Hidden Moth

He Kao didn’t find Lan Jiwan, so could Lan Jiwan recognize He Kao? She didn’t recognize him either!

Right now He Kao looked like a somewhat exhausted outdoor worker, his skin tanned dark and a bit rough, hair short and messy, wearing a long-sleeved T-shirt clearly stained with sweat, so even the people around him instinctively kept their distance.

He had already handed the Hidden Moth Gauze to Lan Jiwan, and at this moment he was using another Technique—Face-shaping Skill.

The Face-shaping Skill was said to have been created by an ancestor of the Observing Body Sect, yet almost none of the Magic Sect Disciples from that sect practiced it. Instead, some ancestor of the Hidden Moth Sect thought it had research value, took it, refined it, and that became the version He Kao now cultivated.

The key to the Face-shaping Skill lay in using one’s powerful control over their own body to temporarily alter the distribution of muscles, fascia, and bones, like the folk saying "pinching a face," and to a certain extent it could even change local skin features.

The changes were extremely subtle, otherwise the body couldn’t take it, but they would cause major differences in identifying features.

With such an interesting Technique, why did almost no Magic Sect Disciples practice it? The lineage was still there, but the masters did not encourage their disciples to cultivate it, and would even tell them it was best not to.

Because the Face-shaping Skill had severe side effects!

It felt very painful during cultivation and use; one careless move and you could easily injure yourself.

It was also very difficult to cultivate. Each Casting session took several hours, and even once you’d mastered it, shaping a suitable appearance still took about half an hour.

Moreover, after reshaping, it could not be maintained for too long; you had to Practicing as soon as possible to loosen your tendons and restore your original face, otherwise over time your features would undergo unpredictable changes.

Techniques that harm the body or others were usually branded as Evil Techniques.

The Face-shaping Skill didn’t harm others but could damage the body, and it did nothing to help one’s Cultivation, so the vast majority of Sorcerers wouldn’t deliberately cultivate it.

A person’s energy is limited; ever since ancient times there have been many ways to apply Techniques, and everyone knows how to choose.

To avoid sequelae from the Face-shaping Skill, when dissolving its effects it was best to ask a Tier Four Physician for help... but the price of that was a bit high, and it easily led to leaks.

The whole point of changing one’s appearance was not wanting others to know in the first place.

He Kao was different, though. Early in the year he had lent the Hidden Moth Gauze to Lan Jiwan, and during that time he felt extremely unaccustomed to it, inexplicably lost some of his confidence, unable to do certain things, and only then realized how overly reliant he’d become on the Hidden Moth Gauze.

If he didn’t have the Hidden Moth Gauze, what would he do?

So from that time on he began cultivating the Face-shaping Skill, and after breaking through to Tier Six Cultivation he had mastered it to a high degree: in about an hour he could switch to another appearance.

He himself was also a Tier Four Physician, so when restoring his original face he didn’t need to trouble others.

This current look was something he had "pinched" out using the Face-shaping Skill for over an hour, and the clothes he wore were someone else’s. As long as he didn’t make any extra movements, even Lan Jiwan wouldn’t recognize him.

Red Port prided itself on being an international metropolis, where people of all different colors could often be seen, both black and white. At this moment, a black guy who had just boarded squeezed in from the other side.

The guy was wearing a very well-tailored suit, with a tie on despite the blazing heat.

He had a very sturdy build—not the kind of hulking meathead pumped up on drugs, but well-proportioned and strong like a professional athlete. But He Kao noticed his eyes and immediately felt something was wrong.

He had seen that kind of gaze before: blank and hollow, as if in a dream, like a walking corpse. Such people were rare in the Eastern Country, but on certain streets in the United States they were everywhere on the roadside—those who had fried their brains with drugs.

Yet this person seemed strange in another way—at least outwardly he looked no different from an ordinary person... A spark flashed through He Kao’s mind, and he thought of a possibility—Chang Body Technique!

Traditional Jianghu tricks already included using paper effigies as puppet bodies.

Zhou Yeming, the new Sect Leader of the Micro Realm Sect, excelled at puppet-body Techniques. He was currently focusing on researching intelligent bionic robots, attempting to combine them with the Magic Sect’s Artifact Refining Secret Technique to create puppet bodies.

The Paint Body Technique and Chang Body Technique were both improvements on the puppet-body Technique, but the Chang Body Technique was an Evil Technique strictly forbidden by the Magic Sect!

Because the material used in the Chang Body Technique was human beings, and the healthier and stronger the living body, the better the effect.

