Hidden Plot

Lu Qingshan swiftly left Boulder Forest with Great King West Rat.

"Where are we going?"

Seeing that Lu Qingshan had remained silent ever since leaving Boulder Forest, Great King West Rat hesitated for a long while before finally unable to resist asking.

"Yuanshan City!"

Great King West Rat had actually wanted to ask Lu Qingshan whether, now that it had told him everything it was supposed to, he could let it go.

Staying by Lu Qingshan's side terrified it.

But seeing the grave look on Lu Qingshan's face, it ultimately did not dare voice the question.

Being a rat was truly too hard!

After traveling for a while longer, a majestic, towering city came into Lu Qingshan's view.

Yuanshan City, one of the one hundred and eight prefectural cities under Zhenjiang Prefecture.

As a prefectural city, Yuanshan City was surrounded by dozens of cultivation families, large and small, as well as three first-rank sects.

Standing outside Yuanshan City, Lu Qingshan could not help but be stirred by a trace of nostalgia.

Zhenjiang Prefecture's one hundred and eight prefectural cities were the spawning grounds of Nine Heavens players—in other words, the beginner villages.

Although the beginner village from his previous life had not been Yuanshan City but another prefectural city, the familiar sights still gave him a sense of closeness.

Lu Qingshan entered the city directly. He was neither questioned at the gate nor charged any so-called entry fee, though the black rat on his shoulder drew curious looks from the city guards.

Who kept rats as pets these days?

The city's roads were paved with clean, neat bluestone slabs. Countless pedestrians, merchants, travelers, and snack stalls crammed the once-spacious streets until they bustled shoulder to shoulder, lively beyond compare.

In this world of demons, ghosts, immortal arts, and Daoist techniques, human cities were far more prosperous than the ancient worlds of the scientific side, whether in economy or every other aspect.

Lu Qingshan casually found an inn, booked a superior room, ordered some wine and dishes, then drank alone in his room.

Great King West Rat looked around for a while before finally unable to resist hopping onto the table and joining in.

Lu Qingshan merely glanced at Great King West Rat and said nothing.

He needed to calm down now, cast aside all distracting thoughts, and properly sort through his reasoning.

The blood pool that had appeared ahead of time, yet had never been mentioned in any plot records, made Lu Qingshan feel that something was wrong.

He could sense a veil of fog shrouding that stretch of history before the Corpse Puppet Uprising erupted.

What he needed to do was use the vast amount of information he possessed to pierce through that fog.

First, the blood pool must have existed for a reason. Demon Cultivators would not build a blood pool without purpose.

Since there was a purpose, there would be an outcome, whether they succeeded or failed.

A matter's beginning and course could be concealed perfectly, but its outcome could not be hidden. Whatever the result, it would inevitably have an enormous impact.

It was like an imperial prince forcing his way into the palace in ancient times. With meticulous planning, everything might remain silent before the outcome emerged. But once the dust settled, whether he failed or succeeded, it would be recorded in the history books and written of in grand detail.

Yet when he recalled the historical plot records, he truly could not find any event related to this blood pool, located a thousand li away from Zhenjiang Prefecture's capital.

Then there was only one possibility: it existed in the records in a relatively obscure form.

He would have to reason backward from the outcome and determine which event was connected to the blood pool!

Lu Qingshan dipped a finger in wine and began drawing on the tabletop.

He needed to review the major events that had occurred around Yuanshan City this year.

When he had checked into the inn, he had asked the waiter and confirmed the current date.

Year 20000 of Chang'an.

It was also the final year of that era name. Several months later, the Corpse Puppet Uprising would begin.

After the Corpse Puppet Uprising ended, the master of Heavenly Mystery Temple used the Heavenly Mystery Mirror to probe the secrets of heaven.

In an instant, his hair turned completely white. The Heavenly Mystery Temple Master, already at the Great Vehicle realm, had his lifespan exhausted in a blink. Before dying, he left behind one final sentence: "The abyss has arrived. From this day onward, the firmament will fall into turmoil."

The following year, the Great Xia Imperial Family changed the era name to Xianwu.

That year, everyone's attention had been drawn to the Corpse Puppet Uprising and the passing of the Heavenly Mystery Temple Master. Thus, many minor details received little notice and were swallowed by the river of history.

But Lu Qingshan was different. He had studied the plot of Nine Heavens in depth.

