Chapter 1617: Giant Crowd
“Excuse me, can you let me through? I’m trying to join the Skywood Divine Palace’s Jade Lake Pageant, and I’ll be late if I’m held back.” Long Chen tried to gently push his way through the crowd, but there were truly too many people. There was no way for him to squeeze his way in. It wasn’t as if he could brute force his way through.
“Brother, you don’t have to push. Everyone’s the same as you. We’re all here for the Jade Lake Pageant. There’s an extraordinary amount of geniuses attending this time, but you don’t need to worry about being late. Because there are so many people, they’ve extended the registration period. The Skywood Divine Palace has already sent down word that they guarantee everyone will have a chance to register,” said a friendly Soul Transformation ahead of him.
“Ah, is that so? Then I’m at ease. If I had known, I wouldn’t have had to rush so quickly.” Long Chen wiped off some sweat.
When going from the Eastern Xuan Region to the Southern Xuan Region, few people would choose to cross the Ancient Battlefield. That was too dangerous. The majority of them went around through the Martial Heaven Sea-Ring. Although the Martial Heaven Sea-Ring was also dangerous, even when encountering the most terrifying sea demons, there was still some hope of escaping. In the Ancient Battlefield, the slightest slip up could cost you your life.
Long Chen looked around. There was a huge channel in front of the transportation formation. The entire path was packed full of people that stretched as far as he could see.
What shocked Long Chen was that all these disciples that had come to register were Soul Transformation experts. Furthermore, the majority were women. This was Long Chen’s first time seeing so many female cultivators gathered in one place.
“Aiya!”
Long Chen was looking around when someone suddenly crashed into him. A woman’s startled cry rang out.
The transportation formation behind him had activated again, and someone new had come. As a result, this jam-packed crowd became even tighter. A woman ended up crashing into Long Chen out of control. Long Chen felt two soft feelings on his back.
Long Chen turned back to see that the woman appeared to be in her late twenties. Her looks weren’t bad. She hastily apologized, “Sorry! Aiya!”
The force behind her was too great, and she ended up pushing up even tighter against Long Chen.
Long Chen held his hands high in the air to express his innocence. The woman tried to steady herself, but more and more people were appearing in the back, and she ended up tightly stuck to Long Chen.
“Hopefully, Wan-er isn’t anywhere near. Otherwise, I won’t be able to prove my innocence to her.”
Long Chen hastily looked in every direction. If Tang Wan-er’s jealous eyes saw his current state, he would be doomed.
However, he quickly realized that there were quite a few women crying out. Some of them were glaring furiously at the men beside them. Clearly, those men’s hands hadn’t been innocent.
Long Chen saw one man laugh awkwardly after being glared at by a woman. He waded through the crowd away from the woman. Long Chen saw that he had a new target now, a woman capable of causing huge waves.
“Did they come here just to take advantage?” Long Chen saw quite a few men with infatuated expressions. He became speechless.
“Hi, can you protect me a bit? I’m being squeezed…” The woman pressing tightly against Long Chen’s chest looked up at him helplessly.
Only then did Long Chen start fighting back against the crowd, making some space for her. These people’s physical bodies couldn’t compare to his. If he wanted to, he could charge straight through the crowd. However, this was Chu Yao’s sect. He couldn’t cause trouble.
“Thank you. You really are a good person,” said the woman with a red face.
“I’ll have to thank you for saying that. Only a few people will call me a good person.” Long Chen bitterly smiled. At least, in the Eastern Xuan Region, there was no one who would do so.
“Oh, you look a bit familiar? Have we met before?” asked the woman.
“Haha, I’m just so ordinary that I look similar to a lot of people. Can you tell me what’s going on with this Jade Lake Pageant? Why are there so many people?”
“You don’t even know this? Are you not from the Southern Xuan Region?”
“That’s right. I came over for tempering and suddenly heard something about the Jade Lake Pageant, so I wanted to see what it was about.”
“Then you’ll probably be disappointed. There are two requirements to attend the Jade Lake Pageant. One is that you must be a soul cultivator whose Spiritual Strength reaches a certain standard. The other is the vouching of your sect to guarantee your identity. There’s quite a fee for attending, and that fee is normally paid by the sect. Without it, they won’t let you in,” said the woman apologetically.
“It’s alright, I have my sect vouching for me, and I’m also a soul cultivator. Although I’m just a dabbler in that regard, it should be enough to pass.”
Since this was organized by the Skywood Divine Palace and it was Chu Yao who had invited him to come, he should definitely be able to attend. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have told him to come.
