Double Agent

The matter had happened rather suddenly. Xiao Bai only felt that the future path was uncertain, leaving his heart wavering.

After Zhang Yufeng left, he wanted to ask Mu Yun what she thought about the supervising constables, to see if he could pry out some intelligence.

"Why did you step on my foot?"

Mu Yun put on a stern little face and threatened Xiao Bai:

"The Sect Overseer wants to kill you!"

He wanted to kill me outright?

Xiao Bai thought it over and felt that something was off.

"If the Sect Overseer wanted to kill me, there was no need to invite me to the Dao Supervision Palace and do it personally. Besides, what value would there be in killing me? His target might still be Elder. My intuition says the Sect Overseer does not seem like a man trapped by love. It looks like the Dao Alliance truly cares about Elder's research."

Mu Yun's little face froze. She had not expected the boy to be not quite so stupid, not blinded by his talent.

"Let's go discuss it with Master."

The key word was: us.

By taking the initiative to go with Xiao Bai to discuss it with Yu Hu, she could enter their little circle of three and learn part of Yu Hu's strategy.

She had watched Yu Hu for ten years. To be honest, she was still utterly in the dark about Yu Hu's plans.

"Fine."

Xiao Bai immediately went with Mu Yun to the Pill Room to discuss the matter with Yu Hu.

They passed through a twisting, muddy goat trail, and suddenly the view opened wide before them.

Within the Pill Room, where furnace flames swayed, shadows danced across the walls and shifted without end.

On the rush mat before the pill furnace, the Demoness in a Green Robe Cloak had already prepared tea cups and waited quietly for the two of them.

"I already know what happened."

After spending the entire morning learning to grow herbs, Xiao Bai's throat was dry from all his questions. Coupled with his anxiety, the moment he entered the Pill Room, he sat down on the floor and raised a cup of Peach Petal Tea to his lips.

"What should I do next?"

Mu Yun, who had entered with him, glanced at the tea. She neither sat nor drank, merely remaining standing.

She was afraid there might be aphrodisiacs in it...

Yu Hu was unusually calm about the Dao Alliance's invitation. She asked Xiao Bai:

"Do you want to go?"

"Of course not!"

Xiao Bai answered without hesitation.

"In life, I am Elder's man; in death, I will be Elder's ghost. I will never betray Elder, no matter when!"

Even lies could please the listener, but Yu Hu had thoughts of her own.

"What if I can guarantee your safety?"

Xiao Bai said:

"Even if the Sect Overseer does not intend to harm me, he still wants to use my hand to harm you."

Yu Hu smiled, like ripples spreading across a tranquil lake beneath the moon.

"If you can hold fast to your true heart, no one can use your hand to harm me."

But my true heart is to harm you, idiot!

Seeing that Yu Hu's motives were impure, Xiao Bai began looking for other reasons to refuse.

"I just don't want to work. Who doesn't know that supervising constables work nine-nine-six all year round, with overtime as commonplace as daily meals, and not even a penny of overtime pay? I want to grow old slowly with Elder on Hundred Herbs Peak—growing herbs, refining pills, cultivating, admiring flowers, fishing..."

Mu Yun was so disgusted by the sweetness that she directly cut Xiao Bai off.

"You mainly want to go fishing, don't you?"

Xiao Bai shot Mu Yun a glare. His face reddened, and in shame turning to anger, he said:

"I just don't like supervising constable work!"

Yu Hu took a sip of tea, her tone becoming exceptionally soft.

"A supervising constable's stipend is even higher than mine as an elder's. Back then, Lingzhou went to the Dao Alliance for that very reason."

Xiao Bai paused.

"Who is Lingzhou?"

Mu Yun reminded him from the side:

"One Sword Fox's surname. No one knows her actual name, so Master only calls her Lingzhou."

One Sword Fox, the traitor of Hundred Herbs Peak?

Xiao Bai immediately drew a clear line between himself and her.

"How could I be that sort of ungrateful wretch?"

Yu Hu drank her tea indifferently and said without concern:

"She does not even have the concepts of gratitude or righteousness in her mind. How can there be any talk of forgetting kindness and betraying righteousness?"

Realizing that Yu Hu bore no blame toward One Sword Fox, Mu Yun immediately chimed in:

"Although Senior Sister got drunk during the Sect-State War and slaughtered quite a few people in a wild frenzy, she also single-handedly accelerated the peace talks between both sides and ended the war early. Without Senior Sister, the Snow Flame Sect and the Imperial Court would have become the Dao Alliance's dogs like the other countries... Though they are dogs now too, at least they retained the ability to bite."

