Chapter 784: Ran Into a Tough One

He was home.

The home was still the same home.

The people inside were still the same people, all familiar faces.

Seeing Luo Zhao return, everyone was delighted and relieved.

After being locked in the Imperial Prison for so long, he was filthy.

Once he had bathed, Feng Guan'er attended him while he changed.

As she did, Luo Zhao asked the same question again.

"Guan'er, where exactly have you been all this time?"

Feng Guan'er's hands paused while fastening his belt.

Then, still silent, she helped him into his outer robe.

When she turned to leave, Luo Zhao caught her arm and pulled her back.

He stared into her eyes.

Feng Guan'er did not dare meet his gaze.

She lowered her head.

The two stood in silence.

In the end, Feng Guan'er was the one who broke it.

"I'm sorry."

Luo Zhao said, "You are Luo's virtuous wife. Without you, I wouldn't have gotten out of the Imperial Prison anytime soon."

"I'm grateful to you. Why are you apologizing?"

Feng Guan'er slowly forced out words she found almost impossible to say.

"Divorce me."

She did not want to say such a thing.

Luo Zhao was already at the lowest point of his life.

She had never wanted to say it at all.

Her original intention had been to help Luo Zhao rise again, and only afterward kill herself and end everything.

She felt she had wronged him.

She no longer wanted to live.

But before dying, she wanted to exhaust every last bit of her strength helping him return to power.

At least that would repay some of the guilt in her heart.

Yet Luo Zhao seemed unable to wait for some later day.

He kept asking where she had been.

He had every right to ask.

But she did not want to keep lying to him.

Perhaps once the two of them severed their bond, what had happened to her would no longer have anything to do with him.

She knew what kind of man Luo Zhao was.

Proud.

High-hearted.

His pride had already suffered blow after blow.

She could not bear to heap frost upon snow.

Luo Zhao's breath tightened.

After a moment, he said slowly, "Because I've fallen this far?"

Feng Guan'er shook her head.

Luo Zhao's eyes narrowed slightly.

He seemed to have sensed something.

"Guan'er, tell me. Where exactly did you go?"

Feng Guan'er did not dare reveal the truth.

She was afraid this proud man would not be able to bear it.

In a low voice, she repeated, "Divorce me."

Luo Zhao was not stupid.

A proud man naturally had reasons for his pride.

In this world, a woman of such beauty had vanished for so long, and from a land ravaged by war.

Now she had returned evasive, hesitant, unable even to meet his eyes.

A possibility had already formed in his mind.

It was one he scarcely dared contemplate.

He spoke one word at a time.

"Why should I divorce you?"

Feng Guan'er answered with silence.

She did not dare say.

In that silence, she felt the fingers gripping her arm tighten.

Little by little, they began to hurt.

She did not resist.

Slap!

Luo Zhao suddenly erupted.

Like an enraged beast, he struck her across the face.

All the humiliation and frustration he had endured finally burst out with that slap.

Feng Guan'er fell to the floor from the blow.

Half propped against the ground, she covered her face.

In all their years together, this was the first time he had ever struck her.

...

After following Zhao's people for some time, they finally received news of another faction.

Chen Zifei's message said Zhao's cultivators had encountered the overseas group.

"We've been inside all this time and haven't done a single proper thing. We've just been sneaking around behind other people's backs."

Wu Zhaoxing sounded almost aggrieved.

For the man ranked sixth on the Golden Core Ranking, perhaps he had reason to feel that way.

"We've finally found the people you wanted. What's the next step?"

Niu Youdao crushed the leaf bearing the message between his fingers.

"Ignore them. Keep following Zhao's people."

The other three froze.

Yun Huan asked strangely, "Keep following Zhao?"

"There are none of our people among the overseas cultivators," Niu Youdao said. "Even if we wanted to follow them, it wouldn't be easy."

"No." Yun Huan waved a hand. "I don't mean follow them."

