Having subdued Shen Youran, Sun Yixie and Huang Donglai planned to transport him to a safe place and hide him first.
They had at least two reasons for sparing Shen Youran's life. First, Shen and Gu had plotted this conspiracy for so many years that there were bound to be plenty of unrevealed secrets waiting to be uncovered, making him well worth interrogating. Second, as for how to deal with him, it was best decided through an open discussion among the various martial arts figures who had been wronged by him today, rather than handled privately by Sun and Huang. Although no one would utter a word of blame even if they truly killed Shen Youran, human hearts were unpredictable. You could never guarantee that everyone was a gentleman. If someone later suspected that the two of them had pried some valuable intelligence from Shen Youran's mouth and then silenced him by murder, it would only spawn unnecessary complications.
The Twin Eccentrics had naturally prepared a means of transporting Shen Youran long beforehand: a small handcart used for delivering flour and rice was more than enough. They hauled the poisoned, paralyzed Shen Youran onto it and set off.
That "safe place" was not particularly far from here—an ordinary residence about a kilometer away. The occupants had naturally been sent away by now, leaving three people inside the house: Bai Ruhong, who had lost the ability to move, and Chun Kong and Liu Yikong, who were responsible for looking after and protecting him.
Young Hero Liu and Little Master Chun Kong were both men who disliked killing. In fact, neither had taken a human life to this day. Thus, instead of following the large company of two hundred to encircle and suppress the Tianqi Gang, they had chosen to remain in this house to guard Daoist Bai.
At this hour before dawn, the streets across the city were virtually deserted, save for the places touched by fire. Never mind pushing a cart—one could have drag-raced down the road.
Thus, trotting all the way, Sun Yixie and Huang Donglai took only six or seven minutes to push Shen Youran over and rendezvous with Chun Kong and the others.
Though Liu Yikong and Little Master Chun Kong had already guessed that Sun and Huang would never have used conventional methods to subdue Shen Youran, when they saw his wretched state—plastered in lime powder from head to toe, slumped helplessly on the handcart—they could not help feeling a trace of sympathy for him.
Having delivered their captive, Sun Yixie and Huang Donglai prepared to leave at once. The place they were headed, of course, was Bugui Tower.
There was no other motive: the two intended to pocket whatever useful items they could haul out of Sihui Dwelling for themselves. As for whatever remained that was exceptionally vicious, harmful to others, or too bulky to carry off in a hurry, they would burn it all to the ground to keep anyone from coveting it later.
This matter could brook no delay, and it was best handled while the company of martial arts figures was still tangled up with Gu Qiying.
Earlier, Huang Donglai had only told the crowd that he had discovered a cure for the Bliss Gu. He had not told them that the "Venerable Master" was the proprietor of Bugui Tower, nor had he disclosed exactly where he had found the method.
His reason for keeping quiet was simple. If he divulged that information, someone might well start hatching crooked schemes on the spot—for instance, slipping away while the main force split into northern and southern flanking wings, sneaking into Bugui Tower, and stealing things similar to the Bliss Gu from Sihui Dwelling to harm others in the future.
How could Sun and Huang fail to anticipate possibilities like that?
Judging everyone's hearts with the mindset of a petty rogue was the very foundation of their scheming. Essentially, so long as they took every twisted idea that could pop into their own heads upon encountering a situation and projected it onto others, they could guard against the vast majority of foul play.
Yet, in the end, there were still things beyond their calculation...
Just as they prepared to leave the residence and return to Bugui Tower, a masked man abruptly appeared before them.
This person was of medium build, dressed in a black night-travel suit, his face and head wrapped in black cloth so that only his eyes were visible. He carried no weapon in his hands, but across his back was slung a bundle only slightly larger than a basketball. Tied diagonally across his torso, it hardly hindered his movements, and judging from its outline, it seemed to contain a square box.
He had arrived without a sound, like an apparition suddenly manifesting out of thin air. You turned around, and there he already stood.
"Who goes there?" Huang Donglai barked the instant he saw him. In truth, Brother Huang was not really looking for an answer; he wanted to alert Chun Kong and Liu Yikong inside that trouble had arrived.
