Probing

Chapter 15 Testing the Waters

The night was deep.

Ning Ye sat in his room, lost in thought.

Although he had spoken those words to Zhang Liekuang during the day, he knew better than anyone how difficult it was to maintain one's fighting spirit while living in such comfortable surroundings.

His boasting and bravado were largely a product of his current environment.

Perhaps it was time to do something.

He thought.

Even if it were just to ignite his fighting spirit, even if it were just to assert his presence, even if it were just a small test...

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

He had bought the Gloomy Wood at the market. If the object he crafted from it were discovered, he might be exposed, and he lacked the means to acquire another piece in the short term. But none of that mattered anymore.

No plan is flawless; waiting for a perfect plan is merely an excuse to give up.

He began his work.

As the carving knife fell, a lifelike mole gradually took shape in Ning Ye's hands under his skilled craftsmanship.

When Ning Ye was at the Heavenly Mechanism Sect, his greatest strength was illusion, followed by puppetry, as both were best suited for trickery. Next came formations, and only then did he focus on alchemy and talisman arts.

After arriving at the Black and White Divine Palace, Ning Ye chose the weakest of his skills, talisman arts, as his public focus, abandoned alchemy, and kept his illusion and puppetry arts as secret weapons.

What he was making now was a mole puppet. It had no combat power, but it was agile, could burrow through the ground, and was excellent for gathering intelligence. Because it was made from ten-year-old Gloomy Wood, it possessed a certain capacity for spiritual energy and could carry talismanic effects.

Once the mole puppet was finished, he affixed a Stealth Talisman, a Mind Talisman, and a Barrier-Breaking Talisman onto its body, then manipulated it to burrow into the ground.

These talismans were not from the Yang Talisman Scripture, but rather from the Yin Talisman Scripture and the Heavenly Mechanism Sect. Having stolen the secret arts of the Black and White Divine Palace, Ning Ye naturally possessed the contents of both the Yin and Yang Talisman Scriptures, though these specific talismans were not to be known by outsiders.

A moment later, the mole puppet arrived inside a storeroom, which was filled with various types of medicinal pills.

The mole puppet darted forward. The Stealth Talisman made it difficult to detect, while the Barrier-Breaking Talisman allowed it to ignore the protective spells of the room. Its small claws grabbed a bottle of pills and stuffed it into its belly.

It was small, and after stuffing three bottles inside, it could hold no more. It returned to the soil and made its way back to Ning Ye's room.

Ning Ye smiled. "Little fool, don't keep the evidence with me. Go find a place where no one is around to hide it, then continue."

The mole puppet burrowed out once more.

That night, it acted like a diligent porter, moving medicinal pills and rare materials out of the storeroom one by one until the sky was nearly bright.

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

The moment the door opened, he ran out, terrified out of his wits: "This is bad! The storeroom has been robbed!!"

The alarm bell rang out.

Fu Dongliu stood before the storeroom with a dark expression, his face so gloomy it seemed as if water could drip from it.

"A bunch of useless trash!" Fu Dongliu snorted through his nose.

The sound of his voice made Hou Er, who was responsible for guarding the room, tremble with fear. Further away, other disciples were gathering to watch the spectacle. Seeing Hou Er in trouble, they all wore expressions of schadenfreude.

Guarding the storeroom was a lucrative position; if Hou Er were removed, they might have a chance to take his place.

In truth, only a low-grade storeroom had been robbed, and the losses were limited. What truly bothered Fu Dongliu was his reputation.

To think someone dared to steal from the Black and White Divine Palace—if word of this got out, wouldn't it be a laughingstock?

He stood in the storeroom, surrounded by several White Hall disciples who were tallying the losses.

The Black and White Divine Palace was divided into the Black Hall and the White Hall. The Black Hall governed death, penal law, and warfare, while the White Hall governed life, observation, and resources.

Fu Dongliu ranked among the four envoys of the White Hall and was one of the Four-Nine Human Demons, responsible for the duty of observation.

However, this Master Fu did not hold this position due to any keen ability to discern the truth.

Fu Dongliu, known as the Heart-Eroding Hermit, was a rogue cultivator in his early years who loved torture and excelled in schemes. Since the nine great immortal sects generally did not accept disciples from other sects, Fu Dongliu came up with a plan.

He conspired with the Thirteen Bandits of Jiangling to raid a branch of the Black and White Divine Palace, stole the Heart-Refining Stone from the branch's treasures, used it to master the Heart-Eroding Technique, and then personally killed the Thirteen Bandits of Jiangling, bringing their heads to the Black and White Divine Palace to surrender.

The Heart-Eroding Technique possessed the ability to erode the mind and could also search souls and seize consciousness. The mind was a secret difficult for cultivators to reach; even great cultivators, without such arts, found it hard to control the intellect.

Seeing that he had managed to master the Heart-Eroding Technique, the Black and White Divine Palace made an exception and spared him. From that day on, he became a member of the Black and White Divine Palace, and before long, he became a terrifying figure that made others tremble at the mere mention of his name.

To enter the Black and White Divine Palace using such methods—not to mention anything else—showed just how ruthless his nature was.

