Outside Spirit Stream Market, in the Red-Leaf Wildwood.
A group of cultivators was already waiting there. Some chatted among themselves, while others rested with their eyes closed.
The man in their midst wore an exquisite bronze Face Covering, and everyone present seemed to regard him as their leader.
Song Yan and his two companions arrived.
Those with their eyes closed opened them one after another.
"Everyone is here."
One of them spoke, seemingly addressing the masked cultivator.
The Face Covering cultivator raised his eyes toward Song Yan and his companions, and his gaze actually paused.
Then his eyes narrowed slightly.
Song Yesheng? Why was it him...
A coincidence?
Song Yan quietly sized up everyone present.
No one here seemed to be concealing their cultivation. A cursory sweep of his Divine Sense revealed that, apart from the man in the middle at the eighth layer of Qi Refining, there were five at the sixth layer, himself included, and three at the fifth layer.
What surprised Song Yan was that the mysterious cultivator in the bronze Face Covering was actually wearing the robes of a Dongyuan Sect Inner Sect disciple.
He concealed his face, but not his affiliation.
An Inner Sect senior brother?
As Song Yan pondered the man's identity, the man was observing him as well.
"I was wondering who your friend or relative might be. So it turns out to be a junior brother from my own sect."
The Face Covering cultivator smiled. "My name is Che Ning."
Song Yan had never heard that name.
Song Yan bowed. "Senior Brother Che."
He did not need to ask Wu Huaguo to know that the name was almost certainly false.
He was already accustomed to such things.
Besides Che Ning, there were two other Dongyuan Sect disciples.
The two were of similar