sect now. However, it will take at least three days for the sect to respond to it and send masters here,” said the young man with a clear-cut and smooth face on the other side. He was Li Yunqi, one of the core members of the Swordsmanship-seeking Sect.

  “You two little guys don’t have to worry too much. Qing River Town is no longer what it used to be. Even if the Demon Clan attacks us, we will be able to resist for a while. Let’s see who dares to make trouble when reinforcements from the Swordsmanship-seeking Sect arrive,” said the mighty old man standing in the middle with a big laugh. He looked great-hearted.

  It was Li Ying, the head of Qing River Town.

  After hearing this, Li Yunqi shook his head slightly and said, “This matter probably is not simple. I’m afraid that the powerful masters of the Demon Clan that followed us before are not from Snow Province but other provinces. During these days, because of the alliance between the two clans, countless superpowers from other provinces come to Snow Province, and there are a lot of forces that even the Swordsmanship-seeking Sect does not dare to fight against directly. If these forces were to take action……”
Before he finished his words, Wang Xiaoqi interrupted him with a smile and said, “Junior Brother Yunqi, you think too much. Those superpowers came to Snow Province for the alliance between the two clans. How could their focus be on you and me? And why would they attack you and me?”
“Senior Brother Zhong, have you forgotten the Demon Royal who claimed to come from the Heavenly Demon Temple?” Li Yunqi said with a somber look, “If it weren’t for the fact that Senior Brother Ding left the puppet Bumblebee here, I’m afraid that we would have died for a million times. As far as I know, the Heavenly Demon Temple is not a small force. As the second-largest holy land of the Demon Clan, it is second only to the Demon God Palace in the entire Northern Region.”
“The enemy is so powerful?” Li Ying was stunned.

  Wang Xiaoqi smiled bitterly and complained, “Yunqi, you’re so stubborn. It’s enough for you to know it in your heart. Why did you say it out loud to scare others? What do you think we should do now?”
“The best choice is, of course, to wait for our reinforcements.” Li Yunqi sighed and said, “But in the past few days, it has been strange that more and more masters have been around. Not only did the masters of the Demon Clan reach here, but also some strange masters of the Human Clan appeared. However, they probably won’t be of much use if they are some ordinary masters unless Senior Brother Zhang Fan comes here.”
Nowadays, Zhang Fan was definitely the top master in Snow Province. Although he usually kept a low profile, Li Yunqi and other core disciples had known for a long time that this hunter boy, who was considered to be too stupid to practice martial arts and was barely qualified to be a disciple of the Swordsmanship-seeking Sect, actually gained unparalleled strength long ago.

  Facing such a behemoth as the Heavenly Demon Temple, they would feel a sense of security only if the powerful Senior Brother Zhang Fan was here.

  Wang Xiaoqi nodded and said, “If Xiaofan is here, many problems can be solved easily. However, the problem is that the sect needs him more at this time…… By the way, Yunqi, do you know what the so-called Sky-fleeing Stone Key is? Why did that master of the Heavenly Demon Temple try to kill us as if we had killed his son?”
This time, Wang Xiaoqi and Li Yunqi went out to inspect the Swordsmanship-seeking Sect’s industries in different places as usual. Meanwhile, they also had to purchase a batch of supplies for the sect. Everything went very well at first. However, on the way back, they were stopped and chased to death more than a dozen times. In the end, a Demon Royal showed up and asked them to hand over the Sky-fleeing Stone Key, otherwise, they would be killed……

  Wang Xiaoqi and Li Yunqi knew nothing about the Sky-fleeing Stone Key. Among the supplies purchased this time, there was no such thing at all. However, the Demon Royal was firmly convinced that the key was on them, so Wang Xiaoqi and Li Yunqi found it hard to vindicate themselves.

  In the end, they gave a heavy blow to the Demon Royal of the Heavenly Demon Temple with the help of the Bumblebee left by Ding Hao. The Bumblebee, one of the six battle puppets, was transformed by Ding Hao based on the battle puppets in Fake God City. Afterward, they ran away to Qing River Town.

  But later, they couldn’t leave Qing River Town because more and more masters of the Demon Clan appeared and secretly blocked the entire Qing River Town. What was worse, they set up many sentry posts on the way back to the Swordsmanship-seeking Sect.

  Therefore, Wang Xiaoqi and Li Yunqi had to send a message back to the Swordsmanship-seeking Sect through special means, in the hope of seeking help from the sect.

  Hearing what Wang Xiaoqi had said, Li Yunqi shook his head and said, “There’s no clue at all. I’ve sorted out the supplies we bought many times, and there are no unknown items. Maybe those people made a mistake. They mistakenly thought we had the Sky-fleeing Stone Key.”
Wang Xiaoqi lowered his head and thought for a while, saying, “At first, I also thought it was a misunderstanding, maybe the demons of the Heavenly Demon Temple made a mistake.”
“What do you think of it now?” Li Yunqi understood what he meant.

  “Now I suddenly feel that it’s not that they made a mistake, but that we neglected something.” Although Wang Xiaoqi was not very powerful, he was a man of keen observation. He pointed to the various energy pillars which closed to real ones around Qing River Town and said, “If it was just the demons of the Heavenly Demon Temple who heard the news and came here, maybe it’s really a mistake. However, with so many masters of the Human Clan around, it’s not just a misunderstanding.”
Li Yunqi was stunned, grumbled something in a low voice, and then said, “What should we do? If things go on like this, the whole Qing River Town may be affected and suffer a catastrophe. Now there are so many masters here, while the stone wall can only resist the army of fierce beasts instead of real masters.”
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