High in the night sky above the ancient official road hung a full moon. Its clear, cicada-wing-thin light drifted down over the scarred and battered mountain trail.
Collapsed woods,
an overturned carriage,
corpses of guards strewn across the ground,
and soil soaked through with blood.
This was an ambush, a slaughter straight out of a bandit ambush.
Only this ambush had wreaked considerably more devastation upon the terrain, and the perpetrators were no lawless outlaws, but several officials of the Secret Investigation Bureau clad in reddish-brown robes.
As a white light lanced through the dense woods, the shockwave of a violent explosion set the earth trembling.
Once everything returned to silence,
*Thump.*
A muffled sound suddenly came from within the carriage overturned beside the road. The latch on the carriage door was kicked open from the inside, and a young master in brocade robes crawled out with great difficulty.
He appeared severely wounded. He tried to prop himself up, but failed, and could only slump weakly against the side of the carriage.
Looking at the corpses of the guards all around, the brocade-robed young master's gaze finally settled on a female corpse.
She had been beautiful, but the lower half of her body now hung from a tree not far away.
Ah... So his personal guard was dead too.
Recalling the ceaseless days and nights of skin-to-skin intimacy since their escape, an involuntary smile flitted across the young master's bloodstained lips, followed by a sigh.
He reached into his breast pocket, drew out a wooden case, took out a rolled cigarette, and lit it with a fire striker.
*Fsssh.*
Taking a deep drag, he felt the tobacco linger in his lungs and exhaled a long breath. Through the drifting smoke, his eyes fell upon the person walking toward him.
It was a woman—a woman wielding a broadsword.
Dressed in the uniform of a Secret Investigation Bureau commandant, her long ponytail swayed behind her head. The chill breeze stirred, outlining her graceful, alluring curves. The blade of the broadsword in her jade-like hand dripped crimson blood, glistening with a cold sheen beneath the moonlight.
*Tap.*
*Tap.*
Her steps were slow and measured, her sharp gaze radiating a chilling intent to kill.
Ten zhang.
Five zhang.
One zhang.
She stopped. Their gazes locked.
The brocade-robed young master suddenly grinned with utter indifference. "To think you managed to catch up with me even after all that. The Secret Investigation Bureau really is something."
Xu Mengxi stared at Qin Weishu before her, not letting her guard down for an instant. Leveling her blade, she pointed the razor tip straight at his throat from a distance. "Spare me the nonsense. Where is it? Even if I were to kill you right here and now, the Immortal Minister Pavilion wouldn't dare raise a peep."
The brocade-robed young master puffed on his cigarette without a word.
Amidst the silence,
A flash of cold light erupted without warning. A hand holding the cigarette between two fingers went flying into the air, spraying hot blood beneath the moonlight.
Listening to the cicadas' midsummer drone, the young master sucked in a sharp breath. Watching blood gush from his neatly severed wrist, cold sweat beaded on his forehead. Gritting his teeth, he looked up and said word by word, "You couldn't even give me the time to finish a single cigarette?"
Murderous intent burned in Xu Mengxi's eyes. "Don't think about playing any tricks."
Hearing this, the brocade-robed young master sighed. Glancing with furrowed brows at his severed hand, he suddenly chuckled. "Lady, my dantian has been crippled. What kind of tricks could I possibly play?"
"If you don't want to die, answer my question immediately."
"Die? Commandant Xu, before setting out on this journey, I had already prepared myself for death."
"Is that so?" Xu Mengxi looked at his slightly trembling frame with disdain. "Then I will simply have to subject Young Master Qin to some torture."
As she spoke, she stepped forward, her eyes frosty. "You pampered fops always talk big, but once the torture actually begins, every single one of you screams louder than the last."
Watching the woman approach, the young master let out a soft sigh. "Can't we talk a bit before you start torturing me?"
Xu Mengxi reversed her grip on the saber and pulled a pair of Source-Locking Shackles from her waist. "I have nothing to say to someone like you."
Seeing this, the brocade-robed young master merely smiled softly and began speaking on his own:
"I loved Fei Qing very much, but she was just killed by you."
