The sounds of arguing drifted intermittently from the front courtyard, chaotic and shrill.
The talented youths of the younger generation had not yet departed; all of them had gathered around to watch the spectacle. Exactly as Li Songgu had said, it had degenerated into an embarrassing family scandal.
Even so, word that Li Songlin had gathered an exotic herb tainted by immortal haze spread rapidly throughout Yaoguan City.
...
Li Weiyi asked himself honestly: he did desire that exotic herb, but it was far from an absolute necessity. Whether or not he had its aid, he was determined to stake everything on breaking through the nine springs to reach Zutian.
His reasons for following Li Songlin to Zaomei Manor were twofold: first, he cherished the genuine care shown by this first chief of Cangling; second, having his identity exposed upon arriving in Yaoguan City meant he truly needed the strength and influence of the Cangling Tribe to make a clean escape.
Therefore, he did not care much about the shouting coming from the front courtyard over the herb.
Led by an elderly servant, Li Weiyi arrived at a room specially cleaned and prepared for him, tidy and neatly arranged.
After thanking the servant, he shut the door.
"Fourth Uncle was right. The Cangling Tribe may have immense wealth and influence, but it's plagued with internal nonsense. Everyone's vying for benefits, and each person wants a piece."
Li Weiyi lit a bone lamp on the sandalwood table and smiled faintly. In the end, he felt he was not suited to stay in bustling Zaomei Manor, much less get dragged into the factional strife of the great Li family. That would only exhaust body and mind—how could one cultivate in peace?
What he pursued was the Great Dao of Longevity.
Casting his gaze upon the brush, ink, paper, and inkstone on the desk, he sat down.
Even if he was leaving, he could not depart without saying goodbye; that would be too impolite.
"Fourth Uncle, Weiyi has left Yaoguan City ahead of schedule. I must seek my own path. Consider that exotic herb accepted; I will remember this kindness for a lifetime..."
...
Having finished the farewell letter, he folded it and weighed it down with a seal.
It was still early, dusk having only just settled, and the streets were filled with too many prying eyes.
He had to wait a little longer.
Li Weiyi retrieved the seven Phoenix-Winged Moth Emperors from the Buddha relic, placed them one by one into an insect cylinder, and sliced off a jin of cistanche to feed them. He pondered his future path: aside from heading to the Hidden Gate, he needed to sell off dharma artifacts and the otherworld coffin as soon as possible to purchase high-grade precious herbs.
If these seven little creatures matured to the Wuhai Realm, he alone could sweep through the Changlin Gang.
"First, I'll sell Murong Xiao's dharma artifact greatbow! The three-headed snake bracelet requires blood sacrifice with one's own blood—too sinister and harmful to the body—so it can be parted with as well. However, according to Senior Tablet's analysis, it's a high-rank dharma artifact worth over a hundred million... I must be cautious when selling it.
"Though Yao Pass has many experts, the older generation certainly won't demean themselves by moving against me. And with Cang Li in the city, the younger generation of Wuhai Realm experts mostly won't dare act rashly either."
Calculating back and forth, Li Weiyi realized he was actually remarkably safe in Yaoguan City; only Yongquan Realm cultivators could strike without incurring the wrath of the Cangling Tribe.
The clamor outside gradually carried toward the rear courtyard.
A middle-aged woman's voice rang out, shrill and sharp: "Old Fourth, are you truly determined to hand the chance of reaching the nine springs over to an outsider? Changfeng is your own nephew! He has opened eight springs as well—why can't it be him?"
"Changfeng cannot open the nine springs. There is not a shred of hope," Li Songlin's blunt voice sounded.
"And that outsider is guaranteed to succeed? Word is he is merely a mortal, and already twenty years old! Even if you don't give it to Changfeng, why can't the exotic herb be kept for the clan's Pure Immortal Physiques?" another deep, aged male voice resonated.
Li Songlin replied calmly yet firmly, "Eldest Brother! It was I who harvested the herb. Whom I give it to is not for anyone else to decide."
...
