Chapter 176

"Eh?"

A flicker of surprise passed through the white-haired young master's eyes. "I clearly activated my Divine Method to subtly alter the cognition of everyone nearby. Although the intensity wasn't high, no one should have been able to detect it."

"Perhaps the distance was a bit too great?" the pageboy guessed from behind. His voice was eerily ancient, sounding like an eighty- or ninety-year-old man.

"That's not right, either. Even if the distance were significant, the power of the Divine Method shouldn't have been noticed so easily." A hint of curiosity appeared on the white-haired young master's face. "Forget it. Ignore these trifles. Dealing with these two outsiders from the Benevolent Heart Sect is what matters. If I don't act now, those two brats will go back and claim I deliberately stalled to waste their labor."

Shaking his head helplessly, the white-haired young master withdrew his gaze and walked straight toward the center of the battle.

Taking a step, he raised his right hand and made a casual slashing motion through the air.

Pfft!

Not far away, Fox, who was locked in combat with a gold-faced, white-robed figure, suddenly felt her breath waver. Her movement slowed by half a beat, and she was struck squarely in the abdomen by her opponent's palm.

She immediately spurted a mouthful of blood and flew backward.

"Decent aptitude, sufficient mind-spirit, and she seems to be a Trueblood as well. Under different circumstances, she would be worthy of being my disciple... A pity." The white-haired young master raised his hand again, aiming at Fox. "Never mind, I'll just kill her directly. Finish this early so I can go back and catch Old Wu's warmed Clear Snow Wine."

Whoosh...

Suddenly, a breeze swept past.

The white-haired young master's movements paused, and his gaze condensed slightly. His expression shifted instantly from idle relaxation to a hint of solemnity.

He sensed someone behind him.

Fifteen meters away. The stranger's gaze was locked onto him—directly on the back of his heart.

That gaze... was as sharp as a sword. It actually caused a stinging sensation on his skin.

"Since when?" the white-haired young master transmitted his voice with grave focus.

"Since you planned to make your second move," Lin Hui's voice came from behind. "You didn't pay attention to me, which naturally gave me an opportunity."

"Is that right?" The white-haired young master remained noncommittal. "I don't believe there are flaws in my Divine Method's coverage."

"As long as one is human, mistakes are possible. You were merely negligent for a moment. And I was merely faster for that moment," Lin Hui said calmly.

"Interesting..." The white-haired young master slowly turned around to look at the stranger. "I am Su Yaping, the Vice Palace Master of the Rain Palace here in Xingdao. Where does this friend hail from? Why interfere?"

"Benevolent Heart Sect, Four Faces," Lin Hui replied.

His hand was already resting on the hilt of Ruyi at his waist.

The aura this person gave off was incredibly unstable. One moment, it was like a black hole devouring everything around it; the next, it felt like an ordinary person; and then it shifted to resemble a High Divine Officer, with Void Force and Internal Force intertwining throughout his body. Yet the Void Force and Internal Force radiating from him were magnitudes stronger than those of Fox or Yellow Ox. It was at least a ten-fold gap.

This strange, massive disparity kept Lin Hui from making any rash moves.

Vice Palace Master?

What level of strength was this, exactly? He wasn't sure. Even if he had fought the Vice Palace Master over in Tuyue, it didn't mean the Vice Palace Master here possessed the same level of strength.

In these positions, these old monsters had all lived for hundreds of years. A title was just a title; only they themselves knew their true realm and power.

Only they knew how much they were hiding.

At this moment, the white-haired Su Yaping also fell silent, gazing at this strange man wearing four masks.

The feeling this person gave him was peculiar. The aura was intermittent, obscured as if viewed through a layer of thick frosted glass; he couldn't pinpoint the other party's specific location with any precision.

Even that intermittent aura was blurred and hidden by the wind blowing around them.

Although he didn't sense any Void Force from this person, his combat intuition—which had always been incomparably precise—was constantly warning him not to lightly engage.

