The Willow Source County gazetteer recorded that the Liu Clan had once been a local cultivation clan affiliated with the Heaven Pillar Sect, enjoying considerable prestige throughout the Wu Kingdom. When Azure Mystic and Heaven Pillar went to war, they naturally sided with Heaven Pillar, then suffered a terrible calamity and fled with their entire clan.
By now, the Sky Pillar Sect had lost its mountain stronghold and become a rat scurrying across the street, despised by all, let alone its vassals. They were now collectively called "remnants of the Sky Pillar Demon Sect," and anyone was entitled to kill them.
After killing them, one could claim a reward from Azure Mystic. If the Azure Mystic Sect learned that someone had spared them, disaster would follow.
At the end of its account of the Battle of Liuyuan, the gazetteer recorded one more sentence:
"...On the twenty-second day of the eighth month, a local brought in the severed head of young master Bingyuan, the surviving orphan of the Liu Clan. Its identity was verified, and he departed with his reward."
Jiang Che closed the gazetteer, his heartbeat quickening.
Someone had claimed a reward with Liu Bingyuan's head!
But that was not what he had seen in the time fragment.
From the voice that had provided something like background information in the consciousness space before he entered the time fragment, Jiang Che believed that one of the seven people in that room late that night in the seventy-ninth year of Yongzhen must have been Liu Bingyuan, who was about to flee.
Had he failed to escape?
That did not seem quite right. From the account, it did not look as though the Azure Mystic Sect had killed him. Otherwise, should it not have been recorded as "executed"?
It was all speculation, with no way to verify it. The gazetteer could only provide so much information.
But he was no ordinary investigator. He could simply return to that night and see for himself what had happened.
He had died too quickly last time. This time, he had to last longer.
He already had the rough outlines of a plan.
His consciousness sank, and the world spun. He returned once more to that boundless, Pure White Space, where the floor tile still floated quietly ahead.
Jiang Che drifted forward, but immediately sensed something amiss.
He seemed to have become a little smaller.
His heart sank. Rather than rushing ahead, he carefully examined himself.
It was no illusion. His entire Spiritual Body had indeed shrunk by roughly a tenth.
Did opening a time fragment consume my Spiritual Body?
If each opening consumed the same amount, he could enter nine more times.
Would consuming my Spiritual Body affect me in reality?
Apparently not. At least, he had noticed nothing unusual about himself before.
How could I restore my Spiritual Body?
Quiet rest? Absorbing spiritual energy from heaven and earth? Taking pills? Or did I need to fulfill some condition, such as raising my rating?
He knew none of it. This consciousness space had activated without warning and offered no instructions. He would have to discover everything himself.
He steadied himself. Nine times it was. First, he would see this attempt through.
He floated forward and touched the floor tile.
"The seventy-ninth year of Yongzhen..."
As the voice spoke, the familiar tugging sensation swept over him.
He opened his eyes again.
"Who are you? How did you get in?"
The same demand, the same killing intent.
This time, Jiang Che did not cup his hands in greeting or pretend to be a disciple of the Sky Pillar Sect. He let his hands hang at his sides, his expression calm as he met the leader's gaze without flinching.
"I come from forty years in the future. All of you will die tonight, and someone will take Liu Bingyuan's head to claim a reward."
This was Jiang Che's strategy: tell not a single lie, and trade shocking words for a sliver of hope.
The moment he spoke, the atmosphere in the room changed abruptly.
One man said, "What kind of lunatic nonsense is that?"
Another snorted coldly. "Nothing but wild lies. Utterly absurd."
Only the leader's gaze suddenly deepened.
Jiang Zongcheng stared at Jiang Che, thoughts churning in his mind.
He had clearly seen the man before him materialize out of empty space, his body taking shape from nothing.
Such a feat was absolutely beyond the Qi Refining Period. As a Qi Refining cultivator himself, he knew that very well.
Yet the youth before him was plainly an ordinary person. There were no fluctuations of spiritual energy, no traces of a cultivation method circulating. His flesh, sinews, and bones were no different from a mortal's.
