15. Swords and steps

Two young gentlemen circled each other. Their swords were pointed at each other, glistening under the afternoon sun. Kang Bojing leaped. Yi slapped Kang's sword away with his sword. To avoid a counterattack, Kang had to do a donkey roll. He was pissed. He had to do such a humiliating move. Kang Bojing did a kip up and stared at Yi with animosity. Yi the bastard was standing there with no stance at all. Kang Bojing went for a horizontal slash. Yi ducked and moved in. Using his sword hilt, landed a pummel strike on Kang Bojing's ribs. The strike was shallow. The ribs were not broken but cracked.

Kang Bojing switched up his stance. He put his sword above his head, clearly aiming for a block and counterattack. He didn't rush in either. Yi took a stance as if he was aiming for an upward slash. Kang Bojing charged his sword with qi. Yi moved in and pretended to move his sword upwards. Eager to intercept, Kang Bojing swung his sword. However, the sword met no resistance and struck the ground instead. With the force of thunder-adjacent spiritual qi that was imbued to the sword, the ground cracked. Yi had dodged the strike by leaning back. He then landed a headbutt to the side of Kang Bojings head by snapping forward from that position. Kang Bojings left eyebrow was bleeding into his eye.

It was not looking good for Kang Bojing. He now had a glaring blind spot. What's worse, Yi had pumped up the tempo. Kong Bojing was on the defensive. He kept getting hit by rouge slashes. His right arm left shoulder, and upper-left thigh was all adorned by nasty gashes. He could see a smile on Yi's face. Kang Bojing was now aware of it. He was at the mercy of this man.

Kang Bojing's arms were shaking. His grip was loose. Yi flicked his sword in a lax manner. Kang Bojing's sword made 3 flips in the air and stabbed into the dirt. Yi had no mercy, he kicked Kang Bojing's foot to make him kneel but Kang faceplanted instead. Yi pointed his sword uncomfortably close to Kang Bojing's eyeball.

"Do you surrender?" Kang Bojing was awash with shame. "Yes, yes I surrender." Wang Feng walked into the fray. There was something in Kang Bojing's satchel that ominously connected to several women in town. He picked up Kang Bojing's satchel. Bojing yelled:" Don't touch that!" Yi kicked him. Kang Bojing's servants horrified, shrieked: " Stop that! He already surrendered!". Wang Feng pulled out a bottle from the satchel.

Is there any animal around here whom I can feed this pill?

Someone showed up with a stray dog.

Wang Feng fed the pill in the bottle to the dog. Within a minute, the dog went into heat.

"This is an aphrodisiac!" Wang Feng bellowed. "Your mothers, sisters, wives, and daughters are not safe while these clan beasts are prowling around! People of these lands! Are you men or are you bitches? Don't give these clan bastards any more wealth! Don't buy from them! Don't do business with them! Drive their machinations to the ground! Give them no respite!"

Kang Bojing was gnashing his teeth. So what if he embraced some women? He was a man amongst men! Besides he was a mainline member of the Kang Clan! These infatuations were an opportunity for those women to get into the Kang clan's good graces. It was a positive life-changing event for them! Initial rejections? Pah! They were playing hard to get. The aphrodisiac was a medicine that cured the need for such games.

Wang Feng forcefully poured the bottle into Kang Bojing's mouth.

Kang Bojing's heart started palpitating. His irises became as thin as a needle's tip. He was heaving and in pain. In fact, every one of his victims felt the same pain. Aphrodisiac was not some fun drug to liven up the day. It was a potent stimulant and a bad experience all around. Yes, it made people aroused but it felt like the violation it is.

Everybody stared at the frothing mess on the ground in disdain.

Returning, Wang Feng asked Mr.Wan

"Mr.Wan, are we ready to return? We kind of offended all the clans in the Zhangsheng territory."

Mr.Wan started laughing.

Wang Feng started laughing.

Li started laughing while cleaning the blood off his sword.

The infectious laugh permeated thru the escort party.

