Chapter 169: Flipping The Table On Nuo Fu?
Chapter 169: Flipping The Table On Nuo Fu?
Hao Hun meticulously adjusted the sleeping bag cocoon, ensuring Su Mei was securely bundled and comfortable. He settled in, waiting for Xia Bing to initiate the summoning request. Because Su Mei had submitted and was completely unconscious, he managed to bypass any unwanted scrutiny by sealing her inside his Beastmaster Sect Token to carry her down the mountain undetected.
Pulling a piece of weathered parchment from his robes, Hao Hun channeled his Minor Life Utility magic. He carefully engineered a convincing letter, deliberately scrambling the script to mimic an Earth-style ransom note crafted from a chaotic mix of newspaper clippings and typed magazine text to mask any recognizable handwriting. The letter only lacked the name and room number of the local establishment, a detail he would add once Su Mei was safely situated.
He let out a heavy, irritated sigh. "Why do I always end up caring for every woman I sleep with? Why can’t I just be the absolute villain I used to be?"
A flash of ice-blue light rippled through the air. Xia Bing manifested in the room, her voice dropping to a sharp whisper. "Master, I felt your calm aura, so I bypassed the formal summon. Su Ruyan is frantically searching for her Sect Master. She approached Xia Sha the moment I stepped out, and now the entire sect is looking for Su Mei’s whereabouts."
Hao Hun stood up immediately, cycling his aura to warp his appearance. He activated a Hidden Gu, shifting his presence into that of a nondescript, weathered traveler. "Bing'er, drop me into a secluded corner of the trading town at the base of the mountains. I need to secure an inn where Su Mei can rest. Hold for my extraction signal. The Emperor is operating a Teleportation Tracking Array Disk and likely possesses chronological retro-cognition for the past hour. I need to actively compromise his search."
Xia Bing nodded, deeply impressed by his thorough anticipation of the Emperor's tracking methods. After receiving a few precise directives, she channeled her One-Way Portal magic, sending him directly down to the settlement.
Hao Hun stepped out of a damp, shadow-drenched alleyway and into the teeming, chaotic streets of the frontier town. The architecture felt straight out of a classic Wuxia epic, but the overwhelming layout immediately stalled his momentum.
"Dammit," he muttered. "I have absolutely no sense of direction in crowded markets."
Once he put enough physical distance between himself and the portal's residual energy signature, he deactivated the Hidden Gu's invisibility, blending openly into the crowd while looking entirely disoriented. Ironically, his natural curse of getting hopelessly lost in busy urban centers would soon become a tracking nightmare for the Emperor, forcing the monarch to map out an entirely erratic, unpredictable path through the city.
Every few blocks, whenever he found an empty alcove or a deserted side street, Hao Hun systematically cycled his disguises. He shifted fluidly between Westerners, Easterners, and demihumans. He cycled through the faces of male disciples from the Heavenly Palace he had seen on the arrival docks, Lin Feng, deceased cultivators recovered from the Dragons Graveyard, Vali, Owen, Loki, and finally, the very man he had recently executed: Ye Feng.
An hour later, thoroughly frustrated by the labyrinthine streets, he growled under his breath, "How is it possible that a city this massive doesn't have a single visible brothel?"
Now disguised as the Emperor himself—mimicking the monarch's exact, pretentious posture with his hands clasped firmly behind his back—he approached an apple vendor.
"How much for a bag of your best apples?" Hao Hun asked, pitching his voice to match the Emperor's distinct cadence. "And recommend a reputable flower house. I have yet to find an establishment that suits my tastes."
He tossed a heavy gold coin minted in the Balder Kingdom onto the cart. The vendor caught the foreign gold, his eyes widening, and promptly pointed to a massive, luxurious structure towering directly behind them. Hao Hun sighed, realizing his own optical oversight had effectively acted like a natural Hidden Gu.
Crunching into a crisp apple, he crossed the threshold of the nine-story luxury pagoda known as The Thousand Flower House. The building radiated opulence, draped in vibrant shades of purple, pink, and deep crimson. It functioned exactly as advertised—a high-end establishment populated by musicians, courtesans, and dual-cultivation practitioners.
