Chapter 1366: Mist Shrouds the Path, a Door Is Hidden
As for Shangguan Tianque’s companion, Li Yan, Liu Huaigu’s thoughts mirrored those of many others: Mang Yan had been careless, and Shangguan Tianque was treacherous. He had long since laid an ambush with a Body Cultivator skilled in swift, deadly combat, which was why Mang Yan had fallen into his trap.
The main reason for this perception was that the Broken Army Sect had strictly blockaded any news about the matter. Furthermore, Li Yan’s attack had been extremely fast, and his sudden appearance seemed premeditated.
At the same time, Liu Huaigu had been unable to find the Guest Elder from the Dragon-Catching Sect who had escaped, so he had no way of verifying Li Yan’s true strength.
Of course, he wasn’t a fool; he wouldn’t completely ignore Li Yan’s role. It was just that he had come out this time for personal revenge and hadn’t notified anyone else from his sect to assist.
Therefore, he had sought out some of his own friends. He felt that concentrating the strength of two people to kill Li Yan would be sufficient, and he and another person would have no problem dealing with Shangguan Tianque.
He speculated that Li Yan would die quickly, and in reality, the plan was for four people to then besiege Shangguan Tianque. The odds of success in such a scenario were undoubtedly extremely high.
Even if they only managed to beat him down until only his Nascent Soul could escape, he would then spread the news. With the Broken Army Sect left with only Ren Yanyu, the other surrounding sects would no longer sit idly by.
It was a series of interconnected plots. Killing Shangguan Tianque was the best outcome, but if he was severely injured, the Broken Army Sect would also be heading towards its demise.
Simultaneously, he also guessed that Shangguan Tianque’s trip to the market this time was to collect medicinal pills or raw materials to break through to the Spirit Transformation Realm. He, of course, also wanted these things; he needed them as well.
Liu Huaigu was not the Grand Elder in the Green Goat Temple, so he couldn’t mobilize all the resources of a sect to gather materials for himself. His personal wealth was still considerably less than Shangguan Tianque’s.
This was especially true after Shangguan Tianque had taken over the Dragon-Catching Sect’s territory and plundered the entire sect’s resources.
Therefore, Liu Huaigu’s plan was to kill his enemy and seize his treasures—killing two birds with one stone.
But just as he had laid out his plans and found his helpers, on the night before the auction began, two masked guests in red robes suddenly arrived at his residence.
Liu Huaigu was alarmed and bewildered by the sudden visit from two strange cultivators. But in the market, he truly wasn’t afraid that they would dare to do anything to him. So, after some consideration, he met with the two of them.
However, the very first thing they said upon meeting immediately put Liu Huaigu on high alert, and his heart skipped a beat in shock.
They stared at Liu Huaigu, and after one of them confirmed his identity, he directly sent him a voice transmission with an unexpected message.
“Fellow Daoist Liu, you’ve been looking for help, haven’t you? Are you planning to deal with Shangguan Tianque and his companion?”
Liu Huaigu was instantly filled with a mix of shock and anger. He had no idea of the origins of these two, who had been secretly following him without his knowledge.
Didn’t that mean that if they wanted to harm him, he would have been completely unaware? How could this not shock and anger him? But his face remained impassive.
“Are you trying to stir up trouble? I don’t know what grudge you have with Shangguan Tianque, but don’t try to test my limits. Hmph!”
In that instant, Liu Huaigu’s mind raced. He thought that these two masked men in red might have been sent by Shangguan Tianque. Had he sensed something was wrong and sent them to test him?
After hearing Liu Huaigu’s words, the masked man in red continued to transmit his voice, his tone unchanging.
“We have come to find Fellow Daoist Liu with sincerity. Otherwise, we could have just told Shangguan Tianque that you were looking for three other people.”
“You were following me? What is your purpose, sir? Please give me an explanation. Besides, I was just looking for some fellow Daoists to catch up. It’s best if you two don’t make such wild accusations!”
This time, Liu Huaigu was truly astonished. The other party had pointed out that they hadn’t told Shangguan Tianque, which meant they really had been following him.
They even knew he had found three people. If it were Shangguan Tianque, he wouldn’t haveわざわざ come to point it out; that would be a warning. He would be thinking of how to get away from him instead.
He could clearly sense the cultivation of the two opposite him; both were Late-stage Nascent Soul cultivators, same as himself. For them to know his movements, their methods were indeed impressive.
“Hehehe, there’s no point in saying more. We share the same goal and sincerely wish to cooperate with Fellow Daoist Liu. That Shangguan Tianque is also our enemy.”
“He’s your enemy?”
Liu Huaigu slowly calmed down, looking at the two before him with suspicion. But it was clear the two were unwilling to explain further.
