Poison

Poison

After returning from Huaiyin Mountain, Ning Ye made his usual check of the surrounding area. Once he confirmed there were no problems, he took out the Jade Ridge Stone.

As a spiritual stone, Jade Ridge Stone had many uses. The Black and White Divine Palace mostly used it to craft magical items, especially alchemy furnaces.

But the Heavenly Mechanism Sect had found a different path and pioneered the Jade Talisman Dao.

Jade Talismans were unlike paper talismans. They had no three grades, only differences in material, and their greatest advantage was that they could be used over and over.

The method of making Jade Talismans was not exclusive to the Heavenly Mechanism Sect, but across the Nine Continents, few could make talismans from jade. If one appeared, the Black and White Divine Palace could easily guess where it came from. So Ning Ye was extremely cautious, using the Kunlun Mirror to investigate again and again. Only after making sure no one was watching did he dare act.

As the Carving Knife continued to descend, a Jade Talisman gradually took shape. It was the Escape Light Talisman Li Guiling had used that day.

The Escape Light Talisman was exceedingly difficult to make. Even at Ning Ye's level, he had only just managed to produce a ninth-grade talisman.

After making it, Ning Ye took out the Blade-Bone Demon's Demon Bead and its three Blade-Bones. He refined them as well, forging them into a pair of oddly shaped claws.

These were Earth-Breaking Claws. Used with a Pass-Breaking Talisman, they could improve the Ground Rat Puppet's ability to navigate terrain and break through obstacles.

After the storeroom's defenses had been strengthened following the last theft, Ning Ye had upgraded his puppet accordingly.

He tucked the Jade Talisman into the Ground Rat Puppet's belly, then fitted it with the Earth-Breaking Claws. Patting it, he smiled. "Old buddy, your abilities have improved, and so has your responsibility."

As the White Hall's Inspection Hall Master, Fu Dongliu always preferred to have as few complications as possible.

But trouble never stayed away just because you didn't want it.

Another two months passed in the blink of an eye.

Fu Dongliu was practicing when a disciple hurried in and dropped to his knees, terror on his face. "Hall Master!"

"What's the panic?" Fu Dongliu opened his eyes.

"S-something terrible has happened!" The disciple knew Fu Dongliu disliked panic, but there was no way he could stay calm about this.

"Speak."

"One hundred and twenty-eight disciples have been poisoned. Eighty-four are dead, and the rest are unconscious."

"What?"

Fu Dongliu leaped to his feet.

The White Hall's Inspection Hall.

Nearly a hundred corpses lay across the hall, a horrifying sight.

So many Black and White Divine Palace disciples had died at once. The matter was undeniably serious.

"Where did the poison come from?" Fu Dongliu roared.

"It was put in the pills. Today was distribution day," one of his subordinates replied, trembling.

"The pills?" Fu Dongliu was startled. He suddenly remembered the medicine theft from several months earlier.

"What poison did they use?" Luo Qiuzhen asked.

"Three-Wither Flower."

Luo Qiuzhen and Fu Dongliu both drew in a sharp breath. They remembered what had happened two months ago. Three-Wither Flower powder could be found in places besides Huaiyin Mountain, but that mountain was certainly the easiest place to get it.

More importantly, there had been traces of Three-Wither Flowers near the place where the five men had fought to the death!

Luo Qiuzhen lowered his voice to Fu Dongliu. "Envoy Fu..."

"I know." Fu Dongliu cut him off. "You're in charge of investigating this. But don't make any overt connection to the other cases. Understood?"

Luo Qiuzhen understood what he meant. If this was linked to the previous two incidents, Fu Dongliu might be held responsible for negligence. So it had to be investigated, but without connecting it to what had happened before.

Luo Qiuzhen said, "The people who went to Huaiyin Mountain eighty days ago are a lead."

"Investigate in secret!" Fu Dongliu said firmly.

No matter what, Fu Dongliu would not let himself shoulder the blame for negligence.

"Yes."

Luo Qiuzhen turned and left to look for the records of everyone who had visited Huaiyin Mountain eighty days earlier.

