Having learned from the humiliation of being asked by Lu Yang who the culprit was and not knowing the answer, the Immortal Fairy had been sweeping the Immortal Palace with her immortal sense around the clock, vowing to find the perpetrator and salvage her pride.
Fortunately, she had finally found a lead.
Sure enough, whenever Huang Doudou took the field, there was no case that couldn't be cracked!
"Who? Bai Ye?"
Hearing the Immortal Fairy suddenly chime in, Lu Yang choked back the words "Palace Master Luo" that were already at the tip of his tongue.
"Fairy, next time could you tell me what you see a little earlier!" Lu Yang refused to believe she hadn't noticed any inkling before Bai Ye drugged the moon laurel trees.
Besides, even if it was Bai Ye, how on earth did she crack the grand formation guarding the medicinal storehouse?
"A good case requires catching the criminal red-handed with the loot, doesn't it? Before this, I only had my suspicions. What if I wrongly accused the girl?" Having studied the law with Lu Yang for so long, the Immortal Fairy had developed a rather legalistic mind.
"Senior Brother? Senior Brother Lu Yang?" Lan Ting noticed that Lu Yang had abruptly stopped talking midway through his deduction. Utterly puzzled, she waved a tender white hand in front of him, finally snapping him back to reality.
Lu Yang realized he was in the middle of analyzing the case; this was no time to bicker with the Immortal Fairy.
"Come on, let me take the field!" The Immortal Fairy felt that since she had uncovered the truth, she ought to be the one to reveal the answer!
Lu Yang was hardly a match for the Immortal Fairy; in an instant, his body was seized.
The Immortal Fairy put on an expression of waking from a dream. "Ah, I'm here, I'm here. Where were we?"
"You just said, 'The culprit is none other than Luo...' and then you stopped talking."
Lan Ting looked at Lu Yang with a strange gaze, though she concealed it well.
Why did it feel like Senior Brother had turned into an entirely different person?
With extensive experience from having possessed and impersonated Lu Yang back in the Imperial City, the Immortal Fairy now mimicked him to perfection, not even referring to herself as "this Immortal."
"What I was going to say just now is that the culprit is none other than the frail and delicate Bai Ye!"
The Immortal Fairy declared with absolute certainty, "Perpetrators often return to the scene of the crime. If I'm not mistaken, she's currently at the thirtieth moon laurel tree in the twelfth row of the moon laurel forest!"
Lan Ting was completely bewildered. How could Senior Brother Lu Yang have deduced such a specific location? Had she missed some step in his reasoning just now?
Could it be that she truly couldn't keep up with Senior Brother Lu Yang's way of thinking?
And most importantly...
"Who is Bai Ye?"
She had never heard of such a person in the Immortal Palace.
"You don't know her? She comes over to my place every night to listen to stories," the Immortal Fairy said with a tinge of resentment.
If that little girl Bai Ye hadn't monopolized Lu Yang's evenings, Lu Yang could have spent the whole night having snowball fights with her.
"She comes to your place every night to listen to stories?" Lan Ting was even more astonished. Who was sneaking over to Senior Brother's quarters late at night instead of cultivating, stealing a march on everyone else?
"Wait, wait, how could Junior Sister Lan Ting never have heard of Junior Sister Bai Ye?" Lu Yang couldn't help asking from inside the spiritual space.
This makes it sound like I've been telling stories to a nonexistent person every night. That's downright creepy.
"She's probably an avatar of the Moon Laurel Tree Ancestor or something similar. It's likely a secret in the Immortal Palace, so it's only normal that the Lan girl hasn't heard of her," the Immortal Fairy revealed Bai Ye's identity nonchalantly, as if the Moon Laurel Tree Ancestor were some insignificant nobody.
"The Moon Laurel Tree Ancestor?!" Lu Yang was stunned.
He suddenly remembered the pouch of moon laurel flowers Bai Ye had given him as a snack. She hadn't plucked those off her own body, had she?
