Chapter 1354: Heart-Bewildering Powder

Granny Xue did more than merely throw away the glowing fragment.

She actually severed one of her own hands, discarding it together with the fragment like a gecko abandoning its tail to survive.

The instant the severed hand escaped her control, it abruptly transformed into frost.

The ground for more than ten zhang around the stream froze solid, and even a stretch of the nearby waterway beside the tree was sealed in ice.

Seeing this, everyone in the tree immediately remembered something.

With the old demoness's unusual demon body, poison was largely useless against her.

Granny Xue watched ice crystals emerge from the stump of her severed hand. The crystals rapidly condensed into the shape of a sculpted hand. Blue light flowed within the ice, and once the glow receded, it transformed back into an ordinary-looking hand.

She sneered repeatedly. "So it's Heart-Bewildering Powder!"

The nearby personnel of the Nine Sacred Lands were already terrified.

By now they understood why the Wuliang Fruit tree had blossomed.

The Wuliang Fruits they had been guarding were gone. Someone had stolen them at some unknown time, and the fruits still hanging on the tree were actually fakes.

Worse, whoever stole the fruits had not only taken them and left imitations behind, but had even poisoned the fake fruit.

Heart-Bewildering Powder?

At the name, the personnel of the Nine Sacred Lands looked at one another.

It was not some deadly poison. It perhaps could not even properly be called poison. It was a cheap, gutter-level hallucinogen from the cultivation world.

Someone had actually gone to the trouble of putting something like this inside the fake Wuliang Fruits?

Heart-Bewildering Powder could not kill anyone. It did not even affect ordinary people. It only reacted with the spiritual power inside a cultivator's body and produced hallucinations.

Nor did it affect a cultivator's spiritual power or cultivation. A victim could still fight and kill as usual.

The substance had another major weakness: its color made it easy to detect.

Under normal circumstances, this was the sort of thing used by morally corrupt people in the cultivation world against women so they could commit indecent acts.

The antidote was simple too.

Eating a single leaf of Heart-Questioning Grass would resolve it. Heart-Questioning Grass was one of the spirit herbs used in refining Spirit Essence Pills and was fairly common throughout the cultivation world. In other words, swallowing a Spirit Essence Pill would also neutralize the drug.

The problem was that clearing the hallucinations caused by Heart-Bewildering Powder required time.

For an ordinary cultivator, it generally took close to a full day.

How long it would take for the Nine Saints, no one knew.

Even without Granny Xue's warning, the other eight Saints had now sensed the problem.

They had actually capsized in a gutter.

Such a crude, low-level trick was normally easy to recognize, yet none of them had noticed it, and all had fallen into it so easily. There was simply nowhere to justify such humiliation.

They also understood the malicious intent of the person who had administered the drug.

It was more than malicious. It was insidious.

Using something this cheap and filthy here meant the culprit had predicted that discovering the Wuliang Fruits were fake would make them emotional and disturb their normal judgment.

"Where is this poison?" Wu Chang rubbed the moisture between his fingers and stared at Lü Wushuang.

"You were poisoned?" Lan Daolin asked Lü Wushuang as though nothing were wrong.

The others likewise wore expressions of perfect calm as they looked at her.

Lü Wushuang's eyes flickered rapidly.

She glanced at Granny Xue and immediately understood what the others were thinking.

But once the words had left her mouth, she could not take them back. She said heavily, "The one I touched was poisoned. Heavenly Secret Powder!"

She deliberately named a different poison.

Granny Xue's expression became strange.

Her gaze moved back and forth across the faces of the other eight, unable for the moment to determine whether their reactions were genuine or false.

Pop! Pop! Pop!

Three sounds came in succession.

Wu Chang flicked three fingers, sending three streams of spiritual power into the remaining Wuliang Fruits on the tree and shattering them.

Liquid burst apart, and from each fell another glowing fragment.

Without exception, every last fruit was fake.

"Wuliang Fruits flower once every thirty years, set fruit thirty years later, and ripen another thirty years after that. The tree has suddenly blossomed now, yet didn't all of you say the fruits hanging here had gone untouched for more than two hundred years?" Wu Chang suddenly roared. "Don't you owe me an explanation?"

