Chapter 517: Taking Action

Chapter 517: Taking Action

Chi Zhiyun’s voice was sharp with fury, his rebuke forcing Chi Zhiyan to hang his head in silence; he paced twice across the jade platform, his heart heavy with vexation, while Ning Hejing, his face dark with gloom, spoke up:

“Since we’ve offended him, Li Xizhi must already harbor a grudge. Even if he were to die, Li Xuanfeng would surely investigate, and if he uncovers anything, he’ll turn that hatred on us.”

“Let’s strike while the iron’s hot—wipe out the Li clan entirely, raze Moon-Watching Lake, and deal with Li Xuanfeng too…”

Chi Zhiyun pressed a hand to the jade throne, his brow furrowed in thought for a moment; his broad eyebrows lifted slightly, his snow-white robes draping over the silver immortal seat, and with a lingering flicker of anger in his heart, he spoke in a low voice:

“If we really kill Li Xuanfeng, all our earlier elaborate efforts will have been for nothing, won’t they? Razing Moon-Watching Lake might sound good, but once we break with Xiuyue Sect, who will be our vanguard? Who will fend off the Buddhist cultivators marching south?”

“Nineteen of the Thirty-Six Peaks are garrisoned across the Four Seas, six are scattered in the market districts, the remaining eleven have to attend to True Person Yuanxiu—only six are available. Who will we send to fend off the demonic and Buddhist cultivators then?”

His words came faster and faster, his tone turning fierce; he cast a cold glance at Ning Hejing and asked:

“Shall we send you?”

Ning Hejing immediately bowed his head and shook it—though he held considerable power within the sect, his talent was meager, and he’d barely managed to reach the Foundation Establishment stage; he was in no position to take on such a task, so he could only shake his head.

Chi Zhiyun turned his head and asked Chi Zhiyan:

“Shall we send you then?”

Chi Zhiyan also fell silent—he was focused on attaining the Purple Mansion stage, and could barely find time for his cultivation, so how could he throw himself into a life-or-death battle? Chi Zhiyun sneered and said:

“Shall we send a few of our clan’s elders? Who can command them? Or send our younger brothers? If they get hurt, they won’t let it go, and our uncles will demand exorbitant compensation.”

“Shall we send the Yu clan? After Yu Yuxie was devoured by the Old Ancestor, the entire Yu clan fell apart—where are we to find usable men there? Or the Yuan clan? You lot already harmed Yuan Tuan and Yuan Chengdun!”

“Only the Gu clan of Jiachuan Lin Valley has some talented youths, and if we pick one or two from Linhai County… it’s still not enough!”

Chi Zhiyan was left humiliated by this barrage of questions, finally running out of words to say; he could only reply:

“I was impulsive… but… if I may speak plainly, how much of the blame for our current predicament falls on us? It’s all the Old Ancestor’s…”

Chi Zhiyun shot him a sharp glare and replied:

“It’s a shame Yu Muxian is dead… only Tang Shedu and Yu Su remain…”

When it came down to it, there were few in Qingchi Sect who could truly be relied upon; True Person Yuanxiu cultivated in seclusion, his temperament stubborn, and he had formed his own faction—Chi Zhiyun never dared to call on him.

Yuansu had seized control of the Southern Border, and though it would fall back into the Ning clan’s hands within a few years, Chi Zhiyun only found it troublesome; he spoke in a low voice:

“You deliberately sent him to find Yuan Tuan… he was almost certainly doomed…”

“Whether Li Xizhi is dead or alive, we have to give an explanation. The other clans aren’t blind—especially the Yang clan, since we killed their son-in-law…”

His head ached fiercely, so he waved a hand and said softly:

“Find a scapegoat.”

The two men nodded hastily and retreated, and only then did Chi Zhiyun slowly sit down, pressing a hand to his forehead and closing his eyes, as if slowly recalling something else.