Yes, try not to even make contact!

Su Yaping didn't know why his intuition would react this way. Even when facing the Xingdao Palace Master—his teacher—he hadn't felt such a strange sensation.

Aside from this, he also felt a faint, vast sense of oppression from the other party, similar to facing a natural disaster.

Although it was very faint, after repeated confirmation, he was certain it wasn't an illusion.

For a time, both were wary of the other, standing motionless in silence.

Lin Hui's goal was merely to ensure this person didn't intervene in the battle again.

Su Yaping's goal, meanwhile, was to capture the Benevolent Heart Sect High Divine Officers. But this goal wasn't critical; as long as his two disciples on the battlefield were safe, he didn't care about the so-called capture.

Zhu Chengqiu was a pawn he had deliberately thrown out for outsiders to deal with. Now that the objective was achieved, everything else was unimportant.

Unknowingly, several minutes passed.

Yellow Ox and Fox fought their way further outward, finally managing to break away from the pursuit of the two High Divine Officers and retreat toward the perimeter.

Lin Hui took one last look at Su Yaping, then vanished silently from his spot, following them to depart.

"Interesting... A Dao Protector? For that little girl just now? No, that's not right either; that little girl's Trueblood concentration isn't high. It really has been a long time since I encountered something so amusing." A smile appeared on Su Yaping's face.

"Young Master, everyone has run away," the pageboy reminded him helplessly from behind.

"It doesn't matter. The objective has already been completed." Su Yaping looked at the two High Divine Officer disciples running toward him.

It was obvious that these two had hesitated in their attacks. They seemed to have sensed that something was wrong with their Master's situation. With hesitation in their hearts, there was hesitation in their moves, which gave Yellow Ox and Fox the chance to break away.

"Teacher... apologies for letting them escape," one of them said, clasping his fists and bowing his head as he approached.

"It's fine. Withdraw. There will be opportunities soon enough," Su Yaping said with indifference.

He looked one last time in the direction Lin Hui had just left.

For some reason, he had a feeling that the person just now might stand before him again in the near future.

They would have a day of reunion.

Perhaps when he went out for a visit later...

On the Moth Carriage.

Yellow Ox supported Fox, gently laying her flat on the wooden floor.

Then he quickly took an exquisite small jade box from his waist pouch, opened it, retrieved a pill resembling green jade, and stuffed it into the mouth beneath Fox's mask.

"Stabilize your Void Force, don't break the Moth Carriage!" he reminded in a deep voice.

"Four Faces, you take charge of helping watch the surroundings. Sorry to trouble you." He turned to look at Lin Hui.

"Okay," Lin Hui nodded.

Although he didn't think any vigilance was needed once the Moth Carriage was airborne, he still went through the motions.

"Is Fox alright?" He saw Fox constantly retching large mouthfuls of blood and coughing violently; the posture looked as if she were going to cough up her lungs.

"She's fine, don't worry. It's just that she is a Trueblood, so her recovery might be a bit slower," Yellow Ox sighed.

"A Tuyue Trueblood?" Lin Hui paused.

"Yes. They mastered the Evil Energy to seize people's lifespans, but correspondingly, they bear an equal price. Their recovery ability isn't even as good as an ordinary person's. They need external aid, and this is one of them," Yellow Ox explained.

"Evil Energy... what kind of ability is it, exactly?" Lin Hui felt a chill in his heart; hearing about this strange ability again made his skin crawl slightly.

"It is an ability derived from the Longevity Wheel." Fox opened her eyes at this moment, her coughing subsiding. "But this ability can't be activated just anytime. One needs to take the target back to the Moon Tower and activate it within the Longevity Wheel's ritual array. Moreover, the process of seizure isn't accomplished in one move... cough cough... it requires... requires a relatively long period of erosion."

"So that's how it is..." Lin Hui immediately connected this with those fellows under the Moon Tower who weren't old in age but had incomparably aged faces.