Having barely sent the two away, Zaomei Manor was visited by over a dozen successive waves of people seeking the herb—all elders from various Jiuli branches pleading on behalf of their gifted scions.
Exhausted and overwhelmed after an entire two hours of dealing with them, Li Songlin's expression grew colder and more somber. He turned to Li Ling: "Fourth Girl, go bring Weiyi here. Let him consume it right now, so everyone stops drooling over it."
Originally, he intended to let Li Weiyi settle in the eight springs realm for several months before taking the exotic herb to assault Zutian.
Under the current circumstances, however, keeping the herb would not only annoy him to death, but would likely subject Li Weiyi to tremendous psychological pressure.
Moments later, Li Ling rushed back, trails of blue misty light swirling around her legs, holding a letter. Frantic and worried, she gasped, "This is bad... Fourth Uncle, he left! He only left a letter. I'm going after him!"
Handing the letter to Li Songlin, she bolted for the door.
"Come back!"
Seated in the head seat, Li Songgu flicked his right index finger. A long lock of spiritual light qi flew forth, binding Li Ling just as she crossed the hall's threshold.
He then stood up and said with deep earnestness, "That kid slipped away without a sound—even I failed to detect him. Clearly his skill at concealment and escape is no small feat. How could you possibly find him?"
With the spiritual light lock wrapped around her body seven times, Li Ling could not break free. She desperately wanted to tell her father that she could find him.
Yet Chanhai Guanwu within her body was her greatest secret. It was precisely because of this peerless fortune that she had been able to break through and become a great mind master at such rapid speed.
She and Chanhai Guanwu were now bound in shared destiny, rising and falling together. Naturally, no one could be allowed to learn of a secret that could shake the entire Lingxiao Realm of the Living.
As for getting close to Li Weiyi, it had originally been a task given by Chanhai Guanwu. But after spending time with him on multiple occasions, she genuinely felt that Li Weiyi was a good person with firm principles, personal boundaries, and a tender heart—at the very least, a friend well worth having.
She was truly worried that something might happen to Li Weiyi if he left alone like this. Thus, she cast a pleading gaze toward Cang Li and Li Songlin.
Cang Li walked straight out the door and declared, "Pass the word to all Wuhai Realm martial cultivators throughout the city: Li Weiyi's life is under my protection! Be it assassins or cultivators of the Yang clan and Sui Sect, anyone who ignores this decree—I will kill him. Without exception!"
Above the Dao Seed Realm, he could not control things.
Below the Wuhai Realm, he did not care to bother.
After finishing the letter, Li Songlin let out a long sigh and looked at Li Songgu. "He asked me to help look after those few juniors studying in the clan academy, and said that even without the exotic herb, he can open Zutian on his own, telling me not to worry. Second Brother, do you see this child's character now?"
"I will personally dispatch men to search for him. It's all because Eldest Brother and the others stirred up this mess," Li Songgu said.
...
Li Weiyi had used the ghost banner to leave Zaomei Manor without making a sound.
Of course, that Li Songgu and Li Songlin—two masters who had advanced extremely far along the martial way and the mind master path—failed to detect him was largely because they were worn out dealing with the petitioners, their attention nowhere near him.
It was late into the night, and pedestrians on the streets of Yao Pass had grown sparse.
Moving swiftly through the shadows of buildings, Li Weiyi intended to leave the city under cover of night and head straight for the Jiuli Hidden Gate.
Within the Jiuli Clan, even the patriarchs of the nine great tribes did not know the exact location of the Hidden Gate. They were only responsible for selecting one or several prodigiously gifted youths each year and delivering them to a specified location at an appointed time.
However, as a former supreme leader of the Jiuli Clan, Coffin Master naturally knew where the Jiuli Hidden Gate lay.
Li Weiyi moved swiftly, like an afterimage in the night.
Up ahead, the lights were completely extinguished, and not a single soul walked the street. He had reached the edge of Yaoguan City; further ahead lay the primitive, desolate Mount Mang Range.
Suddenly.
He stopped in his tracks and glanced back over his shoulder, constantly sensing that he was being shadowed.
