Crisis

"He Lin is one of us!?"

Yu Changchun could scarcely believe his ears.

"I-I didn't know anything about this!"

Li Zhi's eyes were full of amusement. "Are you sure you really didn't know?"

"If I fucking knew, would I have had the Human Puppet say that? Do I have a death wish? That's a mighty Golden Core cultivator! If he knew I'd exposed his identity, he could wipe me out with a thought!"

Yu Changchun rose anxiously and paced back and forth, then abruptly turned to look at Li Zhi. "He Lin-no, Elder He-is he really one of us?"

A smile appeared on Li Zhi's blurred face once more. "Absolutely!"

"Fuck!"

Yu Changchun cursed angrily. "The higher-ups could easily deal with them. Why do they have to make everything so damned mysterious? They even keep their own people in the dark!"

"Fuck!"

"No! I'm going to kill that servant disciple right now! And the other servant disciples who knew before-every last one has to die!"

"The Human Puppet can't be left alive either!"

As he spoke, he formed hand seals and recited an incantation. The Triangular Small Flags around him immediately began to shake.

To his surprise, however, after trembling slightly, the flags actually went still again.

"Hm?"

Yu Changchun's gaze flashed toward Li Zhi like lightning, his eyes narrowing with a dangerous gleam.

Li Zhi shrugged and said with a smile, "That's right. It was me."

"Why stop me?"

Yu Changchun's expression abruptly chilled, his long beard stirring. He was clearly both anxious and angry.

"Elder He's identity isn't a secret. Your rank simply isn't high enough, so no one told you."

Li Zhi remained perfectly composed, seemingly unable to feel the other's oppressive presence at all.

"Besides, this chicken-raising servant disciple managed to raise over a dozen Spirit Chickens in just one year. Although they're only low-grade Spirit Chickens, he's only a mortal himself. He does have some potential, and he's of some use to me... so you can't kill him for now."

"Of course, if it becomes necessary, then kill him."

"You... don't tell me you want to cultivate the Blood Bone Dao? Rebuild your true body?"

Something seemed to occur to Yu Changchun, and surprise and doubt immediately appeared in his eyes.

Li Zhi smiled without answering.

Then, seemingly sensing something, he said with a smile, "Things have reached a critical stage now, and I have no time to spare for him. I'll leave the boy with you for now. You won't disappoint me, will you, Senior Brother Yu?"

"Hmph! If you hadn't called me that, I wouldn't even have known I had a junior brother like you."

Yu Changchun snorted, swept his sleeve, and sat down, turning his gaze toward the Water Mirror.

Li Zhi stepped into the ripples with a smile.

Watching his figure disappear, a trace of deep wariness flashed through Yu Changchun's eyes.

"That mystifying bastard. Who wouldn't recognize him looking like that? But he clearly abandoned his true body, so why does he feel even stronger than before? Just now, he suppressed my control over the Formation Flags in an instant. It felt even more oppressive than Master..."

"What realm is he in now, exactly?"

"Forget it. For these three days, I'll keep a close eye on this fellow!"

The moment Wang Ba entered his room, the longing on his face vanished.

In its place came a heart full of uncertainty and alarm!

"Besides Yu Changchun, who else was watching me just now?"

"Two drops of Yin Spirit Power were completely consumed in such a short time!"

"It was practically comparable to that Foundation Establishment True Cultivator I encountered near South Lake Village a while ago!"

Wang Ba shuddered with lingering fear.

As he had expected, Old Hou had indeed come to his door and deliberately leaked some information to him.

He had played along, displaying both apprehension and longing.

He had, more or less, put on the performance as planned.

Although this could change nothing, it could at least serve as a delaying tactic.

But for him, as long as he could get through these dozen or so days, he could flee far away, with the sea wide and the sky boundless before him.

It was actually the best choice.

Yet something unexpected had happened right at the start of this performance.

A powerful being, possibly a Foundation Establishment True Cultivator, seemed to be watching him too!

The immense disparity in strength brought immense mental pressure, nearly throwing his performance off.

Fortunately, he had promptly used Yin Spirit Power to fabricate a suitable expression, barely scraping through.

And his already meager Yin Spirit Power had been depleted further. Now, only eight drops remained!

"At this rate, I definitely won't last until the cultivators over at South Lake Village leave."

Wang Ba did some mental calculations. Even if he tried his best to reduce the time he spent under Yu Changchun's surveillance, to avoid arousing the man's suspicion, he still had to spend at least six hours working under his nose each day.

For six hours, one drop of Yin Spirit Power was nowhere near enough.

He needed at least a drop and a half.

Eight drops would only keep him going another four or five days.

And if anything like today's situation happened again in the meantime, it might only be two or three days.

That was nowhere near ten days.

"I must replenish my Yin Spirit Power as soon as possible."

At this moment, Wang Ba's mind was exceptionally clear.

The only way to replenish Yin Spirit Power was to eat Spirit Chickens and use visualization to draw out the Spiritual Qi within them, then convert it into Yin Spirit Power.

The process was cumbersome and inefficient.

But it was the only method available right now.

There were still nearly two hundred and fifty chickens in the Mountain Manor, including forty-six Spirit Chickens that had advanced from sick chickens.

Wang Ba had hidden them all in the narrow passage between Old Sun's room and his own, enclosing them in cages and covering them with thick black cloth. From outside, almost nothing could be seen or heard.

Every day, Wang Ba secretly fed them a portion of the chicken feed through a hole he had made in his own room.

He had done this in passing while repairing the room earlier, merely intending to conceal the number of Spirit Chickens.

Now, however, it had become his hidden means of replenishing Yin Spirit Power.

"But... it's still nowhere near enough."

Wang Ba continued his calculations in his room.

"Right now, condensing one drop of Yin Spirit Power requires eating six Spirit Chickens, and I need at least ten days to digest six Spirit Chickens. There's nowhere near enough time!"

"If I could obtain a large amount of lifespan in a short time, then based on past experience, raising the level of the Body-Strengthening Scripture would considerably increase the speed at which I condense Yin Spirit Power."

"But where would I get that lifespan? Even if I drained the lifespan of every Spirit Chicken and Precious Chicken in the Mountain Manor, it would only amount to a little over six hundred years."

"Six hundred years would only get me to the seventh level. It wouldn't be much faster."

"Unless all the other manors could... wait!"

Wang Ba's eyes suddenly lit up!

He abruptly thought of the Chicken Plague, Pig Plague, and other epidemics that had been hanging over the entire Sect lately.

It was precisely these epidemics that had caused prices in all the Markets to soar recently.

Low-level Qi Refining disciples, who could originally nourish their bodies and accelerate their cultivation with Precious Chickens alone, now had no choice but to compete with higher-level disciples for Spirit Chickens, indirectly sending Spirit Chicken prices soaring.

It was even said that the Sect's disciples had been affected by this wave of epidemics. Cultivation supplies were in such short supply that the higher-ups had sent quite a few people out to excavate a Spirit Spring.

Pull one hair, and the whole body moved. This was precisely that.

These things had something to do with Wang Ba, but not very much.

As prices rose and fell, the number of chickens he obtained by selling Spirit Chickens and exchanging them for Precious Chickens had not changed much.

At most, the shopkeepers smiled more when he went to the Market to trade for chickens.

But now, this had given Wang Ba an idea for a seemingly risky yet extremely reliable method.

He acted as soon as the thought struck.

That evening, he drained nearly all the lifespan from the forty-six Spirit Chickens, bringing his lifespan to around three hundred and thirty years.

Afterward, he took two of those Spirit Chickens, activated his Yin Spirit Power, and silently left the Mountain Manor.