"Heh..." The masked man showed no intention of answering. With merely a soft chuckle, he raised both palms, marshaled his energy, and thrust forward.
In the next instant, Sun and Huang were both sent flying by the palm force, their feet leaving the ground as they slammed against the wall.
Actually, Shen Youran could also execute a long-range strike through the outward release of internal energy. But with Shen Youran's internal force, whether in maximum reach, spread, or power, his cultivation could not begin to compare with that of the masked man before them.
Fortunately, the masked man did not take Sun and Huang seriously at all, striking with the casual disregard of someone shooing away flies. Thus, the two were merely knocked senseless and sent sprawling, suffering no internal injuries.
And Chun Kong and Liu Yikong, rushing out of the house at the sound of the commotion, received much the same treatment...
Liu Yikong darted forward like an arrow, intending to draw his blade and subdue the enemy. Yet just as the scimitar at his waist was drawn halfway from its sheath, the masked man lunged to his flank with a swift step and pressed down lightly on his hand, shoving the blade straight back into the scabbard.
"Lad, your lightness skill is not bad," the masked man remarked in an ordinary voice, speaking in a thoroughly relaxed tone. "Your blade work, however, is a bit lacking..."
*Whoosh—*
Before his words finished echoing, one of Chun Kong's Prajna Palms came tearing through the wind from another direction.
"Little Master... isn't this palm of yours a bit too 'merciful'?" Unhurried, the masked man shoved Liu Yikong aside with his left palm while raising his right to meet Chun Kong's strike, speaking and laughing all the while.
And so, Chun Kong went flying too...
In the blink of an eye, these four "youth heroes" were knocked askew and sprawling, the vigorous internal force churning inside them leaving their qi and blood so stagnant that they could not even stand up for the moment.
"I am in a good mood today and will not kill indiscriminately," the masked man said, sweeping his gaze over them. "Rest assured. Once I take what I came for, I will leave immediately."
With that, he stepped into the house.
Before the four men outside could even scramble to their feet, he had already emerged.
Having achieved his objective, the masked man did not linger or waste words. Without even sparing another glance at the youths, he pushed off the ground and vanished into the night sky.
Indeed, coming without a sound, leaving without a trace—the true bearing of a supreme master.
A moment later, Huang Donglai and the others finally managed to stand and hurried inside to check. With a single glance, they knew what the man had taken: Shen Youran's head.
Blood pooled over the floor around Shen Youran's corpse. Yet when the masked man departed just now, not a drop of blood had stained his clothes; how he had managed it remained a mystery.
Recalling the outline of the bundle on his back, it had surely contained a box specially designed to carry a human head, preventing blood from seeping through the cloth.
A blessing amid misfortune was that Bai Ruhong, who had shared the room with Shen Youran, was completely unharmed. It seemed the masked man's sole purpose in coming here had been to kill Shen Youran; he had no interest in anyone else, and his taking of the head was undoubtedly to report back to some person or organization.
After all... in an era where information traveled slowly, nothing proved someone's death more conclusively than their actual head.
"Motherfucker, where did this freak spring from? Thank goodness the bastard didn't intend to kill us, or we'd have cashed in our chips right here." After about five minutes, Sun Yixie turned the matter over in his mind, only then feeling a lingering dread.
The jianghu was perilous after all. Even a sect-leader-level expert like Shen Youran, if caught off guard in a state of panic and stepping into an ambush, could be taken down in a single blow, to say nothing of junior novices like them who had barely set foot into the world and possessed only modest martial arts.
Had that masked man truly wanted to kill them, it would have been a matter of a single thought, the flick of a finger.
Even if you exhausted every scheme and believed yourself completely infallible, there was no guaranteeing you wouldn't run into an unforeseen situation with zero intelligence to go on. And at a time like that... everything came down to hard strength.
"Forget it, don't worry about this for now." Huang Donglai was far calmer than Sun Yixie. The Huang Clan was a martial arts lineage after all. Even if Huang Donglai himself had not roamed the jianghu much, he had seen countless experts and heard endless tales of the martial world since childhood. Someone steeped in that atmosphere for over a decade naturally understood better than Sun Yixie just how green the two of them were in the jianghu. "Let's stick to the original plan and make another run over 'there' to see how things stand."