Names flashed rapidly through Lu Qingshan's mind one after another.

He was filtering through useful information.

Suddenly, an utterly inconspicuous record amid the vast sea of historical records quietly surfaced before Lu Qingshan.

Historical record: In the middle of Year 20000 of Chang'an, on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, the overseer stationed in Zhenjiang Prefecture by Heavenly Mystery Temple, one of the seven great Dao sects, lost a Heavenly Mystery Mirror Fragment near Yuanshan City.

Because the temple master passed away at the end of the year, the entire Heavenly Mystery Temple was immersed in mourning.

When the Xianwu era arrived, major events came one after another. This matter dragged on and on until it was simply left unresolved.

That vanished Heavenly Mystery Mirror Fragment became an unsolved case.

The Heavenly Mystery Mirror was the Dao Artifact that suppressed Heavenly Mystery Temple. It could connect with the spiritual workings of heaven and earth and the karma of the mortal world, capable of probing the secrets of heaven and seeking fortune while avoiding calamity.

Besides that, the Heavenly Mystery Mirror possessed another crucial ability: it could divide into numerous fragments, each of which retained a small portion of the original mirror's power.

Because of the Heavenly Mystery Mirror's miraculous nature, the Great Xia Imperial Family had reserved an overseer's post in every prefecture, appointing Heavenly Mystery Temple disciples carrying Heavenly Mystery Mirror Fragments to serve as overseers over the prefectures.

Heavenly Mystery Temple watched over the world!

Lu Qingshan had never been able to understand this historical record.

The Zhenjiang Prefecture overseer was a fourth-stage Nascent Soul Cultivator. Why would he appear without cause in the tiny prefectural city of Yuanshan City, only to lose such an important Heavenly Mystery Mirror Fragment here?

Something was wrong!

Thinking again of the blood pool near Yuanshan City, Lu Qingshan could already smell the stench of conspiracy.

A plot that had been hidden away.

Lu Qingshan's eyes gradually brightened as he pondered in secret, his train of thought becoming clearer and clearer.

The Heavenly Mystery Mirror probed the secrets of heaven. Such a strange, creation-defying ability actually came with many restrictions. For instance, the secrets revealed by the mirror were often merely ambiguous, seemingly true yet false scenes.

This required cultivators to interpret them and uncover the meaning behind those images.

And this was often something people with ulterior motives could exploit, deliberately creating false appearances to mislead those using the Heavenly Mystery Mirror.

That was it.

How could something as important as the blood pool have its concealing illusion formation suddenly fail, with not even a single guard left behind?

Clearly, the Demon Cultivators had deliberately withdrawn the formation, allowing the blood pool to appear in the Heavenly Mystery Mirror and luring the Zhenjiang Prefecture overseer here.

To avoid exposing their identities in the Heavenly Mystery Mirror, the Demon Cultivators needed to stay far away from the blood pool's location.

Even if the matter appeared exceedingly strange, how could a Heavenly Mystery Temple disciple, as an overseer of the world, simply ignore it? He would surely come to investigate.

The purpose was simple. Whatever the Zhenjiang Prefecture overseer lost was what the Demon Cultivators wanted.

The Heavenly Mystery Mirror Fragment!

If the Heavenly Mystery Mirror Fragment had still been there, how could Zhenjiang Prefecture's capital have been utterly unprepared and slaughtered by the Demon Cultivators?

At this thought, Lu Qingshan's gaze deepened. He remembered another matter.

After losing the Heavenly Mystery Mirror Fragment, Zhenjiang Prefecture dispatched a great number of cultivators from the prefectural capital, stationing them throughout the major prefectural cities.

Thus, when the Corpse Puppet Uprising began to gain momentum and the corpse puppets serving as a smokescreen attacked the major prefectural cities, the spectacle was immense, but the slaughter they actually caused was not particularly terrifying.

Yet Zhenjiang Prefecture's capital had become a city full of white bones!

Why had there been such a result? Lu Qingshan now understood.

There was a great chance that the Zhenjiang Prefecture overseer had been misled by the blood pool near Yuanshan City.

He believed the Demon Cultivators' target was merely those small prefectural cities.

He had never imagined that in this operation, the Demon Cultivators' ambitions would be so vast that they intended to strike at the prefectural capital—and succeeded.