The man was none other than Li Xun.
Time flowed like water, slipping away in an instant. After more than seventy years of struggling and surviving in the Tongxuan Realm, he was no longer the naive young man he once had been. Even when faced with seven masters, including Yuan Nan himself, he remained calm and unshaken.
After all, he now carried a reputation of his own. "Spirit Bamboo" Li Xun was counted among the most outstanding of the younger generation in the Tongxuan Realm.
Whether it was pursuing the villainous "Old Monster of Mount Mang" for thousands of miles, fighting the thousand-year Corpse King alone, or single-handedly resisting the Heartless Sect's twelve "Heart Devils," each of these feats had added brilliant strokes to his legend.
It was for this very reason that the lake's surface rippled when he spoke.
Yuan Nan, standing on the sandy islet in the lake's center, frowned. "Spirit Bamboo Li Xun? The one who trapped and slew the Skyhawk Demon King in three years, and is said to be the foremost in restrictive arts among the third-generation disciples of the Ten Righteous Sects?"
Yuan Nan was an ugly middle-aged man with a flat nose, long face, narrow eyes, and a long black scar twisting across his right cheek like a snake. His features were somewhat misshapen, yet his tall, upright frame gave him a certain imposing presence.
Though high in rank and authority, he still retained some impression of the rising stars who had lately taken the Tongxuan Realm by storm. He glanced at Song Yuanchi, who gave a confirming nod.
Song Yuanchi's standing within their sect was clearly beneath Yuan Nan's, so he naturally spoke and acted with caution. Watching Yuan Nan's expression, he confirmed Li Xun's identity, then added carefully, "Our sect has been acting rather high-profile in this area lately, drawing quite a few onlookers. This Spirit Bamboo may be one of them."
Yuan Nan nodded slightly. He could hear what Song Yuanchi truly meant: he did not wish to make an enemy of this ascendant cultivator.
But he was always proud and never cared much about such things. Throwing his head back, he laughed, and his voice carried across hundreds of feet as if distance meant nothing, landing right in Li Xun's ear. "So, you're a rising talent of the Mingxin Sword Sect. Excellent. Give me an explanation. What brings you to the southeastern Forest Sea?"
The words were far from polite, but they fit Yuan Nan's status perfectly. In terms of seniority, he was of the same generation as Li Xun's grandmaster. The Mingxin Sword Sect and the Underworld Monarch Sect stood on opposite sides, righteous and demonic, with countless grudges and clashes over tens of thousands of years. If he were to speak courteously, it would have been strange indeed.
Up in the sky, Li Xun understood this well. Smiling, he replied, "Chasing an enemy. Happened to pass by. My apologies for disturbing you."
"An enemy? Who?"
Li Xun suppressed the absurdity he felt and answered calmly, "An old rival. A senior disciple of the Shadow-Devouring Soul Sect. Hundred-Ghosts."
His tone was casual, but the people of the Underworld Monarch Sect below erupted in uproar.
"Hundred Ghosts?"
It was not that this name was more famous than "Spirit Bamboo," but the hatred between the Underworld Monarch Sect and that man was so deep that not even the waters of all the rivers and lakes could wash it away. At that moment, even Yuan Nan could no longer maintain the dignity of a great elder. His ugly face was streaked with dark and ashen fury, his killing intent surging.
And he had every reason to be angry. For the past twenty years, the Underworld Monarch Sect and the Shadow-Devouring Soul Sect had been at odds, their conflict over several Ghost Spirit Deadlands breaking out almost every year, each side claiming its share of victories and defeats.
But Hundred-Ghosts had given the Underworld Monarch Sect nothing but disgrace and hatred that could never be cleansed.
The most recent and perhaps clearest example came seven years ago.
Hundred Ghosts, acting alone, had infiltrated a Ghost Spirit Deadland the Underworld Monarch Sect had only just seized. Using his unparalleled mastery of restrictive arts, he laid down the "Nether Ghost Path" and, without a sound, crippled two of the Seven Underworld Star Envoys. The Seven Nether Star Formation, which required precise coordination to maintain, collapsed instantly.
Since the day Zhong Yin's "One Sword to Break the Seven Nether Stars," the Underworld Monarch Sect had never suffered such a heavy loss. How could Yuan Nan not be furious?
"You dare make a fool of me, boy!" Yuan Nan's voice was icy. "Hundred Ghosts is being hunted across the northern lands by my sect's Nine Nether Generals. He can barely save his own life. How could he appear here in the southeastern Forest Sea?"
"The Nine Nether Generals?" Li Xun didn't mind taking a jab at Yuan Nan's pride. "My condolences, Great Elder. From what I know, Hundred Ghosts broke through a month ago. During the Nine Generals' joint assault, four of them met their end. Thanks to your sect's encirclement, I was able to catch up in time."