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

At this moment, the four White Hall disciples finished tallying the losses. His deputy, Luo Qiuzhen, said, "Reporting to Envoy Fu, all losses have been counted. They include twelve bottles of Heart-Clearing Pills, twenty bottles of Qi-Replenishing Pills, five bottles of Longevity Pills, six bottles of Fire-Spirit Pills, and in addition..."

Fu Dongliu raised a hand. "No need to continue. The amount of the loss is not important; what matters is catching the person who robbed the storeroom. Did the culprit leave any clues?"

Luo Qiuzhen replied, "We have checked everything. There are no signs of forced entry in the storeroom. The bells were not triggered, so they must have used stealth and concealment arts. However, looking at the stolen goods, there is something very strange."

"What is it?"

"The most precious bottles of pills in the storeroom were not taken; all the losses consist of small bottles of medicine. My subordinate suspects that some kind of small creature may have infiltrated the storeroom to steal the pills."

"Absurd!" Fu Dongliu glared. "Luo Qiuzhen, are you trying to tell me that these things were carried off by wild beasts from the mountains?"

Luo Qiuzhen lowered his head: "This subordinate would not dare; I am merely providing an analysis based on what I have observed."

Fu Dongliu snorted and flicked his finger, forming a point of azure light at his fingertip. He muttered an incantation and suddenly shouted: "Rise!"

The azure light transformed into a bird and flew up into the air.

"It's the Tracing Origin Technique! Haha, that thieving brat is in for it now." The surrounding crowd rejoiced.

Fu Dongliu followed the bird out of the storehouse.

The bird flew in the air for a while before landing beneath a small tree.

Fu Dongliu frowned: "Dig!"

Hou Er ran over and began to dig, quickly uncovering a large pile of the stolen medicinal pills beneath the soil.

"Found them!" Hou Er shouted excitedly.

Fu Dongliu, however, remained grim-faced. He did not care about the pills; he cared about the person.

It appeared now that his opponent was very cunning and had not kept the stolen pills on his person at all.

Although the Tracing Origin Technique could track lost items, it had its limitations; it could only be cast on specific objects and was ineffective against people.

Now that the items had been recovered but the person remained unfound, Fu Dongliu was at a loss.

At this moment, Luo Qiuzhen suddenly lowered his body to carefully examine the recovered items, muttering to himself: "Strange."

Fu Dongliu looked at Luo Qiuzhen. Luo Qiuzhen was not his disciple; he had originally been an ordinary White Palace Guard. However, because he was meticulous and could spot clues that even spells might miss, Fu Dongliu had promoted him exceptionally to be his assistant.

Hearing him say this now, Fu Dongliu asked: "What have you discovered?"

Luo Qiuzhen replied: "A bottle of Heart-Clearing Pill is missing."

"Hm?" Fu Dongliu's spirit stirred. He cast the Tracing Origin Technique once more and, sure enough, found another bottle under a different tree.

To be precise, it was just the bottle, not the medicine.

The bottle was empty.

"So that's how it is?" Fu Dongliu snorted and cast a spell again. This time, it was not the Tracing Origin Technique, but a more wondrous art.

As a result, he successively found the Heart-Clearing Pills buried separately under several nearby trees.

Digging up one tree, he found only a single pill. Fu Dongliu trembled with rage: "How dare he toy with this old man!"

Luo Qiuzhen shook his head slightly: "Envoy Fu, I feel this matter is not so simple."

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

Luo Qiuzhen said: "The opponent's goal is clearly not the pills. I suspect he is testing us—testing our investigative capabilities."

"You mean..." Fu Dongliu understood.

Luo Qiuzhen nodded: "He is testing what methods we have at our disposal."

Fu Dongliu nodded: "That makes sense. In that case, this treasure thief will surely strike again? His actions this time were actually preparation for a future strike?"

"Very likely," Luo Qiuzhen said. As he spoke, he looked around: "Perhaps that person is right here among the onlookers."

As soon as these words were spoken, everyone was startled and began to retreat.

Fu Dongliu scanned the crowd and snorted: "Reasonable. Arrest everyone present; I intend to interrogate them one by one."

Hearing this, everyone was terrified, but it was too late to run; they were immediately seized by the nearby White Palace Guards.

Once in Fu Dongliu's hands, even if one were eventually proven innocent, life would likely not be easy.

With a wave of his hand, the image vanished.

Ning Ye's consciousness returned to his body, and he fell into deep thought: "This Luo Qiuzhen is quite interesting."

Luo Qiuzhen was right; Ning Ye's theft from the storehouse was not aimed at those pills, but at testing the surveillance capabilities of the Black and White Divine Palace.

However, Luo Qiuzhen was mistaken about one thing: Ning Ye was not testing the methods, but the people. Furthermore, he never imagined that Ning Ye did not need to be present at the scene to conduct surveillance.

Methods are static, but people are dynamic.

The Kunlun Mirror can reveal known facts, but it is difficult to discern the secrets of heaven or the schemes of men. The human heart is hard to fathom; what would truly hinder Ning Ye's plans was destined not to be those heaven-reaching spells, but people.

Precisely because of this, although Fu Dongliu possessed all manner of miraculous methods, Ning Ye was not afraid. No matter how miraculous a spell might be, there was always a way to counter it.

Instead, it was that Luo Qiuzhen who garnered more of Ning Ye's attention.