The Exposed Mastermind: Li Xunhuan

When honored guests came calling, they were treated to a lavish feast.

Long Xiaoyun laid out a grand banquet, with cups clinking and wine flowing freely. The atmosphere was exceedingly lively.

Yet to Lu Xiaofeng, the dishes filling the table were somewhat hard to swallow, far inferior to what he had eaten during those two days on the road.

They were even slightly lacking compared to that first bowl of meat soup.

Zhou Ming: It was MSG. I added MSG!

Fortunately, besides fine dishes, the banquet also had good wine, which Lu Xiaofeng loved.

As for Zhou Ming, it was not that he disliked drinking. He simply disliked drinking with this particular group, so he pretended not to enjoy it.

Since he did not wish to drink, naturally no one dared force him.

Still, refusing to drink at a wine table, whether sincerely or falsely, would always lead to exclusion.

Even though his status was noble, none of the many martial artists present were willing to press their warm faces against his cold backside.

Lin Xian'er did intend to befriend him, but on one hand, she needed to keep an eye on Lu Xiaofeng, the famous hero renowned for his intelligence. On the other, she was surrounded by numerous admirers, leaving her unable to get away.

For a time, Zhou Ming's side became the quietest place at the entire banquet.

He did not mind. His gaze swept over the crowd, and streaks of golden radiance instantly burst forth from his body, shooting straight at everyone. They landed upon them and formed marks made of two simple interwoven cloud patterns, resembling both yin-yang fish and eyes.

This happened right before everyone's eyes, yet no one but him could see it.

This was Zhou Ming's second awakened ability: Marks!

At first glance, this ability merely seemed like unlimited-range messaging combined with surveillance cameras.

In truth, however, it was unbelievably heaven-defying.

So long as a person, animal, or object entered Zhou Ming's field of vision, he could directly place a Mark upon it.

Once placed, it would never disappear.

Placing them consumed nothing, and there was no limit to the number of Marks.

During the Lantern Festival, Zhou Ming had once walked around the streets and placed tens of thousands of Marks.

Such a function was naturally heaven-defying.

Unfortunately, Kyushu and the Four Seas were simply too vast. Furthermore, when he was ten years old, his adoptive father had sent him to Zhongnan Mountain to join the Quanzhen Sect and study martial arts, forbidding him from leaving freely.

Otherwise, over these past ten years of wandering the martial world, he would long since have spread his Marks across the land.

Now, though, it was not too late.

Everyone at the banquet had received his Mark. From now on, they would be his eyes, allowing him to observe everything around them at will!

The sky gradually darkened.

After they had eaten and drunk their fill, both Long Xiaoyun and Lin Xian'er intended to test Lu Xiaofeng. Yet Lu Xiaofeng seemed to have drunk too much and remained unconscious in a drunken stupor. Left with no other choice, they had him sent back to his room to rest.

The courtyards Long Xiaoyun arranged for Lu Xiaofeng and Zhou Ming were close together. Not long after everyone departed, Lu Xiaofeng came directly to Zhou Ming's courtyard.

"What? Sober now?"

"What do you mean, sober? I was never drunk!" Lu Xiaofeng said. "I only drank with them to test them."

"Oh? And what did you find out?"

"Ah!"

Lu Xiaofeng let out a long sigh. "The situation within Xingyun Manor is incredibly tangled and complicated!"

Of course it's complicated, Zhou Ming thought. At that wine table, there were the main culprit and accomplices, manipulators and the manipulated, a crowd of martial artists there for the excitement, and reporters looking to make some big news. They were all mixed together.

And then there was you, the detective trying to uncover the truth.

Human hearts are this complicated. How could the situation possibly be simple?

Lu Xiaofeng said, "I originally thought that as Li Xunhuan's sworn elder brother, Manor Lord Long would be able to help me uncover the truth. But now, it seems he has other thoughts in mind..."

Although Long Xiaoyun had concealed it deeply, Lu Xiaofeng possessed exceptionally sharp eyes. He had already seen that, while Long Xiaoyun appeared to share deep brotherly affection with Li Xunhuan, he actually harbored considerable resentment toward him.

After reading the Plum Blossom Thief case files, Lu Xiaofeng had already begun to doubt the origins of the rumors circulating through the martial world. Now, those suspicions had only deepened.

"And that other person at the banquet..."

Lu Xiaofeng suddenly paused and looked at Zhou Ming. "In any case, no one here seems very reliable. It appears that if we wish to uncover the truth, we can only rely on ourselves."

"Only you, not me."

