Mu Family.
Mu Xue sat in the back courtyard, resting her chin in her hand as she watched Yalin run all over the array.
"Ahhh, don't pull my hair!"
"Ow! Stop spanking me! My butt's blooming!"
"Big sister, save me!"
Mu Xue watched, finding it especially amusing. In her previous life, all she had ever dreamed of was having a child.
But she never did, not even in the end.
Whenever she felt sad, Lu Shui would sit beside her and say the same thing he'd said for countless years: "You'll have one. I..."
Hm?
Just as she began reminiscing, Mu Xue's brows suddenly drew together. She felt a little uneasy, and a little worried.
"Why am I suddenly feeling so unsettled?" Mu Xue wondered.
"Could there be danger nearby that might threaten me?
"No, that can't be."
Mu Xue then called Ding Liang over.
"Miss?" Ding Liang asked, wondering what she wanted.
Mu Xue sat in her seat. After a moment's silence, she said:
"Let me borrow your phone."
She had already destroyed her previous phone.
Ding Liang said nothing and immediately took out his phone for his young lady.
Mu Xue took the phone, opened the call screen, and manually entered a phone number.
Then she held the phone to her ear and waited for the other person to answer.
She felt a little nervous, a little worried.
Especially as the call went unanswered.
Mu Xue had been fairly calm at first, but her brows slowly furrowed.
Just as she thought the call was about to end, the other person suddenly picked up.
A rather stern voice came through almost immediately:
"Who is this?"
There was someone with him? At least she didn't have to say anything.
Mu Xue didn't speak, and the other person fell silent too.
A dozen seconds later.
"Who the hell was that?" Then he hung up.
Mu Xue handed the phone back to Ding Liang, reassured that he was all right.
That put her much more at ease. It was a shame there'd been someone with him; otherwise, she could have listened to him for a little longer.
"Miss, are you going to buy a phone?" Ding Liang asked.
Mu Xue shook her head.
"Not for now."
She didn't need to buy one herself. Someone would buy one for her.
But that wouldn't be for another three years. She could wait.
Lu Shui hung up. What a strange call. He still had important things to do, and someone had gone and called him just to bother him.
He didn't have time now. If he did, he'd draw a little circle around that caller's name.
Then Lu Shui put it out of his mind and took out the Eight Directions Array Diagram. He planned to start with the first step of preparing to kill the vicious beast.
The first part of the first step was to complete half of the Eight Directions Array Diagram.
Zhen Wu and Zhen Ling could only stand behind him and wait for his instructions.
Their young master seemed to be muttering nonsense to himself. They had no idea what he was up to.
Lu Shui was using spiritual energy to inscribe the next part of the array onto the diagram. Before long, he held out his hand.
"Fifty sixth-grade spirit stones."
Zhen Wu immediately took out fifty sixth-grade spirit stones without hesitation.
At first, Zhen Wu and Zhen Ling couldn't understand where so many spirit stones would go. But the next moment, they found out: when Lu Shui placed the stones on the diagram, they were drawn straight inside.
Fifty sixth-grade spirit stones disappeared into the diagram in the blink of an eye.
Yet the diagram looked no different.
"W-what is this?" Zhen Wu asked instinctively.
"The Eight Directions Array Diagram," Lu Shui replied calmly.
The Eight Directions Array Diagram corresponded to the Eight Directions Array. With Lu Shui's current strength, he could complete no more than three sides of the array.
After working for a long time, Lu Shui finally put down the Eight Directions Array Diagram. He had completed it.
He had used two hundred sixth-grade spirit stones in total.
"What is Young Master planning to do?" Zhen Wu and Zhen Ling truly couldn't understand.
Lu Shui drew a small array on the ground, then placed the Eight Directions Array Diagram on it. The diagram began to sink into the earth.
Only after finishing all that did Lu Shui speak.
"I'm putting a lock on the Barren Grassland."
Zhen Wu and Zhen Ling were baffled. Just as they were about to ask, they suddenly felt a Strange Aura spreading out from around them.
It spread incredibly fast, as though the entire highland and the woods below it were enveloped by the aura.
