"You're spouting nonsense!" The moment he finished his sentence, the Golden Core cultivator immediately retorted fumingly. "What they'd burned wasn't the kitchen, they clearly burned our entire alchemy room using Deviant Fire. There were also many completed elixirs and rare spirit herb, they'd all been destroyed by this liar... person!"
The others had also joined in the condemnation.
"That's right, the neonate formation pill that I'd spent substantially and went to great efforts to buy was also inside, everything was totally burned."
"Yes, and my thousand year old spirit mythic plant and five hundred year-old jade spirit bark."
"And mine, my benevolent fruit!"
"There's also mine..."
"Supremacy." The Golden Core cultivator took a step forward, as if having his courage to question. "These people ruined our spirit herbs and fungi and even burned down the alchemy room that we worked together to build on the pretense of wanting to learn to cook. Their intentions were truly malicious, even if you are a Soul Formation Supremacy, you should not be biased to such evil people, otherwise, we would definitely take this to the Great Court to seek justice."
The others echoed his words in succession and resumed their aggressive manner from earlier.
Lonemoon's expression dimmed, sweeping a glance across everyone, he peered at the recipes on the ground before making an estimated guess. "All of you are saying that, these two friends of mine was originally consulting all of you on cooking?"
"That's right!" A cultivator wearing an apron stepped forth and said, "My Fragrant Restaurant is the most famous restaurant in Bian Immortal City, the first restaurant they'd stepped in was mine and they'd ordered a dozen of the signature dishes. I'd originally thought they were sincerely seeking guidance, hence I handed my recipes over out of goodwill. Who knew that wasn't what they truly intended!" With that, he even sneered coldly at Yi Qing, seeming to be rather irate.
"It's the same for our Drunken Immortal Restaurant."
"And our..."
The rest had also begun an uproar, looking at Chef as if they were looking at their foe.
"According to what all of you said..." Lonemoon began to say in a low voice, "They did not manage to cheat you of your recipes and even set the alchemy room that all of you have built together and ruined all the spirit herbs and elixirs."
"That's right!" The men nodded firmly, everyone boldly and courageously displaying their anger.
Lonemoon's expression became increasingly dark as he listened, suddenly lifting the corner of his lips, he revealed a forceful smile. "Then, do all of you cultivators think that I'm kind and good-tempered that you can fool with me as you like?!" With that said, he released his suppression once more, not holding back at all this time.
At once, all the cultivators around collapsed, dropping to their knees like they had been subjected to immense pressure, it was the same even for the Golden Core cultivator right at the front. His face paled instantly. "Supremacy... what do you mean by this?"
"What do I mean?" Lonemoon laughed coldly. "Did you think I couldn't tell? I don't know what kind of people you all are, but this friend of mine is a chef, in cooking, even ten of you won't be a match for him. Any dish that he has eaten, without any help, he is able to make the exact same one. You actually dared to say that you were passing on recipes to him out of good will, hmph, what a joke!"
"..." The men's expression saw a slight change, their eyes slightly unfocused.
"Talk about passing on recipes?" Lonemoon glanced at the huge pile of debt slips on the ground and continued. "It must be that the bunch of him realized that he was able to tell the method of cooking and ingredients used in every dish! Unwilling to take it lying down, all of you took advantage of having more people on your side and bluffed them into buying your recipes in order to swindle all the spirit stones they had, am I right?"
"..." The men began to turn pale, not daring to say a word.
"Let me guess! What will happen next?" Lonemoon's smile grew colder. "You realized that since he could taste the difference in the dishes, he might be able to do the same for elixirs. Deciding to go all in, you brought them to the alchemy room, intending to let him taste the elixirs, then tell you the formula, to earn some confidential formulas of other sects?"
"..." The men were starting to break out in a cold sweat.
"Not only that, you even had the strange idea that since he had such gifts, why not let him try refining elixirs. Only you didn't think that he did not know how to refine pills at all, not only did the refining failed, he even accidentally burned everything to the point where the entire alchemy room was destroyed." His eyes dimmed as he glanced at the men. "Tell me, did I guess correctly?"
All the cultivators were deathly pale, looking with guilty after being exposed, their heads forced to bow by suppression.
"All of you cheated my friend, then fooled him into refining pills. And you dare to seek justice from me, how shameless!" Once Lonemoon's words fell, his suppression went up by another level, several low level cultivators directly fell flat onto the ground.
"Supre... Supremacy calm down, calm down Supremacy!" The men who were still arrogant earlier hurriedly begged with terrified expressions. "We lost our heads at the moment, such that we committed such an immoral crime, please have mercy on us on the account that this is our first time! We won't dare to do it again."
The rest also began to beg, their confidence and boldness earlier all gone. They'd never expected that he would be able to see through their plans after asking a few questions.
"Have mercy?" Lonemoon sneered coldly. "Earlier on, weren't all of you pushing to slaughter my two friends. Why are you asking to be let off lightly when it comes to you now?" Hmph, my defense won't be in vain!
Dread rose amongst the men, that was a Soul Formation cultivator, he could turn them into ashes with a snap of his fingers. They trembled terribly and begged even louder. Something flashed in the eyes of the Golden Core cultivator in the middle and he said loudly. "We ask that Supremacy let us off for the sake... for the sake of the Qi Clan, we are merely disciples that distribute elixirs."
"What distribute..." Lonemoon wanted to reply instinctively but felt his sleeve being tugged. His eyes dimmed before he said with slight hesitation. "Since that's the case... I can restrain myself, but what should you do about all of you lying to my friends and cheating them of their spirit stones?"
"We'll return them, we'll return them."
"Yes yes yes, these belonged to them in the first place, we were foolish."
"Give it back, give everything back to him!"
The men visibly relaxed and immediately pulled out their storage bags and dug all the spirit stones out, their eyes secretly peeping at the few people in the middle from time to time.
As a qualified cunning businessman, Lonemoon naturally understood their look of "selling less". Hence he added, "Oh, I forgot to let you know. The spirit stones that this friend brought out with him were borrowed from me, do count correctly." Let's see if you dare to give me one piece less?
The men felt their hearts sank and quickened their actions of digging, not daring to miss out any piece and even added more, simply afraid that if they didn't match the amount correctly, they would have more to face.
Lonemoon only retracted his suppression then.
The men trembled as they finished digging out all the spirit stones. "Supremacy I promise that we will never do such an immoral thing again."
"Mm." Lonemoon answered.
"Then we shall not disturb Supremacy any longer, we'll take our leave." Everyone bowed and turned to leave.
"Hold on." He suddenly called out.
"!!!"