"Weren't you planning to unite with the overseas cultivators?"

"We've spent so long and gone to this much trouble. Now that we've finally found them, you're not going to unite with them?"

Niu Youdao asked in return, "How do we unite with them?"

"What do we have to offer?"

"If we simply run over there, they'll join forces with us and help me take first place?"

"Why should they?"

"Are the few of us indispensable to them?"

"Are we close friends?"

"Why should they help me?"

"With us, they don't gain much. Without us, they lose nothing."

"Why invite trouble on our account?"

The three looked at one another.

They had to admit he made sense.

But they still did not understand.

Yun Ji asked, "Then why have you dragged us around for so long? What exactly are you trying to do?"

"We are going to unite with them," Niu Youdao said. "Sooner or later, we'll go find them."

"But not now."

"The time isn't right yet."

"We've never dealt with one another. We don't know each other. We have no relationship at all."

"What use would it be to show up now?"

"I could talk until the sky split open and it still wouldn't matter."

"The heat isn't there yet."

"The time hasn't come."

"We need to wait a little longer."

At present, what he said was what they did.

The group continued following Zhao's people.

Time passed quickly.

The sun rose and set again and again.

By the outside world's reckoning, three months passed in the blink of an eye.

It took them a full three months, but they finally felt out the forces of all seven states.

Yun Ji and the others had lost count of how much ground they had covered.

Never in their lives had they spent so long traveling in this condition.

It felt as though they had nearly run their legs off.

But they had also become genuinely convinced by Niu Youdao.

Nearly ten thousand cultivators had entered the Tiandu Secret Realm.

Across a region this enormous, once everyone spread out, finding people was no easy matter.

And finding specific people hidden among factions that wanted Niu Youdao dead was even worse.

It was practically pulling teeth from a tiger's mouth.

Jin's forces before them were a perfect example.

Niu Youdao knew perfectly well the people from Jin wanted him dead.

Yet he still dared approach them.

More absurdly, Jin's own cultivators had actually helped Niu Youdao isolate and bring out the exact person he wanted.

It was almost identical to what had happened with Zhao.

Hostile or not, Niu Youdao always seemed able to find some method to extract the person he needed.

Yun Ji and the others simply could not understand how he was doing it.

They found it unbelievable.

It almost felt as though there were no problem in the world this fellow could not solve.

Ji Yude was the person Niu Youdao had been looking for on Jin's side.

He was an older independent cultivator, already advanced in years, ranked somewhere within the top three hundred of the Golden Core Ranking.

He looked down at the corpses on the ground.

After hearing what Niu Youdao wanted him to do, Ji Yude shook his head.

"I'm afraid that won't work."

Niu Youdao replied calmly, "In other words, I came all this way to find you for nothing, and the instructions from above mean nothing to you."

"You misunderstand me," Ji Yude said.

"I'm worried that what you're doing is dangerous."

"Extremely dangerous."

Danger?

This was the same way Niu Youdao had come all along.

He spoke slowly.

"That isn't something you need to worry about."

"I'll handle it myself."

"I'm asking you one thing only."

"Will you do it or not?"

If Ji Yude still refused, Niu Youdao would not leave him alive.

He would have no choice but to silence him.

"Doing it isn't the problem," Ji Yude said.

"It won't affect me much either."

"The problem is that I have no way to leave trail markers for you to keep following."

"Framing the overseas cultivators is no problem."

"But the people you just killed are disciples of Qiyun Sect!"

Niu Youdao said, "They're already dead. Is there any point telling me this now?"

"You should have heard what kind of people Qiyun Sect are in the cultivation world," Ji Yude said.

"They're poor, and they're fierce."

"The moment they learn overseas cultivators killed disciples of Qiyun Sect, they'll immediately turn around and sweep back in this direction."

"They won't let the matter go until they find those overseas people and settle the score."

"Once they charge back here and launch a massive search, how are you supposed to follow them?"