Having said this to Sun Yixie, he turned to the other two young heroes. "Little Master Chun Kong, Young Hero Liu, it seems we cannot stay here any longer. Take Daoist Bai and find another spot..."
And so, the four agreed on a new location before parting ways once more.
Sun Yixie and Huang Donglai dashed toward Bugui Tower, yet when they arrived, they were dumbfounded again...
The tavern was already ablaze.
"Holy crap, Brother Huang, what the hell happened here?" Sun Yixie asked at once, staring at the raging flames.
"How should I know? I didn't set the fire." Huang Donglai was telling the truth. Earlier in Sihui Dwelling, he had only flipped through Gu Qiying's gu-refining notebook and taken it with him. He had taken nothing else, let alone set a fire.
"Did you get careless and trigger some self-destruct mechanism when you left?" Sun Yixie asked.
"Damn it, you think this is Counter-Strike? What, did I plant the bomb before walking out?" Huang Donglai retorted.
After roasting him, Huang Donglai gathered his thoughts slightly and added, "I think... we oversimplified things. Another faction was likely meddling in secret tonight, playing the oriole behind the praying mantis... Once we finished scheming against Shen Youran and Gu Qiying and got the job mostly done, they popped out to 'kill-steal' and snatch the fruits of victory."
"Mm..." Sun Yixie thought it sounded reasonable and mused, "Fair enough... A kill-steal is tolerable. As long as they didn't finish us off along the way, it's a win."
At this moment, though neither said another word, the exact same thought had sprouted in both their minds: to gain a foothold in this jianghu, one truly needed an organization and backing. Relying purely on individual strength in these murky, surging undercurrents made it far too easy to capsize—Bai Ruhong was a bloody, living counterexample.
***
Later that night, somewhere outside the city.
Firelight illuminated a man's face.
He was around fifty years old, of medium build, with a face shaped like a pumpkin—broad, fleshy, and slightly flattened. This facial structure gave him narrow, elongated eyebrows and eyes, paired with a wide nose and a large mouth.
He wore black night-travel attire, though the black cloth covering his face had been removed.
Beside his feet rested a bundle.
He appeared to be waiting for someone.
The person he was waiting for did not keep him waiting long.
It was a tall, burly man with the back of a tiger and the waist of a bear, eyes gleaming brightly, a single-edged saber slung at his waist. Many people in Luoyang knew him as Lao Wu, the carriage driver of the Justice Sect's leader.
In truth, however, his surname was not Wu; he had merely adopted it over a decade ago when joining the Justice Sect.
His real surname was Mu, his given name Liyan. Before coming to the Justice Sect, he had been a spy for the Five Spirits Cult.
And he still was...
"Mu Liyan greets the Banner Chief!" Mu Liyan approached the black-clad man, dropped to one knee, and bowed in salute.
The black-clad man—the very masked figure who had taken Shen Youran's head right beneath Huang Donglai and the others' noses—was undeniably a top expert of the Five Spirits Cult.
His name was Tang Fu, one of the Five Spirits Cult's "Five Great Banner Chiefs," commanding the White Tiger Banner. His standing in the cult was second only to the Vice Cult Leader.
From his post, anyone would understand that Tang Fu's greatest specialty was the White Tiger Palm, one of the cult's five great guardian divine skills. In terms of fist and palm arts alone, he could be counted among the foremost figures in the world today.
"Dispense with the formalities." Tang Fu waved casually, signaling Mu Liyan to rise, and asked directly, "How did your task go?"
Mu Liyan stood, cupping his fists. "Reporting to the Banner Chief: when your subordinate led our men into Sihui Dwelling, it was completely unguarded. You Jing had already been dead inside for some time. We thoroughly searched every corner. Uh... during the search, two brothers unfortunately succumbed to poison and died... but we found nothing recording Gu Qiying's gu arts. It seems... either he never left written records at all, or..."
"Or someone else had already taken them?" Tang Fu finished the sentence for him, a touch of displeasure in his tone.
"Your subordinate will investigate at once!" Mu Liyan promptly offered how he planned to resolve the issue next.