Xu Mengxi manipulated qi from afar to snap the shackles around his ankles, casting him a cold glance. "That female Grandmaster guard?"
"Yes, that's her. The one you joined forces to blast in half."
"Laughable. Your so-called love was copulating with her in front of others?"
"Heh... I certainly have no such penchant. But the Young Master loved flogging her right in front of me, simply because he discovered my feelings for Fei Qing. Rather twisted, wouldn't you say?"
"..." Xu Mengxi's pupils abruptly contracted.
"You seem shocked?"
Seeing her reaction, the young master smiled slightly and said, "Understandable. I was raised as the Young Master's body double. Ever since childhood, I observed and studied his every gesture, sharing the same face, cultivating the same arts, and practicing the same martial techniques. Let alone an outsider like you, even Fei Qing, the Young Master's personal maidservant, couldn't tell the difference between him and me."
Xu Mengxi's hand trembled on the hilt of her saber—trembling with fury.
The intelligence they had obtained at the cost of a comrade's life was actually fake.
Glancing at her with a smile, the young master looked up at the starlit sky and murmured, "As for me... more than once did I dream of pulling off a substitution, replacing the Young Master once and for all. But sadly, between him and a lowly commoner like me, there was a difference like heaven and earth after all. I could never comprehend the Dao charm he possessed."
Xu Mengxi took a deep breath, resting her hand firmly on the hilt. "What are you trying to say with all this?"
"I had no choice before. Now, I want to live for myself."
"..." Xu Mengxi remained silent.
The young master looked straight into Xu Mengxi's eyes, his tone deadly serious:
"I cannot comprehend the Dao charm he possessed, which meant that once he broke through to Grandmaster, an obsolete shadow like me could vanish completely from this world.
"And so, I am truly grateful to whoever crippled the Young Master's dantian.
"Without a dantian, one cannot wield Dao charm. That prompted the Qin family to put a useless tool like me back to work. Though my dantian has now been crippled as well, it bought me this chance to live for myself.
"You need not worry either, Commandant Xu. I will offer a price that satisfies you.
"After all, as the Young Master's double, I was privy to quite a few of the Qin family's secrets."
As his words fell, the wrecked clearing lapsed into a brief silence.
Xu Mengxi weighed the truth of his claims, while the brocade-robed young master used a strip of cloth from his robe to bind his severed wrist in crude bandaging.
Amidst their silence,
A burly man quietly landed behind Xu Mengxi. Seeing her frowning in thought, he asked, "Mengxi?"
Xu Mengxi looked back at the sound. Seeing who had arrived, she immediately asked, "Brother Huang, are things settled on your end?"
Huang Shiwei shook his head slightly. "That Origin Realm cultivator fled on his own regardless of Second Young Master Qin. It wasn't wise for me to pursue too deeply."
With that, he glanced at the one-handed "Qin Weishu" and asked, "What is going on here?"
Xu Mengxi briefly summarized what the "shadow" had just said and asked softly, "Brother Huang, do you think his words are credible?"
"..."
Huang Shiwei listened carefully, his imposing countenance impassive, his sword-like brows knitting together, his fierce eyes solemn.
After pondering for a while, Huang Shiwei said in a deep voice, "Regardless of whether he is telling the truth, lock him up. Send him secretly to the nearest provincial Secret Investigation Bureau branch, and once—"
Halfway through the sentence, Huang Shiwei abruptly halted, his eyes instantly turning grim.
Seeing this, Xu Mengxi's eyes widened in realization.
In that split-second exchange of glances,
Xu Mengxi suddenly realized something amiss.
The Qin family would never leave behind such an amateur blunder.
Even if they fled, they would undoubtedly silence their witnesses.
As for the method of silencing...
Would they poison the shadow, or lay a devastating trap to inflict casualties on them?
Even as the thought crossed her mind, Xu Mengxi suddenly felt the qi dynamic around Brother Huang erupt. He seized her wrist, his voice ringing in her ear:
"Mengxi, you must learn to be flexible."
"..."
Hearing those words, an anxious expression gripped Xu Mengxi. Before she could speak, a colossal force sent her world spinning as she was hurled away!