Had the stranger not arrived in such a miraculous fashion, he would not even have questioned him. He would have killed him outright.
At the very moment he demanded an answer, Jiang Zongcheng had also silently formed the hand seal for a technique called Spirit Terrace Insight.
This technique could distinguish lies. An ordinary person could never deceive his senses.
If the answer proved unsatisfactory, then no matter what powerful expert was behind this trick, in such desperate circumstances he would kill the stranger first and worry later. He could never let him leave to divulge their secrets.
"I come from forty years in the future. All of you will die tonight, and someone will take Liu Bingyuan's head to claim a reward."
At those words, Spirit Terrace Insight remained utterly still. Clearly, they were not lies.
Jiang Zongcheng was torn.
The statement sounded like nonsense however he considered it, but the stranger's miraculous appearance and the response from his lie-detecting technique left him no choice but to take it seriously.
The Jiang Household had followed the Liu Clan for a century, receiving their kindness time and again. It was one thing to be unable to help their masters succeed, but with young master Bingyuan left alone in the city, he had to protect him and get him out.
Activating the ancient formation with the power of Qi Refining to send people away already required everything he had. He could only accomplish it by sacrificing his life.
Would it all come to nothing in the end?
Beside him, his nephew Jiang Yunwei stepped forward and opened his mouth to curse. "You lying wretch-"
"Silence."
Jiang Zongcheng cut his nephew off, then looked outside.
The Azure Mystic Sect's men had already breached the perimeter. The sounds of them cutting through the air were close; they would likely arrive here in moments.
There was no time.
He told Jiang Che, "Enter the formation with them."
Then he told his nephew, "Question him further once you're through. Stay close to him. If he does anything suspicious, kill him."
Jiang Yunwei froze for a moment, then gritted his teeth. "Understood."
"Go!" Jiang Zongcheng urged.
Without further hesitation, Jiang Yunwei entered first, followed by two others. Then another man dragged Jiang Che inside.
The instant he stepped into the formation, Jiang Che heard an unceasing howl beside his ears. Streams of light danced wildly before his eyes, and his feet found no purchase as he drifted weightlessly. Only after three to five breaths did he feel his feet touch solid ground again.
Everything around him was pitch-black.
He dared not make a sound, but a moment later, someone lit a fire striker. The faint flame flickered, then steadied, illuminating six faces with differing expressions.
They formed a semicircle, trapping Jiang Che in the middle.
Jiang Che glanced around and immediately spotted a pattern engraved on the stone wall, extremely similar to the formation in the room earlier.
Before he could examine it more closely, Jiang Yunwei stepped right up to him, seized his shoulder, and slammed him hard against the wall.
"Speak!" Jiang Yunwei's face was inches from his. "Who exactly are you? Who taught you to spout that rubbish?"
"I've already told you the truth. I come from forty years in the future. If you don't believe me..."
"Bullshit! Forty years in the future? Do you take me for a three-year-old? I'm not that easy to fool! Tell me the truth, or I'll kill you!"
Agony shot through Jiang Che's shoulder. This was certainly no ordinary person's strength. The man before him had to be a cultivator too.
All six of them were.
Even if they had not reached Qi Refining, they should at least be at Embryonic Breath.
Speaking a shocking truth was the method Jiang Che had devised to win himself an opportunity.
Now he had verified that the teleportation formation was real and had passed through it himself. Most of his main task was already complete.
But if he could hold on a little longer, naturally he would.
He had prepared something to say as well:
"Kill me, and Liu Bingyuan will certainly die."
This was a lie. How could Jiang Che know how to keep Liu Bingyuan alive? He did not even know which of them was Liu Bingyuan. He was merely bluffing a little more to buy himself more time alive.
"Enough."
The youngest-looking of the six, a boy of perhaps fourteen or fifteen, spoke.
"He says I'm going to die. I'd rather like to hear this-whose hands, exactly, will I, Liu Bingyuan, die at?"
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