Xiao Bai listened with a thoughtful yet muddled expression, as though he had seen this same plot unfold somewhere before.

"I didn't expect you to be a politician too..."

Mu Yun raised her little face, saying irritably:

"Idiot, I'm a princess!"

Xiao Bai thought about it, but still did not want to become a supervising constable.

"After One Sword Fox caused such a scene, the Dao Supervision Palace obviously will not trust anyone from Hundred Herbs Peak again. If I go, I'll be ostracized too. It's hard enough to be happy... Only a fool would go."

Yu Hu gently set down her teacup. Her clear, radiant face suddenly turned cold as she stared straight at Xiao Bai:

"My monthly spirit stone stipend all goes toward buying rare herb seedlings or medicinal materials from spirit beasts... Do you think that after a man forms a partnership, he does not need to do anything?

"As a man, isn't earning money to support the family the most natural thing in the world?"

"..."

Xiao Bai had been dealt a killing blow.

He trembled with rage. Despite the warmth of the pill furnace, cold sweat covered his body, and his hands and feet turned icy.

This cultivation society was filled everywhere with oppression against little immortal men. Could things not get any better?

It was not only Yu Hu; Mu Yun also egged things on from the side:

"Do you know how much that Earth-rank Spine Gu Pill Master gave you is worth? Being handsome does not mean you can eat for free."

Xiao Bai was speechless.

For some reason, he always felt that Yu Hu wanted to play a hand of counterespionage.

As a High-Level Agent of the Demon Alliance, she clearly wanted to keep track of the Dao Alliance's movements at all times as well.

Yet demons would find it difficult to remain unnoticed in the Dao Supervision Palace, so it was necessary to cultivate a human informant.

Perhaps even One Sword Fox had joined the Dao Alliance for this reason.

Both sides were playing a grand game of chess!

And he was about to become the new spy among spies, a double agent for both the Dao Alliance and the Demon Alliance!

Codename: Transmigrator.

Thinking about it that way, it was rather thrilling.

Over the past few days, Xiao Bai had also seen the amount of medicinal materials Elder consumed while refining pills in the Pill Room...

As the Pill Elder of the Snow Flame Sect, Elder's monthly stipend of one hundred spirit stones truly was not quite enough.

Meanwhile, the Dao Alliance invitation letter Zhang Yufeng had given him clearly stated that a Class C Supervising Constable received one hundred and twenty spirit stones per month.

The Class C Special Stipend offered to Xiao Bai reached one hundred and fifty spirit stones per month.

One spirit stone was worth one hundred taels of gold, or ten thousand taels of silver!

In Chaoge City, Xiao Bai had spent two years exploiting the knowledge of the twenty-first century as though crushing a higher dimension onto a lower one, yet he had earned only five hundred taels of gold—equivalent to five spirit stones.

At present, spirit stones were useless to Xiao Bai.

But if he handed those spirit stones over to his wife, allowing her to buy medicinal ingredients and refine them into pills to nourish him in return, it truly could speed up his cultivation progress.

At the side, Mu Yun also seemed glad to see Xiao Bai become a Dao Alliance supervising constable, and she continued:

"I should let you in on something. A few days ago, I investigated Zhao Hanwu and discovered that the mastermind behind the scenes was very likely connected to the Dao Alliance. I only did not tell you because I was worried it would affect your Sect Tour Ceremony—if you can work at the Dao Supervision Palace, it will be easier to uncover the true culprit who wants to kill you."

"I don't have that kind of courage."

Though Xiao Bai said that aloud, inwardly he was already boiling with rage and wanted to butcher Qi Shan as soon as possible.

On careful thought, once he entered the Dao Alliance, his public stance would align with the Modifier's. He would stand entirely on the side of righteousness, letting him righteously subdue demons and vanquish devils, thwarting his wives' schemes while "knowing nothing" about them, without being blamed.

What was more, once he became a supervising constable, he would surely encounter all sorts of powerful yet evil women...

Xiao Bai had watched plenty of similar police-and-gangster blockbusters in his previous life.

That way, he would essentially be an undercover agent planted within the Dao Alliance, fighting to become stronger himself.

With a slap, Xiao Bai set down his teacup.

"I'll go find Zhang Yufeng tomorrow."