Eldest Senior Sister's Plan

"Eldest Senior Sister, this is your plan?" "Naturally." "Vice Cult Masters Liu and Gao only know about Backup Bases No. 3 and No. 4. The Immortal Cult will definitely relocate to Backup Base No. 5, and the location of Backup Base No. 5 is currently unknown." "That is why the three of you need to use the excuse I gave you to win Tang Yunsheng's trust and have him take you to the original base. The Immortal Cult evacuated in a hurry, so they will certainly have left behind undercover agents near the original base to inform anyone who missed the news how to reach the backup base." "The three of you appearing in the vicinity with Tang Yunsheng will undoubtedly draw the Immortal Cult members' attention. In the cult's eyes, the three of you might have been captured by the Dao Seeking Sect and turned into double agents, making you untrustworthy." "Tang Yunsheng is different. The Immortal Cult knows he has been lying low outside the Dao Seeking Sect the entire time, so he couldn't have been captured by the Dao Seeking Sect and can be trusted. Only if he leads the three of you to the original base will the cult accept you and reveal the true location of the base." "The ultimate objective of the plan is to gain the Immortal Cult's trust." Beside them, the Immortal Fairy nodded repeatedly as she listened, thinking this was a splendid idea. ... Tang Yunsheng hid at the agreed rendezvous point near the Dao Seeking Sect, anxiously waiting for news from the Vice Cult Masters. He had watched with his own eyes as the Dao Seeking Sect saw off the Five Elements Sect, yet there was still no sign of the Vice Cult Masters. He inwardly cursed, realizing things had gone terribly wrong. "It's over, it's all over! Vice Cult Master Liu and Vice Cult Master Gao must have been caught by that wretched Dao Seeking Sect!" Tang Yunsheng waited for an entire day before Lu Yang and the other two finally arrived, fleeing in utter disarray. "Why is it just the three of you? Where are Vice Cult Master Liu and the others?!" Tang Yunsheng shook Lu Yang by the shoulders. Lu Yang's eyes were dazed and unfocused. Hearing Tang Yunsheng's sharp demand, his eyes rimmed with tears, his lips trembled, and he burst into loud wails. "Vice Cult Master Liu, Vice Cult Master Liu and the others... they failed! At the time, Vice Cult Master Liu brought out the immortal treasure to display his divine prowess, but who could have foreseen that the Dao Seeking Sect was hiding an expert capable of withstanding the immortal treasure's might! A fierce battle broke out between them and Vice Cult Master Liu's group!" Thinking of the tragic scene, Meng Jingzhou also began weeping: "Vice Cult Master Liu and the others chose death over surrender! They were brutally beaten to death by that damned Dao Seeking Sect!" Man Gu merely sobbed, unable to utter a single word for the longest time—he had forgotten his lines. The three wept uncontrollably, their grief plainly genuine. "What?!" Disbelief was plastered across Tang Yunsheng's face, and he collapsed onto the ground with a thud. Two Vice Cult Masters and five high-ranking members, all lost in the Dao Seeking Sect! How was he supposed to answer for this when he went back?! "Wait, then how are the three of you completely fine?" Tang Yunsheng caught onto the problem. The Vice Cult Masters and the high-ranking members had entered the Dao Seeking Sect through their barbecue shop. The Dao Seeking Sect would definitely suspect them. Lu Yang steadied his emotions. "Vice Cult Master Liu branded our minds, disguising us as puppets manipulated by his powerful spiritual sense. That was the only reason the Dao Seeking Sect let us off." "Then the three of you should have continued lying low in the Dao Seeking Sect!" These were three precious undercover agents. Lu Yang shook his head. "After an experience like that, even if it wasn't our fault, nobody else will tolerate us. Our business plummeted, and people point fingers behind our backs wherever we go. The Dao Seeking Sect no longer has a place for us." Tang Yunsheng patted Lu Yang's shoulder. "You've had it rough." Lu Yang displayed raw emotion, a glint of hatred surfacing in his eyes as he continued, "Sacrificing ourselves for the Immortal Cult is nothing. But I will never let that traitor off!" "Traitor?" Meng Jingzhou nodded vigorously, hatred