Hidden Moth

Failure came far too suddenly. Standing in the crowd, He Kao was seized by a sense of absurd unreality... it felt like slogging through more than ten years of hard study, full of hope to shine in the college entrance exam, only to walk into the wrong testing room.

By now he’d already pieced together a lot of things.

No matter whether it was Mei Lin or Fabre, the Xiao Alliance had definitely brought a Tier Six Physician carrying the Bone-Penetrating Treasure Mirror, but they still didn’t dare show themselves outright, still worried this might be a trap laid by the Magic Sect. So they did a live test on the spot.

Their plan was to pick a metro carriage, a place with messy, heavy foot traffic, use a Chang Body to probe the situation, and fire a shot at Xiaolu.

Why not at Zhao Ci? Because the one they wanted to win over and buy off was Zhao Ci. If the Magic Sect had no ambush and Zhao Ci had no problem, a single shot would be enough.

Xiaolu getting shot wouldn’t necessarily be fatal, but she’d definitely need emergency treatment and then be hospitalized. During that period, people from the Xiao Alliance would naturally contact Zhao Ci, unlock his Sealed state and take away the so-called intelligence.

As for lifting the Seal, even with the Bone-Penetrating Treasure Mirror it isn’t something you can just shine twice and be done with. You have to find a place where you won’t be disturbed, then perform Concentrating Spellcasting, without the slightest mistake.

What if the Magic Sect did have an ambush? From the Xiao Alliance’s perspective, their prime suspect was actually the girlfriend Xiaolu who’d inexplicably appeared at Zhao Ci’s side—she was very likely a close-in watcher!

He Kao knew Xiaolu had no issues, but the Xiao Alliance didn’t.

Whether there was an issue or not, they’d fire first and see. If the Magic Sect really did have an ambush, they would surely have deployed control around Zhao Ci. Even if Xiaolu couldn’t block it, someone else would step in to stop it.

In the end, Lan Jiwan was the first to move and stop the shot. However well she disguised herself, the moment she acted she was exposed, and she also told the other side that there was an ambush here.

This was the Xiao Alliance’s way of breaking the game—simple and effective.

Could He Kao have seen through it? He only figured it out now... besides, even if he had seen through it at the time, Lan Jiwan wouldn’t have had time to react either.

So what could He Kao have done—stop Lan Jiwan from Casting, gamble Xiaolu’s life and everyone else’s lives just to keep the plan from being blown? Not stop the thugs from committing murder, but instead help the thugs succeed? That was something He Kao simply could not do!

"You and Xiaolan go back. Leave the rest to me and Elder Ye."

This was a Divine Thought sent by Gu Chun. He Kao had no idea where the old man was physically; presumably he was deployed somewhere nearby but had not shown himself. On this operation the Xiao Alliance side had sent two Elders, Gu Chun and Wild Phoenix, and had also secretly mustered a batch of other experts.

Who was Xiaolan? At that moment He Kao’s head was a bit muddled. He stared blankly for a second before realizing he must mean Lan Jiwan.

Looked like there were some things not only He Kao couldn’t do, Elder Gu couldn’t either. The old man had also been on-site, knew what had happened, and likewise had not stopped Lan Jiwan’s Casting.

Gu Chun telling him to take Lan Jiwan back meant the old man also knew the operation had failed. As for how Zhao Ci would be handled, others would take over the follow-up; there was no need to trouble He Kao anymore.

...

After returning to Qi Yuan, He Kao contacted Elder Gu again. Gu Chun was still in Red Port dealing with the aftermath and told him he could go find Li Xiuyuan in the latter half of tomorrow night.

But before He Kao saw Li Xiuyuan, he ran into Hu Weidong.

Good news never leaves the gate, bad news travels a thousand miles. Hu Weidong had already heard about what happened in Red Port. He’d come especially to ask He Kao about it; the two picked a spot to meet privately.

Upon seeing He Kao, Hu Weidong’s first words were: "Your operation’s failure this time has nothing whatsoever to do with me!"

This Great Elder had a very strong survival instinct. With a secretly planned operation failed, the first suspicion would obviously be that someone had leaked. Very few people knew about this, which made Hu Weidong—the "outsider"—the biggest suspect.

