I Feel Like We'll Die the Next Moment!

Just moments ago, he had used the Soul-Searching Technique on a Grandmaster who was close to the Li Household's direct line.

This Grandmaster regularly ran errands for the Li Household throughout the outskirts of the capital. Though the routine affairs he handled had nothing to do with its core matters, he inevitably came across bits and pieces of information.

Jiang Liuyang had hoped to find some useful clues in his sea of consciousness, but the result had left him bitterly disappointed. There had not been a scrap of anything valuable.

The Grandmaster was still slumped against an earthen slope nearby, his eyes tightly shut and his face sallow. He had remained unconscious for a long time, evidently unable to withstand the damage caused by the forcible invasion of his sea of consciousness.

Just then, Jiang Liuyang suddenly froze and instinctively looked toward the horizon.

Li Zhengjun was passing by with Li Dongping, seemingly by chance, when he "happened" to discover Ye Xiufan hiding here with the unconscious Grandmaster. He brought his escaping light down and descended from the clouds.

Ye Xiufan's heart abruptly began to race. He forced himself to steady his nerves as Jiang Liuyang's voice sounded deep in his mind:

"Boy, don't panic. Say what I told you to say. I've tampered with that Grandmaster's memories. With Li Zhengjun's cultivation, he definitely won't notice anything amiss."

Ye Xiufan nodded. He trusted Elder Jiang; Elder Jiang would never make a mistake.

What he did not know, however, was that Li Zhengjun had long since seen the whole story of Ye Xiufan's actions with his Divine Sense.

This Divine Sense seemed to have drawn on the Mystic Mirror's status, and Jiang Liuyang had noticed nothing amiss.

As expected, Ye Xiufan had the remnant soul of a powerful cultivator in him, one who could even search people's souls. In the past, Li Zhengjun might have been somewhat wary.

After all, if that powerful cultivator could enter Ye Xiufan's body, perhaps he could enter his own as well. If he tried to seize his body, Li Zhengjun would be in even greater trouble.

But now, with the golden hall guarding his spiritual platform and the Mystic Mirror's status suppressing things above it, he was certainly not afraid.

From this moment on, he could finally approach this so-called child of destiny without worry.

Li Zhengjun landed on the barren hill and first gave Li Dongping a look, signaling him to check on the unconscious Grandmaster.

Li Dongping understood. He hurried over, bent down to check the Grandmaster's breathing and pulse, then injected a trace of Law Power to examine his injuries.

Li Zhengjun, meanwhile, turned his gaze to Ye Xiufan and said mildly:

"Your name is Ye Xiufan, isn't it? What happened here?"

Ye Xiufan pondered briefly, then bowed.

"Greetings, my lord. This disciple... this disciple teamed up with this senior brother today to hunt Demon Beasts. We wanted to find some low-level Demon Beasts to practice on and gather some spiritual materials along the way. We never expected that Demon Beast to have already grown so formidable. Senior brother was gravely injured protecting me, and I risked my life to bring him out. We only just escaped to this place. If my lord hadn't passed by, I truly wouldn't have known what to do."

He spoke with such heartfelt sincerity that, judging by appearances alone, he really did seem like an honest, loyal youth who had narrowly escaped death. Li Zhengjun, however, had long since seen through the truth.

"You must still be careful when you go out gathering spiritual materials. Neither of you has undergone Qi Ingestion yet. If you encounter a Demon Beast that has begun cultivating, you must put preserving your lives first. Don't rush recklessly ahead in pursuit of merit."

With that, he asked no more questions and walked over to examine the Grandmaster. All the while, his attention never left Ye Xiufan and the remnant soul inside him.

And at that moment, Jiang Liuyang, inside Ye Xiufan's body, was tempted.

"Boy, what an opportunity! To search that Grandmaster's soul, I spent a long time nurturing my Divine Sense. I meant to give it my all to break into his memories, but who would have thought that mortal's head was full of rubbish? The Soul-Searching Technique barely took any effort at all. Right now, my Divine Sense is at its peak. If I unleash it with all my strength, it'll be enough to invade Li Zhengjun's sea of consciousness directly! Once we succeed, the Li Household's Cultivation Methods, its inheritance, the secrets of its Dao Path—they'll all be ours!"

Excitement colored Jiang Liuyang's voice as he continued:

"He's just a junior at the Qi Refining Stage. Even if he has a few tricks, how strong could his sea of consciousness possibly be? We're certain to succeed with this strike. Once we do, why bother saving up Contribution Points? Why wait for the rest of the Cultivation Method? We'll search it all out directly!"

Ye Xiufan frowned. Though he believed Elder Jiang, he could not shake a sense of danger.

In the years before he met Elder Jiang, it was precisely this keen intuition for danger that had allowed him to turn peril into safety through countless mishaps.

At that moment, Jiang Liuyang seemed unable to wait. His Divine Sense had already transformed into a great invisible hand and reached Li Zhengjun, just one final step away from probing into his sea of consciousness.

Just then, Ye Xiufan finally could not hold back. He shuddered and shouted hoarsely from the depths of his soul:

"Elder Jiang! No... we can't! I feel like we'll die the next moment!"