Her slender figure instantly tore through the air, shooting up into the starlit night sky.
Having done that, Huang Shiwei slammed his foot into the ground, hurtling toward the carriage.
Yet the very instant he made contact with the "shadow," a dazzling white light burst forth from within the carriage beneath them—
A Source Crystal bomb.
"..."
"..."
"..."
When the smoke and dust cleared, everything returned to stillness once more.
A cleanly cleaved crater over twenty zhang across lay gouged into the woods. The surrounding forest had been snapped and flattened like dry weeds by the immense shockwave.
Her slender silhouette stood suspended in midair, fists clenched, staring at the epicenter of the explosion.
Yet the familiar, burly figure of the man and that shadow were nowhere to be seen...
"What on earth was the point of going through all that trouble to put on such a show?"
Several hundred zhang away in a dense forest, two men stood facing each other.
Leaning against a tree trunk with his arms crossed, a slender, tall man appraised the somewhat battered burly man before him. His effeminate voice carried a hint of bafflement. "Deliberately putting on a show for that girl? Though even after you died, she didn't even cry. Tsk, tsk..."
Huang Shiwei tossed the unconscious "shadow" onto the ground. Taking out an ointment from his Sumeru ring, he applied it to his wounds and said in a deep voice, "Mengxi has never been the type of girl to cry. Besides, someone from the Qin family was likely watching just now as well."
Si Zijing's thin lips curved slightly. "To make the Qin family drop their guard? Heh... With you dead, the person in charge of the Secret Investigation Bureau becomes Xu Mengxi. And since she detests our Prime Minister's Manor, the Qin family will probably try to use that to drive quite a few wedges between us."
At this point,
Si Zijing sighed softly and teased, "Sigh, looks like I'll have to figure out how to deal with that troublesome woman down the road. But how do you plan on explaining this to her later?"
"There is no need to explain. She can figure it out on her own."
Having tended to his own injuries, Huang Shiwei began treating the critically injured, unconscious "shadow." His voice remained calm and steady. "Now that I am 'dead,' handling things will be much easier. Furthermore, this 'shadow' might prove useful at a critical juncture."
Si Zijing shrugged and reminded him, "Fine, but make sure you don't trust him too much. Believing thirty percent of what a shadow says is plenty. Don't end up capsizing in a ditch."
"Whether he is lying or not is irrelevant."
Huang Shiwei hauled up the "shadow" and stood, suddenly asking, "Where should I rendezvous with the Eldest Young Master?"
Si Zijing thought back for a moment and whispered, "When we made contact ten days ago, he seemed to be at the Heavenly Master Manor. Where he is now, I can't confirm. After all, the Eldest Young Master is tailing Qin Weishu's group, and we can't dictate Qin Weishu's movements."
In this operation, the two major intelligence agencies—the Secret Investigation Bureau and the Black Scale Guards—were collaborating fully. However, they had to ensure that the Secret Investigation Bureau wouldn't obtain core secrets, so they split into two routes.
One route had the Eldest Young Master personally tailing Qin Weishu himself.
The other route had Huang Shiwei leading the Secret Investigation Bureau's people into the decoy set by the Qin family.
This "shadow" was an unexpected bonus.
Hearing this, Huang Shiwei frowned slightly. After a moment of contemplation, he said in a low voice, "Then let it be so. Once I finish what is at hand, I will go to Zhenxi Manor to await the Eldest Young Master."
With that,
Huang Shiwei carried the "shadow" toward the depths of the dense forest. Yet just as he reached the shadows beyond the moonlight's reach, he suddenly paused.
Seeing this, Si Zijing glanced at the burly man's back and found it amusing. "Go on with peace of mind. I'll make sure to watch over your Commandant Xu. After all, Lady Lou Ji has gone to Wanyao Valley, so I have nowhere to verify whether what you said earlier was true or false."
***
Dragon Burial Valley.
Looking at the stacks of top-tier artifact-crafting materials butchered from the demon dragon inside the karst cave, Xu Yuan couldn't help but marvel at the immense depth of the Overseeing Heaven Pavilion's heritage.
If wealth and resources determined the thickness of a faction's foundation, then the accumulation of time dictated its breadth.