“The dragon clan has always hated us, and the ones lingering around Thunder Cloud Temple are the dragon lord’s descendants—how can we act recklessly? Zhiyan is being far too naive… we’ll only bring disaster upon ourselves if we offend the dragon lord!”

At this thought, Chi Zhiyun could no longer sit still; he quickly picked up a jade slip from the table, drafted a few men from the sect, and sent them off to track down leads.

……

Zongquan Island.

Li Xizhi had secluded himself for several days; when he sent his spiritual sense into his Sea of Qi, he saw a sea of rainbow clouds and mist, with colored lights drifting through it—thinner than its usual mist-shrouded state, a sign that his wounds had not yet healed.

Within this deep sea of clouds, not only were there drifting colored lights, but also indigo mist weaving through it, pushing aside the other clouds and condensing into a single mass.

Li Xizhi watched for a long time before noticing something amiss.

He had thought that the spiritual power Dongfang Heyun had injected into his body would wreak havoc, but instead it only made his entire body cold; with the help of his Lu Qi to dissolve and dispel it, he had cleared most of it away, leaving only this mass in his Sea of Qi.

This spiritual power had gathered on its own, condensing into a single mass in his Sea of Qi, floating gently amid the clouds—faint and ethereal, easily dissolvable with his own spiritual power, let alone his Lu Qi.

“What is this…”

Li Xizhi had read many Taoist texts; this kind of foreign spiritual power usually scattered and infiltrated the five viscera and six bowels to wreak destruction, never condensing into a single mass like this.

He studied it closely, sensing the changes in this spiritual power, and realized it was not an offensive technique but a sensory one—soon, he understood.

“Dongfang Heyun wants to know what’s happening in Qingchi Sect…”

Mu Hai had attained the Purple Mansion stage and was rumored to be the seventh son of the current dragon lord; he was by no means an easy man to deal with, so how could he let Qingchi Sect’s insult go unanswered?

On the surface, he had sent Dongfang Heyun to hunt down Li Xizhi to fulfill a previous agreement, but secretly he was planting a spy in Qingchi Sect, using Li Xizhi to monitor the sect’s movements.

And this unguarded display was a clear message to Li Xizhi:

“A life spared by a Purple Mansion cultivator is not given for free…”

Moreover, by making this a blatant sensory technique, he could make Li Xizhi wary of asking other Purple Mansion cultivators to examine him—everything made perfect sense.

Li Xizhi had already been harmed by the Chi clan, so he fell silent, his heart torn with hesitation.

“The Chi clan wants to use Mu Hai as a weapon, but Mu Hai is one of the best Purple Mansion cultivators—he will surely retaliate in kind. I’m the one caught in the middle, unable to offend either side…”

Now that he understood, Li Xizhi sighed deeply; he did not dare to dissolve the mist mass casually, so he used his Lu Qi to suppress the indigo mist, ensuring he could dispel it the moment a Purple Mansion cultivator tried to probe his Sea of Qi.

“With the Talisman Seed in my body, I won’t be bewitched—there’s no real danger.”

He let out a quiet breath, his heart heavy with worry; his current situation was troublesome, for he also had secrets of his own—the Talisman Seed and Lu Qi in his Sea of Qi must not be detectable, otherwise things would have turned out very differently.

He withdrew his cultivation technique and stood up, stepping out of the stone door.

Li Qinghong had waited on the island for only two days before practicing her thunder techniques, summoning wind and rain to conceal the rainbow light anomalies that accompanied Li Xizhi’s wound healing; after just three days, the sealed stone door slowly opened.

Since attaining the Foundation Establishment stage and receiving the blessing of the immortal root, Li Xizhi had carried an air of dignity; his eyebrows were smoother than in his youth, and he was calm and composed—only his pale face gave him the air of a sickly young nobleman.

Li Qinghong descended on a bolt of thunder and entered the cave; Li Xizhi first bowed to her, then flicked his tattered feathered robe—traces of a palm print still marked its back—and Li Qinghong asked:

“What happened?”

