Chapter 166: Pu Jianming
Sauntering fifteen minutes late, Hong Nian Niang studied the awkward atmosphere in the room and laughed. Without any sense of urgency, she sat beside Yan Ping, chatted leisurely about trivial matters, and laughed at her own jokes even if she had no response or reaction from the three human statues in the room. It did not deter the owner of the Red Pavillion Hotel that her guests were wet blankets. If anything, the social butterfly was such a skilled conversationalist that some people claimed she could make a flower blush its petals off if she wanted to.
After five minutes of putting up with Hong Nian Niang’s coquettish behaviour, Yan Ping decided to put her foot down and converge the meeting. Unlike them, she had urgent matters in her sect to attend to. She should have known better than to entrust Anji to them for a month.
"I’ll cut to the chase because I have to leave immediately," she announced and even Hong Nian Niang dropped the ditzy act.
Signalling for her male concubine to close the door, Hong Nian Niang waited until they had privacy to become serious.
"I heard you found the traitor’s identity. Are they really from your sect?"
Thanks to Yan Ping’s isolation barrier spell, they could speak and act freely. For the past few weeks, the blind woman had been acting alone, studying the remnants of spells used by the demon cult after Bai Dajin and Zhao Mingshen raided them. It was difficult to piece together the traces of spells while trying to identify the creator, but after following the trail of crumbs, she finally narrowed down the suspect.
"It is from my sect," she admitted. "To be precise, it is a graduate from my sect. I personally took back his token and saw him off."
The dreadful silence made the mood more sombre. However, Yan Ping was not upset by how life turned out. If anything, she was the first to come to terms with it.
"Pu Jianming was a senior researcher who specialised in flag formations. He used to be my scribe and was obsessed with studying the founder’s barrier. Although I don’t know why he had a change of heart, the Mystical Qilin Sect will not treat him any differently from demonic cultivators when we find him."
Hearing her resolve, the hesitation in Bai Dajin disappeared. Things would be very complicated if the Mystical Qilin Sect wanted to protect one of their own kind and deal with the punishments internally.
"Does that mean if we encounter your defector, we can kill on sight?" the White Tiger Sect Leader asked.