Volume 3, Chapter 12 – Speculation

At a single command from Tingyu Tower, the surrounding buildings all lit up with warm orange-yellow light. Disciples and soldiers moved out, and the entire district went into lockdown.

“All those deductions you made earlier—if I put it bluntly, you picked a target first and then shot at it. You were just making things harder for yourself.”

Upstairs, Bai Xiang was going over the mistakes and gaps in Bai Zhuqing’s handling of this incident.

“For example, you decided he couldn’t possibly have foreseen this months in advance and prepared early. But did you ever consider this—so long as something happens in the South, it’s guaranteed to draw all the Nine Provinces’ attention?”

“Doesn’t matter whether he’s from Liangzhou or Luezhou. As soon as he hears the news, he’s bound to come investigate. This kind of probing is a given, and the excuses will just change with the situation. Does it mean anything for you to care about the form it takes?”

“Mm…” Bai Zhuqing hooked both index fingers together in front of her, head slightly lowered, upper lip pressed over the lower, looking every bit the picture of “I realize I was wrong.”

“But like I said before, you still did better than I expected.” Bai Xiang finally started to praise her. “…Not bad.”

She had never expected Bai Zhuqing to grasp her true intention. All she needed was for Zhuqing to play the fool in the plan—cluelessly leaking information.

It wasn’t that she looked down on Bai Zhuqing. It was just that Bai Zhuqing had never done anything like this before, had zero experience. Of course she wouldn’t think that Bai Xiang leaving the Dao could itself have strategic value, and couldn’t be casually spread around.

There was no need for her to disclose secrets, or run around telling everyone. As long as she moved a bit more actively, went to a few more places, the people in other posts could infer from her movements whether Bai Xiang was away from the Dao for the time being, and that alone would naturally lure Aberrations in.

But she hadn’t expected the little girl to actually figure it out.

Not only had she figured it out, but from what she’d admitted just now, it seemed she had also inherited Bai Nianchan’s sensory talent—able to detect those disguised monsters within roughly a ten-meter radius.

That absolutely had to be kept secret.

Bai Xiang glanced out the window, then turned back and asked her younger sister seriously, “This talent—have you told anyone?”

“No one!” Bai Zhuqing’s tone was a bit tense. “I haven’t even told Little Junior Brother! He thinks I reasoned it out!”

“From now on, don’t tell anyone.” Bai Xiang kept warning her. “This is more serious than you think.”

“I get it!” Bai Zhuqing nodded. “You’re worried those things might be all over the Nine Provinces, maybe even infiltrated Yujing. Once word gets out that ‘I can sense them,’ they’ll throw everything they have at coming to kill me.”

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“As long as you understand.” Bai Xiang nodded, then her fine brows drew together slightly. “But ‘all over’ may not be true. Whether they’re in Yujing at all—that’s still hard to say.”

It was just simple logical analysis.

First, these monsters were connected to the wrongful case from seventeen years ago. You could treat them as Yao Qingyuan’s accomplices.

Second, if these things could easily infiltrate Yujing, slip quietly onto the emperor himself, then they’d never have needed to use Yao Qingyuan’s hand to guide the Sea of Blood.

A few imperial edicts would have been enough—digging pits everywhere under the pretext of “renovating gardens.” It wasn’t like the high ministers would have blocked that.

And the Sea of Blood wouldn’t just have spread across the South; it’d be blooming everywhere across the country.

So there had to be restrictions.

Some kind of limitation that kept these monsters from directly meddling in Yujing’s decisions.

“Maybe Yujing doesn’t have them—but what about other places?” Knowing how serious this was, Bai Zhuqing dropped her voice even lower. “Nine Provinces, Thirty-Six Circuits, plus all the towns and villages attached… tens of millions of people in the whole country. With a base that big, who knows how many could be hiding among them.”

“I don’t have proof, but I don’t think there are that many.” Bai Xiang fixed her gaze on her sister’s eyes.

“Otherwise they wouldn’t have shown up this late.”

“And this one definitely didn’t come from Liangzhou.”

“Right.”

Bai Zhuqing suddenly caught on.

If it showed up late, that meant there weren’t any in the area around Zezhou and Qizhou.

And this one came from Liangzhou instead of any other province—that alone suggested these things existed only in limited numbers, and had to be “temporarily reassigned” to get here.

If that’s the case, then what had it originally been doing in Liangzhou?

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If nowhere else had them but Liangzhou did, what was so special about that place?

“My master once told me about the Nine Prefectures and Nine Daos,” Bai Xiang went on. “He summed them up in a poem.”

A poem?

Bai Zhuqing blinked. On the other side, Bai Xiang had already started chanting:

“Above, Suzhen true; Grand Qingping green; all craft springs from Yuming. “Rough Hantian wilds; cool-fright bamboo; Shangqing split in twain. “Refining Benling; drunk in red dust; golden forest fills the sky. “Guarding Kunshan’s peak; seated by jade-flow; waiting for who will come.”

