Bringing some shocking pranks to the Cultivation World

It was dusk, the setting sun's afterglow casting a thousand miles aglow. Zhou Li, covering his vital areas with leaves to prevent mosquito bites, stood still in a strange pose upon the tree, watching the movement of figures below.

With the tip of his left finger touching the ground and his right hand in mid-air, his body leaned forward in a crouch, perfectly clinging to the leaves like a spider. If Zhou Li were dressed in a red tight suit, he would be akin to a very successful Spider-Man.

But at this moment, he could only be despised and cursed as a failed disciple.

After telling himself a cold pun that could not be colder, Zhou Li watched the horse bandits making a fire to cook their meal with utter boredom, along with the iron cage by their side.

In this iron cage, diffusing a cold light, several unlucky students from the Imperial Academy Mansion were locked together. Counting them, there were three males and three females. Apart from a girl curled up at the edge of the cage, covering her mouth, the others were still relatively strong-willed, refraining from making a sound to avoid provoking the bandits.

What caught Zhou Li's attention was the ashen-haired girl sitting with her back to the bandits, seemingly doing something. Based on Zhou Li's experience, the iron cage should have been cast from iron mixed with Hui Ling Wood, and a Spirit Qi Master below the Third Realm would find it difficult to tamper with it.

If the ashen-haired girl really possessed the strength above the Third Realm, she wouldn't have been captured so easily.

"These northern students are really spirited,"

After taking a big gulp from his bowl, the man wrapped in a yellow scarf who was tending the fire, cast a lewd glance at the composed girls in the cage, then whispered to the Bandit Leader who was tall as a tower,

"Boss, why not... have our fun first?"

Without even listening closely, the sneer and nose-wrinkle on that pockmarked face called for a direct trial by execution.

The three female students turned pale when they saw the lascivious expression on the pockmarked face, involuntarily sticking to the edges of the cage, trembling all over. They understood that female students of such appearance, if kidnapped, might at the very least lose their purity.

"Pockmarked, put away your vile thoughts,"

As he heard Pockmarked's words, the one who was sipping mare's milk, the leader's complexion darkened. He glanced at the speaking bandit with a cold face and said sternly,

"If the Great Commander gets wind that some bastard in the army dares to pillage and rape, he'll execute them faster than the Government Office. If you don't want to be refined into Taiping Secret Medicine, rid yourself of the bad habits from your old mountain haunts, or don't blame me for being unsympathetic to fellow countrymen."

"I was just saying, just saying,"

Touching his head sheepishly, Pockmark grinned and backed away. This group of horse bandits had seven members in total, and judging from the looks on the others' faces, it seemed that what the Bandit Leader said held substance.

Zhou Li, perched in the tree, stroked his chin, undistracted by the Bandit Leader. After all, those who cultivate Spirit Qi tend to be more sensitive to the gaze of others, especially such desperate outlaws.

After Pockmark's lighthearted suggestions were dismissed, a fresh pot of steaming mare's milk was prepared. The Bandit Leader, not one to dither and dally, lifted the pot directly, grabbed a few wooden bowls at random and walked over to the cage.

Looking at the trembling students, too afraid to move, the Bandit Leader firmly placed the pot full of mare's milk in front of the cage. Then, sitting on a stone nearby, he took a wooden spoon, filled several bowls with the milk, and set them in front of the cage.

"There are sixty more miles to go; have something warm to fortify yourselves. Rest assured, as long as you cause no trouble along the way, I, Xu Sheng, guarantee with my life that no one will touch a hair on any students."

The students in the cage were stunned, not expecting the ferocious-looking Bandit Leader, to personally assure them of their safety. For a moment, these naive students who had little experience with the wickedness of the heart felt a flicker of goodwill toward the Bandit Leader. After Xu Sheng left, the leading tall student touched his head, murmuring in confusion,

"These horse bandits are strangely nice."

Meanwhile, Zhou Li squatted on the tree canopy, his interest piqued as he pondered over what had just occurred. For most bandits and highwaymen, such discipline was simply unfathomable.

Those who joined this line of work were either stricken by abject poverty or driven by vile desires; thus, it was nearly impossible to forbid their followers from looting, killing, and violating. While a regular gang of bandits might pay lip service to chivalrous slogans, they usually turned a blind eye to such acts among their ranks.

But this Bandit Leader called Xu Sheng was different. Zhou Li could tell that, aside from the obviously green Pockmark, the other bandits instinctively obeyed Xu Sheng's words. Far from harboring the thoughts of molestation like Pockmark, they didn't even glance at the group of female students, their military discipline even stricter than that of some remote government forces.

Now, that was interesting.

Zhou Li noted that there might be more to these men taking the students than just ransom. Or rather, this group didn't resemble bandits at all but more like a strictly disciplined army.

Interesting.

As Zhou Li's fingertips nimbly manipulated the Ten Thousand Vermillion Spirit Ling Zhu Sphere, faint, hard-to-discern bird cries came from the distant sky.