"Speaking of which, I don't know why, but those two guys suddenly slowed down their attacks just now. Otherwise, if we wanted to get away, it would have been a lot more troublesome," Yellow Ox sighed. "I almost planned to burn my life force with a secret art."

"If you really burned your life force, your loss would have been huge..." Fox wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth and laughed.

This laugh pulled at the wound in her abdomen, instantly twisting her smile into a grimace of pain.

"We can count our luck as good this time. Otherwise, if we dragged on a bit longer, I'm afraid experts from the Inner City would have come out to reinforce them, and we wouldn't have been able to leave." Yellow Ox sighed.

"Yeah, looks like my daily prayers to the Mist God still bring good luck," Fox agreed amidst the sharp pain.

Lin Hui stood silently to the side.

Actually, the reinforcement expert from the Inner City had been watching the show from the side long ago. If he hadn't stepped out to stop the other party...

The ashes of these two would have been scattered by now.

But to avoid exposing his strength, he simply didn't speak.

However, as a Trueblood, Fox seemed to vaguely recall seeing Lin Hui standing nearby, rather than at the distant spot they had initially agreed upon. She opened her mouth to ask, but seeing Lin Hui focused on looking ahead—and feeling waves of intense pain surging through her body—she let it go.

Not long after, she fell into a deep sleep again.

Yellow Ox also sat cross-legged to take medicine and recover his state.

Only Lin Hui stood alone, watching the Moth Carriage break through layers of Mist, flying back toward the direction of Tuyue.

Spending half a day, they successfully arrived at Yunbian Town just as it was about to get dark.

Lin Hui parted ways with the two. Before leaving, he noticed that Fox’s gaze on him was a bit strange.

She seemed to have sensed something.

But he didn’t think much of it. After all, he hadn’t made a move during this outing; at the end, he had only released his aura to block Su Yaping.

If they really went to investigate, they probably wouldn't find anything.

With the mission successfully completed, the Benevolent Heart Sect's evaluation of him completely shifted to that of a formal believer.

Long Ji soon brought the precious medicine trading channel he had been looking forward to.

October 27th. Wild Wind Plains, 9:00 AM.

Long Ji handed a slip of paper to Lin Hui, on which a detailed address was written in code.

“Write down the resources you want on paper using the code rules, then send it to the address on this slip. After that, drop a copy of the note into the earth hole. You should have a result in about a month—go back then, and there will be a reply note inside the hole.”

"So secretive?" Lin Hui took the note.

"Control in the Moon Tower is very strict. If we aren't secretive, accidents will happen. You haven't truly been inside the Moon Tower yet, right? That place simply isn't for humans to stay. Once you go in, you absolutely won't want to come out again," Long Ji said helplessly. "And what we are doing is quietly scraping a little bit out from the Moon Tower's resource channels for our own use. These resources are the foundation used to maintain the incomparably luxurious life of the Moon Tower. So, you understand."

"What exactly is it like inside the Moon Tower?" Lin Hui asked, slightly curious.

"Everyone living in the Moon Tower has two distinct periods each day: Work Time and Extreme Bliss Time," Long Ji said. "Work Time is simple—everyone is busy with their own duties and jobs. Extreme Bliss Time, however, is granted by a massive array that envelops the entire Moon Tower. It's an extremely ancient formation of unknown origin, and its sole function is to provide people with ultimate pleasure. You just need to find any place to lie down, and you can enter an illusion that only you can control. That illusion is incredibly realistic; inside, you can do whatever you want, and the pleasure you feel is far, far greater than anything in reality..."

"...No wonder the people of the Moon Tower are rarely seen outside. The ones who do come out are either on missions or working." Lin Hui was speechless.

"As long as you understand. That place... once you enter it, you’ll never forget it. You’ll keep thinking back on it, again and again... almost unable to cut yourself off from it." A trace of helplessness entered Long Ji’s tone. "Because you can’t tell which side is more real—reality, or the illusion..."