Spy Within a Spy Within a Spy

With overlapping, demonic echoes, a woman's voice drifted near and far, tipsy and hazy, wild and uninhibited. It lingered endlessly across the grassland night sky, like a mirage.

"I'm so dizzy!"

Muyu Feifei swayed unsteadily, stumbled forward, then buried her tiger head in the pastries.

The guests clutched their foreheads, their expressions hazy, swaying as if about to topple over.

Even Ning Zhongzi felt the world spinning, as though she had fallen to the edge of a whirlpool in a sea of wine.

At the distant center of the wine whirlpool, an intoxicating fragrance wafted out.

The harder one struggled, the more the wine churned and released its fragrance. The more one lost oneself in that scent, the deeper one was drawn, step by step, toward the whirlpool's center. In the end, one would collapse.

But things never got that far.

Inside their spatial rings, the green runes on the bamboo slips flickered in response, dispelling the dizziness completely.

Ning Zhongzi abruptly came to her senses.

The Protective Bamboo Slips Lu Ya had made were specifically meant to ward off Liu Xuanye's Husband-Slaying Sword Intent. She hadn't expected them to defend against sound-based illusions, too.

Not just Ning Zhongzi, but Muyu Feifei, the Immortal Commoners, and even the refugees all remained clearheaded.

Without Lu Ya's Protective Bamboo Slips, everyone would already have fallen asleep where they stood.

Senior Brother Lu really is unfathomable...

Ning Zhongzi thought, her willow brows knitting as she gazed beyond the mountain. She said:

"Stop playing these tricks. Everyone here is mortal. Show yourself!"

The sky fell silent in an instant.

The fiery red sunset soaked the heavens, as if it carried an unspoken awkwardness.

After a long while.

A trace of barely perceptible surprise mingled with the tipsy, hazy female voice.

"Not a single one fell?"

Ning Zhongzi remained calm and unyielding.

"Since you came, why not come down and sit for a while?"

"I heard there'd be good wine tonight, so I came to have a look. I've even got a story ready. Where's your wine?"

As she spoke, the drunken spiritual pressure suddenly intensified!

Like a whirlpool rapidly swelling in a sea of wine, the uninhibited, wanton melody swallowed everyone.

The crowd fell utterly silent.

They didn't even move a hair.

Under the influence of the Protective Bamboo Slips, not a single person fell.

Everyone stared, dumbfounded.

They all looked up at the fiery red sky.

The sky fell silent again.

Ning Zhongzi kept a straight face.

"There'll be wine once the wedding banquet starts, but I don't want to hear your story."

"You're still as hurtful as ever..."

The woman's voice remained tipsy and hazy, its distance and direction impossible to pin down.

"If little sister Xuan Ye has no man because of her condition, then you have no man because your tongue is too sharp. You're a woman, yet you're so fierce. You're not my type."

The nursemaid is too fierce?

Muyu Feifei's eyes suddenly lit up.

She hurriedly raised her voice and shouted at the sky.

"Great minds think alike!"

"Senior, you're absolutely right!"

"What should we call you, Senior?"

"Me?"

Blood-red clouds surged together, and the Immortal Sect Master-level spiritual pressure drove the drunken illusion to its limit.

The woman chanted leisurely:

"Riding the wind on my gourd, I roam the world and banish darkness... One drink, and I drain the rivers and seas; a second, and I swallow the stars... A thousand jars can't get me drunk. Only I... hic... only I what was it again?"

The illusion array in her voice was powerful enough to rival an Immortal Sect Master.

No immortal below that rank, no Immortal Commoner, and not even a low-ranking Immortal Sect Master could possibly withstand it!

"Hmm?"

The entire crowd was silent. Everyone stood firm, looking at the fiery sky as if it were an idiot.

Silence always struck hardest when it came out of nowhere.

Ning Zhongzi's voice was ice-cold.

"Wine Fox Immortal, cut it out."

The two little girls gazed up with innocent faces as if nothing were wrong. The moment they heard the word "fox," they grew excited.

"Wine Fox Immortal?"

"Senior, are you a Beast Immortal too?"

"We're Tiger Immortals!"

