The moth was entirely translucent, colorless and scentless. The moment it slipped from Wei Tu's sleeve, it vanished without a trace inside the private room.
After that, Wei Tu's expression remained composed as he left the room and exited the Treasure Pavilion.
He was fully confident in the concealment abilities of the Seven-Colored Phantom Moth.
Back when he had first encountered it, even with all his caution, he hadn't detected the moth trailing him. With Manager Fan's cultivation merely at the mid Foundation Establishment stage, she stood no chance of noticing the moth.
Wei Tu had lived in the cultivation world for over a hundred years now. There was no way he would naively take Manager Fan's earlier words at face value.
…
After exiting the Treasure Pavilion.
Wei Tu first left the market in his Liu Ao disguise. After a while, he changed his appearance again, transforming into a tall, thin man and reentered the marketplace.
He then rented a cave residence near the Treasure Pavilion.
One month later.
Wei Tu retrieved the Seven-Colored Phantom Moth he had left inside Manager Fan's private room and, using the Splitting Light Projection Technique, extracted the stored memories from its body.
Soon, a sequence of images appeared before his eyes.
That day, after Wei Tu had left, a male cultivator wearing a hooded cloak emerged from the inner room.
Upon seeing this, Wei Tu's face immediately darkened. No one liked having their conversations secretly monitored.
The cloaked man sat down, and shortly afterward, began speaking with Manager Fan.
The contents of their conversation—and the person at the center of it—were all about Wei Tu.
"Manager Fan, bringing Wei Tu into this plan is too risky. Sure, he has a falling out with the Huang Clan, but he's no rootless rogue. He won't just take orders from us."
The cloaked man spoke in a hoarse voice.
Then, throughout his remarks, the man mentioned people closely associated with Wei Tu—"Kou Hongying," "Fu Zhizhou," and others.
"A few years back, Kou Hongying's master Qin Yuling successfully formed a Golden Core. She's now a full-fledged Golden Core True Lord..."
"If Wei Tu spills this to Qin Yuling and she starts getting greedy, our whole plan could not only fail but get us all killed."
Hearing this, Wei Tu frowned slightly, silently pondering who this cloaked cultivator could be to know so much about him.
Fortunately, what Manager Fan said next solved the mystery.
"Daoist Yang, it was Left Emissary Liu who gave the order to invite Wei Tu into the plan. What does that have to do with me? I'm just following orders," Manager Fan replied with a hint of displeasure.
Yang Xiang snorted coldly and responded with irritation, "Left Emissary Liu only said Wei Tu could be considered, not that we must bring him in. If the plan fails because of this, don't expect me to take the blame!"
As soon as she heard that, Manager Fan shot back sarcastically, "So that's what Daoist Yang was aiming for all along—dodging responsibility. You didn't object when I reached out to Wei Tu, but now that I've done it, you show up just to throw cold water on it? Clever little scheme you've got there."
"Please, Daoist Fan, calm down. That's not what I meant," Yang Xiang quickly backpedaled, realizing she'd caught him red-handed.
"If it comes to that, fine—I'll take the blame with you," Yang Xiang added with a quiet sigh, seeing that Manager Fan wasn't going to let it go.
"That's more like it," she replied, her expression easing somewhat.
And with that, their conversation came to an end.
Next came the scene of Yang Xiang leaving the private room.
"Liu Left Emissary?" Wei Tu softly repeated the name a few times after watching this through the Seven-Colored Phantom Moth's memory.
From the conversation between Manager Fan and Yang Xiang, it wasn't hard to infer that this "Liu Left Emissary" held control over the Shuyun Alliance and exercised strong authority over its cultivators.
As for Manager Fan, she clearly wasn't merely a friend of Alchemist Shu, as she had claimed. Her involvement in this plan to destroy the Huang Clan was far deeper than she let on.
Wei Tu calmed himself and continued reviewing the Seven-Colored Phantom Moth's memories.
The moth had remained hidden inside the Treasure Pavilion for a full month. The conversation between Yang Xiang and Manager Fan was just what it had captured on the first day.
The memory images flickered quickly.
Soon, it reached the seventeenth day.
That day, a disguised and masked Helian Xiong entered Manager Fan's room as a messenger.
From their conversation, Wei Tu heard three new words: "Si Right Emissary."
"Si Right Emissary? Could it be Si Qing?" Wei Tu's expression shifted, a thought forming in his mind.
If Si Qing was indeed the "Right Emissary" Helian Xiong and the others were referring to, then it confirmed the collusion between the Heavenly Maiden Sect and the Shuyun Alliance.
And as for this so-called "Liu Left Emissary" who had explicitly named him as a participant in the plan—his intentions were clearly far more complex than Wei Tu had originally assumed.
Most likely…
It was to investigate whether Wei Tu had anything to do with Si Qing's death.
"Still, there's no need to worry too much. That Liu Left Emissary likely acted on a passing suspicion," Wei Tu thought to himself.
If Liu Left Emissary was certain he was involved in Si Qing's death, then the Shuyun Alliance and Manager Fan wouldn't have treated him so cordially. They would've been chasing him across the world by now.
The rest of the moth's ten-plus days of memory only recorded Manager Fan's daily routine and the Treasure Pavilion's usual business dealings. No further conversations involving the Shuyun Alliance appeared.
After retrieving the Seven-Colored Phantom Moth into his spirit beast pouch, Wei Tu paused to think for a moment. He chose not to keep using the moth to spy on Manager Fan and instead returned the rented cave residence before leaving the marketplace.
—Without close-range command, the moth had a higher risk of being exposed.
A few days later, Wei Tu arrived at a shop controlled by the Huang Clan and handed a secret letter to one of the Huang Clan cultivators inside.
After waiting a short while.
He saw that cultivator hurriedly take flight and leave the shop, heading straight toward Yunhe Mountain. Wei Tu immediately turned and left for the next market city.
After delivering three secret letters in a row.
Wei Tu didn't rush back to the Xia Ya Mei Clan territory. Instead, he stayed near Yunhe Mountain to observe how the situation would unfold.
As far as the Shuyun Alliance and the Huang Clan were concerned, Wei Tu held no special feelings toward either. He didn't have the slightest intention of aligning himself with either side.
Delivering these secret letters to the Huang Clan wasn't out of loyalty—it was because the Shuyun Alliance's plan to destroy the Huang Clan could directly impact him.
The Shuyun Alliance had two targets: the Heshan Huang Clan, and himself.
If he didn't muddy the waters and turn the Huang Clan into a shield to draw more of the Shuyun Alliance's attention, then he had no means of going up against both the Shuyun Alliance and the Heavenly Maiden Sect's Liu Left Emissary.
"Now it's just a matter of whether Huang Changshun has the guts to handle this crisis," Wei Tu thought, gazing in the direction of Yunhe Mountain.
…
On the third day after the letters were delivered.
Violent fighting broke out within Yunhe Mountain.
"Huang Changshun, you dare to ambush me?! Once I leave the Huang Clan, I'll make sure your clan's betrayal and cruelty are known far and wide!" Alchemist Shu, this pseudo-Core cultivator, shouted as he fought and retreated. His eyes burned with hatred as he looked at Huang Changshun, who was giving relentless chase.