"Misty Sect? Escaped the net?? Little thief???"
Though the voice was soft, Zhang Xiaohua's senses were incomparably keen at that moment. Although he had not released his divine sense, nearly every movement in the surroundings lay within his grasp. And when these few utterly ordinary words were put together, they struck Zhang Xiaohua's ears like a thunderbolt flashing through the night sky.
Zhang Xiaohua had not joined the Misty Sect, but ever since leaving Guo Village and entering Pingyang City, everything in his life had been intimately tied to the Misty Sect. Even the immortal cultivation techniques he possessed had been picked out from the Misty Sect's Library Pavilion. To say he held no deep emotions for the Misty Sect would be absolutely impossible.
Yet now, someone actually dared call a Misty Sect disciple a little thief right in front of him! How could he endure it? What was more, the words "escaped the net" stirred boundless curiosity within him.
Without much display, his body drifted down from Four Unlike's back. Then he sprang upward and headed straight for the high slope. There was not a trace of mortal dust or smoke in the entire movement; it was as natural and harmonious as a breeze brushing willow branches.
Zhang Xiaohua landed atop the slope, his entire person blending perfectly into the surrounding environment. Unless someone beside him had witnessed it with their own eyes, they would never have seen or sensed that someone had just appeared on the hillside.
Lying prone on the slope, Zhang Xiaohua quietly poked out his head. On the open ground beyond the hill stood three men in fitted martial attire, holding long swords, sabers, and the like. They formed a horned encirclement around a young man of about twenty-four or twenty-five. The young man gripped