At those words, the lake fell so silent that not even an uproar could rise. Even from a hundred feet in the air, Li Xun could feel Yuan Nan's eyes on him, blazing with shock and fury, as if he had become the murderer himself and Yuan Nan wished nothing more than to tear him to pieces.
In truth, Yuan Nan's misplaced anger had found its perfect target.
But he did not know the real story, and as a senior master, he could not lose his composure, even knowing that Li Xun was quietly enjoying his discomfort.
After a storm of rage, Yuan Nan forced his killing intent down and said coldly, "Thank you for the information. Since you are merely passing through, so be it. My sect has matters to deal with here in the coming days. We do not welcome interference from other sects. Be on your way. If Hundred Ghosts truly is nearby, my sect will settle matters with him ourselves."
His words were harsh, and Li Xun's reply was just as crisp. "I will not interfere with your sect's affairs. But my movements are not yours to control. That is all. Farewell."
Before Yuan Nan could erupt, Li Xun gave a cold smile, flicked his sleeve, and departed.
The vast southeastern Forest Sea stretched without end.
Towering trees so thick that two men together could barely encircle them formed an unbroken primeval forest spanning hundreds of thousands of miles. Tens of thousands of streams and underground rivers crisscrossed the land. Exotic flowers and rare herbs flourished, and uncountable birds and beasts roamed freely. It was a paradise often visited by cultivators.
The Demon Thunder Monastery that Li Xun sought lay deep within this forest sea. A thousand years ago, it had been a well-known place.
The infamous demon monk Leiyin had once settled here, taking on a few disciples and dabbling in demonic techniques, living a rather carefree life until he angered his neighbors, the Boundless Heaven Sect from the Boundless Sea. In a single night, his entire foundation was torn up by the roots, and the Demon Thunder Monastery was reduced to ruins.
"So it really is a ruin," Li Xun muttered with a dry laugh as he stood before the great temple's crumbling main gate, staring at the dark, gaping entrance. "The Boundless Heaven Sect must have broken in from here. A fine bronze gate like that. Look at the state they left it in."
The air in the forest was damp, and the monastery had been built beside a great lake. With no human presence for centuries, the steps were coated in thick moss. Even the bronze door fragments lying inside the entrance had nearly corroded away.
Without touching the ground, Li Xun drifted lightly through the gate.
The monastery had five successive courtyards, with hundreds of halls, towers, and pavilions, and over a dozen grand Buddha halls. In the mortal world, such a scale would have been considered an impressive feat of construction, but in the Tongxuan Realm, it was little more than a modest shrine.
"Hmm. Not only small, but the smell is strange," Li Xun said, his nose twitching. Aside from the heavy, damp yin qi, there was a faint scent of blood. Following the smell, he bypassed the main hall and, in a side Buddha chamber off the front courtyard, found its source.
The Buddha statue in the hall had long since been smashed to pieces. Beneath the altar, the ground had collapsed into a pit about a zhang across, its depth unknown. Inside, mangled flesh and thick, murky blood churned in a slow, bubbling swell, as if a fire was burning beneath the earth and the pit itself was a cauldron of boiling meat and blood.
He frowned, broke off a tree branch outside the hall, and probed the bottom. "One zhang, three chi, three cun…" Without breaking stride, he moved on to another Buddha hall.
As he expected, there was a similar pit there, about the same width and depth. This one, however, was filled with yellowish water, with severed limbs and broken arms floating on the surface.
Li Xun searched the entire monastery. Six great halls, four Buddha halls, two bell towers, and the rear courtyard—thirteen pits in all. The one in the main hall was three zhang across and still clean of blood, but of the other twelve, aside from the first Buddha hall he had checked, every pit was filled with yellow water.
When he had finished his inspection, Li Xun stood in a relatively clean side hall, frowning in thought.
Thirteen Blood Pits… so it really is the Blood-Transformation Refining Method…
Others might not recognize it, but there was no way he wouldn't. These pits weren't simply dug for show. To cultivate the "Burning Blood Vital Breath," the thirteen blood pits had to be founded on the earth's fire, linked through refined restrictive techniques to let pure primordial qi flow between them, producing miraculous effects. And here; could they have simply dug a few pits and achieved it? Yet the evidence lay before him, and he could not deny it.
After a moment's thought, he formed a hand seal, ready to cast a spell, when his heart suddenly stirred. His eyes shifted, sweeping toward a patch of shadow nearby, and he said in a low, cold voice, "Who's there?"
"Master Li, it's me!"
The words themselves were nothing special, but the person who spoke them was anything but ordinary.
As the voice faded, a slender figure stepped gracefully out of the shadows and gave a slight bow in his direction.
Li Xun was startled at first, but quickly composed himself and returned the salute with proper courtesy. "So it is Madam Yu. I was presumptuous earlier. Please don't take offense."
