Volume 5, Chapter 39 – Infiltration

On the other side, at the bottom of the Northern Sea.

As she went deeper and deeper through the cave tunnel, Bai Xiang discovered that there really were many branching side passages here.

The fish-headed man she had killed was named He Chuan. He knew these forks like the back of his hand. Relying on He Chuan’s memories, Bai Xiang lost almost no time at all and quickly followed the one correct path onward, already on the verge of emerging from the other end.

“Stop!”

Suddenly, an angry shout rang out through the tunnel.

Bai Xiang halted, only to see a blinding white light flare up ahead, shining over like a flashlight and casting her entire figure into the beam.

At once, she directed her qi force to wrap around the seawater, attaching it to the surface of her body to form a water mirror. Upon that water mirror, she traced out the image of He Chuan.

“It’s you?” a voice came from ahead of the light, sounding as though it had just breathed a sigh of relief. “How’d you swim down without making any noise, kid? Has your Water-Avoiding Art improved again?”

“Mhm…” Bai Xiang moved her throat and actually mimicked He Chuan’s voice as well. “It’s improved a little.”

At the same time, she saw the newcomer clearly. It was a shark-headed man over two meters tall, dressed in a cloth robe and additionally armored with treasure armor over it.

According to He Chuan’s memories, this person was named Deng Li, a guard placed by the Suzhen Dao at the entrance to the Northern Sea ruins.

Deng Li and He Chuan were fairly familiar with each other. That was because He Chuan held no real status in the Wendao Institute, and nearly every job involving going outside to gather materials fell to him. With how often he went in and out, it was natural that he and Deng Li had come to know each other. He Chuan had even paid to treat Deng Li to drinks before.

“The usual rules. You haven’t forgotten them, have you?”

The shark-headed Deng Li lowered the light. It was a modified lamp set with an enormous pearl, the light inside being projected through the pearl, making it several times more intense than before.

“Mhm.” Bai Xiang nodded, pulled a glossy black shell from her robe, and handed it together with the Hunyuan Buddhist Bead to Deng Li.

She had casually pulled that shell from among the many motionless corpses on the way down.

“A fine treasure!” Deng Li greedily stroked the shell, then suddenly lifted his savage-looking head. “This is the shell of a Blackblade Clam, isn’t it? A living Blackblade Clam could kill someone at the seventh Body Tribulation with a single slash! Your luck’s incredible! You actually managed to pick one of these up!”

Bai Xiang said nothing, and he did not mind. He lowered his head and inspected the Hunyuan Buddhist Bead for a while, making sure it was genuine. Only then did he reluctantly return it to Bai Xiang.

“Identity confirmed. Go on through!”

As Deng Li stepped aside, the surging curtain of water at the mouth of the cave abruptly split apart, revealing an incomparably deep little vortex whose destination was impossible to tell.

Bai Xiang had long since known how to take this path. After taking the Buddhist bead back, she said nothing and plunged into the vortex, letting the force that tore at space drag her away and shift her out of thin air into another space.

“That’s strange.”

After she vanished, Deng Li muttered to himself while playing with the shell.

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“That kid rarely comes out. Why’s he so taciturn today?”

“Ah, whatever, whatever. It’s got nothing to do with me.”

“Better to hope my shift ends early so I can take this thing to Yujing and have some fun.”

The shell of a Blackblade Clam could fetch over ten thousand Great Yuan.

The moment he thought of how much “premium service” that kind of money could buy at a hotel, Deng Li was already getting impatient.

Meanwhile, Bai Xiang felt a sudden brightness before her eyes, and all the dark water flowing around her receded from the surface of her body, pushing and squeezing her into an extremely cramped little space.

Cramped, of course, was only in comparison to a proper fragment of the Illusory Realm.

After all, even the smallest little world could still be called a “world.” Even if it was far less vast than the main world, an area of several hundred square kilometers was still perfectly common.

But this place was different.

As far as the eye could see, this space was only about the size of several football fields put together. At most, it amounted to the area of a village.

And yet, in such a tiny area, someone had built an incomparably lofty and magnificent palace complex around the outskirts.

White walls.

Blue-green tiles.

Those snow-white walls gleamed with a jade-like luster, while the blue-green glazed tiles reflected brilliant light, mirroring across the seawater overhead in rippling, jagged shimmer. It was very beautiful.

What an air of an immortal manor.

Bai Xiang looked coldly upon this “immortal manor,” her heart entirely unmoved.

This time, she did not launch a grand and obvious invasion. Instead, she chose to infiltrate in secret.

Because this time was different from the situation in Yujing City.

This time, she did not intend to let a single person leave this place alive.

According to the memories she had read, this was the Suzhen Dao’s true headquarters, called Qingli Immortal Manor.

At first, it had existed only to facilitate garrisoning, guarding, and excavating the ruins below. But as more and more people gathered here, the Suzhen Dao and the Yao family simply chose to build lavishly on a grand scale, constructing palaces and halls here.

Now, this had become their most important hidden stronghold. Not only were a great many members of the Yao clan hiding here, but nearly eighty percent of the Suzhen disciples were stationed here on guard duty.

Bai Xiang descended and chose to enter the city.

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Wearing He Chuan’s appearance and possessing He Chuan’s memories as well, she was naturally perfectly familiar with the place. Along the way, even when people greeted her she could nod in response, and from time to time she could even exchange a few casual words.

“Brother He? Just got back from outside?”

“He Chuan? Didn’t that Di Xiang just stir up a storm in Yujing? Well? Did she leave?”

“I heard that Di Xiang has white hair, golden eyes, and curves in all the right places—a peerless beauty of the mortal world. Did you see what she actually looks like?”