The Chang Body Technique had two branches. The one leaning toward the Dan Ding Lineage produced Chang Body somewhat like the legendary jiangshi; they had combat power and could even be used as weapons, but their puppet features were still quite obvious.

The branch leaning toward the Observing Body Lineage was subtle mainly in that no flaws could be seen; they even had breathing, heartbeat, and body temperature, no different from a living person, yet in reality they were puppets under control.

If this person was a Chang Body, who had created him? Judging from his characteristics, he should be a Chang Body of the Observing Body Lineage, very likely the work of some Great Elder of the Xiao Alliance. Was it Fabre who came, or Mei Lin?

He Kao quietly activated his Qi Observation Skill and found that this person’s aura was indeed different from normal—congealed and stiff, with almost no lively fluctuations...

He Kao’s Qi Observation Skill Cultivation was still shallow, so he used the Spirit Awakening Skill as well, and discovered this person had almost no emotional fluctuations, just like a puppet.

Where was the master controlling this Chang Body? Was the opponent using this method to make contact with Zhao Ci?

Zhao Ci was looking at his phone, but the corner of his eye was paying attention to the people around him. He also noticed that black guy and instinctively felt something was off. Just then his attention was pulled away by his girlfriend Xiaolu.

Ever since they boarded, Zhao Ci hadn’t taken the initiative to talk to Xiaolu for quite a while. Xiaolu poked him with her hand and said, "I’m thirsty!"

Zhao Ci said, "You’ll have to bear with it for now. What do you want to drink after we get off?"

Xiaolu was pouting and just about to speak when her body tilted and she toppled into Zhao Ci’s arms. It turned out Zhao Ci had suddenly reached out and yanked her, and right after that, exclamations and screams rang out in the carriage.

The black guy had been squeezing from the door toward the center of the carriage, as if looking for a better place to stand. As he passed in front of Zhao Ci, he suddenly pulled a gun and fired!

The muzzle was not aimed at Zhao Ci, but at Zhao Ci’s girlfriend, Xiaolu, next to him.

Zhao Ci’s reaction was a beat slow. Although he had sensed something was wrong, he had been distracted just now. The corner of his eye caught the motion of the man drawing a gun and firing, and he did yank Xiaolu toward himself, but in theory it was still too late.

This shot also caught He Kao completely off guard.

He had already noticed the man carrying a weapon, but hadn’t sensed any hostility. Everything had happened too fast; He Kao was still gathering and analyzing information when the man acted with no warning at all.

With He Kao’s Cultivation he could certainly have stopped it, but he didn’t move, because Lan Jiwan had already taken action, and He Kao finally spotted Lan Jiwan as well.

To Xiaolu’s left was Zhao Ci. On her right sat a middle-aged woman, with half-curled hair, a slightly sallow complexion, wearing a simple and not particularly refined makeup. Ever since they boarded she’d sat there with her eyes half closed, dozing.

At the instant the black guy raised the gun, she suddenly opened her eyes and lifted her hand, pointing at that dark muzzle.

The trigger was pulled; the gunshot sounded, but no bullet came out. Instead there was a somewhat muffled explosion—it was unclear what malfunction had occurred, but in any case the handgun’s chamber exploded.

Powder gas blasted out from between her fingers, mixed with flying fragments of the gun’s parts, and the black guy’s right hand instantly turned into a mangled mess of blood and flesh. Yet he showed no reaction of pain; he still stood there with his right hand half raised, and his left hand holding onto the metal pole in the carriage.

Zhao Ci heard a voice in his mind: "Get your girlfriend out of here, now!"

He didn’t need He Kao’s covert reminder; Zhao Ci had already pulled Xiaolu and was running quickly toward the other end of the carriage. The passengers scattered in all directions, while the black guy still stood quietly where he was, his gaze empty as if he had lost all response.

He Kao blended into the crowd, his face dark as iron!

Back then he had also used guns to deal with a group of Sorcerers—that was the night-time slaughter at the abandoned amusement park, where he finally saved the kidnapped Gao Xue’e.

Only later did he realize that he’d gotten away with it because the opponents’ Cultivation was low, they were far away, and unfamiliar with firearms...

The most important reason he’d succeeded was that Gu Chun, representing the Ancestral Hall, had ordered High-tier Sorcerers temporarily forbidden from entering Qi Yuan; anyone who broke the rule and came was driven away.

If you pointed a gun at close range at a High-tier Sorcerer, and the other side had time to react, what would happen? Lan Jiwan had just given an excellent demonstration.

He Kao’s grim expression wasn’t because of this, but because he realized that the operation they’d gone to such lengths to set up had already failed!

What made it even harder for him to accept was that the enemy had used such a simple move.

**