In an instant, they felt the surroundings change, though in reality, nothing had changed at all.
"What is this?" Zhen Ling stared around, at a loss for words.
Lu Shui strode forward and said:
"A Mystic Array."
That was right, a Mystic Array.
He needed to keep people outside from interfering with him, and he also had to be ready in case the vicious beast tried to escape.
Only a Mystic Array would buy him enough time.
Next, he would expand the array on the Eight Directions Array Diagram and bring the Four Directions Array Formation within it to its fullest potential.
Only then would he have a chance of killing that vicious beast.
Lu Shui had already made up his mind, so he wouldn't waste time overthinking it.
He had more than enough confidence.
In the woods.
Le Feng stood in front of a corpse, his brow furrowing as he muttered:
"Insect Cultivator. Judging by the looks of it, he was probably at Third Tier Cultivation when he was alive. Is this the Liu Huo Dongfang Haoyue mentioned?"
Le Feng wasn't sure. Soon, he noticed the Storage Magic Treasure on the Insect Cultivator.
After hesitating for a moment, he drew the Storage Magic Treasure over from a distance and inspected it with great care.
Le Feng soon reached a conclusion:
"There's nothing wrong with the Storage Magic Treasure. The contents match the information I received closely enough. This must be the Liu Huo who stole the goods.
"But who killed him?
"And why didn't they take the Storage Magic Treasure?
"Was it deliberate?"
Le Feng examined the corpse again and found that Liu Huo's fatal wound was very clean. The killer had most likely used a sword.
"A Sword Cultivator? A somewhat obsessive Sword Cultivator might really kill someone without taking anything, even if it was right there."
After a pause, Le Feng thought of something else:
"Could the other person also be a Hidden Heaven Sect Disciple?"
Le Feng took out a bronze mirror and activated it. A series of words appeared on its surface.
At the very top were the words "Hidden Heaven."
Below them was a list of names arranged in order.
Le Feng scrolled to the bottom.
Rank ninety-six: Liu Huo.
"It doesn't say he was killed, and it doesn't say he's under review." Le Feng looked at the Insect Cultivator Liu Huo and fell into thought.
That was right. He was actually a Hidden Heaven Sect Disciple. He had recently discovered a new target on the Hidden Sky Secret Codex: Liu Huo.
He had taken the mission specifically to test the waters.
Anyone listed in the Hidden Sky Secret Codex was an enemy of the Hidden Heaven Sect. Killing one earned a large amount of sect merit.
So their sect was rather dangerous. How many of its disciples had never carried out an assassination?
That was why keeping a low profile had become the sect's guiding principle.
The most helpless part was that some sects were willing to spend a fortune to get certain people listed in the Hidden Sky Secret Codex.
But their sect hadn't agreed. If they had, they'd have become an assassination organization.
Le Feng looked around again and came to a new conclusion:
"It probably wasn't another member of the sect who killed him. Most likely, he set his sights on someone. He was the hunter, but in the end, the prey turned the tables and killed him."
He found Spirit Insects in several places nearby. They'd been prepared in advance.
"He made plenty of preparations and still got killed. He must have provoked someone who was hiding their strength."
The main reason he figured the killer wasn't one of their sect's members was the Storage Magic Treasure.
Liu Huo had been a bandit. His Storage Magic Treasure was bound to be valuable. He couldn't believe any Hidden Heaven Sect Disciple would leave it behind.
Judging by the signs of fighting at the scene, the other person had been completely at ease. It wasn't as if they'd lacked the time to take it.
So the killer was most likely a wealthy person who had been hiding their strength.
Just as Le Feng reached that conclusion, he suddenly felt the surroundings shift.
Something was wrong with the environment. In particular, the marker he'd left behind had gone dead. When he looked toward the corpse, he found it had disappeared too.
He didn't panic. Instead, he took out a little bird. As soon as it appeared, it looked dazed. Seeing that, Le Feng frowned.
"A Mystic Array? And not an ordinary one. What happened inside?"
Le Feng planned to go in and take a look. As for Liu Huo's corpse, he could come back for it later.
Before you continue