"Forget it, it's already too late," Tang Fu said. "Besides, I can guess who might have taken them... You don't need to concern yourself with it."
Tang Fu truly felt a pang of regret.
Because of an undercover agent like Mu Liyan, the Five Spirits Cult had known long ago that Shen and Gu intended to execute their "grand plan" during the Youth Heroes Assembly. Thus, half a month ago, Tang Fu had been dispatched to Luoyang to oversee and direct the Five Spirits Cult operatives lying low in the city, primarily... to deal with unexpected emergencies.
Originally, aside from surveillance, the Five Spirits Cult had not intended to meddle in this affair. Whether the orthodox martial arts sects were blackmailed or wiped out by the Tianqi Gang... it was equally advantageous to them.
Yet the "unexpected emergency" had arrived without warning.
Sun Yixie and Huang Donglai's interference had given Tang Fu the scent that Gu Qiying and Shen Youran's plan might collapse tonight. Thus, the moment that cloud-piercing arrow soared into the sky, Tang Fu made a hasty decision after brief consideration: he ordered Mu Liyan to lead men to Bugui Tower to search for Gu Qiying's research and take whatever they could carry, while he himself pursued the signal arrow.
At that time, he had no idea Huang Donglai had already taken Gu Qiying's gu-refining notebook.
Later, watching from the shadows as Shen Youran was defeated and subdued, and trailing Sun and Huang all the way to that residence, what filled Tang Fu's mind were the orders given by the current cult leader before his departure:
*"If that elder brother of mine can truly succeed, so be it. But if he fails, or worse, is captured alive and falls into the hands of the orthodox sects, I hope Banner Chief Tang will take action. Do not let him continue disgracing our Yi family out there... Oh, right, if things truly reach that point, remember to bring his head back. He is father's flesh and blood after all; no matter how worthless he proved to be, a place must still be reserved for him in the ancestral shrine."*
Recalling this, Tang Fu had made his move.
Had Tang Fu been more meticulous, had he thought a bit further at the time, it would not have been entirely impossible to guess that Huang Donglai might have taken Gu Qiying's notebook. Alas... clever people were a rarity in this world after all, and Tang Fu was clearly not one of them. It was only now, hearing Mu Liyan's report, that the thought occurred to him.
And now, just as Tang Fu said, it was "too late." His earlier appearance to take the head had already startled the snake from the grass, letting the other side know a third party was operating in the city—and he still didn't even know about the Brocade Guard as a fourth party. Did he really expect someone to shoot another cloud-piercing arrow into the sky for him now?
Taking another step back... even if another one went up, would he dare go?
Tang Fu had seen with his own eyes how Shen Youran had been "handled." Although he was confident that with internal energy vastly superior to Shen Youran's, things like lime powder could be deflected by releasing his internal force, if they had even dirtier tricks in reserve, he could not guarantee he would escape unscathed.
"Your subordinate is incompetent." After a breath, though his superior had said "forget it," Mu Liyan dropped to one knee again, cupping his fists. "I beg the Banner Chief to punish me..."
"Enough..." Tang Fu was no saint, but neither was he petty or wicked. At the very least, he was not the type to dump all his foul moods and blunders onto his subordinates. "This matter is not your fault. The primary responsibility lies with me; my own thinking was not thorough enough." He paused. "All these years... you have worked hard. Starting today, you need not disguise yourself as a carriage driver anymore. Take this bundle back to the main altar, report to the Cult Leader, and claim your reward... Brothers along the way will assist you."
"Thank you, Banner Chief!" Mu Liyan grew visibly emotional.
This kind of emotion could only be understood by those who had lived deep undercover for years and finally attained liberation.
Thus, instead of rising, Mu Liyan shifted from one knee to both, and kowtowed three times to Tang Fu.
When he raised his head, two trails of hot tears were streaming down the burly man's face.
Tang Fu did not look at him, turning to walk away instead.
There was nothing worth seeing anyway, and Tang Fu did not believe a weeping man wanted anyone staring at him.
Before vanishing into the distance, Tang Fu left behind one final remark: "Pass a message to the Cult Leader for me as well. Say that Tang Fu still has some business to handle and will likely remain outside for a few more days, so the Cult Leader need not worry."
Chapter 64