Testing

Testing

The night was deep.

Yet Ning Ye still sat in his room, pondering.

Though he had spoken that way to Zhang Liekuang during the day, he knew better than anyone how hard it was to maintain one's drive in a comfortable environment.

His self-assurance and boasting were largely products of the circumstances he lived in.

Perhaps it was time to do something.

He thought.

Even if it was only to stoke his drive, even if it was only to make his presence known, even if it was only a small test...

He raised his hand. A piece of ten-year-old Gloomy Wood appeared in his palm.

He had bought the Gloomy Wood at the market. If the thing he made from it was discovered, it might lead them to him, and he had no way of obtaining another piece from elsewhere in a short time. But none of that mattered.

No plan was flawless. Expecting one was just looking for an excuse to give up.

He got to work.

The Carving Knife descended, and with practiced strokes, a lifelike ground rat gradually took shape in Ning Ye's hands.

At the Heavenly Mechanism Sect, Ning Ye had excelled most at illusions, and next at puppet arts, since those were the best for playing tricks on people. Formation craft came after that, and pills and talismans were his weakest disciplines.

After arriving at the Black and White Divine Palace, he had chosen his weakest discipline, Talisman Dao, as his public specialty. He had abandoned pill-making, keeping illusion and puppet arts as secret weapons.

What he was making now was a Ground Rat Puppet. It had little combat ability, but it was quick, could dig tunnels, and was excellent at gathering information. Since it was made from ten-year-old Gloomy Wood, it could hold a certain amount of spiritual power and bear talisman spells.

Once he had finished the Ground Rat Puppet, he pasted a Stealth Talisman, a Mind Talisman, and a Pass-Breaking Talisman onto it, then controlled it as it burrowed underground.

These talismans weren't from the Yang Talisman Scripture, but from the Yin Talisman Scripture and the Heavenly Mechanism Sect. Ning Ye had secretly copied the Black and White Divine Palace's secret arts, so naturally he had the contents of both the Yin and Yang Talisman Scriptures. But these talismans couldn't be made known to outsiders.

A short while later, the puppet reached a storeroom filled with all sorts of pills.

It darted forward. The Stealth Talisman made it hard to notice, while the Pass-Breaking Talisman let it ignore the protective spells. Its little claws grabbed a bottle of pills and stuffed it into its belly.

It wasn't very big. After stuffing away three bottles, it couldn't fit any more, so it burrowed back through the earth and returned to Ning Ye's room.

Ning Ye smiled. "Little fool, don't leave the evidence here with me. Find somewhere empty to hide it, then keep going."

The puppet burrowed out again.

That night, it worked like a diligent porter, carrying pills and rare materials out of the storeroom one by one. It didn't stop until dawn was near.

At daybreak, Hou Er went to open the storeroom as usual.

The moment it opened, he rushed out, white as a sheet. "Disaster! The storeroom's been robbed!"

The alarm bells rang out.

Fu Dongliu stood before the storeroom, his face so dark it looked ready to drip.

"A bunch of good-for-nothings!" Fu Dongliu snorted.

His words made Hou Er, who had been responsible for guarding the storeroom, tremble in fear. Beyond him, other disciples gathered to watch the commotion. Seeing Hou Er in trouble, they all wore gleeful smiles.

Guarding the storeroom was a cushy post. If Hou Er lost it, perhaps one of them would get a chance.

In truth, the stolen goods came from a low-grade storeroom, so the losses were limited. What Fu Dongliu really cared about was his pride.

Someone had actually dared to rob the Black and White Divine Palace. If word got out, wouldn't they become a laughingstock?

Now he stood inside the storeroom as several White Hall disciples tallied the losses around him.

The Black and White Divine Palace was divided into the Black and White Halls. The Black Hall governed death and handled criminal law, executions, and the like. The White Hall governed life and handled surveillance, resources, and the like.

Fu Dongliu was one of the White Hall's Four Envoys, one of the Four-Nine Human Demons. His responsibility was surveillance.

But Immortal Master Fu hadn't won the post through an eagle eye for detail.

Known as the Heart-Eroding Hermit, Fu Dongliu had once been a Rogue Cultivator who delighted in tormenting others and was especially skilled at scheming. Since the nine great Immortal Sects generally didn't accept disciples from other sects, Fu Dongliu had come up with a plan.

First, he joined forces with the Thirteen Bandits of Jiangling to raid one of the Black and White Divine Palace's branch halls, stealing the Heart-Refining Stone kept there. After using it, he cultivated the Heart-Eroding Technique. Then he personally slaughtered the Thirteen Bandits of Jiangling and presented himself to the Black and White Divine Palace with their heads, confessing to his crimes.

The Heart-Eroding Technique could erode the mind, and could also search souls and seize memories. A cultivator's mind was a secret difficult to reach; even a powerful cultivator could hardly control another's consciousness without an art of this kind.

Seeing that he had managed to master the Heart-Eroding Technique, the Black and White Divine Palace made an exception and agreed to spare him. From that day on, he became a member of the Black and White Divine Palace. Before long, he became a fiend whose very name struck terror into the palace.

The fact that he had used such a method to enter the Black and White Divine Palace said nothing of his other qualities, but his ruthlessness was plain to see.

