After finishing his business, Li Guanqi followed the fellow back to the dormitory.
Once settled in bed, Li Guanqi waited a moment before quietly pulling out some sleeping incense and lighting it in the room.
Before long, the breathing of everyone in the room settled into a steady, rhythmic cadence.
Changing into the night-travel garb he had prepared earlier, Li Guanqi slipped silently out of the room.
Along the way, he leaped onto the roof of a covered corridor, dodging two passing patrol squads.
These guards possessed modest cultivation at best. With his Breath Concealment Art running, even cultivators of the same realm would struggle to detect his presence, let alone these men.
Arriving outside the perimeter wall, Li Guanqi stayed in the shadows, clinging to the brickwork like a gecko before vaulting over into the adjacent compound.
This courtyard had few guards—only two patrols stationed near the gate.
Undetected, Li Guanqi vaulted onto the roof and flattened himself against the tiles.
The pitch-black night served as his best shield. Lying there, he chose not to move any of the roof tiles.
The tiles were tightly fitted; nudging even a single one would produce a noticeable noise.
Besides, Fang Zhongnan's detached residence sat fairly close to Fang Yishan's courtyard. If he were caught, escaping would prove difficult.
Treading carefully along the roof's edge, he bent low and pressed an ear against the tiles.
Yet what he heard made his face burn red.
Those sounds...
Judging by the woman's voice, she had to be quite young.
Yet to his knowledge, Fang Zhongnan's legal wife was already in her forties.
Even if she retained her youthful charm, this still felt wrong!
At the thought, Li Guanqi's sea of consciousness hummed, and his divine sense quietly seeped through the roof tiles like a rising tide.
At the same time, he pulled out a shadow-casting stone to record whatever unfolded.
Soon, everything within the room came clearly into view.
Behind a decorative screen in the bedchamber, two figures were tangled together.
The man was none other than Fang Yishan's younger brother—the second master of Changfeng Villa, Fang Zhongnan.
Changfeng Villa possessed five Core Formation cultivators. The consecrated elder who had guarded Fang Hao had already died by Li Guanqi's hand.
That left four: Fang Yishan, whose true strength remained unknown, followed by Fang Zhongnan and his father, both at the middle Core Formation realm, along with another consecrated elder.
Yet the woman visible behind the sheer bed-curtains was clearly not Fang Zhongnan's wife.
*A concubine?* he wondered.
While he was still pondering their relationship, Fang Zhongnan's voice rang out inside the room.
"Hahahaha! Whatever he has, I have too!"
"Who's better, me or my elder brother?! Speak!"
A delicate, breathy female voice soon answered.
"Of course... it's the Second Master!"
Li Guanqi's eyes widened. That phrasing...
Something felt horribly amiss!
What kind of relationship did this woman have with Fang Yishan?
Li Guanqi looked at the shadow-casting stone in his hand with a twinge of regret, knowing it could only capture images, not sound.
Just as he was recording and turning the thought over in his mind—
Suddenly!
*Swoosh!*
A shrill, abrupt whistle tore through the air!
With no time to think, Li Guanqi tilted his head sideways by sheer instinct!
A thread of sword qi zipped past his ear, shredding his veil to ribbons!
*Something's wrong!*
*How could he possess that kind of perception?!*
Li Guanqi was thoroughly alarmed. In the span of a spark, three more strands of sword qi shot outward!
*Bang!*
Pushing off with his feet, Li Guanqi sprang into the sky, twisting and shifting directions several times midair to evade all three strikes.
Pushing his speed to the absolute limit, he darted sideways!
He could already see Fang Zhongnan throwing on an outer robe, poised to burst out at any second!
In that desperate instant, Li Guanqi whipped out a random teleportation talisman he had taken from Yu Heng's group.
Surging his primal energy, Li Guanqi was instantly engulfed by a flash of radiance and vanished without a trace.
*Crash!*
The roof shattered, and a figure bolted upward from the room!
Clad only in an undergarment and gripping a longsword, Fang Zhongnan leaped into the air, his expression dark with fury!
The murderous intent in his eyes nearly spilled over.
Yet when he reached the open air, only faint spatial fluctuations lingered. Not a shred of the intruder's aura remained.
Shouts immediately echoed across the entire estate.
The pitch-black villa suddenly blazed with lantern light, and countless patrol squads rushed toward Fang Zhongnan's compound.
Yet Fang Zhongnan forbade anyone from stepping inside, as there was still someone left in his bedchamber.
Squinting into the darkness around him, Fang Zhongnan let out a cold snort and barked an order. "Search the villa thoroughly! See if there are any suspicious individuals!"
The commotion naturally drew Fang Yishan's attention as well!
Despite the late hour, the lavishly dressed Fang Yishan looked sharp and full of vigor, his gaze piercing.
Because of this, his features carried a naturally aggressive edge.
Stepping through the air, Fang Yishan looked at the disheveled man before him, his appraising gaze gradually drifting toward Fang Zhongnan's residence.
Tilting his head, he chuckled coldly. "Second Brother, you certainly have fine leisure. You still have the mood for this at an hour like this?"
Fang Zhongnan offered no explanation, but his body subconsciously shifted, placing itself between Fang Yishan and the courtyard.
Though his face remained calm, a faint, almost imperceptible flicker of tension flashed deep within his eyes.
Fang Yishan merely assumed his irresponsible younger brother was indulging his usual profligate habits. Retracting his gaze, he pressed no further.
Looking at Fang Zhongnan, he asked in a deep voice, "Well? What happened?"
While they were speaking, Fang Zhongnan's father, Fang Jin, along with another elder in luxurious robes, flew over through the air.
Fang Jin was the very elder who had urged patience in the main hall earlier. He cast a single glance at Fang Zhongnan and said nothing.
Fang Zhongnan then recounted what had occurred, naturally omitting the part everyone already knew without saying.
Fang Yishan's brow furrowed tightly as he listened, a glint of murderous intent flashing in his eyes.
*Could the Great Xia Sword Sect have sent someone?* he wondered.
*No, that doesn't make sense... Given the sect's current power, if they dispatched someone, it would be a mighty Nascent Soul realm cultivator.*
*Someone of that caliber wouldn't sneak around like this—and this aura was clearly in the Core Formation realm...*
Looking up at his brother, Fang Yishan asked, "You're saying... their aura was erratic, and you couldn't pin down their exact realm?"
Fang Zhongnan nodded, wanting nothing more than to send them all away as quickly as possible.
Seeing that he could extract little else, Fang Yishan instructed the guards to intensify their patrols, then turned and left in a hurry.
Meanwhile, in a lady's bedchamber in a separate courtyard less than a hundred yards away, beneath a pink quilt—
Li Guanqi was clamping one hand over a woman's mouth while tensely sensing the auras outside!
Beneath the covers, the woman felt panicked, but far more than that, her face burned with a deep crimson flush.
Because the hand of the fellow lying atop her was pressed firmly against... well, a place it had no business touching!
Chapter 213