“Please, don’t joke like that, everyone.” On the water mirror, He Chuan’s image showed an awkward expression. “I only went to the beach to pick through materials… How would I dare go inspect Yujing?”

“As for Di Xiang… don’t just stare at those portraits of her. When she gets fierce, she kills people!”

The He Chuan simulated on the water mirror was incomparably realistic and lifelike. These Suzhen disciples could see nothing wrong with it, and at his words they all burst into laughter.

“Haha! She kills people!”

“That’s killing me! She only used the whole city of Yujing as a threat, that’s all. Put her in any open place and Master could suppress her with one hand!”

“Exactly! All that talk about being wise and mighty, some once-in-a-hundred-million-years genius… wasn’t she still tricked and driven off by Master’s scheme?”

“What are you talking about?” Bai Xiang put on a puzzled look. “Master used a scheme? Didn’t Di Xiang only leave after she’d killed enough people?”

“That’s exactly the point. You Wendao Institute people bury yourselves in research every day and don’t know a thing about what’s going on.”

One Suzhen disciple leaned in and said, “Actually, those people were all demon-puppets, forged through the secret demon-puppet method…”

“Hey, hey! Didn’t Yao Yu tell us not to spread that around?”

“What’s there to be afraid of? We’re not outside! So what if everyone here knows?”

Yao Yu… someone from the Yao clan’s imperial line?

Bai Xiang searched through the memories and vaguely turned up the image of a sickly young man.

This person’s aptitude was ordinary. Normally he liked to befriend drinking and feasting companions, and often took people along to pleasure quarters for fun and games. He was one of the most notorious loudmouths in the Yao clan’s imperial line.

“I say Di Xiang’s reputation as a genius is all hype!”

“That’s right! She’s only relying on the Xuandi Scripture! If we’re really talking talent, she’s not even as good as Junior Brother Wu Yuan!”

“Junior Brother Wu broke into the Sword Lord Realm in less than ten years and has already become a pillar supporting our Suzhen lineage. And he did it without any outside instruction at all—he realized it entirely on his own through wall-facing contemplation and quiet thought!”

“Just wait and see! Give it a few more years, and Junior Brother Wu will fuse Dao-Void with the sword path and create a shocking new method, one even more powerful than the Path of Qi!”

Listening to them talk such nonsense, even with Bai Xiang’s stern state of mind, the real body concealed beneath the water mirror could not help twitching the corner of her mouth.

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Little Huang sent over more intelligence in fits and starts. Wu Yuan really was researching a new method.

But the results were difficult to describe. It either leaned toward Dao-Void Methods or toward the Path of Qi; there was no real innovation in it at all.

These people really were lacking.

Even though they had cultivated to the Sword Lord Realm—including Wu Mengzi—in Bai Xiang’s eyes, they were not worth even one finger of Chu Weiping.

“What are you all doing here?”

A stern voice suddenly sounded from the side.

Everyone turned to look and saw a young woman in blue robes with a sword at her waist emerging from the palace with a group behind her, looking over coldly.

“Senior Sister Dou.”

“Senior Sister Dou.”

Those Suzhen disciples might dare brag and joke around in front of “He Chuan,” but the instant they saw this girl, they all wilted.

“When you’ve got nothing to do, all you know is mixing with the Yao family and running off outside to chase women and debauch yourselves all day!”

“Hurry up and get lost and go practice your swordsmanship!”

This person…

As Bai Xiang watched all the disciples get driven off by the girl, she stared at the girl’s face, and the relevant information surfaced in her mind.

Dou Feiyun.

One of Wu Mengzi’s personal disciples, senior in rank to Wu Yuan, and extremely harsh and cold toward everyone else.

“You… He Chuan?”

Looking at Bai Xiang, Dou Feiyun frowned again.

People from the Wendao Institute were not considered part of her faction.

Although they all operated under the Suzhen Dao’s name, she was a proper disciple of the lineage, while the Wendao Institute was an academic organization jointly established by the Suzhen Dao and the Yao family.

Strictly speaking, the people of the Wendao Institute did not fall under her authority. She would have to go to the Yao family official in charge of that area.

“You went out to gather materials?”

Dou Feiyun questioned Bai Xiang.

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“Yes.” Bai Xiang nodded, letting the water mirror show He Chuan’s dull and wooden expression.

“What’s the situation outside?”

“Did you see Junior Brother Wu Yuan?”

“Everything outside is normal…” Bai Xiang answered. “As for Junior Brother Wu… Junior Brother Wu, he…”

“What happened to him?”

Dou Feiyun glared, looking extremely concerned.

“He seemed a little unhappy and killed quite a lot of monsters. When this disciple came back, I saw monster corpses falling like rain…”

“I see.”

Dou Feiyun let out a breath of relief.

“Junior Brother Wu is probably taking out his anger on those beasts because his deductions on the new method aren’t going smoothly.”

“Oh, right.”

She looked toward Bai Xiang again.

“Your Wendao Institute just started gathering people below. It seems they’ve made some new discovery.”

“I won’t delay you any further. Hurry and go.”

“Yes, Senior Sister.”

Watching Dou Feiyun’s group leave, Bai Xiang turned back and carefully examined the entrance to the great hall.

She discovered that there were some protruding stone pillars there, and the material of those pillars was very different from the wooden carvings and beams nearby.

Not only was the color much darker, close to pure black, but many Buddha images were carved across their surfaces.

Buddha images… Buddhist beads?

Taking out the Hunyuan Buddhist Bead and glancing at it, Bai Xiang sank into slight thought.

Then she looked again at the steps below. Dou Feiyun and the others had already left the palace and were probably heading off to carry out patrol duty.

Weighing the Buddhist bead in her hand, Bai Xiang pressed her lips together and walked in according to He Chuan’s memories.