"Luoshui Guards?" Tao Tingfeng was dumbfounded. He had heard his clan uncle talk about this organization—it was established by the imperial court specifically to deal with high-level cultivators.
He had only listened to it as entertaining gossip at the time, never imagining they would come knocking right on his door.
Yu Qian and the other two produced tokens at the same time, each carved with the characters "Luoshui."
"Concealing illicit proceeds? Me?" Normally, Tao Tingfeng paid little attention to criminal law, forgetting it as soon as he heard it. How could he have anticipated that he had broken the law out of nowhere?
Yu Qian's eyes narrowed slightly, fixing on Tao Tingfeng. "Tell me: how did you come to know True Monarch Guanqi in the first place, and how did you get the Golden Cicada Slough to recognize you as its master?"
This was a secret technique of the Luoshui Guards; if the disparity in realms was large enough, it could determine whether the other party was lying.
Shi Huagu possessed a similar secret art, which he had used back when testing whether Lu Yang was from the Heavenly Court Cult, though the effect of Shi Huagu's technique was inferior to that of the Luoshui Guards.
Steeling himself, Tao Tingfeng recounted everything that had happened in full detail.
"At that time, the True Monarch told me: this object is called the Golden Cicada Slough, and he snatched it from a troublesome opponent. He told me to keep it safe..."
"I thought the True Monarch had died back then, so I wanted to drip blood onto the Golden Cicada Slough to establish mastership..."
"Later, it turned out the True Monarch was still alive..."
Having listened to the whole story, Yu Qian frowned slightly and asked sternly, "In other words, you clearly knew the Golden Cicada Slough had been robbed by him, yet you still chose to keep it?"
"And after True Monarch Guanqi entered your spiritual space, you even provided him a place to recover?"
"Sheer foolishness! Do you have any idea how dangerous what you did was?"
"What do you think the Golden Cicada Slough is? It's something that would tempt even experts at the Tribulation Transcendence stage! True Monarch Guanqi risked his very life to snatch it."
"And after you had the Golden Cicada Slough recognize you as master, you actually dared to harbor him?"
"If he recovered a physical body, the very first thing he would do is seize your body!"
"Do you honestly think he would be kind enough to teach you cultivation out of good will?"
Yu Qian pulled out a book recording the deeds of various Body Integration cultivators from Great Qian, reading aloud: "True Monarch Guanqi, real name Du Guan, born in the eighty-two thousand two hundred and eighty-first year of the Great Qian calendar. To advance to the Nascent Soul stage, he sacrificed the village that raised him. During the Soul Formation stage, he took a cultivator of the same realm as his Dao companion, only to murder her later to prove his Dao of Ruthlessness. In early Body Integration, he committed three documented murders and robberies. In mid Body Integration... Later, seeing no hope of breaking through to the Tribulation Transcendence stage, he devoted himself to studying the hundred arts of cultivation."
Yu Qian closed the book and said gravely, "Are you helping a person like this, and even cultivating under his guidance?"
"I... I just saw how easy he was to talk to, and thought he was a good person..."
Yu Qian cut off Tao Tingfeng's excuse. "The 'good person' you speak of—do you mean the one who robbed someone of the Golden Cicada Slough?"
"Heh heh. Cultivators of Great Xia, to think you've investigated me so thoroughly," True Monarch Guanqi let out a sinister chuckle.
"Du Guan, what you did in Great Qian is a historical legacy issue that Great Xia does not concern itself with. But robbing a Great Yu cultivator within Great Xia territory constitutes the crime of robbery."
"Not murder?" True Monarch Guanqi knew that falling into Great Xia's hands meant he certainly wouldn't survive; after all, his crimes were hardly limited to robbery.
"Murder? You mean killing the Great Yu cultivator? Unfortunately, he didn't die—though we haven't found his whereabouts yet. As for the two companions you killed, your actions fall under legitimate self-defense and do not constitute a crime."
The internal clash between True Monarch Guanqi and his two companions had made too much commotion, drawing the court's attention. By the time the court arrived, Guanqi had just fled, while the two companions were left with one dead and one heavily injured.
The heavily injured one was already beyond saving, so the Luoshui Guards conducted an emergency soul search on him and learned everything that had transpired.
The identity of the robbed Great Yu cultivator was unknown. It was only known that he had just awakened and was still in his recovery period. True Monarch Guanqi had somehow caught wind of this news and teamed up with his two companions to rob the Great Yu cultivator.
After True Monarch Guanqi fled, the heavily injured companion saw that the Great Yu cultivator was likewise heavily injured; nevertheless, still having strength left, the cultivator had dispersed his cultivation to start anew and made his escape, which was how this whole sequence of events unfolded.
They were looking for that Great Yu cultivator as well, after all—they needed to find the victim.
That Great Yu cultivator had fled north, while True Monarch Guanqi had fled south. The Luoshui Guards had split into two groups in pursuit.
Chapter 722