Jiang Liuyang's great hand of Divine Sense stopped at once.

He had resided in this youth's body for three years, watching with his own eyes as the boy used that little bit of mysterious intuition to escape certain death time and again.

This child of destiny's instinct for seeking fortune and avoiding disaster was sometimes more trustworthy than Jiang Liuyang, a Nascent Soul cultivator.

Since the boy had said so, Jiang Liuyang hesitated for a while before reluctantly withdrawing his Divine Sense.

"Your life and mine are tied to the same rope, boy. Since you've said that, there must be something strange here that we can't see through. Perhaps Li Zhengjun has some protective magical artifact hidden on him, or perhaps that Li Dongping beside him could erupt into action and kill at any moment. Your cultivation is too low right now. If I borrowed your body to fight those two from the Li Household and something went wrong, both of us really would meet our end here."

"Forget it. We'll find another opportunity later. When Li Zhengjun is alone, we'll search his soul!"

Ye Xiufan's clothes were soaked through with cold sweat. He felt as though he had just walked past the gates of the underworld. Pale-faced, he nodded silently, unable even to speak.

Li Zhengjun took in everything the two behind him had done and thought:

Just as I expected, that old thing started scheming the moment he saw me. If he had dared to probe his Divine Sense into my sea of consciousness, the golden hall on my spiritual platform would have suppressed him at once. With the Mystic Mirror's status strengthening it, let alone a mere remnant soul, even a Purple Mansion True Person might not have come out ahead.

Only then did he recall that when his grandfather had used Entering the Bright Hall on him, he had discovered nothing. Perhaps the Mystic Mirror had been protecting his sea of consciousness from the very beginning; it was simply more powerful now.

This Ye Xiufan has something to him. He managed to stop that old thing at the very brink of life and death. He really is no ordinary person. This child of destiny's intuition is quite interesting.

Ultimately, what lay hidden inside Ye Xiufan was only a remnant soul.

And the present Li Zhengjun not only had the Mystic Mirror guarding his sea of consciousness, but had also mastered the "Mystic Platform Spirit-Suppressing and Soul-Binding Instruction."

If they truly fell out and fought to the death, with the Mystic Mirror's status strengthening him, he might well be able to bind that old thing's true spirit directly.

But he was not completely certain of success either. Taking such a risk lightly would not be worth the cost.

Ye Xiufan, however, did not dare stay a moment longer.

He forced himself to bow to Li Zhengjun and ask leave to depart. Li Zhengjun did not try to keep him, merely waving a hand and letting him leave with the Grandmaster, who had just regained consciousness.

The figures of Ye Xiufan and his companion gradually receded, but Li Zhengjun remained where he was for some time.

Once there was no one else within range of his Divine Sense, Li Zhengjun suddenly swept two fingers forward. A beam of eerie blue light shot toward a locust tree not far away.

Within the crown of the tree, fear flashed in the eyes of an owl that had been hiding there all along. It beat its wings and tried to flee.

But the eerie blue light came too fast. In the blink of an eye, an invisible force had seized it fast.

The next moment, it was forcibly pulled from the treetop and dropped into Li Zhengjun's palm.

"Well, well. I wondered why that Reed-Hidden Sandpiper went straight back to the Sun Household that time, while you, beast, stayed perched in the tree without moving. I thought you were scouts taking turns on watch for the Sun Household day and night. Now it seems that wasn't the case at all. You belong to two different households."

Clutched in his palm, the owl let out broken, mournful cries.

Li Zhengjun said no more. He formed the Method Formula for the "Mystic Platform Spirit-Suppressing and Soul-Binding Instruction," and a strand of Divine Sense pierced straight into the owl's sea of consciousness.

The chaos in the bird's sea of consciousness crumbled at a touch. Li Zhengjun found its true spirit in an instant, then drew out the "nature" hidden within it.

The entire process flowed like clouds and running water, without the slightest hesitation.

The moment he drew out its true nature, Li Zhengjun detected a trace of the beast-control method Jiang Liuyang had left inside the bird.

A close look revealed that it was merely a crude method of forcibly interfering with the bird's mind through Divine Sense. It could not even be called "binding"; at best, it had only clouded the owl's instincts and made it serve as the caster's eyes and ears.

The method was utterly crude and riddled with flaws.

The instant its true nature entered his grasp, the owl's gaze changed abruptly.

Its fear and wildness faded, replaced by complete obedience and docility.

It stood steadily on Li Zhengjun's shoulder and gave a low hoot, rubbing its head affectionately against his ear as though awaiting its master's next command.

Li Zhengjun stroked its little head and smiled.

"Now that I have you, little fellow, Dongping won't need to watch Ye Xiufan day and night."

With that, he raised his hand and cast a Law Technique, directly pouring the human language into the owl's mind.

Now that the Technique Method had succeeded, the owl was just right for him to practice on. After turning it to his side, he could also use it to keep watch on Ye Xiufan and his companion.

As the owl was bathed from above in radiant light, its throat worked and its neck twitched incessantly, making every feather stand on end.

A moment later, it opened its beak and, surprisingly, mumbled a few indistinct words:

"As... you... command... my... lord!"