"Are you certain you're willing to risk running straight into them just to keep tracking us?"

Niu Youdao was left momentarily speechless.

Then he asked, "You're certain they'll react that way?"

"I can't guarantee it absolutely," Ji Yude replied.

"I have no way to guarantee anything."

"But from the beginning, they never planned to behave themselves and search honestly for Spirit Seeds."

"They prepared long ago to rob other factions."

"They haven't acted yet only because the time isn't ripe. They want to wait until everyone else has more goods in hand."

Niu Youdao fell silent.

In the end, Ji Yude left covered in injuries.

His situation differed from that of the others before him.

Once Niu Youdao decided to continue framing the overseas cultivators, Ji Yude himself requested that Niu Youdao injure him—and not lightly.

He left badly wounded.

"Let's go. We turn back and find Ling Sect's people."

Niu Youdao called Wu Zhaoxing and the others together and changed direction.

The three immediately sensed something was wrong.

Earlier they had encountered Ling Sect and borrowed its strength to find Jin's forces.

Now, instead of continuing to follow Jin, they were turning around to search for Ling Sect again.

That did not fit the previous pattern.

Running back and forth like this was nothing but torment.

Naturally, the three objected.

Naturally, they demanded an explanation.

"I don't want to either," Niu Youdao sighed.

"We ran into a tough one."

"Jin's group may be charging back here very soon."

"Following them any farther won't be safe."

"Let's avoid them for now."

Niu Youdao could not be certain Jin's people would truly react that way.

But after thinking it through, he decided safety came first.

If they really ended up being hunted all the way across the Secret Realm, the trouble would be enormous.

The instant the others heard Jin might be coming back, none dared linger.

They quickly fled the area.

...

Taishu Shanyue was a thin old man with snow-white hair and beard.

He was also the senior Elder responsible for Qiyun Sect's contingent on this expedition.

And he was not merely Qiyun Sect's senior Elder.

In practice, all of Jin's people inside the Tiandu Secret Realm were under his authority.

Qiyun Sect's domineering strength represented Jin itself.

Ji Yude sat on the ground in front of him, wretched and bloodstained, badly wounded.

After listening to Ji Yude's report, Taishu Shanyue's face turned icy.

"The overseas cultivators split into four groups. Which group was it?"

Ji Yude shook his head. "I don't know them. But I saw them in Tiangu."

Taishu Shanyue slowly crouched in front of him.

He reached out, seized Ji Yude by the beard, and lifted his chin.

His voice was cold.

"They're already making moves this early?"

"Can you truly confirm it was the overseas group?"

Ji Yude said, "I wouldn't dare speak a single false word."

"If even one sentence is a lie, I'm right here. Deal with me however you like."

"Qiyun Sect disciples died in battle, yet you had the face to run back."

Taishu Shanyue gave his hand a jerk and tore out the entire fistful of beard.

Blood immediately welled from Ji Yude's chin.

His face twitched from the pain.

"They had strength in numbers," he said.

"I knew I couldn't defeat them."

"It was Qiyun Sect's disciples who fought to the death to hold them back and told me to return with the news."

"They said they could not die without anyone even knowing how."

"A pack of dogs who don't know the height of Heaven or the depth of earth."

Taishu Shanyue rose and flung away the torn beard.

His voice thundered with anger.

"I haven't even gone looking for trouble with them, and they dare jump around first?"

"Outrageous!"

"Old Five, prop him up and make him lead the way."

"Take one hundred men and go to the site first."

"Search the area."

"The moment you find them, latch on and don't let go."

"I'll follow right behind you!"

"Yes!"

A man cupped his hands in acknowledgment.

He selected one hundred people and had Ji Yude supported away with them.

"Old Three, take some men and stay here."

"When everyone else gets back, gather the rest of the force and follow us."

"Ninth Uncle, night is almost here."

"Even if the sky falls, we are dragging those dogs out!"

[End of Chapter 784]