Zhou Ming said, "I only came to watch the excitement. I have no interest in troubling myself with such matters. If you want to investigate the truth, you can only rely on yourself."

"What? You're not getting involved?"

"Of course not!"

Lu Xiaofeng gritted his teeth in frustration, but Zhou Ming's resolve was firm, and there was nothing he could do. He could only turn and leave.

Watching him depart, Zhou Ming thought, What did he mean by that unfinished sentence? Could he have already discovered that something is wrong with Lin Xian'er? No way, right?

Zhou Ming could not help recalling the banquet just now, then suddenly fell silent.

All right, he had definitely noticed already.

The reason was simple: Lin Xian'er had been far too conspicuous.

As a woman, at an occasion like today's, she should have avoided suspicion. Just like Long Xiaoyun's wife, Lin Shiyin, the true mistress of Li Garden—she had not merely abstained from the banquet, she had not even shown her face.

By contrast, Lin Xian'er, also a woman, had taken the initiative to appear. She had socialized smoothly with everyone at the banquet, chatting happily in every direction.

With behavior like that, if she was not conspicuous, who was?

Ordinary people might be fooled by claims that martial artists' sons and daughters did not stand on ceremony, but Lu Xiaofeng was clearly no ordinary person.

It seemed he had already sensed that something was amiss. So long as he dug deeper afterward, he would surely find clues and see through Lin Xian'er's true nature.

"But what does Lin Xian'er have to do with me? I just need to watch the show."

Zhou Ming smiled, then turned and returned to his room to rest.

At noon the next day, Li Xunhuan indeed arrived.

This time, Long Xiaoyun, Lin Xian'er, the many martial artists, and even Lin Shiyin, who had not appeared at all yesterday, all went out to welcome him.

Upon receiving the news, Zhou Ming naturally went along as well.

At the entrance to Xingyun Manor, Zhou Ming saw three people he had not seen yesterday.

One was a burly man with a thick beard named Tie Chuanjia. He had once received great kindness from the Li family. Though highly skilled in martial arts, he had willingly served as Li Xunhuan's servant and carriage driver. During the ten years beyond the frontier, he had attended Li Xunhuan's side.

Another was a pale-faced youth dressed simply, holding a sword in his hand. Calling it a sword was generous; in reality, it was merely a long, narrow strip of iron clamped between two wooden boards serving as a hilt.

The sword was simple, but the one holding it was not.

This youth was A'Fei, the Flying Swordsman who had recently become famous in the martial world, and a friend Li Xunhuan had met on his journey home.

Finally, the man in white, with a gaunt face and a desolate bearing, whose handsome appearance could still surpass ninety-nine percent of the men in the world, was Li Xunhuan!

Xia Feng said in surprise, "Didn't they say Li Xunhuan could kill Grandmasters ten years ago? How is he still in the Innate Realm after ten years?"

Qiu Yue also frowned slightly. "And he looks as though he's ill..."

Zhou Ming smiled. "You must not underestimate him because of that. Cultivation and combat strength are not entirely linked."

Indeed, a powerful expert who could kill Grandmasters ten years ago was still only in the Innate Realm ten years later.

Even if he had reached the Innate Perfected Realm, it still seemed weak compared to Li Xunhuan's great reputation.

Moreover, his face was pale, his frame thin, and he coughed once or twice from time to time, looking gravely ill.

Dragging around such a sickly body, even with Innate Perfected Realm cultivation, he probably could not even display the strength of the Gangqi Realm.

However, he was Li Xunhuan!

You could despise his character, laugh at his past, and mock his sickly body, but the one thing you could never ignore was his flying dagger!

Little Li Flying Dagger, never missed its mark!

Even if he possessed only Innate Perfected Realm cultivation, even if he dragged around such a sickly body, should a Grandmaster make an enemy of him today—

Once the flying dagger flew, the one to fall would only be that Grandmaster.

It would never be Li Xunhuan!

Chun Hua asked doubtfully, "Young Master, didn't you deeply detest Li Xunhuan? Why are you so confident in him now that you've seen him?"

Zhou Ming said, "I hate the way he acts, but I love his flying dagger!"

He still remembered reading Little Li Flying Dagger in his youth. All he had seen then was Li Xunhuan's peerless martial arts; once his flying dagger flew, there was no enemy beneath heaven who could stand against him.

Naturally, he had admired and worshipped him.

But when he read Little Li Flying Dagger again as a young man, he saw how Li Xunhuan had given his beloved away, and even handed his ancestral estate over to someone else.

It was truly infuriating.

It was neither love nor hate—it was both love and hate.

But there was no helping it. Who told him he was Li Xunhuan?