"What's going on? Am I just being paranoid?"
Just as Li Weiyi turned around, a chubby boy of fifteen or sixteen suddenly appeared before his eyes, standing three paces away and beaming foolishly at him.
Fair-skinned and tender, with thick black eyebrows, the plump youth stood around 1.6 meters tall. A long braid sat atop his head, interwoven with colorful thin cords.
Straw sandals were on his feet, and his trouser legs were so wide that most of his calves were exposed.
It was none other than the fellow he had encountered at the noodle stall earlier that day.
In the brief moment it took to turn around, the other party had appeared out of thin air. This was not merely terrifying speed; his silent, undetectable breath-concealment technique was even more frightening. Li Weiyi realized keenly that he had run into an extraordinary expert tonight.
"Brother Tianshu, what a coincidence! Where are you headed? How about taking me along?" the chubby youth grinned, flashing a set of snow-white teeth.
Li Weiyi asked, "How did you find me? Did you do something to me at the noodle stall today?"
"It's qi! A strand of my dharma qi accidentally clung to you during the day."
The chubby youth spread open one small, tender hand. Instantly, a thread of colorless qi, as fine as a strand of hair, drifted out from Li Weiyi's sleeve and returned to his palm.
Shocked to the core, Li Weiyi also knew this visitor had come with ill intent. His hand slowly reached toward the Yellow Dragon Sword strapped to his back.
"Looking for this sword?"
With his other hand behind his back, the chubby youth produced the Yellow Dragon Sword and channeled his dharma power to activate it, yet the sword showed no response whatsoever.
His thick black brows furrowed at once. "Odd. Why can't I activate it?"
Li Weiyi chuckled bitterly inside, acutely aware of the vast chasm between their cultivation levels.
If the other party could do so much without making a sound, taking his life would be just as effortless and silent.
Li Weiyi said, "Speak. Who on earth are you?"
"Didn't I tell you during the day? My name is Shi Shi."
Tossing the Yellow Dragon Sword back to Li Weiyi, the chubby youth said, "Come with me! We're on such good terms, and you even treated me to noodles, so there's no need to fight, right?"
Clasping his chubby hands behind his back, he took the lead and strolled toward the night gloom enveloping the Mount Mang Range.
Yet the darkness ahead felt like the gaping abyss of a demon's maw; stepping into it seemed certain to tear one to pieces.
Catching the Yellow Dragon Sword, Li Weiyi silently weighed the odds of releasing the giant camel to flee, or activating the Daozu Taiji Fish to drag the youth into the blood mud space.
However, the other party was far too fast, while activating dharma artifacts required time.
Once he failed and exposed those two treasures, there would truly be no way out alive tonight!
Li Weiyi asked, "You didn't come to kill me?"
"Why would I kill you? We bear no grudge. For that pitiful bounty from the Five Burials Temple? How degrading that would be! People would laugh at me if they found out."
Seeing that Li Weiyi remained rooted to the spot, the chubby youth turned back toward him. "Don't be so tense. I sought you out for something good. Look at me—do I look like a bad guy?"
Li Weiyi replied, "Why don't you explain first what this 'good thing' actually is?"
The chubby youth sighed. "Originally, it was Ninth Brother who wanted to find you. You should know him—he said you met in Immortal Burial Town."
Li Weiyi's heart skipped a beat, and his expression shifted. No wonder this boy did not fear the Cangling Tribe. Shocked, he blurted out, "You mean Shi Jiuzhai? You're from the Earth Wolf King's Army?"
"That's right. I'm Shi Shi—full name Shi Shishi," the chubby youth replied.
Li Weiyi was utterly dumbfounded, his last illusion of escape completely shattered. For someone bearing the surname Shi and ranked tenth, he was inevitably one of the Ten Great Dharma Kings of the Earth Wolf King's Army.
His cultivation was immensely high, far beyond the first or second stage of the Wuhai Realm.
Where did a path to survival lie tonight?
What was the boy actually plotting?
