"It's simple. I let myself get separated, then my martial uncle hides nearby. Once the enemy shows themselves, he strikes."
"...Doesn't the other side know your martial uncle is traveling with you?"
"They do-we've actually just returned from Shaolong Prefecture," the girl suddenly said. "Because Seven Flood Dragon Cave seems to have some support of that sort. The Dao Initiation Assembly and such. So we wanted to try, too."
Seeing the question in the boy's eyes, the girl shook her head. "Nothing came of it."
"In any case," the girl returned to the subject, "we plan to have my martial uncle pretend to leave, then return in secret."
"They won't believe it." Pei Ye shook his head.
"That's why we have a scheme within a scheme."
"Hmm?"
"A senior from White Bamboo Pavilion will help us."
Pei Ye froze for a moment.
"Do you know how many experts each of the three sects has?" the girl abruptly changed the subject.
"No."
"Eight years ago, Seven Flood Dragon Cave gained a Grandmaster, their first since the sect's founding. Besides him, they have one at Eighth Growth and five at Seventh Growth. As for us, my master is also a Grandmaster, but perhaps our last. Besides that, a senior brother at Eighth Growth passed away last year, so now we have only three at Seventh Growth. White Bamboo Pavilion, meanwhile, has no Grandmaster." Li Piaoqing looked at him. "For twenty years, two seniors at Eighth Growth have held up their sect. Those two seniors are twins, collectively known as Green-Purple Bamboo."
"But last month, Senior Purple Bamboo went to the Firewood-Cang Mountains. Who knows what happened there, but he returned gravely wounded, with all his cultivation lost. Even his Dantian Seed had vanished." The girl frowned in some bewilderment.
Then she saw