For the next ten days, Wu Ming's routine returned to the rhythm he found most comfortable: grinding scripts.
He got up at four every morning, worked through the lessons his senior sister had left him, and collected his daily system rewards... After that, he met up with his other teammates on the little hill where he'd left his mark on the tall stone figure.
Then they headed straight for Qingjing Lake and unleashed the Five Extremes Mysterious Steel Array in a furious assault... When everyone was nearly spent, they formed the array and made a swift retreat all the way back to the Grey Plains.
After lunch, they went out for another round of random hunts, then returned in high spirits at dusk. They found an inn for a simple meal and drink, then went their separate ways to rest and recover for the next day.
From time to time, letters arrived from their sect, mostly reminding them to keep up their cultivation and stay safe. The words were brief, but the concern behind them was sincere... Unfortunately, both senior sisters had encountered important matters in their own cultivation and couldn't get away anytime soon to visit their junior brother in town.
This full, regular life, as relentless as a stud pounding away, might have lacked surprises—and the main-quest rewards to go with them... but it was actually right in Wu Ming's comfort zone.
What professional didn't enjoy grinding?
After ten days of this intense grinding, the cultivation of the three youngsters surged ahead once more. Wu Ming was on the verge of reaching the fifth rank, while Liu Sanlang and Zhang Miao had each passed the halfway point of the fourth.
By then, the Tribulation of Lost Li hanging over the three of them was about to strike. So, following their original plan, they returned to Qinghe Village to revisit the old place.
As expected, the old scholar at the Foundation Establishment Early Stage had respawned by the river. He was still staring blankly at the fish swimming in the water, utterly off guard, and clearly remembered nothing of what had happened before.
So they didn't hold back. They ambushed him, carried him off, and harvested him in one smooth motion. And after having digested and absorbed someone once before, Wu Ming processed him much more efficiently the second time around.
"This man came from the neighboring Li Family Village. He passed the imperial examination in Ming County, but after retiring from office, he came to live in Qinghe Village for some reason. He's spent years gazing at the river and pining for home..."
After a string of information like that, everyone stared in astonishment.
A neighboring village? Ming County? He'd passed the imperial examination?
Could the second level of Moli Immortal Mansion really contain an entire country with a complete ecosystem?!
Once they realized this, everyone felt as if another barrier had been broken. Then the signs of the Tribulation of Lost Li hanging over Wu Ming and the others vanished without a trace.
"Tsk, looks like I digested a bit too much this time... I'll have to rein it in a little next time."
Wu Ming still felt he hadn't quite had his fill, but overall, the others were just as thrilled by their resounding victory.
Back in town, Liu Sanlang was quick to take the initiative. He brought out some of the Li Chen belonging to the Liu Family and booked a private room at a high price in the most luxurious restaurant in town, treating everyone to a sumptuous feast.
The dishes and wine were all extraordinary, and musicians and dancers performed songs and dances that soothed the mind and spirit. Everyone had suffered some wear and even hidden injuries, but after the feast, not only were they fully healed, they could even feel their cultivation stirring toward another breakthrough...
Everything was perfect—except that Liu Sanlang's wallet had taken a heavy blow.
By the time the music ended and the guests dispersed, even the masked man in black, who never showed any emotion, seemed to be smiling beneath his mask.
It had been another resounding victory... A barrier that no one had broken through in the past three hundred years had now been smashed like rotten wood!
As long as they stuck to Wu Ming's plan, they could keep winning and winning, without ever growing tired of victory!
But as everyone returned, satisfied, they also heard the murmurs of surprise and suspicion beginning to rise around them.
"Who are those people? Immortal Guiding Envoys from Luohuang Mountain?"
"Doesn't look like a proper Immortal Guiding Envoy... Look at that tall young man. His aura is like a sword hanging above your head. That has to be the Lijin True Qi of the Liu Family!"
"The Wu County Liu Clan? No wonder! Looks like they're willing to pay a hefty price to compete for the Immortal Fate now that Zhuoquan Immortal Mansion has appeared. They've even managed to hire people from Luohuang Mountain as bodyguards! And they've had them for how many days now? Even if they aren't proper Immortal Guiding Envoys, that's no small feat."
"Looks like we underestimated these border-region clans. Then again, perhaps the Immortal Masters of Luohuang want to use this chance to reshape the balance of power in the border regions. Ha ha."
The jumble of voices soon scattered on the wind. The speakers hadn't bothered to keep their voices down, but they'd clearly only meant to hint at what they knew.
Those who heard the rumors, meanwhile, began to feel the pressure.
The smile on Liu Sanlang's face stiffened at once.
"Sorry. I got carried away and forgot the basic principle of keeping wealth out of sight."
Yi Yi clapped him lightly on the shoulder and shook his head. "Don't blame yourself. There was no need to hide it in the first place. This town is full of people coming and going, a real mix of fish and dragons, but there aren't many secrets from people who are truly paying attention. We've gained plenty in Moli Immortal Mansion, and someone was bound to notice. If we'd tried too hard to hide it, we'd only have made ourselves look more suspicious."
Han Gang added, "If you really needed to keep your wealth out of sight, we would've warned you already. Don't worry. As long as we follow the rules here, whatever other people say has nothing to do with us."
"Follow the rules..." Liu Sanlang repeated quietly, his heart growing heavier by the moment.
Just now, as the murmurs reached his ears, Liu Sanlang thought he'd glimpsed a familiar figure in the restaurant, there and gone in a flash—the servant's uniform of the Kang Family, the second-ranked clan in Wu Prefecture.
He very much hoped it had been a trick of the eye, but...