He Kao said, "Senior Brother’s news is quite well-informed. What exactly have you heard?"

Hu Weidong said, "Junior Brother should have been right there on the scene, and ought to be clearer about it than I am."

He Kao used a strand of Divine Thought to lay out what had happened at the time—that moment when the dark-skinned young man fired and was stopped—and didn’t add any superfluous explanation. Then he asked, "What’s the situation on the Xiao Alliance’s side now?"

Hu Weidong let out a sigh. "That was Fabre’s doing. He’s already gone back and is very pleased with himself, bragging in the Supreme Council that he foiled a major conspiracy by the Magic Sect. So I’ve heard some things..."

This time the Xiao Alliance had sent a group of experts to Red Port, mainly Mei Lin and Fabre, who had been lying low in the dark waiting for a chance to act. Mei Lin originally hadn’t wanted to come, but Arthur was very invested in this matter, so she had no choice.

Fabre had seen how difficult her position was, so before setting out he offered up a clever plan: use a refined Chang Body to carry out the assassination... Zhao Ci had gone to Red Port with his girlfriend, so Xiaolu became the best target.

They weren’t actually trying to take Xiaolu’s life; otherwise it’d be hard to calm Zhao Ci afterward. So this shot was aimed to avoid a fatal spot as much as possible but not too far from a vital area... when raising the gun it pointed at the heart, when firing it shifted slightly to the side.

The fact he’d even described details like that showed just how pleased with himself Fabre was.

The spot they chose to act was the crowded, noisy metro, which wasn’t suited for high-level experts to fully unleash their abilities. When the Chang Body fired and someone stopped it by Casting, that alone proved there was indeed an ambush near Zhao Ci.

The Xiao Alliance side then immediately called off the operation; those who needed to run ran, those who needed to hide hid, as long as they didn’t get blocked by the Magic Sect’s experts. In any case, Fabre and Mei Lin both pulled out in time.

Mei Lin broke out in a cold sweat and was left shaken, while Fabre felt he’d made a great achievement...

He Kao drew in a deep breath and looked at Hu Weidong. "Senior Brother, had you already anticipated this outcome?"

Hu Weidong lowered his head and said, "Simple matter, complex situation; success is hard, failure easy. But you were the one in the middle of it, Junior Brother, and you’d been planning for this for quite some time. I really couldn’t bring myself to say anything discouraging, and besides, it was not as if this setup had no chance of success."

He had already phrased it as tactfully as possible, but just hearing that eight-character assessment, "a simple matter turned into a convoluted game, hard to succeed and easy to fail," was enough to know that Hu Weidong thought this plan was very unreliable.

A scheme can look like a work of divine calculation, seamlessly linked step by step, but if the design is too complex, then any single link going wrong can lead to failure.

For the Magic Sect, pulling off a plan is very difficult, but for the Xiao Alliance to break it is very easy.

Because stripped down, this whole thing is actually very simple: the Magic Sect wants to use Zhao Ci as bait to fish out the Bone-Penetrating Treasure Mirror. The Magic Sect has to do a lot of things for this, but the Xiao Alliance only needs to grow suspicious, and that’s enough.

So this matter isn’t exactly impossible to pull off, it’s just that the probability of success is very low. For example, if when the Chang Body fired the gun, everyone had held back from intervening, maybe they wouldn’t have been exposed...

But would it really have been okay to do that? There was more than one bullet in that gun; no one would dare bet that the killer would only fire once. What if he fired at Zhao Ci again, what if a ricocheting bullet hit Lan Jiwan...

Honestly, it’s a bit bullshit to even discuss this, because Lan Jiwan was sitting right next to Xiaolu, so it was almost impossible for him to react any other way.

He Kao asked again, "Senior brother, is this how you’re thinking today, or have you always seen it this way?"

Hu Weidong said, "I wouldn’t dare deceive you, junior brother; this is how I’ve always thought about it. And it’s not just me—what I just said was actually Great Elder Julie’s original words; I only quoted them."

After meeting Hu Weidong, He Kao felt a bit dazed; as a Great Success Cultivator, he rarely fell into such a state.

