Three Chess Players!

Hum! Whoosh! Whoosh! Meng Jiangchu appeared beside Li Guanqi in an instant, the green flames of five hungry ghosts blazing as if to incinerate the heavens. His expression grave, the man surveyed Li Guanqi. Frowning after examining his surroundings, he asked in a cold voice, "What happened?" Meng Jiangchu inquired softly as he took in Li Guanqi's ghastly pale complexion. Beside them, Zhou Yunqing frowned as well. Evidently, he too had been unable to locate Tianji Pavilion. Li Guanqi shook his head, his mouth slightly agape as he stared at Meng Jiangchu, his eyes still brimming with utter disbelief at Gu Yong's actions. He waved a hand and said quietly, "It's nothing now. I'm sorry to have troubled you and Senior Zhou to make the trip for nothing, Father-in-law." Zhou Yunqing chuckled softly. "No matter. It was no trouble at all. It just so happens I can drop by the Shenbao Domain for a stroll." Yet Meng Jiangchu keenly sensed that Li Guanqi was in a foul mood. Something unpleasant must have transpired inside Tianji Pavilion. Otherwise, Li Guanqi would never have unleashed his full power and pushed his aura to its absolute limit. In that brief instant earlier, the aura Li Guanqi had displayed was enough to pose a modest threat even to an early Mahayana realm cultivator. And one had to remember that Li Guanqi was only holding a withered branch... Meng Jiangchu frowned, suddenly fixing his gaze on the branch in Li Guanqi's hand. He realized it was merely a dead branch snapped from an ordinary willow tree. It was not a branch from some ancient, heavenly-tier spirit tree at all... "Where is your sword?" Li Guanqi touched his nose in slight embarrassment and murmured, "Something happened. I can't use a sword right now." Meng Jiangchu rolled his eyes in annoyance and muttered under his breath, "Neither of you wretched brats ever gives me a moment's peace!" Li Guanqi quickly asked, "Father-in-law, how has Wanshu been lately?" Meng Jiangchu sighed and answered softly, "She's fine. Ever since she went to the Beiming Glacier in the Ethereal Immortal Domain, she has only sent me a single message the entire year—just to let me know she's safe, and nothing more." Zhou Yunqing listened in dazed surprise. He knew Meng Jiangchu's daughter had left the Shenbao Domain, but he had no idea where she had gone. Noticing the flicker in their eyes, Zhou Yunqing could tell the two wanted to speak privately. He turned and smiled. "Since nothing is amiss, I'll be taking my leave." Li Guanqi hurriedly bowed in respect. "Junior offers his heartfelt gratitude to Senior for rushing to my aid." Carrying himself with dignified grace, the man nodded with a smile and turned to depart. "When you have time in the future, come visit Uncle Zhou's territory." Li Guanqi smiled. "Most certainly!" Once the man was gone, Meng Jiangchu's expression instantly darkened. He said coldly, "Did Gu Yong make a move against you?" A strange glint flashed in Li Guanqi's eyes. Raising a hand, he cleanly severed the void surrounding the two of them from the outside world. Seeing how solemn Li Guanqi was, Meng Jiangchu understood that what was about to be said was not meant for prying ears. With a flick of his sleeve, heavenly flame rose with the wind, forming a terrifying fiery barrier ten zhang across around them. Li Guanqi stared unblinkingly at Meng Jiangchu, his voice dropping into a solemn, heavy cadence. "Do you know where Gu Yong made his breakthrough back then?" Meng Jiangchu furrowed his brow and shook his head. "No. An event of such magnitude is rarely disclosed to anyone. "Besides, he must have spent a long time preparing his seclusion grounds. "Without absolute certainty, ordinary cultivators wouldn't dare rush blindly into a breakthrough. So no one knew the location where he broke through." At this point, Meng Jiangchu could not help but add, "Even his granddaughter Song Yunshu wouldn't know the slightest detail. Neither did the former masters of the Four Towers—including Ji Yuchuan!" Hearing Meng Jiangchu speak with such certainty, Li Guanqi felt even more confident in his theory. Even so, there were still things he could not confirm. Meng Jiangchu frowned and asked in a low voice, "Why are you asking about this? What happened in there?" Li Guanqi organized his thoughts before speaking softly. "Gu Yong and I have fallen out. The feud between Guanyun Pavilion and Tianji Pavilion will likely be brought out into the open. "Gu Yong... seized my Tianji Chart. "He didn't strike at me directly, but had I refused to hand it over, there is no telling what would have happened." The more Meng Jiangchu listened, the more confused he became. His brow knitted into a deep knot as he asked in bewilderment, "The Tianji Chart? Don't they have a replica? Why would he rob you of the original? "Furthermore, with Gu Yong's intellect, unless he possessed a death wish, he would never make a move against you! "It isn't as though he is ignorant of the world. He has been to the Seventh Domain!" Li Guanqi took a deep breath, slowly exhaling a turbid breath before saying chillingly, "It is precisely because of that that his behavior is so unnatural! "Earlier, Ji Yuchuan told me that Gu Yong had approached him more than once wanting to borrow the Tianji Chart. "Every time, Ji Yuchuan brushed him off under the pretext of lacking the authority to make such a decision. "From the looks of it... the Tianji Chart must hold some secret that none of us know about." Pausing briefly, Li Guanqi looked up at Meng Jiangchu and voiced an extremely bold conjecture from the depths of his mind. "I suspect..." "The Gu Yong who returned after breaking through back then... was never Gu Yong at all!" Meng Jiangchu's pupils quivered. Staring into Li Guanqi's eyes, he asked in a trembling voice, "Do you have any idea what you're saying? "How... how could that be possible?!" Li Guanqi looked at the man, hesitating for a long moment before finally speaking. Squinting, he murmured softly, "Father-in-law, if you knew my entire past, you would know that there were times when I seemed overly suspicious, striking out and killing people without apparent rhyme or reason! "Back during He Yuning's incident, it was all to hunt down a fellow named Cang Lu. Yet even he was merely a miniscule clone belonging to the mastermind behind the curtain. "Later... Li Shenzhi, a disciple of the Mirror Pavilion in the Luoxia Domain, was a close friend I met not long after stepping onto the path of cultivation. I killed him too. "Because he was also a puppet dancing on strings, even if he didn't realize it himself! "Thus, the enemy I have had to face all along has never been anyone from the Human Spirit Realm, but..." Li Guanqi slowly tilted his head and pointed a finger toward the sky! Yet the man before him looked as though he had known all along, showing not the slightest hint of surprise. This caught Li Guanqi off guard, leaving him somewhat baffled as to why Meng Jiangchu had accepted his claim so readily. Meng Jiangchu shook his head with a bitter smile. "Once you reach the Mahayana realm, you will understand." The man did not reveal much about the Seventh Domain. Shifting the topic, Meng Jiangchu frowned. "So you suspect that ever since Gu Yong returned from his breakthrough, he hasn't been himself? "You mean... someone behind the scenes is controlling him?" Li Guanqi forced a bitter smile. "The crux of the matter is that there is more than one upper realm chess player I can detect right now! "There is one behind Cang Lu... "There was another behind Lu Wuhen when the ancient Lu clan emerged and issued the wagered arena battle against the Great Xia Sword Sect! "And now... the one behind Gu Yong should be yet another person entirely! "I've even suspected that the figure behind the Sha organization might be the very same one manipulating Cang Lu..."