Invitation

The newcomer was tall and thin, with an aged face and a goatee beneath his chin. His expression was taut, making him look exceedingly stern.

"This man was... Lu Ding?"

Yu Ci recognized him. Like Lu Yang, Lu Ding was also a steward of the mansion, equally famed for severity and harshness. However, Lu Yang oversaw regular affairs, while this man managed miscellaneous duties, ranking at the bottom among the stewards. Yu Ci remembered him clearly because this was the very man responsible for purchasing Shrimp Whisker Grass from outside. Yesterday, it had been Lu Ding who made the call to have the shops send people to track and spy on him, digging into Yu Ci's background. Of course, all of it had been recorded in the Zhaoshen Map and noticed by Yu Ci.

Lu Ding was the sort who fawned on those above and bullied those below. He normally loved putting on airs. Once he had moved away from the council hall, he beckoned to a nearby servant and told him to summon someone. He himself slowed his pace, clasped his hands behind his back, and strolled forward at leisure, unaware that an invisible demon eye in the void was watching his every move.

Before long, the mansion's warrior captain and several lower-ranking administrators came to receive orders. Lu Ding sat down on a roadside rock and began speaking in an unhurried manner. Yu Ci saw everything with perfect clarity, and his very first sentence made him laugh.

Lu Ding said, "The Mansion Lord has issued an order. Set up control throughout the city, seal the gates, and keep the person who exchanged four Three Yang Talisman Swords inside the pass, inside the city. Find his trail. If he can be invited, invite him. If he cannot be invited, he must still be invited. By all means, 'invite' that person to the mansion as a guest!"

The warrior captain accepted the order and departed. One of the administrators beside Lu Ding had long served under him and knew the inside story well, so he could not help asking curiously, "Why mobilize such a force all of a sudden? Four thousand stalks of Shrimp Whisker Grass are indeed a lot, but if we truly make up our minds to do a business without capital, gathering enough would not be too difficult."

Lu Ding glanced at his subordinate, stroking his beard with a smile. "Under ordinary circumstances, not to mention four thousand stalks—even forty thousand would be nothing remarkable. But what kind of eyes does the Mansion Lord possess? His elder self said that among those four thousand stalks, three had matured into usable material. That means the grass medicine this person gathered was not merely fine in quality; its vitality was also abundant, and its medicinal strength far richer than usual. Only then could it yield such results. Ordinarily, having a few dozen stalks of such medicinal grass would already be excellent, yet now over a thousand have appeared at once... Hehe. If this person has not mastered some special place or method for gathering medicine, who would believe it?"

If one had truly witnessed it, that was indeed a fine line of thought!

Yu Ci nearly applauded in the inn. The administrator also wore a face of sudden enlightenment, greatly pleasing Lu Ding. He continued to enlighten him. "Now, inside and outside the city, there is a pack of wolf-hearted, ambition-fanged people, their eyes red and their hearts hot as they stare at the mansion's exclusive authority. They are endlessly vexing. You people handling affairs must be even more cautious and attentive, and share the Mansion Lord's burdens..."

The administrator nodded repeatedly. Quite satisfied, Lu Ding turned and instructed him, "Either tonight or tomorrow, the Mansion Lord will be going out again. Prepare food and water according to the usual allotment for ten people. There must be no mistakes."

The administrator understood at once and turned to carry out the task. Clearly, as Lu Ding had said, this was routine practice and required no further explanation.

Yet Yu Ci in the inn was curious. Jin Huan had only just returned—where was he going now?

He rose and put away the Zhaoshen Bronze Mirror. No matter how much he disdained Bai Ri Mansion's methods, he could not ignore the danger within. Juebi City was the only settlement of any scale within ten thousand li. Though it had several hundred thousand residents, unfamiliar faces were truly not many. For a local tyrant like Bai Ri Mansion, checking out the strangers in the city within a short time would not take much effort. Their previous reluctance to do so had merely been to preserve a layer of face.

But now, with a single order from Jin Huan, that layer of skin had been ripped away.