Li Xizhi replied concisely:

“I was harmed by someone in the sect, lured to the dragon clan’s forbidden ground, and ran into a demonic dragon of the Purple Mansion stage.”

“He had his reservations about being a pawn for Qingchi Sect, so he let me go, but left a restriction on me that allows him to monitor my surroundings.”

Li Qinghong heard his understated account, but she could imagine the terror of escaping a Purple Mansion cultivator; when she heard his last words, she started in alarm, realizing there were things she could no longer say, and only hurried to ask:

“How are your wounds?”

“Dissolving the spiritual power is fairly easy.”

Li Xizhi’s expression was still calm as he said gently:

“It would have hindered my healing and damaged my spiritual power if it had stayed in my body, but now it’s dissolving quickly. The remaining wounds are severe, but they won’t affect my cultivation path—they’ll heal with time.”

Li Qinghong nodded, thought for a moment, and said in a low voice:

“Was it Chi Zhiyun?”

Li Xizhi shook his head, then sat down with his aunt in the cave and replied:

“Aunt, you don’t know—though Chi Zhiyun has a grudge against our clan, he cares deeply about his reputation. As long as we don’t cross his bottom line, he’s a man of integrity.”

“If he truly wanted to harm us, our clan would never have survived this long on the lake; we would have been wiped out long ago on some pretext. As long as he cares about his reputation, he won’t send anyone to harm me.”

Li Xizhi’s voice grew faster as he spoke softly:

“Either he was careless and someone took advantage of it, or the Ning clan wants to fully control our clan and harmed me to that end. The latter is manageable—Yuansu’s lifespan is nearly at an end, and my granduncle is renowned and powerful, so there’s no great danger.”

"I fear it is the former."

Li Qinghong, though her mind was wholly set on cultivation, was a shrewd woman; she furrowed her brows and said:

"I fear this matter has provoked Chi Zhiyun, and he will seek to uproot the trouble in one go!"

"Having seen his earlier tactics, when he truly turns ruthless, he is far more vicious than the likes of Ning Hejing and Chi Zhiyan."

Li Xizhi nodded solemnly and spoke in a deep tone:

"I beg you, Aunt, to accompany me to the Xuanyue Sect! Senior Kong is a former friend of Father’s; with her as a witness, we can evade this matter—we’ll say we never went to the barbarian tribes, only the Han family did, and their malicious plot never came to fruition, so Chi Zhiyun can rest easy."

This was one of Li Xizhi’s considerations, but he harbored a separate thought in secret:

"I know not what sort of temperament True Person Sui Guan has; I fear that if he hears I escaped from the Purple Mansion, he will come to investigate in person—and that would be a disaster!"

Li Xizhi was not afraid of his internal talisman seed being discovered; after all, Chi Buzu had failed to detect it back then. Even if his internal restrictions were found, that would be manageable—but if it provoked the talisman seed to retaliate and kill this peak Purple Mansion true person, it would surely throw the Jiangnan region into upheaval.

"Sui Guan is no ordinary person; I fear that the moment he dies, Lushui will appear on the spot, travel out of that cave abode, and drag me back home to find the Immortal Mirror."

Li Xizhi calculated silently, growing more convinced that this plan had to be carried out. Li Qinghong thought it over briefly and sighed:

"To be wronged yet pretend nothing is amiss—this is precisely what it means to submit in powerlessness…"

She nodded in agreement at once, rode a thunderbolt into the sky, and Li Xizhi hid behind her; together they left the formation, crossed the coastal waters, and headed for the Xuanyue Sect.

Both were flying at extreme speeds; scarcely half a month later, they landed on the shore of the Salty Lake. Li Qinghong rode her thunderbolt down to the Xuanyue Sect’s gate in the Shanji Prefecture, where pale white radiance blazed brightly, and Xuanyue cultivators hurried to and fro in a flurry.