and ferocity flashing in his eyes as well. "Vice Cult Master Liu's plan was so flawless, and they had us as inside help! If not for a traitor, how could the Vice Cult Masters possibly have failed?" "Before Vice Cult Master Liu perished, he sent us a secret voice transmission revealing the traitor's identity, bidding us to safely return to the Immortal Cult no matter what and drag the traitor into the light!" Tang Yunsheng's expression grew solemn. "Who is the traitor?" This was no small matter. The surprise raid on the Dao Seeking Sect was a top-secret operation known only to a handful of people in the cult, all of whom held immense power and authority. Suspecting any one of them would trigger massive upheaval! Lu Yang stated the traitor's identity: "The third Vice Cult Master—Vice Cult Master Jin!" "Him!" Tang Yunsheng's voice pitched up several notches. On second thought, however, it made complete sense. There were three Vice Cult Masters in total. With two dead, the position of Cult Master would fall to the last remaining one sooner or later. Everything lined up. "Let's go! We have to report this to the Cult Master immediately!" Realizing the gravity of the situation, Tang Yunsheng dared not delay and prepared to depart at once. Now, these three were no longer undercover agents; they were witnesses. Tang Yunsheng took the three aboard a flying boat and flew south. Once they reached a certain large city, they disembarked, and he led them into the wilderness roughly three hundred li away from the city. "Inspecting Emissary Tang, is the headquarters here?" Lu Yang looked around for anything resembling ruins or a grotto-heaven. Was the original base located here? A cruel sneer crept onto Tang Yunsheng's face. "You three reckless fools actually still want to go to headquarters? Who knows if we'd be slaughtered by assassins sent by Vice Cult Master Jin before we even get there!" "Who can guarantee the Cult Master isn't behind this? Or that the Cult Master, for the sake of the Immortal Cult's stability, won't just hold his nose, accept Vice Cult Master Jin's scheme, and have us bumped off?" "If we go to headquarters, our lives will hang in the balance; it'd be walking straight into a trap!" "In this kind of power struggle between high-ranking figures, whoever gets dragged in dies. I'm not getting mixed up in that garbage." "Right now, the safest option is to slaughter you three little brats, and then I'll flee to the middle of nowhere!" Tang Yunsheng was very pragmatic. Expose a traitor? What did that have to do with him? As a demonic cultivator, preserving his own life always came first! Find any desolate wilderness, kill the three of them, scatter their ashes, and the Immortal Cult would have nothing more to do with him! As a Nascent Soul stage cultivator, slaughtering these three Foundation Establishment stage whelps was as easy as turning over his hand! Lu Yang: "..." Meng Jingzhou: "..." Man Gu: "..." This diverged quite a bit from Eldest Senior Sister's plan; things had gone wrong right at step two. They had indeed won Tang Yunsheng's trust, but that did not mean Tang Yunsheng was willing to take them to the Immortal Cult. "Eldest Senior Sister, what do we do?" Inside his spiritual space, Lu Yang asked Eldest Senior Sister if she had any other brilliant moves. Yun Zhi remained as emotionally detached as ever. Only, when faced with Lu Yang's question, her gaze wandered ever so slightly before she looked right back at Lu Yang and said calmly: "No matter. Everything is within the plan." Eldest Senior Sister's subtle shift in gaze was tiny, but having lived alongside her for so long, Lu Yang was very perceptive to such changes. That had blatantly been a display of a guilty conscience! Lu Yang suddenly recalled certain past events. For instance, back when she made him undergo Body Tempering, Eldest Senior Sister had drawn a bath of boiling water for him. For another, she had constantly made him cultivate using tofu. Or how she had taken the Moon Laurel Immortal Palace's demand as a marriage proposal for him. Eldest Senior Sister was someone completely naive to the ways of the world. She appeared to hold everything in the palm of her hand, handling matters with calm perfection, but that was actually only because her facial expression never changed from start to finish, creating that very illusion.