Mu Lianze said, "Did the Heart-Bewildering Powder scramble your brain too? If it's flowering now, that means the fruits were stolen thirty years ago. You entered the Sacred Realm before then. When you arranged things at Wuliang Garden, you personally touched the fruits on this tree. Don't tell me you couldn't distinguish the real ones from the fakes?"

Thirty years ago?

Everyone began searching their memories.

Had anything strange happened at Wuliang Garden thirty years earlier?

Luo Qiu suddenly said, "Wu Chang! The Crow Generals beside this tree were your arrangement. You said that with the Crow Generals here, no one could steal the fruit without anyone noticing. You're asking us for an explanation? Now we're the ones who should be asking what explanation you have for us!"

Wu Chang said heavily, "Nothing beneath Heaven is absolute. To steal the fruit beneath the eyes of so many guards involves far more than the Crow Generals. What explanation do you expect me to give?"

Seeing the argument beginning, with all of them showing no signs of poisoning whatsoever, Granny Xue remained silent. Her strange gaze kept shifting across the others, studying their reactions.

Yuan Se suddenly chuckled. "Old hag, you're the only one here keeping quiet. Could it be you've got a guilty conscience?"

Granny Xue sneered. "Dead fatty, stop spewing nonsense and falsely accusing people. Who knows whether Niu Youdao was killed because he uncovered something connected to this affair? In my view, you and Lü Wushuang are far more suspicious!"

Yuan Se's voice abruptly turned sharper than anyone had ever heard it.

He pointed at Granny Xue and snapped, "I think you're the one who stole the fruit!"

His gaze swept across the others.

"Everyone, don't you think what I'm saying makes sense?"

The others instantly understood his intent.

This smiling fatty had suddenly taken such a hard line for a reason.

Now was not the time to discuss who had stolen the fruit.

Zhangsun Mi gave a low grunt. "Correct! This old hag is the most suspicious. Take her down first and ask questions afterward!"

Granny Xue swept her gaze across the killing intent suddenly rising from all eight of them.

In an instant, realization dawned.

She understood.

All of them had been hit by the Heart-Bewildering Powder.

They feared her poisonous methods.

For their own safety, before the drug's effects became impossible to suppress, they intended to join hands and kill her first!

Against all eight acting together, she stood no chance whatsoever.

If she could not escape, she would die here today.

She understood quickly and reacted even faster.

"A pack of bastards!"

Leaving only that curse behind, she shot straight through the crown of the tree and tore upward into the sky.

Branches and leaves exploded and whistled through the air.

The other eight launched skyward at the same instant and raced after her.

"Aah!"

High above, Granny Xue suddenly shrieked and struck upward with the cane in her hand.

Boom!

A heaven-shaking explosion rang out.

The bowl-shaped curtain of rippling light that materialized overhead was blasted open by her overwhelming cultivation, and she instantly shot through the hole.

Hummm—rumble!

The earth shook.

Explosions thundered all around Wuliang Garden. Earth and stone blasted through the air as the visible bowl-shaped barrier collapsed.

The entire grand formation protecting Wuliang Garden had been shattered in an instant by Granny Xue's overwhelming cultivation.

This formation had only ever served as an ordinary protective and warning measure.

It could not even withstand the sustained assault of a group of Golden Core cultivators.

How could it possibly stop the immense power of a Nascent Soul cultivator?

With the formation broken, the other eight shot into the sky as well and pursued Granny Xue.

In the blink of an eye, all nine vanished beyond the horizon.

Their speed was astonishing.

The tremors gradually subsided.

The personnel of the Nine Sacred Lands left behind stared at one another.

Those from Ice and Snow Sacred Land suddenly felt very alone.

Very unsafe.

The other eight factions were all watching them like tigers eyeing prey.

The people of the other eight sides hesitated in turn.

Their masters were currently joining forces to hunt Granny Xue.

Should they attack the people of Ice and Snow Sacred Land too?

By this point, no one was stupid.

Most had already understood the intention of the other eight Saints.