He clearly could not remain in the city any longer. Yu Ci strolled out of the inn slowly. Though his pace was unhurried, his direction did not waver in the slightest as he headed for the East Gate nearest the inn. He gradually accelerated along the way. Juebi City had walls and gates, yet there were no soldiers guarding the gates. That was because the city-state had no foreign enemies, and even if it did, city walls would not delay them. The walls had mainly been built to guard against the savage beasts in the mountains. Bai Ri Mansion had also organized some commoners into armed units, forming guard posts. They ordinarily maintained order in the city and occasionally helped Bai Ri Mansion with certain matters. Such as citywide control and sealing the gates...

Yet when Yu Ci passed the East Gate guard post, there was still no movement there. Yu Ci smiled faintly and simply walked out through the gate, leaving Juebi City behind him.

After walking several li beyond the city gate, Yu Ci was somewhat surprised. This place was unexpectedly bustling. Pedestrians flowed like woven threads, and many well-off city families had come out together for an outing. The cries of roadside peddlers rose and fell one after another, something absent over the previous two days.

He casually pulled someone aside to ask. The man had a good temper and did not get angry at being stopped. He merely looked Yu Ci up and down before finally smiling. "Today is the day Xuan Yin Celestial attained the Dao. You're a Daoist priest—worship the Three Pure Ones if you wish. Do you still mean to pay respects to Xuan Yin Celestial?"

Yu Ci immediately understood. So it was the Xuan Yin Sect. Twenty li outside the West Gate stood Youqiu Palace, where the golden body of Xuan Yin Celestial was enshrined. He knew of it as well.

The Xuan Yin Sect had only gained a foothold in Juebi City over the past ten years, but its development had been exceptionally swift, and it had quickly become a force around Juebi City that could not be ignored. The reason it had spread so rapidly was, in fact, related to Bai Ri Mansion's grand-scale purchase of Shrimp Whisker Grass. This sect was said to be a branch of an ancient shamanic tradition and to possess methods for driving beasts and dispelling ghosts. If one joined the sect and obtained a talisman blessed by one of its immortal masters, one could avoid danger and evade calamity. Rumor had it that the effects were remarkably potent.

More than half the local residents who went to Sky Rift Valley to gather medicine believed in the Xuan Yin Sect. Furthermore, the Xuan Yin Sect treated female believers with particular favor, and seventy or eighty percent of its immortal masters were women. Thus, even more women in the city worshipped this sect. After receiving its miraculous aid, they benefited their families as well, making the incense offerings to Xuan Yin Celestial burn ever more fiercely.

But in the eyes of a cultivator like Yu Ci, he saw something else entirely.

Over ten years, the Xuan Yin Sect had become one of Juebi City's major powers and preached openly throughout the city. Bai Ri Mansion's indulgence had much to do with this. Yu Ci had heard rumors in the mansion that the sect had deep roots. It was said to be a branch of some great sect in the Eastern Extremity, and even across tens of millions of li, Bai Ri Mansion still had to show it some respect. Moreover, the Xuan Yin Sect was content to develop ordinary believers and never gathered expert cultivators, posing no threat to Bai Ri Mansion. That was another important reason.

Speaking of which, Yu Ci was genuinely interested in taking a look inside Youqiu Palace. Unfortunately, there was some commotion near the West Gate at this time. Presumably, Bai Ri Mansion's orders had finally arrived. But it was already meaningless, serving only to throw people's hearts into disorder. Yu Ci sneered inwardly and followed the stream of incense-offering believers. Seemingly slow but truly swift, he vanished into the distance in the blink of an eye.

By the time Yu Ci unfolded the Zhaoshen Map again, dusk had already fallen.

The place Yu Ci chose lay thirty li west of the city. Though it could not show him all of Juebi City, it happened to encompass the entirety of Dan Cliff. The search within the city was destined to end fruitlessly, and Xuan Yin Celestial's attainment festival was likewise destined to conclude in bleakness. The two sides would likely have some friction over this. The Zhaoshen Map could not reveal such matters, but Yu Ci could guess them. He laughed heartily at the thought.