Long Chen was in the midst of speaking with her when he suddenly kicked someone away, shouting, “Are you blind? I’m a man, so what are you touching me for?!”
He had suddenly felt something strange and noticed an idiot behind him. He didn’t know if this idiot didn’t differentiate between men and women, or whether he had just made a mistake, but Long Chen directly kicked him away.
His kick caused a disturbance. That perverted-looking man hastily covered his face and tried to escape attention.
“That bastard, he touched me before too! He didn’t come to register, he’s purely here to… in any case, beat him!” cried a woman suddenly, also kicking him.
Following that woman’s shout, a dozen other women immediately came to beat him. The perverted man didn’t even dare to retaliate. He could only cover his head as he fled.
“Hmph, you’re this ugly, and you want to randomly touch others? You’re trying to antagonize us, is that it?” shouted a mighty woman as she gave him a beating.
The perverted man was quickly beaten black and blue. However, he didn’t dare to make a sound as he received their fury.
After seeing the perverted man being beaten, quite a few other men’s expressions changed. Feeling a bit guilty, they became much more reserved. No one wanted to become the next target.
There was a saying that a person’s accomplishments were three parts destiny, seven parts hard work, and ninety parts looks. This perverted man was a perfect example. Everyone else was fine, but only he was beaten so badly. He used himself to prove that in the end, having a decent face was still very important.
In the chaos, Long Chen took out a cloak and put on the hood, covering the majority of his face.
Although this place was the Southern Xuan Region, his fame from the Eastern Xuan Region was too resounding. Just this first woman had felt him to be familiar. She had to have seen him in a photographic jade.
Once the disturbance passed, the line slowly progressed. Long Chen no longer spoke and just silently followed the crowd.
“Out of the way!”
Just as Long Chen was listening to other people’s conversations to see if he could learn anything more about the Jade Lake Pageant, a cold shout rang out.
Long Chen looked over to see a group of people slowly advancing. Four people were opening a path, while two experts carried a palanquin. Everyone got out of the way, while those that didn’t have time were forced back by the powerful auras of the four people.
Long Chen was a bit surprised. The ones carrying the palanquin and opening a path were all rank nine Celestials with exceptional auras. To use experts on this level for such menial tasks showed how high the status of the person inside had to be.
The palanquin was closed off with a curtain, and a terrifying pressure came from it. That pressure came not from within the palanquin but from the curtains.
The curtains were created from the silk of an eleventh rank Magical Beast, the Earth Heart Blood Silkworm. Each strand of it was a priceless treasure that could cut through King items. Rumor was that just ten three-hundred-meter strands of its silk were as valuable as an Ancestral item.
All the curtains were made of that silk. Their price was unimaginable.
There was not one part of the palanquin that wasn’t a treasure. Even the poles carrying it were top grade Ancestral items.
“That’s the palanquin of Han Feifei! She’s the granddaughter of the Southern Xuan Region’s ancient family alliance’s branch master. Don’t provoke her. She’s extremely unreasonable and tyrannical.” The woman who had spoken with Long Chen whispered to him.
The ancient family alliance? The Southern Xuan Region’s branch master? Was that so amazing? Long Chen’s lip curled. In any case, the Eastern Xuan Region’s branch master would quiver whenever he saw Long Chen.
However, perhaps the southern branch master would be different. He might be a Netherpassage expert. That could be why his granddaughter was so tyrannical as to view all the Southern Xuan Region’s geniuses as nothing.
Long Chen couldn’t understand these heavenly geniuses who were born with a silver spoon in their mouths. Did people have to act high and mighty in order to feel like they had value? If they weren’t high enough, did they have to trample other people’s heads to prove that they were different from others?
Long Chen shook his head. Although he felt a bit unnatural, he was past his competitive age. He retreated to the side.
However, this path wasn’t very large. This packed crowd could only make a six-feet-wide path. The palanquin was making things even tighter.
Long Chen looked at the experts opening the path with ridicule. He saw them looking arrogantly at the people they forced out of the way. Did it feel very glorious being the dogs of other people?
“Aiya!” Originally, everyone was standing out of their way properly, when a woman was pushed forward by the crowd. It was just a single step, but she turned pale.
“Scram!”
Although she immediately pulled back, one of the men opening the path raised a whip in his hand and swung it at her face.
This man was a whip expert, and his movements were very skilled. His whip was like a living viper, which had countless barbs on it. Anyone struck would be in immense pain. There was also a special poison on it that would cause scars even if Heavenly Dao energy was used.
The woman turned pale as paper. There was nothing she could do.
Blood splashed as a man used his own face to receive that whip for the woman.