"Don't worry."
The next moment, Wu Ming's voice sounded in his ear.
"As long as we take care of our own business, nothing happening outside can affect us."
Liu Sanlang forced a smile and nodded, but the burden in his heart didn't lighten in the slightest.
For the next ten days, life returned to the same orderly routine of grinding scripts.
After two rounds of harvesting, Wu Ming and the others had gradually formed a clearer picture of the Li Yao. Each day, as they lured them out at Qingjing Lake, they began to recognize quite a few familiar faces among them.
Their growing understanding brought improvements across the board. Yi Yi and the others all felt that every action in Moli Immortal Mansion came more easily than before, while the Li Chen that kept accumulating and clinging to them seemed to have thinned out a little.
Wu Ming's theory of cognition had once again been confirmed. And the smooth progress of their third round of harvesting gave everyone even more confidence. It was as if they could uncover the secrets of the whole Immortal Mansion simply by continuing to slay Li Yao along the shores of Qingjing Lake, accumulating echoes, and piecing together the lives of the Qi Refining cultivators who had gone missing in the outer reaches...
Of course, the Immortal Mansion had a second and third level, and perhaps even deeper ones, so no one thought the matter would be quite that simple. But these excursions, which were nearly free of danger and brought tangible rewards every day, were hard to give up.
By the time they ventured into the second level for the third time and uncovered more of the Peach Blossom Spring's secrets, Wu Ming was only one step away from the fifth rank.
In just one short month, this little junior brother from the Gujian Sect, with his mere seventh-grade Spirit Root, had covered most of the ground that ordinary prodigies from Aristocratic Clans took half a year to travel. As for the true clan prodigies, they were much less efficient at digesting the echoes, but their family advantages kept their progress close behind.
Naturally, such an unusual situation drew more and more attention.
In fact, when their third round of harvesting began, their group had already caused a modest stir in town.
They had simply lasted far too long... More than twenty consecutive days of excursions into the Immortal Mansion was practically unheard of!
Anyone who had lived in town for a long time knew about the Tribulation of Lost Li. Even just living in town, one was affected by Li Chen in every aspect of life. Once you ventured deep into the Immortal Mansion, the countdown on your life began in earnest.
Apart from the Immortal Guiding Envoys of a few prestigious sects, who had secret methods to suppress the erosion of Li Chen, no one else could resist it. This was especially true of the young, inexperienced cultivators whose cultivation was still shallow; they had absolutely no way to fight the erosion.
So, under normal circumstances, even when protected by a proper Immortal Guiding Envoy, young Dao Seeds would usually begin to rest around the seventh or eighth day. They would wait another ten days or half a month before entering the Immortal Mansion again, giving themselves time to dispel the tribulation.
Yet the Wu County Liu Clan clearly couldn't afford to hire a proper Immortal Guiding Envoy, and neither Liu Sanlang nor that Desolate People youth could be considered among the top Dao Seeds in Qiongzhou... And yet this very team had repeatedly entered and left Moli Immortal Mansion for more than twenty days, while the cultivation of the youngsters had grown at an explosive rate.
How on earth had they managed it?!
No matter how people speculated or reasoned, they couldn't find an answer.
So, on the thirtieth day, someone chose the simplest, most direct approach: asking them to their faces.
Just as Wu Ming and the others emerged from the Immortal Mansion, exhausted, and stepped back onto the little hill, a group was already waiting for them, practically nose to nose.
"Liu Sanlang, it's been several months. Your cultivation has advanced at a truly astonishing pace. You must have made some incredible gains in the Immortal Mansion! I'd like to follow your example. Would you be willing to share a few pointers, Sanlang?"
Normally, asking someone outright for their exclusive cultivation techniques was both rude and foolish. One could simply brush the question aside.
But faced with this unexpected questioner, Liu Sanlang could only return a polite smile and cup his hands in greeting.
"Greetings, Senior Sister Kang. It's been several months, and you're more radiant than ever..."
The person called Senior Sister Kang was Kang Yunshu, the second daughter of the Kang Family, the second-ranked clan in Wu Prefecture.
Though born to an Aristocratic Clan, Kang Yunshu wore her short hair in a tousled bob that brushed her shoulders. Her features were delicate, her brows and eyes bold, and her honey-colored skin lent her a vibrant air. There was an irrepressible restlessness to her.
She was six years older than Liu Qi and had now reached the peak of Qi Refining. Her cultivation talent was considered exceptional even among the clans.
That was why she, too, had taken Lord Yanliu, an outer-mountain True Person of the Sanqing Immortal Sect, as her master. But she was more than just a nominal disciple: she had already entered the outer sect, putting her a rank above Liu Sanlang.
What's more, the Liu Family's core heir of this generation was the Eldest Young Master, Liu Cheng, while the Kang Family's core heir wasn't Kang Pingxiang, but Kang Yunshu herself. With both those facts in mind, Liu Sanlang had no choice but to humble himself before her.
After pressing him with her questions, Kang Yunshu saw Liu Sanlang return her greeting so formally and immediately laughed, all her sharpness gone.
"Ha ha, Sanlang, you're too polite! Let's not stand around talking here. I've already booked a feast at Hongbin Restaurant in town. It'll be the perfect welcome-home banquet for everyone returning from the Immortal Mansion!"
From beginning to end, she hadn't spared the others a glance.
Wu Ming was just about to speak when Liu Sanlang quietly signaled to him.
So Wu Ming said nothing more. He stepped back half a pace and left the group. Naturally, no one paid any attention to his departure.
Just as he couldn't have cared less about Kang Yunshu's arrival.
Before you continue