He was ruthless to his enemies, and ruthless to himself!

Once the four White Hall disciples had tallied the losses, his deputy, Luo Qiuzhen, reported, "Envoy Fu, we've finished counting everything. There were twelve bottles of Heart-Clearing Pills, twenty bottles of Qi-Replenishing Pills, five bottles of Longevity Pills, six bottles of Blazing Fire Pills, and also..."

Fu Dongliu raised a hand. "No need to continue. The amount lost doesn't matter. What matters is catching the thief. Did they leave any clues?"

Luo Qiuzhen replied, "We've checked everything. There are no signs of damage to the storeroom, and the protective bells weren't triggered. They must have used some kind of spell to slip in unseen. But there's something strange about what was stolen."

"What?"

"The few most precious bottles of pills were left behind. Everything missing was in small bottles. I suspect some kind of small creature may have slipped into the storeroom and carried the pills away."

"Absurd!" Fu Dongliu glared. "Luo Qiuzhen, are you trying to tell me that some wild animal from the mountains came and carried this stuff off?"

Luo Qiuzhen lowered his head. "I wouldn't dare. I'm only analyzing the evidence I found."

Fu Dongliu snorted. He flicked a finger, and a point of green light formed at its tip. Muttering an incantation, he suddenly barked, "Rise!"

The green light transformed into a bird and flew into the air.

"It's the Tracing Origin Technique! Haha, that little thief is in for it now!" The onlookers cheered.

Fu Dongliu followed the bird out of the storeroom.

The bird flew through the air for a while before settling beneath a small tree.

Fu Dongliu frowned. "Dig!"

Hou Er hurried over and began to dig. Before long, he found a large pile of the stolen pills buried underneath.

"Found them!" Hou Er shouted excitedly.

Fu Dongliu's expression remained dark. The pills weren't what he cared about. He wanted the person.

Now it seemed his opponent was very cunning. He hadn't kept the stolen pills on him at all.

The Tracing Origin Technique could trace stolen objects, but it had its limits. It could only be cast on specific objects, not people.

Now that the goods had been recovered but the thief remained at large, Fu Dongliu was at a loss.

Just then, Luo Qiuzhen suddenly crouched down and carefully examined the stolen goods, murmuring, "Strange."

Fu Dongliu looked at Luo Qiuzhen. He wasn't one of Fu Dongliu's disciples, but had been an ordinary White Palace Guard. However, his meticulous mind allowed him to spot clues that even some spells might miss, so Fu Dongliu had promoted him over the heads of others and made him his assistant.

Hearing him speak, Fu Dongliu asked, "What did you find?"

Luo Qiuzhen replied, "One bottle of Heart-Clearing Pills is missing."

"Hm?" Fu Dongliu's eyes lit up. He cast the Tracing Origin Technique again, and sure enough, they found another bottle beneath a different tree.

More precisely, they found a bottle, not pills.

It was empty.

"So that's it?" Fu Dongliu snorted. He cast another spell, but this time it wasn't the Tracing Origin Technique. It was a far more wondrous art.

One after another, they found Heart-Clearing Pills buried separately beneath several nearby trees.

They dug beneath one tree and found only a single pill. Fu Dongliu shook with rage. "How dare he toy with me!"

Luo Qiuzhen, however, shook his head slightly. "Envoy Fu, I don't think this is that simple."

"Hm? What do you mean?" Fu Dongliu asked.

Luo Qiuzhen said, "The thief clearly wasn't after the pills. I suspect he was testing us—testing our ability to keep watch."

"You mean..." Fu Dongliu understood.

Luo Qiuzhen nodded. "He's testing what methods we have."

Fu Dongliu nodded. "That makes sense. In that case, this thief will definitely strike again? His purpose in making this move was to prepare for future moves?"

"Very likely," Luo Qiuzhen said, then looked around. "Perhaps he's one of the people watching the commotion right now."

At that, everyone jumped in fright and hurriedly backed away.

Fu Dongliu swept his gaze over the crowd and snorted. "That makes sense. Arrest everyone here. I'll interrogate them one by one."

Everyone was terrified at his words. By the time they thought to run, it was too late. The nearby White Hall Guards seized them all on the spot.

Even if they were eventually proven innocent, life in Fu Dongliu's hands would hardly be pleasant.

With a wave of his hand, the scene vanished.

Ning Ye's consciousness returned to his body. He mused, "This Luo Qiuzhen is rather interesting."

Luo Qiuzhen was right. Ning Ye hadn't raided the storeroom for the pills. He had done it to test the Black and White Divine Palace's surveillance capabilities.

But Luo Qiuzhen had gotten one thing wrong. Ning Ye hadn't been testing their methods, but their people. He also hadn't realized that Ning Ye didn't need to be there in person to keep watch.

Methods were dead; people were alive.

The Kunlun Mirror could reveal things that had already happened, but it couldn't uncover the secrets of Heaven's will and human hearts. People's hearts were hard to fathom. The things truly destined to obstruct Ning Ye's plans weren't those heaven-reaching spells, but people.

That was why, though Fu Dongliu had all sorts of wondrous methods, Ning Ye wasn't afraid. No matter how wondrous a spell was, there was always a way to counter it.

Instead, Luo Qiuzhen was the one who drew Ning Ye's attention.