The Black and White Divine Palace was vast and had countless disciples. On any given day, there were easily eight or nine hundred people going to Huaiyin Mountain.

Finding the target among so many people would not be easy.

But Luo Qiuzhen had his own ideas...

The Inspection Palace.

Thinking as he spoke, Luo Qiuzhen said, "Find everyone below the middle stage of the Cang Xiang Realm who specializes in Wood Element Techniques."

A disciple in charge of the records was surprised. "Below the middle stage of the Cang Xiang Realm?"

"Yes." The people carrying out the task were his trusted subordinates, so Luo Qiuzhen knew he could rely on them. "Judging by their causes of death and their wounds, the five victims were undoubtedly killed by a Blade-Bone Demon. But the traces they left behind suggest they had first fled for a while, then suddenly stopped for some unknown reason and fought the Blade-Bone Demon. That's suspicious. Also, all the trees near the site of the battle were destroyed. That doesn't look like collateral damage from a fight. It looks more like someone used some kind of Wood Element Technique and destroyed the trees to erase the traces. So this person may not have been strong enough on their own, but used some sort of Wood Element Technique to trap the five and force them to fight one another."

The disciple in charge of the records immediately understood and nodded in admiration. "Senior Brother really does see through everything."

Luo Qiuzhen didn't mind the praise. "Finding the person is what matters. Also, this person should have some kind of ability to sneak around and conceal their tracks. Hmm, perhaps they can track others as well; otherwise, they wouldn't have found Li Guiling. Oh, and they should be an unusually capable person among those of the same level."

Luo Qiuzhen continued, "If that person was gathering Three-Wither Flowers when they ran into Li Guiling and the others, it must have been an accident. They killed them to hide the matter of the Three-Wither Flowers. Their style was cautious yet bold, and they kept their cool in a crisis. Someone like that wouldn't be ordinary."

A subordinate asked, "What if we still can't find them?"

Luo Qiuzhen replied, "Then our opponent's abilities may be hidden... Wait, no!"

Luo Qiuzhen suddenly thought of something, and his expression changed. "A disciple at the early Cang Xiang Realm usually won't have more than two kinds of skills. But this person has clearly shown more than two."

Everyone drew in a sharp breath at those words.

If a disciple possessed abilities beyond what someone at their current stage should have, there was usually only one explanation: they were a spy from an outside sect!

If so, the nature of the matter would change completely.

Luo Qiuzhen's expression darkened. "It looks like this is much more serious than I thought."

But there was one thing Luo Qiuzhen couldn't understand. If this was an outside spy, why had they acted so early? Generally speaking, a spy who infiltrated an enemy sect would first devote themselves to cultivation. Once they reached a certain level, they would take on assignments from their own sect and begin causing trouble.

But now, a disciple who might not even have reached the middle stage of the Cang Xiang Realm had acted in haste. It just didn't fit the behavior of a proper spy.

Could it be that someone among the poisoned victims had been a person they absolutely had to eliminate?

Realizing this, Luo Qiuzhen said, "Look carefully into the disciples who died. Find out who they used to associate with. It would be even better if any names matched people who had been to Huaiyin Mountain around that time."

With a clear direction, the investigation proceeded quickly. Within a few days, they had drawn up a long list, mostly people who had been close to those poisoned. But red crosses had been drawn beside some of the portraits.

"What do these red crosses mean?" Luo Qiuzhen asked.

"Oh, they indicate that the person has basically been cleared," a subordinate replied. "For example, this Ning Ye also visited Huaiyin Mountain eighty days ago and had a grudge against one of the dead, Chen Changfeng. But he was also among those poisoned, and he survived."

"Why didn't he die?"

"He knows the Talisman Dao. After noticing the poisoning, he used a Detoxification Talisman on himself in time and saved his life."

"I see. Then he shouldn't be a problem." Luo Qiuzhen thought it over and set the portrait aside.

But there were too many suspects. Luo Qiuzhen couldn't go around seeing ghosts in every bush.

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