A mature, elegantly dressed woman possessing an undeniable aura of authority stepped forward to intercept him. "My lord, how may this humble establishment accommodate a guest of your distinction?"
Hao Hun subtly evaluated her; she was a 3rd Circle Immortal Cultivator, a powerful figure in a frontier town. Because his own cultivation rank was entirely masked and unreadable, she immediately deduced he was an eccentric powerhouse and humbled her posture accordingly.
"I require your absolute best suite," Hao Hun commanded smoothly. "Arrange for your most accomplished Queen of Flowers to be brought up immediately, and calculate her full redemption buyout price. Send her to the room without delay. This should cover the initial expenses."
He produced a basic storage ring crammed with foreign gold. When the manager peered inside, the sheer volume of wealth nearly stopped her heart.
Sensing an unprecedented windfall, she stepped closer, her tone turning deeply suggestive. "Sir, may I inquire how the master is known in these lands? If it pleases you, I would be honored to personally attend to your needs as well."
Hao Hun smiled inwardly. This was the exact leverage he needed to compromise the Emperor. The monarch’s true name was a forbidden taboo tied to ancient restrictions, and Hao Hun intended to ensure he lived in constant paranoia.
"Remember this face, and remember the powerful name of Nuo Fu," Hao Hun declared aloud, ensuring his voice carried. "It does not signify a coward or a weakling. It means Emperor."
The manager didn't suspect him of being the actual leader of the Heavenly Palace Sect; the cultivation world was full of wealthy, eccentric madmen. But Hao Hun knew the mechanical truth: the moment the Emperor tracked the residual signatures down the mountain, the name "Nuo Fu" would resonate through the tracking array, alerting him to this specific location and leading him directly to the room where Su Mei lay.
Hao Hun handed the forged ransom note to the manager for safekeeping, ensuring it would be discovered by the investigators. His primary objective in requesting the "Queen of Flowers" wasn't pleasure; he knew she was actually Lin Xue, an elite spy embedded by Xia Bing to gather local intelligence for the Ice Phoenix Sect. He needed to extract her before the Emperor launched a full-scale tactical raid on the building. The disciple token currently utilized by Minglong belonged to Lin Xue, meaning her extraction protocol and place within the Ice Palace were already fully prepared.
Half an hour later, inside the heavily secure pinnacle suite, Hao Hun finished slapping down a dense perimeter of concealment talismans and drawing localized arrays to entirely sever all external detection, scrying, and spatial tracking.
He stood by the expansive balcony window, tracking the northern horizon toward the Ice Phoenix Sect. A precise, rhythmic knock echoed against the heavy wooden door. Xia Bing was present, completely concealed within the shadows by his talismans.
"Enter," Hao Hun said, dropping his voice as he reverted to his Hao Hun persona. "And omit the name. Call me husband."
Lin Xue entered, smoothly locking the heavy door behind her. As a professional spy, her objective was to dissect the identity of this mysterious "Nuo Fu" and discover how a single cultivator possessed a reserve of foreign wealth that defied local economic logic. She had no intention of selling her body, but she played her role flawlessly.
Hao Hun stood by the window, a young man with distinct grey hair, gazing out with calculated melancholy. Lin Xue approached with silent, measured steps, testing his reflexes by sliding her arms around his waist from behind.
Hao Hun glanced back, evaluating the 5'8" woman. She wore a striking crimson gown that hugged an hourglass silhouette, accentuated by intricate gold filigree tracing a plunging neckline against flawless porcelain skin. A deep slit in the fabric exposed a long, pale leg, and her straight, midnight-black hair fell past her waist like silk. Her alabaster skin made her crimson lips look exceptionally sharp, but her ruby-red eyes—heavy with secrets—instantly reminded him of Su Mei. She stood as a perfect paradox of elegance and danger.
Before Hao Hun could tease her, a voice materialized from the dark corner of the room, startling Lin Xue. "Junior sister, the Emperor is preparing a full-scale raid on this establishment. Your operational mission is officially terminated. I am here to extract you back to the sect."