The Immortal Fairy didn't pay any mind to Lu Yang's astonishment for the moment. As the sole person in the entire Immortal Palace who knew the truth, she felt her intellect had attained a transcendent realm, and she intended to seize Bai Ye in one fell swoop.
"Let's not dwell on this for now. We need to go catch Bai Ye right away!"
With a grand wave of her hand, the Immortal Fairy led Lan Ting in a brisk jog straight toward Luo Hongxia's immortal cave.
Little Yang had lost all his cultivation; even if he found Bai Ye, he wouldn't be able to catch her. They needed the help of Luo Hongxia, that former defeated opponent of hers.
Then again, even if Little Yang still had his cultivation, he probably wouldn't be able to catch up to Bai Ye either.
At that moment, Luo Hongxia also had three spiritual fruits laid out before her, pondering which one had stolen the medicinal ingredients.
Hearing a knock at the door, she opened it, only to see no one there.
"Down here, down here."
Luo Hongxia looked down and saw two little tots.
"Master, Senior Brother Lu Yang deduced who the culprit is! It's a little girl named Bai Ye, about the same height as me, and she's right in the moon laurel forest!"
"Who is Bai Ye?" Luo Hongxia had never heard the name either.
However, her expression quickly turned grave. Now was not the time to look into who Bai Ye was. Since they had a lead on the culprit, catching Bai Ye in the moon laurel forest was the top priority!
"Let's go!"
Luo Hongxia soared into the air, only to realize two people were missing from her side. Looking down, she saw the two little tots trotting frantically in the direction of the moon laurel forest.
Luo Hongxia touched down, tucked one under each arm, and shot off toward the moon laurel forest once more.
"Let's go!"
Carrying two burdens did not slow Luo Hongxia down in the slightest. She even thoughtfully wrapped them in transparent protective shields so the biting cold wind wouldn't rush in and harm their small bodies.
Flying over the moon laurel forest, she indeed spotted a petite figure pouring something into a hole by the roots of a certain moon laurel tree, muttering under her breath.
"Thief, take this!"
Luo Hongxia tossed the two little tots aside and struck out boldly.
Thanks to the shields, the two bounced twice on the ground before landing steadily, entirely unruffled.
Seeing Luo Hongxia's attack incoming, the petite figure inwardly gasped. Absorbed in her experiment on the moon laurel tree, she had failed to notice Luo Hongxia's arrival in time.
Showing no intention to fight, the petite figure spun around and fled. Her speed was so terrifying that she left an afterimage where she had stood, her true form teleporting to parts unknown in an instant.
Even with Luo Hongxia's eyesight, she couldn't track the petite figure's trail!
Luo Hongxia spread her divine sense to search, but found nothing.
Recalling the face the petite figure had revealed, she knitted her brows tightly.
"A face I've never seen before... Could she be an outsider?"
***
"That was close, so close. Little Luo nearly caught me." Leaning against the Moon Laurel Tree Ancestor, the petite figure panted for breath, thoroughly unnerved. She still couldn't comprehend how Luo Hongxia had found her.
It was as though she had known she was right there all along, heading straight for her with absolute certainty.
"Hehe, think you can run? Think you can get away?" A childish chuckle echoed from behind the petite figure, startling her into whirling around.
"Who's there?!"
She was certain she had expanded her divine sense; anyone approaching should have been detected immediately.
And how did this person know she was here?
"Lu Yang?" the petite figure exclaimed in surprise. How could it be Lu Yang?
"Little girl Bai Ye, come back with me obediently and admit your mistakes." The Immortal Fairy smiled smugly. No matter how fast Bai Ye moved, could she possibly outrun her immortal sense?
Caught red-handed with the evidence—what a marvelous triumph!
The petite figure gave a cold snort. "I'm not Bai Ye. I'm Bai Ri."
Inside the spiritual space, Lu Yang vaguely recalled having heard that name somewhere before, and he recoiled in sudden shock.
"Bai Ri... Why do I remember that the Immortal Palace's founder, Master Zhuiyue, was named Bai Ri?"
Chapter 1026