In the sky, the woman's [Whirlpool Wine Illusion Sound] had already reached its limit. If she pushed any harder, she'd be the one to fall over.

And yet this whole group of mortals still stood firm...

Could you at least react?

Don't I deserve to save face?

At that moment, she suddenly understood why Black Stone had invited her to Bamboo Spring Sect.

Something about all this strangeness had to be connected to some newly arrived man.

And yet she couldn't sense the slightest abnormality in the spiritual energy.

It left her with an inexplicable sense of defeat.

A breeze swept by, and the spiritual pressure dispersed. The female voice lingering in the sky abruptly cut off.

Before Ning Zhongzi,

a beautiful young woman sat cross-legged on a huge gourd suspended low in the air. She swung a little wine gourd in her hand, and amid the whirlpool of sunset glow, her graceful figure gradually came into view.

The woman had a delicate, round face, and her short hair gave her a dashing air. She wasn't tall, but she had a graceful figure. Her clothes were extremely casual, even a little shabby.

A coarse, fox-orange robe hung loosely on her, doing little to show off her feminine figure. It was even missing part of its front and sleeves, leaving a large expanse of white exposed over her chest.

The Immortal Commoners, who had never seen such a thing, gaped at her, thinking they were looking at some disreputable wandering immortal.

But carved into the left lapel of her coarse robe was the silver Sword Cloud Court Emblem of the Immortal Court, marking her identity—

an Immortal Court Deacon.

It was the first time the Immortal Commoners present had ever seen an Immortal Court Deacon out of uniform.

Muyu Feifei stared, completely dazed...

If the Sect Master dared to dress like that, the men of the Immortal Realm would go extinct.

Sitting on a large gourd, swinging a small one in her hand, Wine Fox Immortal glanced around. She tilted her dashing round face, brushing aside the awkwardness from earlier, and teased Ning Zhongzi:

"Your wedding ceremony is awfully shabby."

Ning Zhongzi's expression darkened as she retorted:

"With an Immortal Sect Master like you in attendance, can it still be called shabby?"

Wine Fox Immortal gave an awkward chuckle and tossed Ning Zhongzi a scroll.

It was a congratulatory gift from the Immortal Court, delivered on Black Stone's behalf: a Phoenix Luan Ink Treasure personally painted and written by him. It was said to have great artistic value, but in the Immortal Realm, it was the sort of thing that wasn't worth much.

"This is Black Stone's congratulatory gift."

"Deacon Black Stone was thoughtful."

Ning Zhongzi respectfully accepted the gift, then suddenly asked:

"What about yours?"

After taking a swig of Immortal Nectar and wiping the wine from her lips, Wine Fox Immortal flung open her robe and said with disarming boldness:

"Isn't sending myself to Bamboo Spring Sect enough?"

Ning Zhongzi shook her head.

"I never thought Deacon Black Stone would send such an unreliable woman to be the Sect Resident Envoy."

"Is Bamboo Spring Sect that reliable?"

In Ning Zhongzi's eyes, this woman wasn't just unreliable; she was downright dangerous.

A Sect Resident Envoy was an Immortal Court Deacon sent to reside in a sect. They helped the sect develop and the Immortal Commoners open up new lands, while also supervising the Immortal Court's forces.

Bamboo Spring Sect had once had a Sect Resident Envoy, too, but after the sect fell into decline, the Immortal Court withdrew them.

Black Stone had replied that he'd send a Sect Resident Envoy.

Ning Zhongzi had assumed Black Stone would casually dispatch some Immortal Monarch Deacon to fob them off. She never imagined he'd send Wine Fox Immortal. She'd have preferred an Immortal Monarch!

Ning Zhongzi was no stranger to Wine Fox Immortal.

She was a famous figure in the Colored Cloud Immortal Domain.

Wine Fox Immortal was half fox immortal. Her father was a fox immortal and her mother was human. Two thousand years ago, she and Liu Xuanye had been classmates at the Immortal Academy in East Floating City.

The Immortal Academy was a place that trained Immortal Court Deacons. Its students were talented young people from nearby sects. Liu Xuanye came from Bamboo Spring Sect, while Wine Fox Immortal came from White Lotus Sect.