Xia Bing stepped into the faint light, a subtle trace of irritation tightening her posture as she saw Lin Xue holding him. Hao Hun chuckled, leaning into the performance. "Xia Bing, you couldn't have waited for us to consummate the arrangement? I almost had her. What a waste."
Xia Bing rolled her eyes naturally. Lin Xue stood entirely frozen, her mind racing as she processed the sudden appearance of her senior sister, the impending imperial raid, and the fact that Hao Hun's arm was now casually resting against her waist.
Hao Hun dropped the playful demeanor, turning to Xia Bing. "Send her through the portal now. I need to finalize the stage mechanics."
Giving Lin Xue's hip a firm, parting squeeze to solidify the cover story of the marriage certificate currently in his pocket, he watched as Xia Bing initiated the spatial transfer, vanishing her from the room. With a swift flick of his wrist, Hao Hun retrieved the tightly wrapped, sleeping Su Mei from his token, placing her carefully onto the bed. He left her secure inside the sleeping bag to preserve her dignity, scattering a few items of her personal clothing sourced from her storage ring around the room to complete the scene.
With the staging complete, Hao Hun and Xia Bing stepped into the secondary portal, vanishing back toward the Ice Palace as the localized talismans began their automated countdown to dissolve.
An hour later, Hao Hun sat cross-legged inside his private cultivation chamber, enduring the agonizing, violent transition of the 7th Circle Vanguard Knight breakthrough.
The advancement was notoriously brutal. It demanded the consumption of a highly volatile bone marrow elixir, the total depletion of all internal mana and aura reserves, and forcing the physical body to the absolute precipice of structural death to trigger the specialized archetype energy he had adapted from Ayala.
"Master, this process is arguably more distressing for me than it is for you," Minglong murmured, though a distinct smile played on her lips. "But look at it as a form of high-impact reinforcement."
Minglong was entirely draped over him, her massive physical frame pinning his face directly against the stone floor while she systematically crushed his bone structure with calculated, agonizing pressure. Hao Hun was completely pinned, his lungs starved of oxygen as the elixir tore through his meridians.
At the absolute limit of his consciousness, he gasped out the activation phrase: "Death by... Snu Snu... Second Wind!"
A violent explosion of dark Death Aura erupted from his core. Minglong instantly released her hold, stepping back with a satisfied smirk as the dark energy washed over his broken form. The specialized aura rapidly re-knit his shattered bones, instantly replenished his drained mana and aura reserves to peak capacity, and completely purged every negative status effect from his system.
The heavy reinforced door to the cultivation chamber slid open. Xia Sha stepped inside, her eyes widening slightly as she perceived the dense, elevated pressure of his new cultivation rank.
"Hao Hun, I monitored the perimeter until your aura stabilized," Xia Sha said, her voice serious. "A massive incident occurred down in the trading town tonight. Someone successfully abducted Sect Master Su Mei from the mountain. The Emperor managed to locate and recover her within a local establishment, but the entire affair is being heavily suppressed. The Emperor is reportedly in a state of absolute fury, deploying every available disciple to scour the city streets for a specific target."
Hao Hun forced a perfectly blank, suppressed look of surprise onto his face. Minglong, playing along seamlessly despite having secretly tracked his aimless wandering through the city earlier, let out a soft giggle. "Oh? It sounds like his wife simply left the mountain to find a real man for an evening."
Hao Hun's eye twitched slightly as he fought down a sudden urge to laugh.
Xia Sha stepped closer, a faint, shy blush coloring her cheeks as she looked at his refreshed posture. "Let me prepare a bath for you tonight, husband.
You need to rest before the mandatory morning summit meeting."
Hao Hun nodded quietly to Xia Sha, knowing full well that sleep was the last thing on the agenda for tonight. Down in the valley, the Emperor was systematically destroying his own quarters in a fit of absolute, unbridled rage. By loudly proclaiming the name Nuo Fu, Hao Hun had directly exposed the monarch to ancient, binding Heavenly Vows managed by Mount Olympus, permanently fracturing his absolute anonymity and leaving him entirely vulnerable to the world.