Dropping All Pretense

As Meng Jiangchu listened to his analysis, shock surfaced in his eyes. "How do you know there are three people behind all this?" Li Guanqi remained silent. With a wave of his hand, over a thousand vast go boards materialized around them! The densely packed boards filled almost the entire surrounding thousand-zhang radius. Looking grave, Li Guanqi murmured in a low voice, "Because... their styles on the board are completely different... "If it were the chess player behind Cang Lu, they would have used any means necessary to make Gu Yong kill me! "Because as long as I die, that mastermind achieves their goal. "The one behind Lu Wuhen is far more cautious, but their objective would never be the Tianji Chart on me either! "And as for the one behind Gu Yong... this is their first move." Even Meng Jiangchu was profoundly shaken upon hearing Li Guanqi's words. After living through so much, Meng Jiangchu had also vaguely sensed that the enemies targeting Li Guanqi possessed terrifying power. That power even surpassed that of so-called domain lords like them, and the methods deployed against Li Guanqi were incomprehensible even to him. Be it Cang Lu from before, or Li Shenzhi whom Li Guanqi had mentioned. Li Guanqi had only a vague, inexplicable intuition, yet he still dared not let his guard down in the slightest. As he spoke, Li Guanqi took a deep breath and murmured softly, "No matter. Since the other party didn't intend to strike at me directly, we'll leave it at that for now." Meng Jiangchu frowned. "Then do you mean the current Gu Yong is no longer himself?" Li Guanqi shook his head and said in a heavy voice, "I can't say for certain about that either... "He doesn't resemble Cang Lu, nor does he resemble Li Shenzhi... but I can sense that Gu Yong is no longer the Gu Yong of old. "At the very least, his mindset toward certain matters is no longer his own. "He is no fool. To some degree, he must know my identity, as well as even deeper secrets. "Yet despite that, he still risked snatching the Tianji Chart. Thinking carefully about what lies behind this... it is truly chilling." Meng Jiangchu nodded with a solemn expression and asked in a low tone, "Then what do you plan to do next?" Li Guanqi pondered for a moment before replying softly, "I'm not sure either... Perhaps I should head back to see how things are." Meng Jiangchu nodded, looked into Li Guanqi's eyes, and said softly, "Do you want me to forge another sword for you?" Li Guanqi raised the dead branch in his hand and smiled. "There's no need to trouble you, Father-in-law. I can treat it as a form of tempering for myself." The man smiled and said quietly, "Occasional secluded cultivation is necessary, as it allows your mind and spirit to settle. "Pausing your steps for a bit is no bad thing." After Meng Jiangchu departed, Li Guanqi stood alone in the void, remaining silent for a long time. Recalling his first meeting with Gu Yong and the many events that followed, the scenes of them dropping all pretense and turning against each other were difficult for him to accept for the moment. When he took the initiative to come to Tianji Pavilion to seek out Gu Yong, he had arrived fully prepared to yield a step. From the very beginning, he had never intended for Guanyun Pavilion to expand into a power that could contend with Tianji Pavilion, which had been deeply entrenched in the Six Domains for thousands of years. Yet in their earlier conversation, Gu Yong had pressed him at every turn! Although Li Guanqi held respect for his elders in his heart, there were times when... blind weakness only invited others to push further. Li Guanqi's eyes shifted slightly. Then, his figure concealed itself within the pitch-black void interlayer. Flipping his hand, he produced a blank jade slip. Under the surge of his tempestuous divine sense, a purple speck of light soon emerged within the slip! The corner of Li Guanqi's mouth curved into a cold sneer, his voice chilling. "Since you wanted the Tianji Chart so badly, you'd better hold onto it tightly!" As he spoke, Li Guanqi placed his hands behind his back and vanished from the spot in an instant. And that speck of light in his jade slip was none other than the current location of the Tianji Domain! Though faint, it was enough to pin down its general position. If Gu Yong truly posed a great threat to him, he would not mind gathering forces to wipe him out! However, not knowing whether the person behind Gu Yong was friend or foe, he could not act rashly for the time being. The reason he could pinpoint the location of the Tianji Domain was entirely due to the former Master of the Purple Tower, Shen Feng. If not to leave a trace within Shen Feng's body, he would not have gone to such great lengths to suppress him. As for the Tianji Chart... Heh. It bore the power of Spirit Absolution; unless Gu Yong could find a spiritual entity even stronger than the sword spirit to forcibly unravel the threads of Spirit Absolution, he would never succeed! Indeed, matters turned out just as Li Guanqi had anticipated. After shifting the Tianji Domain away from its original location, Gu Yong could hardly wait to unfurl the Tianji Chart. Yet when he tried to open it, he discovered countless red threads bound tightly around it, making it impossible to force open! If he attempted to force it open, the Tianji Chart would inevitably be destroyed! "Damn it! He actually kept such a trick up his sleeve?!" "The power of this seal... isn't quite right..." Gu Yong's head felt as if it were about to burst. In his perception, even as a Mahayana realm cultivator, he had no idea where to begin against the threads of Spirit Absolution laid down by Li Guanqi... The old man's eyes flickered. With a helpless sigh, he flipped his hand and stowed the Tianji Chart away. Song Yunshu flashed over to the old man's side, her beautiful eyes red and swollen from crying. The young woman stood stubbornly before him, staring straight into his eyes as her voice trembled. "Why?" Gu Yong looked at his beloved granddaughter, yet his voice was as calm as ever. "Why what?" Song Yunshu's tone grew noticeably sharper as she demanded furiously, "Why did you have to push things with him to this point?!" Gu Yong turned slowly and glanced at the Tianji Tower, which had been cleft in two. With an inexplicable, complex emotion in his voice, he said slowly, "You don't understand." With that, the old man paused briefly and murmured softly, "Nor do you need to." His figure gradually faded into midair as his chilling voice spread in all directions. "From this moment forth, devour Guanyun Pavilion on all fronts!" As his words fell, the masters of the four towers all bowed with trembling eyes and chorused their compliance. In the midst of the void, Li Guanqi suddenly halted his steps. Drawing out his Guanyun jade pendant, he saw light flashing intensely across its surface. Xi Yunhuai's somber, anxious voice rang out from within the pendant: "Pavilion Master, nearly every clan and power in possession of a Tianji jade pendant has received a list revealing the identities of Guanyun Pavilion's covert operatives! "Our operatives embedded within those clans and factions... we've lost contact with nearly all of them simultaneously." Li Guanqi's face darkened like stagnant water, and he murmured under his breath, "Moving this fast, are they..." Thoughts flashed through Li Guanqi's mind at lightning speed. He commanded in a chilled tone, "Transmit a message to all the clans and factions through Guanyun Pavilion's intelligence department. "If any party demands compensation, Guanyun Pavilion is willing to pay the price to preserve our operatives' lives. "Second, we can withdraw all our covert operatives and negotiate with these factions to establish normal cooperative relations with Guanyun Pavilion and share intelligence. "Guanyun Pavilion can purchase this intelligence with spirit stones, provided... it is exclusive to us!"