Afterward, one of the masked men in red revealed some information about Shangguan Tianque, saying that he would likely leave within three to five days after the auction. They also said they were confident they could track the whereabouts of Shangguan Tianque and his companion…
Later, in the soul-search, Shangguan Tianque saw that Liu Huaigu had still not admitted to targeting him and Li Yan, and was constantly trying to sound out the other party.
It was only after the other party promised that after killing him and Li Yan, they would not take any of the treasures and were only seeking revenge, that they left.
Before leaving, they left a final remark: cooperating with them would only benefit Liu Huaigu.
Otherwise, if they were to act on their own, they might attack and kill any approaching cultivator whose intentions seemed unclear.
They told Liu Huaigu to think it over and inform them on the morning of the auction. They would contact him again.
And so, the events that followed led to the current outcome.
“Why do those two masked men in red want to deal with me? They must be backed by at least a Spirit Transformation Almighty, but there are countless such sects in the Immortal Spirit Realm. And as my junior sister and I fought our way here through a storm of blood, we lost count of how many people we killed. Perhaps one of them was the descendant of some powerful expert…”
As Shangguan Tianque transmitted his thoughts to Li Yan and analyzed the situation, Li Yan suddenly spoke up.
“The power behind them is likely not overwhelmingly strong. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have needed to resort to such methods to kill you. They would have just come to your door, which would have been much more direct. The reason for this kind of ambush is possibly because they are wary of the Blood Lantern Sect, and the strongest experts in the Blood Lantern Sect are five Spirit Transformation cultivators…”
Upon hearing this, Shangguan Tianque’s eyes lit up. Li Yan’s analysis was very reasonable. He had been too caught up in the situation, always trying to directly identify who wanted to kill him!
The two of them continued their analysis as they flew swiftly onward.
But they found no further clues. The key was that the cultivation methods of the two dead masked cultivators were of unknown origin.
Moreover, the only storage ring that was left behind, after Li Yan inspected it, contained nothing but a few bottles of medicinal pills and only tens of thousands of mid-grade spirit stones.
This was completely inconsistent with the status of a Late-stage Nascent Soul cultivator.
The two guessed that before these two masked cultivators set out, they must have left their most commonly used magical treasures and the rest of their wealth somewhere else.
Although they might have felt that their mission would not fail, they likely acted on orders or out of caution, ultimately only bringing a few essential items with them.
After examining the few bottles of medicinal pills, Li Yan and Shangguan Tianque determined that three of them likely contained poison, while the other two were fifth-rank pills for replenishing qi and healing injuries, which were still useful for Nascent Soul cultivators.
After identifying them one by one, Shangguan Tianque was also unable to determine the origin of the five bottles of pills.
These pills could be bought at the market for some spirit stones. Since the other party was so cautious, they certainly wouldn’t have left any clues in this regard.
Shangguan Tianque began to try to narrow down the scope to some sects he could remember that he might have once offended, intentionally or not…
In a mountainous area covered with dense forest, a crescent moon now hung high in the sky, and the stars were scattered across the heavens.
In the night, aside from the various chirping of insects coming from the forest, the roars and cries of different demonic beasts echoed in the distance, making the place seem even more profound and mysterious in the quiet darkness.
At the foot of the mountain stood towering trees. These trees were close together, their dense branches and leaves intertwined, almost completely blocking the light of the stars and moon, leaving the ground below in pitch darkness.
The shortest of these giant trees was thirty or forty feet high, while the tallest grew to over two hundred feet.
At this moment, on one of the giant trees that was over a hundred feet tall, a horizontal branch as thick as a man’s waist stretched out to one side. On it sat a person in a cross-legged position.
Beneath the dense foliage, where one couldn’t see their hand in front of their face, his figure was even more integrated with the surroundings, his aura blending in with the environment.
If a cultivator could see his figure clearly, they would be able to tell that he was a tall, slender youth. There were still brown bloodstains on his robes.
He had been here for nearly two days. If the person he was waiting for didn’t arrive after one more day, he would leave directly.
But at this moment, his closed eyes suddenly snapped open. On the distant mountain top, a ball of light emitting a hazy white glow was rapidly descending.
Then, two figures were revealed within the white light. Before they had even landed, two discreet Divine Senses had already spread out in all directions.
The youth sitting cross-legged on the tree’s eyes lit up, a look of disbelief in their depths. In his heart, he had actually not held much hope. All that was left was the thought of giving it one last try.
In his view, it would be fortunate if even one of the two had managed to escape with their Nascent Soul. And if only their Nascent Soul remained, they wouldn’t have come here at all. They might even fear that he would harm their Nascent Soul.
The youth still had no intention of revealing himself immediately. Instead, he observed quietly from the shadows. He was afraid it was a trap set by the enemy. There were some illusion arts that he couldn’t be sure he could see through.
