I Am Your Natural Enemy

The half-day meeting concluded, and it was time to break for lunch. Yan Zhikong, the representative from Mount Laojun, quietly approached.

”You don’t really plan to place the boxing manual in the Scorching Sun Department, making it freely available to anyone with merit, do you?”

”Since some people want to use this to hold Fuyu Mountain hostage and find a point of entry, just shut it down for them. Reasoning won’t work; they won’t believe it anyway.

Believe it or not, by the lunch break, rumors will start spreading that Fuyu Mountain is being overly protective.

By evening, it’ll have turned into the Three Mountains and Five Ridges refusing to share while expecting others to disclose their secrets.

By tomorrow morning, it’ll become a tale of the Scorching Sun Department uniting with the Three Mountains and Five Ridges to purge all the Mountain Sects in the world.”

”Uh...” Yan Zhikong was taken aback, a bit incredulous: ”Is it really that bad?”

”Given the speed of information dissemination these days, I might even be understating it.”

Wen Yan took out his phone and called the Grand Uncle Master to discuss the meeting.

The Grand Uncle Master was very calm, seemingly unsurprised, and said the usual words.

”You are representing Fuyu Mountain; you can make decisions on relevant matters.”

”For such a significant issue, it still requires the Grand Uncle Master and the other Great Uncle Masters to decide. I’m only here to run errands for you.”

The Grand Uncle Master trusted him and gave him great authority, but he couldn’t directly decide on important matters and only inform the Grand Uncle Master afterward.

Unless it was an urgent matter requiring an immediate decision.

In non-emergency situations, it’s better to be cautious.

After receiving confirmation from the Grand Uncle Master, Wen Yan took out his phone and directly uploaded the second stage of Scorching Sun Fist to the Scorching Sun Department, setting warnings and viewing conditions.

Those without sufficient power were not allowed to view it, and those lacking merit certainly couldn’t either.

Normal people wouldn’t waste their merit on something entirely useless.

Those who met the conditions and were willing to make an exchange were undoubtedly there for a specific reason.

If someone dared to risk their life, Wen Yan would bury them.

To prevent any complaints, Wen Yan uploaded the untranslated original content to ensure authenticity.

Whether they could understand it wasn’t his concern.

Previously, Scorching Sun Fist wasn’t that famous in Fuyu Mountain, and many people only remembered it as a foundational boxing technique.

Those who knew more would understand that the boxing technique had significant flaws, with only the first stage being useful.

This wasn’t something newly discovered today; Wen Yan knew exactly why it was being brought up now.

It was simply because they saw Wen Yan and knew he had been involved in several cases and had demonstrated his skills.

Some thought that Scorching Sun Fist must be extraordinary, suggesting that if they had it, they too could do great things.

Some people jump to conclusions, linking cause and effect, to justify a result with various reasons.

Wen Yan had encountered many such people, just as his reputation, being more about his Martial Arts Talent surpassing Qin Kun’s, had spread.

Many people he didn’t know, and some seniors, would always focus on this point when discussing other topics.

It’s not out of malice; they might genuinely have only heard about this aspect, or it was something they found out after asking around upon hearing him speak at a meeting.

Before this, they might not have known who he even was.

And this was actually the normal situation.

Even the Old Celestial Master, whose reputation was so enormous that everyone at the meeting knew him, might still be mistaken for an ordinary Taoist priest by those who had never seen him when walking down the street, appearing kind and unremarkable.

Gauging someone’s strength just by looking is difficult.

One has to be strong themselves, and the other must have easily noticeable or detectable traits.

For instance, a martial artist like Qin Kun, who embodies sheer strength, would be visibly strong to anyone who isn’t blind.

Whereas someone like Cai Heizi might just look like a middle-aged bureaucrat with a slight beer belly, not at all resembling a martial artist to most people.

At least, Wen Yan had never noticed it before.

After finishing the upload and setup, Wen Yan decided not to concern himself further, whether someone genuinely wanted it or was merely looking for trouble.

Such exchanges are recorded; later on, it would be clear who used their merit this way.

Anyone genuinely interested is bound to exchange openly.

Those with other intentions will most likely take a different route and wouldn’t exchange personally.

Pure manuscripts are such that they are easily replicable.

The truly valuable things in the various mountains and sects are the explanations, the pitfalls previous generations have encountered, and the hands-on guidance from experienced elders, not just the pure texts.

As Wen Yan pondered over this, a notification popped up on his phone.

Someone had completed an exchange.

Opening it, he found out it was indeed the troublemaker from the meeting.

Wen Yan chuckled; was that guy really just after the Scorching Sun Fist?

Wait a minute, did this guy think Wen Yan couldn’t see who made the exchange?

Wen Yan held his phone, more speechless than he had been in a long time.

He waited for a while longer, but no one else made an exchange.

Everyone’s merit had been earned through hard-fought battles; no one would waste it lightly.

Normally, upon seeing the numerous warnings before exchanging, they would voluntarily give up.