In response to Bai Ri Mansion's attitude, Yu Ci consciously set his own position straight. The cultivators and celestials within Bai Ri Mansion did not know such an outcome had occurred. Even if they did, after laughing once and saying, "Overestimating one's own strength," they would not spare it another thought. They were still methodically preparing for their journey and cleaning up the mess in the city. Naturally, people below handled such matters. A chief steward like Lu Yang only needed to wait in the courtyard for departure.

When Yu Ci directed his thoughts once more toward the small courtyard where Lu Yang lived, the scene there gave him a slight shock.

In the only small open space of the solitary courtyard, barely two zhang across, two people were exchanging moves. Yet calling it an exchange of moves was not quite accurate. The two stood a full zhang apart, merely flicking their sleeves, lifting their legs, and occasionally shifting positions. Though astral winds swept back and forth between them with howling sounds, the rhythm was distinct. It seemed they were testing their hands or cultivating.

One of the two was Lu Yang. The other had a similar build, but a round face. Even while fighting, he wore a genial, smiling expression. Yu Ci had seen him before. This man was another mansion steward, Kuang Zheng—the biological uncle of Lu Yang's disciple. Through that young man, these two stewards had connected and formed an alliance, carving out a large portion of the mansion's power for themselves.

Lu Yang's disciple was named Kuang Yanqi. Aside from serving as the bond between the two stewards' alliance, he himself had qualities worthy of attention. Half a year ago, before he had even reached twenty, he had stepped into the Spirit Communion realm. His progress far surpassed that of his peers, and his talent was truly astonishing.

Lu Yang placed great importance on this disciple, viewing him as his greatest hope for passing on his mantle. During this period, he had struck while the iron was hot and taught him all manner of knowledge related to the Spirit Communion realm. Even the occasional fragments of those teachings had benefited Yu Ci immensely from "beside" them. Thus, Yu Ci greatly enjoyed coming here. More than half of the improvement in his lip-reading skill had been honed in this very courtyard.

Beneath the eaves by the courtyard stood Kuang Yanqi. At this moment, the young man stood amid the lingering ripples of astral wind, his eyes narrowed as if contemplating something.

"With a teacher's guidance, it truly was different..."

Yu Ci did not conceal his envy. But when he shifted his gaze back toward Lu Yang and Kuang Zheng, he felt that what he saw had become somewhat blurred. At first, he thought his eyes were tired. Yet when he compared the light, shadow, and color in the courtyard to those beneath the eaves, he realized the problem was not with himself. Rather, the image in this area of the Zhaoshen Map was less clear than its surroundings.

Yu Ci steadied himself. After gathering his breath and strength, he looked over again. Strangely enough, the moment his strengthened gaze touched that shifting scene, the void before his eyes suddenly wavered. It was as if a thin veil had descended, then been lifted away. After that single change, the world before his eyes became different once more.

In the Zhaoshen Map, the two men continued their sparring. Yet in Yu Ci's eyes, Lu Yang's head had become transparent!

Of course, it was not truly transparent. Rather, a layer of light was shining through from within his skull. It was orange-red. Flesh, skin, and bone could not block its seepage. Through that light, Yu Ci vaguely saw a blurred source of radiance lodged inside Lu Yang's brain. The sight was exceedingly strange.

When he looked again, Kuang Zheng was surprisingly in the same condition. However, the light emerging from his skull was not orange-red, but a ring of pale violet glimmers. Its penetrative power was inferior to the former's, and Yu Ci could not clearly make out what exactly lay within his brain.

Yu Ci had spent the past few days wandering around Bai Ri Mansion, and he had learned something of the two stewards' backgrounds. He knew that both had completed the Yin Spirit stage and could project their spirits to roam beyond their bodies. In that case, the glowing things had to be their Yin Spirits?

So they could be seen even through the fleshly body.

Yu Ci suddenly realized that his previous understanding seemed to have been slightly mistaken.