Both were among the best in their year in terms of talent and looks, and together they were known as the Peerless Duo of East Floating Academy.

They were each other's strongest rivals and closest friends... or so Wine Fox Immortal believed, at least.

Later, Liu Xuanye was forcibly expelled from the Immortal Academy because of her constitution. Wine Fox Immortal got dead drunk, caused a scene at Xingtian Pavilion, and was expelled as well.

Liu Xuanye returned to Bamboo Spring Sect to take over as its Sect Master.

Meanwhile, Wine Fox Immortal was secretly groomed as a spy by Li Wuxie, Chief of the East Floating Immortal Court. She infiltrated Beast Tide Forest and became a notorious bandit among the various Immortal Thief organizations.

Later, an Immortal Thief organization trained her to be a spy within a spy. She earned merit by suppressing bandits, returned to East Floating City, and reentered the Immortal Academy for further training. In the end, by taking a circuitous route to save the country, she somehow became an Immortal Court Deacon in the most respectable manner.

There were even rumors around town that she was an informant for Yun Zhonghe, the former Sect Master of White Lotus Sect.

Now Black Stone had invited her to serve as Bamboo Spring Sect's Sect Resident Envoy...

She was practically a spy within a spy within a spy!

She might even have confused herself by now...

Whose spy am I, anyway?

Her danger went beyond her being a spy—

She'd been an informant for Li Wuxie, Chief of the East Floating Immortal Court, and a few years later Li Wuxie was demoted and sent to herd sheep.

She'd been an informant for Yun Zhonghe, the former Sect Master of White Lotus Sect, and Yun Zhonghe soon suffered an injury and went into seclusion.

She'd been an informant for the Immortal Thief organizations in Beast Nest Forest, and one after another, those organizations went bankrupt.

Some time ago, there'd been rumors that she was going to take over Black Lotus.

And then...

There was no "and then."

Now it was Bamboo Spring Sect's turn.

Ning Zhongzi had a bad feeling, but she couldn't refuse the Immortal Court's personnel assignment. She could only ask:

"Although you're an Immortal Court Deacon now, I want to know: when you came to Bamboo Spring Sect, which side did you represent—the Immortal Court, White Lotus Sect, or Beast Nest Forest?"

"Huh?"

Wine Fox Immortal looked a little dazed. She took a huge swig of Immortal Nectar, then mumbled in a daze:

"Does that really matter?"

Ning Zhongzi shook her head, no longer bothering to ask.

"You've had too much to drink."

Wine Fox Immortal meaningfully swayed the wine gourd in her hand. A trace of melancholy flickered in her fox eyes.

"I haven't been drunk in two thousand years."

At that moment, Muyu Feifei gazed at Wine Fox Immortal with admiration.

Wow!

That unruly style, that melancholy gaze, that wistful tone...

Now that was how a Beast Immortal should carry herself!

Who would dare order around an Beast Immortal like that?

Would Lu Ya dare?

He wouldn't!

The sorrow in Wine Fox Immortal's eyes vanished in an instant. Her lovely face turned, and she said:

"I'm just curious what underhanded tricks this mortal named Lu Ya used to win over my little sister Xuan Ye."

Ning Zhongzi kept a straight face.

"Senior Brother Lu isn't a mortal. Don't do anything reckless."

"You prepared wine for me, and you're telling me not to do anything reckless?"

Wine Fox Immortal gave her a meaningful look, then abruptly changed the subject.

"Unless you give me one of the Green Bamboo Slips in their pockets, too."

Ning Zhongzi glanced sideways at her, pretending to be surprised.

"These are talismans to protect against accidental injury from the Sect Master. You're a woman, your cultivation is even higher than the Sect Master's, and you're afraid too?"

"Hic—"

Wine Fox Immortal choked on her wine. She gaped, unable to say a word.

Ning Zhongzi turned and left.

"The wedding banquet is about to begin. You'll be going up on stage, too."

Watching Ning Zhongzi's steep profile as she turned away in the intoxicating afterglow, Wine Fox Immortal reached the same conclusion as a certain health-conscious man—

This woman wasn't brainless.

And yet she'd still been won over.

Lu Ya, you've really opened my eyes!