She had an Xuanyue disciple go forward to announce her to Kong Tingyun, and deliberately said:

"I heard my Xizhi is with a senior of your sect; please inform Kong Tingyun for me."

Before long, a streak of pale golden light shot out from the mountains. Kong Tingyun, clad in her usual Hunan-colored dress, came forward to greet her with great delight.

"Sister Qinghong!"

Though True Person Changxi was little known in the Purple Mansion, Kong Tingyun was after all a descendant of a Purple Mansion cultivator and had taken many precious elixirs; her face was even younger than Li Qinghong’s, looking no more than twenty years old, and she spoke warmly:

"We haven’t seen each other in years—what made you think to come to me?"

Li Qinghong now exuded greater charm; her long hair was tied up as usual, and she spoke gently:

"I heard Xizhi was with you, Sister, and I grew worried, so I came to check on him."

Kong Tingyun’s ears twitched as she listened to a private spiritual voice transmission, then smiled:

"Please come into the mountain first."

She activated the formation; Li Qinghong waited a brief moment before entering, then landed on Kong Tingyun’s immortal peak. Li Xizhi revealed his form and bowed respectfully:

"Xizhi thanks Senior."

Kong Tingyun smiled faintly, glanced at him twice, and thought to herself:

"He carries more dignity than his father—he must take after that woman from the Xiao family."

Though the two families were very close, she dared not act presumptuously, fearing she might bring a great disaster upon herself. First, she said:

"Don’t hurry to thank me—speak of the matter first."

……

Moon-Watching Lake.

Li Xijun patrolled the lake once, then drifted down into the town. A wisp of gray wind surged toward him and took human form before him. Li Wushao bowed and replied softly:

"Your Excellency, the heir has emerged from seclusion."

Li Xijun nodded slightly, took a step forward, and landed before the hall. At the top seat sat Li Chengliao in a long robe, gazing down at Li Zhouwei, who stood holding a halberd. Li Zhouwei had broken through his seclusion in just over half a year and attained the Qi Refining realm.

Li Xijun glanced at him; calculating his age, Li Zhouwei was only thirteen, breaking through to Qi Refining earlier than An Jingming had back then.

"Minghuang had the support of the Talisman Elixir, giving him an extra advantage; his elixirs and spiritual energy are far beyond what An Jingming could have had…"

"But the cultivation method An Jingming practiced… progresses extremely quickly during the Embryonic Breathing stage. When comparing the two, I don’t know how great the difference is."

He thought it over briefly, then entered the hall. Li Chengliao and his son both looked over, and Li Xijun waved his hand:

"You need not be so formal."

He did not say more, only spoke softly:

"Xizhi is not on Green Pine Island. I have another piece of news: that golden rain was indeed the fall of the Yuan Crow."

At these words, Li Chengliao’s face lit up with a smile; he smoothed his robe and bowed in reply:

"Nephew will make arrangements at once."

Li Xijun nodded, his thoughts drifting. He placed one hand on Hanlin at his waist—its slender blade glinting brightly—and stared at the dawn light before the hall, a persistent unease lingering in his heart:

"We are at a critical juncture… yet Xizhi is not at the peak… The people from Green Pond only said he went to visit the Han family… but to visit the Han family at this time—could something be wrong?"

Li Xijun calculated secretly, even hesitating over whether to send troops to the eastern shore. But this opportunity was too rare; his family had finally smoothed over the obstacles, and delays would only lead to changes.

When he reached the bottom of the steps, Li Xijun saw that the troops in the town had already begun to move silently. He calculated the timing and, in the end, rode the wind into the sky and flew toward the eastern shore:

"I can’t wait any longer… My granduncle’s letter said Shangyuan’s breakthrough is imminent, and there are increasing signs of unrest in Jiangnan—he told me to act quickly…"

(End of Chapter)