Take right now, for instance.
The reason Big Ice Block and the other two women had been so inefficient was partly due to their cultivation, but far more because they lacked an understanding of the demon dragon's anatomy.
To harvest materials without compromising their quality, one had to butcher the corpse with painstaking care.
Tianyan, however, was different.
The Overseeing Heaven Pavilion's heritage granted her a systematic understanding of the anatomical structure and internal organs of the Guyuan Dragon Clan.
Dismembering the dragon corpse came to her as effortlessly as a master butcher carving a bull.
Thus, after Tianyan officially joined the ranks of the labor maidens, the five-person group's efficiency in harvesting materials from the dragon carcass surged more than tenfold.
The four of them cheered from the sidelines while Tianyan carried the slaughter.
In less than five days, this colossal project was nearing its end.
Inside the dim karst cave, the once ferocious and majestic dragon corpse had now been reduced almost entirely to stark white bones.
Next to the dragon skeleton were storage basins created by Xiao Bai using Five Elements Dao charm.
Two in total.
One was used to store dragon meat, and the other was an entire basin filled to the brim with dragon blood.
For no other reason than that the Sumeru rings couldn't hold it all.
Because the war on the Northern Border had not yet ceased, it tied up the vast majority of Sumeru rings under the Prime Minister's Manor's control. The ones his father had given him amounted to a mere ten rings, which were far from enough to contain an entire dragon carcass.
As the last cut of dragon tail meat was shaved off the coccyx by Ran Qingmo's sword and plopped into the Gengjin meat basin, Xu Yuan smiled and called the women over to eat.
Today's meal cooked by Xu Yuan was the ancient dragon's heart.
Once prepared and infused with medicinal herbs, this thing was rumored to aid in breaking through bottlenecks.
Yet they had worked so hard for him in this pitch-black cave like Pals; now that the work was done, he naturally had to nourish them properly, so he went straight for the finest ingredient.
To prepare this celebration feast marking the project's completion, Xu Yuan had spent three full days preparing, using up all kinds of rare ingredients he carried.
Sitting quietly in a circle around the campfire,
Watching the four women silently eating the dragon heart broth he had cooked, Xu Yuan had a fleeting illusion of a harmonious inner courtyard in the Prime Minister's Manor in the future. He himself, however, only smelled the drifting aroma without lifting his chopsticks, merely helping them ladle soup and serve meat.
Noticing Xu Yuan's actions, Su Jinxuan instinctively asked, "Young Master Xu, aren't you eating?"
Sitting beside the fire, Xu Yuan rested his chin on his hand, looking at her with curved eyes and speaking softly, "There's too little of the dragon heart, and it's too precious. You all eat; that's enough."
Holding her porcelain bowl, Su Jinxuan's eyes fluttered, an instinctive bittersweet flutter spreading across her heart.
The very next moment, however,
Tianyan's scornful chuckle bluntly punctured Xu Yuan's lie:
"Su Jinxuan, did you forget this bastard's special constitution? The origin qi contained within this ancient dragon heart is far too immense. If he dares to take even a bite, he'll burst and die."
"..." The fluttering sensation in Su Jinxuan vanished instantly, replaced by a look of disdain toward Xu Yuan.
Seeing this, Xu Yuan glared back at the washboard Saintess.
Tianyan raised her chin slightly, her lovely eyes narrowing in provocation.
Xu Yuan curled his lip and wisely looked away.
With a satisfied curve of her lips, Tianyan gracefully and deliberately finished the delicacy in her bowl.
Just as she was about to instruct Little Xu-zi to ladle another bowl for her, she suddenly realized that the dragon heart broth, which had filled the pot to the brim, was already more than half empty.
Dazed for an instant, the golden-eyed girl instinctively looked around, only to discover that the other three women were shoveling down food like their lives depended on it.
Especially that blank-faced dummy opposite her—she was actually running her cultivation technique while eating, gulping it down without the slightest care for decorum.
Just as she was inwardly criticizing the three women's crudeness and lack of manners, an elusive dragon roar suddenly echoed into Tianyan's ears from deep within the distant Fiend Gorge...
Chapter 598