Mr.Wan said:"We will stay within the Zhangsheng Sect during our stay. Then we will return joining a larger caravan. If they dare to attack the caravan, they would be attacking a force that is almost an army."

Meanwhile a youngster in fever has been carried to Kang Clan. Voice of a shrieking woman could be heard. "Who did this to my sweet innocent son!" She was in tears, beating her knees.

"Oh dear, how could this happen to my Bojing! My sweet little Bojing!" Family doctor administered the antidote for the aphrodisiac and started stitching his cuts.

Patriarch of the Kang clan looked down at the Kang Bojing.

"What happened to my son?"

Servant nodded and explained:

" Despite our investments to towards Demon Sect, the shipment from Shoushan Sect safely arrived. Young master Bojing went to humiliate them to invalidate the legitimacy of the Zhangsheng sect-based trading companies. He was politically outmaneuvered by a provocateur."

Kang clan patriarch nodded.

"That's to be expected. Bojing is barely an adult. He has a lot to learn."

The servant interjected.

"Sir, the provocateur is younger than the young master."

Kang clan patriarch sighed. " Geniuses always crop up. Consistently put out hits on that guy. Anonymously of course."

Servant nodded:

"Yes sir."

Meanwhile, Wang Feng bought an assortment of spiritual metals for the return trip. He was going to try putting together a machine. At least he hoped so. The more likely outcome might be that the ingots are going to clutter a part of his abode. Because realistically, he was going to procrastinate. He knew his tendencies.

"Mr.Wan! Would these heavy goods be a problem for the cart?"

Mr.Wan nodded. "It would if you load it to the edges. You have to put it on top of the axle. That way you wouldn't bully the axle by creating unnecessary leverage."

Wang Feng was suddenly startled. A pitch-black series of ominous karmic ties appeared all around him.

He quickly divined what was going on. "Someone has put a hit on me. All the murderers in town have their eyes on me. What nasty pieces of work the Kang clan is. They were really quick."

It was easy to handle Kang Bojing but not so easy to handle his backing. This fella was quite entrenched in the status quo. He was cousins with every clan in town. Needless to say, he was heavily inbred. Such inbreeding would be expected when marriage was seen as a political or financial convenience. That kind of inbreeding was common among European nobility in the previous world. They inbred so much that the members of the Hapsburg dynasty turned into ghoulish potatoes. In rural places, people marry their cousins just to avoid dividing the land they own after their grandfather's death. In such places, If the observer pays attention to the people's appearance, he can see that most members of this tightly-knit communities are as ugly as sin. The inbred are also prone to emotional outbursts and violence. Such is the life of an inbred folk.

In this universe where one can cultivate, a very destructive equation is born. Backing of a family plus nigh unlimited cultivation resources plus inbred psychological state plus horniness equals a "Young Master". Such creatures prowl and terrorize the town. Most unfortunate.

When someone sees a societal ill, their reaction would be, "Oh no! That's horrible! I hope someone other than me fixes that!" However, Wang Feng was forced by the circumstances to poke holes in the societal ill called "Young Master Kang Bojing.". It was all quite tiresome.

Wang Feng approached Yi. Yi had a gut reaction. "It's something messed up again. I can tell." was what was going through his head. He was right.

"Kang family have sent assassins after us. To be precise, there is a bounty on our heads"

Yi the bastard was sick of this sh*t.

"F*ck, what is this?" Yi was not used to being treated like this. He was a former clansman after all.

"I let their scum son live, what more do they want from me? F*ck, they are all poor as dirt too. I can't even loot their corpse. I've spent twice the amount of spirit stones recharging my spirit than I'm going to get for completing this mission."

Wang Feng :

"Yi, I've taken a mission with a slightly ominous karmic tie this time. I figured that I will not always have auspicious selections every time. I'm sorry."

Yi laughed.

"Congratulations on being retarded. That's one of the most important qualities a cultivator should have. Don't worry, If the push comes to shove, we can always poke them with our swords"