This round of plotting was something even Hu Weidong found unreliable, and the Xiao Alliance’s Tier Five Wanderer Julie had long pointed out the problem. Could it really be that the Tier Seven Grand Calculator Jiang Daozhen hadn’t thought of it?

He Kao had always suspected that this was Uncle Jiang’s scheme, even possibly the promotion ritual arranged by the old man himself. Now it seemed he might have been taking things for granted; he also hoped he was just taking things for granted.

Can a Tier Six Master Yan also fall into that "take it for granted" trap? Of course it’s possible—what person doesn’t make mistakes!

In the latter half of the night that same day, He Kao met Li Xiuyuan again. Li Xiuyuan was sitting on a rock in the mountains waiting; when he saw him, he sent over a strand of Divine Thought to give him the situation.

Over at Red Port, the Magic Sect had sent Gu Chun and Wild Phoenix, along with another group of experts laying a hidden net. Because of the accident on the subway, the Ancestral Hall’s setup hadn’t taken effect, and of course the Bone-Penetrating Treasure Mirror hadn’t been retrieved...

He Kao opened with, "It’s only that we failed to get it at Red Port; that doesn’t mean we’ve failed."

He wasn’t just being a stubborn dead duck; this was a kind of "mindset" that came with being a Tier Four Divine Stick of the Lingxi Sect. All those renowned examples of miraculous foresight that people know are actually the result of "success selection."

As for certain links in a scheme that didn’t work, outsiders might not even know, because the plotter himself wouldn’t say.

"Not yet successful" and "failure" are two different concepts. Everything has a fault tolerance; if one link goes wrong, as long as there’s still a backup to remedy it, you can’t call the entire plan a failure.

When Lingxi Sect Sorcerers lay out schemes, they must follow the subtle omens in the dark; if they fail, they may suffer backlash. But if a certain link doesn’t go as desired and nobody knows, then it’s merely "not yet successful."

The saying "Heaven’s secrets must not be divulged" has two layers. The first is that once spoken, they lose their efficacy; the second layer is what we’re talking about now.

Li Xiuyuan looked at him with some surprise and said, "Oh? And what else do you know?"

Seeing Elder Li’s reaction, He Kao immediately perked up—was there really more to this? He spoke frankly: "I made a mistake. I thought this was Uncle Jiang’s scheme, using Zhao Ci as bait to fish out the Bone-Penetrating Treasure Mirror."

Li Xiuyuan glared at him with a very strange look, and after a while finally said, "That’s really outrageous!"

He Kao said, "Yeah, thinking back on it now, it does feel outrageous..."

Li Xiuyuan quickly waved his hand. "Stop, stop. Whether what you imagined is right or wrong, since it involves the Hidden Moth Sect disciple’s plotting, don’t say any more! When you see through it, don’t say it; when you can’t see through it, you have even less reason to talk nonsense. It’s not like you don’t understand."

He Kao nodded very straightforwardly. "I understand!"

As he agreed, he was also puzzled. So this wasn’t Jiang Daozhen’s scheme, or at least had nothing to do with the promotion ritual he’d guessed. But Jiang Daozhen had indeed given Zhao Ci a secret order, and had also told him to secretly watch Zhao Ci. What was that about?

But He Kao also understood that some things shouldn’t be brought up, and shouldn’t be pursued any further.

After dropping the topic, He Kao said, "Master Li, what should we do next?"

Li Xiuyuan said, "We’re just waiting for you to go do it!"

He Kao was puzzled. "Me? May I ask what the Ancestral Hall still needs me to do?"

Li Xiuyuan said, "You’ve already met Hu Weidong, right?"

He Kao said, "Yes, I just met him before coming here." He told Elder Li how his meeting with Hu Weidong had gone.

Li Xiuyuan said, "This time you vouched for him; the Ancestral Hall let him off the hook and did him a favor. So now you go tell him that the Magic Sect also needs him to do a favor..."

What the Ancestral Hall wanted to ask Hu Weidong to "help" with left He Kao very surprised. Summed up carefully, it was just three words—curse the Magic Sect!

**