Bai Zhuqing: (°a°) impressed-but-confused.

“Just a summary of each Dao’s traits,” Bai Xiang explained.

“‘Suzhen above’ means, from the perspective of lineage, Suzhen Dao is honored as foremost. They’re the oldest Daoist sect. Rumor has it their secret scriptures contain the methods of the Saint-Emperor.”

“‘Grand Qingping’ is praise from the standpoint of sheer power.”

“In Qingping Dao, each generation has only a single disciple, and that person will become the Sword Dao’s shared sovereign, suppressing the world. Only a Dao like that gets to keep the character ‘Grand’ in front of Qianyu Palace.”

“‘Kunshan’ and ‘Yuliu’ are metaphors for mountains and rivers. You can think through the rest yourself. I’ll only talk about Hongchen Dao… Among the Nine Daos, they’re the most skilled at cultivating the heart—whether it’s Demon Pool methods, heart-meridian charts, or sword arts, everything emphasizes tempering the heart and calming the soul.”

“Then wouldn’t that mean hardly anyone from there goes berserk or falls into inner devils?” Bai Zhuqing blurted.

“Exactly the opposite.” Bai Xiang shook her head. “‘Those best at swimming drown in water; those best at war die by the blade.’ Aside from Qingping Dao and Yuming Dao, Hongchen Dao has the fewest high-level experts among the Nine Daos… Throughout history, many of their prodigies have died violently because they fixated on refining the heart and fell into madness.”

Bai Zhuqing’s jaw dropped. “How do you even know all that?”

Naturally, it was thanks to the Yuming inheritance.

Bai Xiang shot her a sidelong look and didn’t bother elaborating.

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“But on the flip side,” she shifted gears, “Hongchen Dao is extremely good at seeing through ‘mind illusions.’”

“So what you’re saying is—the monsters’ first target should originally have been Hongchen Dao?” Bai Zhuqing, feeling pleased with herself, said, “Because they thought ‘Hongchen Heart-Refining methods’ might threaten their existence?”

“That’s just speculation for now.” Bai Xiang neither confirmed nor denied it, then offered, “You can go rest. We’ll see the results tomorrow morning.”

“You’re going to study it with that Han Yuanfeng, aren’t you?” Bai Zhuqing was having none of that. “I definitely contributed too… Can’t I join in?”

Like hell you can.

Bai Xiang scooped her sister up in one motion and tossed her onto the bed, yanking off her boots and pinning her feet. Then she let the Core realm Vibration Art roar to full output, shaking Bai Zhuqing until she was in total disarray.

Having picked up the “exhausted” debuff, she’d finally be in the mood for sleep.

Watching her younger sister drift off, loose hair spilling over the pillow, Bai Xiang hesitated a moment, then stepped forward anyway to help her out of her outer robe, straighten her posture and smooth her hair, and tuck the blankets carefully around her.

One way or another, my karma and Zhuqing’s are all tangled up now.

A talent, huh?

I hope Little Aunt’s talent doesn’t disappoint me.

She rested her palm on her sword hilt for a moment of quiet focus, then stepped out and made her way to the restaurant next door.

The main hall was packed with students. With too few chairs to go around, quite a few of them were crouched on the floor like quail, fear written on their faces regardless of gender.

And at the stairwell a little crowd had formed, some people helping a ponytailed girl hold back another girl whose emotions were running extremely high.

“No way!” Luo Yan shook off A’jiu’s grip, struggling free as she tried to claw at security.

“What nonsense are you spouting… How could Chenyu possibly be a monster! Stop lying! I’m going to see him!”

“What’s going on here?”

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Bai Xiang walked straight in, deliberately raising her voice as she asked Lian Feng at her side.

The moment the two started talking, they drew everyone’s attention. The students visibly relaxed when they saw her—clearly they’d heard of her exploits and knew they were safer with her here.

But the hysterical girl changed direction the moment she saw Bai Xiang, charging toward her like a gust of wind.

“You did this on purpose, didn’t you?” she shouted.

“You tricked us on purpose… you just want to frame Chenyu!”

Smack!

Bai Xiang backhanded her to the ground. The girl spun a few times before collapsing, and A’jiu rushed in to catch her. Her friend’s eyes had already rolled back—she’d been slapped clean unconscious.

“You know her?”

Bai Xiang walked over and looked down at A’jiu.

“She… is…”

A’jiu’s face had gone a shade paler as she hugged her friend, trembling.

Bai Xiang was beautiful; under normal circumstances, no one should have been afraid of her. But the moment A’jiu met those golden eyes, her head spun as if a vortex of stars was grinding down on her, leaving her shaking and unable to resist.

“Let this teach her a lesson.”

Withdrawing her gaze, Bai Xiang brushed past them and headed upstairs.

“You’ve known each other not even three months. There won’t always be someone there to take the hit for her.”