After a brief pause, he asked cautiously, "It's safe to speak here?"
"Rest assured, Master Li, it's fine," the female cultivator replied with a faint smile. For a moment, the dim hall seemed to brighten under the radiance of her beauty.
Li Xun was no monk sworn to celibacy. Naturally, he found her striking. But the trouble was, he knew her background far too well for his thoughts to wander in that direction.
This woman was the personal attendant of Jade Wanderer, the master of the North Pole Yama Heaven, one of the ten Ruling Councilors of the Rogue Cultivators' Alliance, and one of the three great Wanderers of the Tongxuan Realm. She was the last-ranked of the "Five Transcendent Attendants"—Gong, Shang, Jue, Zhi, and Feather. She was the Feather Attendant.
To call her an attendant was in truth to say she was a concubine. That was why Li Xun addressed her respectfully as "Madam."
If that were all, it would have been simple enough. But Li Xun remembered clearly that before she became Jade Wanderer's concubine, she had held another identity; she was the younger sister of Yin Wanderer and the mother of Qin Wanru.
Anyone who had met the two women would not deny the subtle bond of blood between them. Aside from faint similarities in their features, mother and daughter shared the same allure; fragile to the core, yet seductive to the core.
The difference was that Qin Wanru's delicacy was tempered with a quiet resilience that could be bent but not broken, making her impossible for a man to truly conquer. The Feather Attendant's softness, on the other hand, was like flowing water, gentleness taken to its very limit, able to dissolve any hardness, at least on the surface.
Li Xun did not care that she was Jade Wanderer's concubine, nor did he care about Yin Wanderer, who had long since become a puppet. But having shared intimacy with Qin Wanru, he could not help feeling a twinge of awkwardness in her mother's presence. Even if she knew nothing, it made him far less inclined to entertain any other thoughts.
The Feather Attendant naturally had no idea what was going through Li Xun's mind, but over the past decades she had dealt with him more than once. She knew well that beneath the appearance of a bright, unclouded gentleman with the bearing of an immortal, this cultivator's heart was ruthlessly cruel and dark.
Though he had been perfectly well-behaved in recent years, she still dared not take him lightly. With a gentle smile, she said, "I'm grateful to Master Li for coming to help. But… it seems you arrived a bit late?"
"Ah, I ran into an old enemy on the way and was delayed," Li Xun replied casually, offering a flimsy excuse before steering the conversation toward what was truly on his mind. "I've no objection to carrying out something my senior sister has asked of me. But today's matter… it feels without cause. Would Madam Yu be willing to clear my doubts?"
"Without cause?"
"That's right. A mere Xiao Zhongzi hardly seems worth such a grand effort from us; unless he has…"
"Master Li," the Yu Attendant suddenly cut him off. There was no displeasure on her charming face, but in the softness of her voice was an undertone that commanded his attention.
"This is something Miss Wuyou has instructed. Forgive me, but I can't say too much. Besides, I think as long as you accomplish what she has asked, that will be enough."
Li Xun's lips curled slightly, almost in a smile, but his eyes flashed cold, revealing a different sentiment entirely. He fixed his gaze on her delicate face, then finally nodded. "Naturally."
The Feather Attendant smiled warmly. "In that case, I'll go back and make my report. I'll be counting on you to handle matters here in the southeastern Forest Sea."
Li Xun frowned slightly. "What's this? Madam Yu is leaving? Is my senior sister leaving all of this in my hands?"
"Master Li, you flatter me. With your abilities, this sort of matter is hardly more than a flick of the wrist."
Li Xun's lips twitched slightly, but he said nothing, only watching her in silence.
The Feather Attendant avoided his gaze. With a faint smile, she lowered her head and said softly, "Ah, yes. Miss Wuyou also left you a message: if it truly proves too troublesome, or if Xiao Zhongzi brings about his own death, then simply let it be. Just make sure no one finds out."
"Oh?" This time Li Xun was genuinely surprised. A thousand thoughts flashed through his mind in an instant. He felt as if he had grasped the edge of something, but it remained just out of focus. One thing, however, he was certain of....
The Rogue Cultivators' Alliance had held its peace for ten years. Were they about to make a move again?
Long after the Feather Attendant had left, Li Xun was still pondering the question. But with so little information, he could see nothing clearly. In the end, being someone who knew when to take up or set aside a matter, he stopped dwelling on it and turned his attention back to the task at hand.
If what the Feather Attendant said is true, this might actually be easier. All I'd need to do is quietly kill Xiao Zhongzi and destroy the body. Wouldn't that be the end of it....
Li Xun gave a cold chuckle. Of course he knew that such a thought was fine to entertain, but if he truly acted on it, that little demoness would never let the matter rest. Best to proceed step by step… Wait, what was he just thinking?
His gaze swept over the gloomy hall. After a moment's thought, his body flickered and vanished.