Li Weiyi stared into the chubby youth's innocent, smiling eyes, and as if resigning himself to fate, followed along—though he deliberately left a discernible footprint on the ground.
"That's more like it! If I really had to use force to capture you and outsiders heard of it, they'd say I, Shi Shi, have no manners. Then nobody would ever treat me to meals again!" Shi Shishi said.
Hoping to gather more information and increase his chances of survival, Li Weiyi asked, "Why is Dharma King Jiuzhai looking for me?"
"A month ago, after recognizing you from the bloody battle by the Sui River, Ninth Brother wanted to find you. But today, it was actually me who wanted to find you—to ask for your help with a major undertaking. I feel your strength and brains are pretty good, so you should be up to the task."
Shi Shishi added, "Oh, right! Ninth Brother said that back in Immortal Burial Town, you claimed you'd follow him, but then vanished like smoke. You went back on your word."
Stepping beyond Yaoguan City, they were surrounded by dense, pitch-black woods.
Li Weiyi suddenly stopped. "Not good. A sudden stomach upset has struck me—mind if I take care of it first?"
Shi Shishi laughed. "You aren't thinking of running away, are you? Don't let my weight fool you; I'm very fast."
"How could a mere Yongquan Realm cultivator flee before a Dharma King? I have at least that much self-awareness," Li Weiyi replied.
Shi Shishi said, "All right, don't wander too far."
Li Weiyi hurried into the dense woods, took dozens of paces, and stopped beneath a cypress as thick as a water bucket.
He did not actually suffer from an upset stomach, of course, but intended to store several crucial dharma artifacts into the blood mud space. Shi Shishi seemed uninterested in dharma artifacts, or perhaps assumed he possessed nothing high-grade.
However, if Shi Jiuzhai got his hands on items like the evil camel bell, ghost banner, or scripture belt and casually channeled a bit of dharma power through them, he would instantly recognize their worth.
His life had to be preserved, and the dharma artifacts even more so.
After stowing all his vital dharma artifacts into the blood mud space, Li Weiyi stepped out from behind the tree and stretched comfortably. "See? I didn't run. I'm a man of my word."
The two continued deeper into the dense forest.
Beside a stream in the valley, a campfire blazed, firewood crackling and popping.
Shi Jiuzhai sat alone on a bluestone beside the fire, his long hair slightly curled. The yellow flames illuminated his chiseled cheeks, lending him the sculpted, masculine allure of a statue.
Hearing footsteps, he looked up at Shi Shishi and Li Weiyi emerging from the dark and smiled. "The one you went looking for was actually him."
Shi Shishi plopped down on the ground by the fire. "A month ago, weren't you looking for him too? Hey, Sixth Brother still isn't back?"
"Him? Most likely some peerless beauty has stolen his soul again!"
Shi Jiuzhai's gaze settled upon Li Weiyi, cold yet laced with a sliver of a smile. "You know who I am, don't you? Do you know the price of deceiving me? Shi Shi, his strength may be passable, but compared to martial cultivators of the nine springs, he still falls quite short."
Li Weiyi had been listening and analyzing all along; the Earth Wolf King's Army seemed to need someone to do something for them.
In other words, as long as he was useful, his life would be spared today.
No matter how intimidating Shi Jiuzhai acted right now or how eager he seemed to teach him a lesson, that fact remained unchanged.
Li Weiyi said, "Dharma King Jiuzhai's name reverberates like thunder across the Southern Territory—how could I not know it? In my view, if a prominent figure like you is deceived by a junior in the Yongquan Realm, you certainly can't blame him. You can only blame your own poor judgment of character."
Shi Jiuzhai's eyelids lowered, chilling gusts flickering in his pupils as if glints of swords and blades were flashing out.
How could a mere prisoner be arrogant to this degree?
Did the title "Dharma King Jiuzhai" no longer carry weight in the Southern Territory?
"Ninth Brother, why do I feel what he's saying makes a bit of sense? If I got tricked by a four- or five-year-old kid, I'd definitely slap myself twice first," Shi Shishi chimed in.
Chapter 73