ebookland Chapter 433 The Depleted Mineral Vein
Chapter 433 The Depleted Mineral Vein
Ye Kang was dumbfounded, and Gao Bucong, who was secretly following behind, was also stunned.
This old guy is supposed to be from the Blood Shark Palace, how could he be so cowardly, admitting defeat before the fight even started?
Mr. Huo was sweating profusely and his heart was trembling.
In that brief moment, he felt as if he truly sensed his impending death.
With this kind of strength, this age, and this heaven-defying sword aura, Mr. Huo already had his answer.
No one else possesses such talent besides her.
If she comes, then I have absolutely no chance of winning today, so I might as well just admit defeat.
Inside the mine, when Manager Hou and other senior management witnessed this scene, they all gasped in shock.
"Mr. Huo has gone mad! How could he admit defeat!"
"Oh no, oh no! If the Tyrant Whale Sect finds out, we're all doomed!"
"What are you waiting for! Destroy the mine immediately!"
Countless figures surged into the mine pit, and just then, Ye Kang and Gao Bucong landed at the same time.
"Halt! Anyone who disobeys will be executed!"
Ye Kang shouted, and everyone stopped in their tracks.
Only Steward Hou, seeing the situation was dire, rushed desperately into the mine.
At the critical moment, Ye Kang used the Six Void Heavenly Steps to quickly approach Steward Hou.
With a swift grab from a distance, he brought the cloud-catching hand down with force.
Steward Hou was covered in blood and was already half crippled.
After that, no one dared to make a move.
Upon seeing this, Gao Bucong exclaimed excitedly, "Brother Kaishan is amazing! I'll go find my fellow rogue cultivators and rescue them right away!"
Seeing him rush into the mine, Ye Kang was not in a hurry, but looked to the side.
Under Jian Xin's watchful gaze, Mr. Huo landed with a dark expression.
"Youngster of the Tyrant Whale Sect, I did not stop you. I only accepted some benefits and am guarding this place for a while. You go about your business and let me leave first, how about that?"
Ye Kang smiled slightly: "Senior is joking. How could I dare to stop you? It's just that my Uncle Fang Yu is currently guarding the port. Without his orders, how could I dare to make a decision on my own?"
"Fang Yu..."
Mr. Huo had clearly heard of the name, and his expression darkened further.
"How are you going to stay?"
"It's not about what I want, senior. Why don't you tell me everything? Right and wrong will be decided by Uncle Fang Yu."
Ye Kang remained neither humble nor arrogant, and every word he uttered mentioned Fang Yu.
It feels so good to have someone to rely on!
Mr. Huo sighed helplessly: "Why don't you go and see for yourself how it is?"
As soon as he finished speaking, Gao Bucong rushed up from below, his expression one of utter shock.
"Brother Kaishan! Something terrible has happened! There are no missing rogue cultivators down there at all!"
"No?"
Ye Kang frowned and immediately flew down.
The mineral vein below was not filled with malevolent energy as Ye Kang had expected; instead, it was quite thin.
Looking at the veins of the earth where the ore was mined, most of them are just empty holes and dark rocks.
Red Bloodstones are extremely rare.
As for the miners, there were many, but most of them were idle, and their skin was red, so they were obviously locals from Hongdao.
Upon seeing this, Ye Kang immediately sensed something and looked at a miner behind him.
"The Bloodstone has been completely depleted?"
The miner knelt down with a thud, begging for mercy, "Master, spare us! We didn't mean to hide it; Steward Hou ordered us not to tell anyone!"
Another old miner sighed, "Actually, the mine was depleted several years ago, but Manager Hou said that production absolutely could not drop, otherwise all the old customers would run away, and we wouldn't be able to pay back the deposits. So we had no choice but to continue mining, but now there's nothing left to mine..."
"Where are those rogue cultivators you captured?!"
Gao Bucong shouted angrily.
The miners stared at each other, bewildered: "Arresting untrained cultivators? No way, there are only us old brothers in the mine. We've already mined out all the Bloodstone, why would we arrest anyone?"
Upon hearing this, Gao Bucong was speechless.
That makes so much sense, he had absolutely no idea how to refute it.
"How could this be... Could it be that my initial guess was wrong, and the disappearance of the rogue cultivator had nothing to do with the mine...?"
"Let's go outside and ask the others."
Ye Kang didn't say much and flew out first.
Just as Steward Hou, who had been crippled by a punch, stood up, Ye Kang suddenly appeared in front of him, startling him so much that he sat back down on the ground.
"Spare me! I won't do it again!"
"Answer me, is the disappearance of the rogue cultivator related to you?"
"Rogue cultivators? No, I don't know. What would we need rogue cultivators for?"
Ye Kang then looked at Xu Xun, who was trembling in the distance: "You say it."
Xu Xun shook his head frantically: "I don't know! My family does support many independent cultivators, but they all became my retainers voluntarily after I offered them generous rewards. I originally wanted you to become my retainer too, but if you refused, I would have someone teach you a lesson..."
Ye Kang was speechless for a moment. It seemed that the disappearance of the rogue cultivator really had nothing to do with them.
He looked at Steward Hou: "Then what is your purpose in inviting this senior from Blood Shark Palace here?"
Manager Hou said fearfully, "The Bloodstone is all gone, but the orders from our old customers are still there. We don't want to go bankrupt, so we have no choice but to go to Blood Shark Palace. After all, Blood Shark Palace has the most and the best Bloodstone. We can get a batch of scraps, which can temporarily make up for the shortfall..."
"That's right. They even asked me to restore the malevolent energy so that the vein could re-condense the Bloodstone. But after investigating for a long time, I found that there is not much malevolent energy left underground, and it is difficult to restore it."
Mr. Huo sighed and told the truth.
"The malevolent energy has disappeared?"
Ye Kang frowned slightly, his unfathomable blue eyes looking down at the ground.
Sure enough, the malevolent energy had become very thin.
"Wait! If that's the case, why did you hire an assassin to kill Chu Dayou?"
Steward Hou gritted his teeth and said, "It was only after Chu Dayou took over the guard duty that the evil aura mysteriously disappeared. Our three clans are closely connected and all depend on this mine for survival. He must have done something to cause this to happen!"
"Just because of a guess, he deliberately sought revenge?"
“Master, this is not a conjecture. Chu Dayou is arrogant and domineering. The two family heads, Xu and Hou, call him elder brother, but he makes things difficult for him in every way and doesn’t care. More importantly, both family heads have sensed that the evil aura has not disappeared, but has been transferred to the Chu family.”
"what!"
Ye Kang and Gao Bucong exclaimed in surprise at the same time.
No wonder they wanted to kill Chu Dayou; it turns out that guy was selfish and stole all the evil energy by himself.
We have to fight him to the death!
Ye Kang took a deep breath and looked at Jian Xin: "Fellow Daoist Jian, I think I know where those missing rogue cultivators went."
"lead the way."
Jian Xin spoke silently, her expression calm, seemingly observing everything, but her expression remained unchanged throughout.
Ye Kang nodded and said, "Come with me."
After saying that, he flew towards the Chu family's residence first.
Gao Bucong hurriedly followed, while Mr. Huo quickly fled. After all, he was an elder of the Blood Shark Palace. Although this matter was not a big deal, it would be unpleasant if it were blown out of proportion.
Meanwhile, at the Chu Family Ancestral Hall.
Chu Yan'er stood with her hands clasped in front of her, with Chu San bound hand and foot behind her.
Amidst the latter's utterly terrified gaze, the secret passage of the ancestral hall slowly opened, releasing an extremely dense aura of malevolence.
"Yan'er, your father has emerged from seclusion."