The youth had also gone through a bitter struggle to finally shake off the pursuit of two cultivators of the same rank. He had been injured in the process, and similarly, one of the two opponents had been severely wounded, while the other had become wary of him.
But the youth didn’t dare to pursue the opponent either, fearing that a Late-stage Nascent Soul cultivator might come after him.
“Hehehe, Fellow Daoist Donglin, come on out!”
Shangguan Tianque’s voice came from the mountain top. He didn’t want to waste any more time searching…
A hundred breaths later, the White Jade Skiff streaked across the sky like a white light, flying at extreme speed. On the skiff, Donglin Tingyue, who had transformed into a handsome youth, was still sizing up the two of them.
After confirming their identities earlier, Shangguan Tianque had only briefly explained that they had both managed to escape after great difficulty in shaking off their opponents.
As for the means of escape, every cultivator had their own trump cards. Although Donglin Tingyue was very curious, it was not appropriate for her to press the matter.
“Were all those people helpers found by Liu Huaigu?”
“That should be correct,” Shangguan Tianque said. He was also very impressed that Donglin Tingyue had managed to escape the encirclement of two Nascent Soul cultivators of the same rank. However, the Donglin Family was skilled in the way of beast taming, so she must have had a spirit beast with considerable combat power on her.
His relationship with the Grand Elder of her clan was quite good. If Donglin Tingyue had perished, he would have had to make a personal trip to explain the situation to avoid any misunderstanding between their two families.
“By the way, those two masked men in red seemed very mysterious. Could you tell their origins? After all, those were two Late-stage Great Cultivators. We still need to be careful on our journey ahead.”
Donglin Tingyue said, seemingly casually.
“Neither Elder Li nor I could tell. However, one of them was controlling a Blood Jade Spider-Snake…”
Shangguan Tianque, of course, also wanted to know the origins of those two. Hearing Donglin Tingyue’s question, his heart stirred, and he began to describe them.
He wanted to see if she could discover anything through the demonic beast.
He didn’t mention that they had already killed these people. He didn’t know who was plotting against him, so for now, the fewer people who knew, the better.
As for the news of Liu Huaigu’s death, it would eventually get out. Donglin Tingyue would probably guess the real reason then, but that was a matter for the future.
After he had described the opponent’s cultivation techniques, Donglin Tingyue pondered for a while before finally shaking her head.
“In my memory, I do know of some cultivators who control the Blood Jade Spider-Snake, but I have never seen a cultivator who integrates their Divine Sense with their spirit beast in such a way. Besides, I haven’t been in the Nascent Soul realm for that long. I only know of this person, Liu Huaigu, but I’m not very familiar with him, so I can’t deduce any further information from him!”
At this point, Donglin Tingyue also seemed to be lost in thought.
Shangguan Tianque and Li Yan only exchanged a glance at this. The power behind the masked man in red was formidable. Since they had planned for everything, it was only normal that Donglin Tingyue couldn’t see through their ruse.
On the rest of their journey, the three of them became even more cautious. Shangguan Tianque wasn’t just putting on a show for Donglin Tingyue.
After discussing with Li Yan, he felt that even if Liu Huaigu was dead, the person behind the masked man in red might still set up another ambush.
Therefore, this time they avoided their original route and took a large detour, spending more than twenty days before finally entering the territory of the Broken Army Sect.
It was only when the three of them had truly flown into the sect’s grand formation that they all let out a long sigh of relief and revealed their true faces.
Afterward, Shangguan Tianque hastily arranged for Donglin Tingyue’s residence before leaving with a frosty-faced Ren Yanyu.
When Ren Yanyu heard that Liu Huaigu of the Green Goat Temple had ambushed them, she had immediately wanted to go to his door. But Shangguan Tianque first comforted her with a few words, then took her away to explain further.
The man was already dead. If you still go to his door, aren’t you just asking to make a powerful enemy?
He had also made up his mind. Before he advanced to the Spirit Transformation Realm, he would definitely not admit to this matter.
Even if two of the cultivators had escaped, from the information obtained from the soul-search, those two had no idea of the masked men’s origins.
Plus, his side had been weaker at the time, and the ambushers had all concealed their faces. If someone jumped out and said it was his doing, then Shangguan Tianque would definitely report it to the Blood Lantern Sect. So it was you, Green Goat Temple, who was behind this?
He and Li Yan had just barely escaped and were about to settle the score, and you just admitted it.
And in the end, who knew where Liu Huaigu and the masked men in red had gone?
After the three arrived at the Broken Army Sect, Donglin Tingyue, perhaps out of consideration for face, felt it was not appropriate to immediately ask the exhausted Li Yan to set out again.
Therefore, she would probably stay for a few days before leaving with Li Yan.
As for Li Yan, he hastily greeted Ren Yanyu, whispered a few words to Donglin Tingyue, and then returned to his cave residence to check his spoils!