They had probably all been affected by the "Heart-Bewildering Powder" Granny Xue mentioned.

Granny Xue was not necessarily the person who had stolen the Wuliang Fruits at all. The other eight were probably simply afraid something might go wrong and wanted to join hands to eliminate her first.

A figure suddenly flashed beneath the Wuliang Fruit tree.

It was the deacon from Ice and Snow Sacred Land stationed here.

He shouted, "Everyone from Ice and Snow Sacred Land, get over here! Protect the Wuliang Fruit tree together!"

He stressed the word "protect" especially loudly and meaningfully.

At the same time, he placed one hand directly on the tree.

The people of Ice and Snow Sacred Land immediately understood.

One after another, they flew beneath the tree or onto its branches.

The meaning could not have been clearer.

If anyone dared act recklessly, they would destroy the Wuliang Fruit tree.

Seeing this, the people of the other eight factions, caught between advancing and retreating, secretly relaxed.

The Ice and Snow Sacred Land side had just given them a perfect excuse not to attack.

If questioned afterward, they would have an explanation.

After all, everyone had been trapped here together for so many years.

Even if there was no deep affection, they had still developed some measure of familiarity.

Suddenly fighting to the death against one another felt strange.

Besides, the people from Ice and Snow Sacred Land were not weak either. If it truly came to a desperate fight, people would die.

The deacons of the other eight factions exchanged looks, then gradually moved away from their own groups and gathered not far off.

"What do we do?"

"What do you mean, what do we do? They've got the fruit tree as a 'hostage.' We can't act rashly."

"Exactly. There's no need to take things too far. The nine of them are fighting now, and no one knows who will live or die. What if the one backing one of us is the one who suffers?"

"Right. Better wait and see."

"Hold on. That's not what I'm talking about. The Wuliang Fruits were stolen. Stolen! We're the people guarding this place. How are all of you still acting like nothing happened?"

"What are you afraid of? The tree flowering now means the fruits were stolen thirty years ago. What does that have to do with us?"

"I was here thirty years ago."

"I've been here close to fifty years myself. I wasn't a deacon back then."

Ye Nian laughed. "Heh. Then you'd better pray for yourselves. I wasn't here thirty years ago."

"Oh? You say that like none of this concerns you. If we run, are you going to stop us or not? If you don't make a real effort to stop us, let's see how you explain yourself afterward. And if you do make a real effort, are you certain you can handle all of us together?"

Ye Nian fell speechless.

"I have an idea."

"Let's hear it."

"There." Someone lifted his chin toward the people beneath the tree. "The other eight are chasing Granny Xue anyway. Let's go negotiate with them. We let them run, and we pretend to chase. First we get ourselves away from this place. Then we drag things out and see what happens."

The Nine Saints could control people beneath Heaven, but they could not control the hearts of everyone beneath Heaven.

Behind their backs, so long as no one feared the words leaking out, people would say anything.

And now that matters had reached this point, what was there that some people would not say if it might save their lives?

Ye Nian remained silent.

Then, one after another, the others' eyes turned toward him.

...

Granny Xue fled desperately through the sky.

Seeing a great lake below, she was about to dive toward it.

A black shadow suddenly caught up from behind.

Wu Chang.

He had taken the lead in the pursuit.

Both arms thrust forward.

A sphere of flame-like blood-red radiance wrapped in black smoke shot toward Granny Xue.

Granny Xue twisted in midair and struck it with her cane.

Boom!

The fireball instantly shattered.

But instead of disappearing, it exploded into an enormous cloud of black mist that swallowed Granny Xue in an instant.

Clang-clang-clang-clang!

A dense storm of sharp metallic sounds erupted within the black mist.

Countless ice spikes, each like a towering tree, burst from Granny Xue's body in every direction.

Her figure vanished from sight.

Only an enormous sphere of blue-white ice spikes remained.

"Extinguish Life!"

Wu Chang's furious shout shook the open sky.

Within the black mist, a gigantic black palm condensed, vast as a mountain.

It came crashing forward with a roar.

Boom!

One palm strike shattered the enormous mass of ice spikes.

[End of Chapter 1354]